Masterpieces of the masters of fiction

by William Dudley Foulke

The story opens quietly. Gurth, the swineherd, and Wamba, the jester of Cedric the Saxon, are driving home a herd of swine, when they are overtaken by Prior Aymer and the Templar Brian de Bois-Guilbert with their train. Then follows the supper scene at Rotherwood, the residence of Cedric, where Ivanhoe, disguised as a wandering palmer, returned from Palestine, visits his father’s home, answers the boasting taunts of the Templar, saves the poor Jew, Isaac of York, and is supplied with armor for the coming tourney.

Next follows one of the most celebrated scenes in literature, the description of the passage at arms at Ashby, in which Ivanhoe, as the “Disinherited Knight,” vanquishes all antagonists and names Rowena, Cedric’s ward, as queen of love and beauty, and where, in the melée on the second day, the “Black Sluggard,” another unknown knight, turns the fortunes of the fray against the Templar.

Perhaps even more admirably constructed are the scenes which follow,—the capture of Cedric, Rowena, Athelstane, Isaac and his daughter Rebecca, by the Norman nobles, and their imprisonment in the castle of Front-de-Boeuf, where they are separated from each other, and where the events which take place simultaneously in different parts of the castle are narrated with great vividness and power. While Cedric and Athelstane are held for ransom, Front-de-Boeuf seeks to extort a vast sum of money from poor Isaac by preparing to roast him alive; De Bracy, a Norman noble, demands the hand of Rowena as the price of her safety and that of Ivanhoe; and the Templar besets Rebecca with his amorous importunities until she prepares to fling herself from the parapet to escape his violence. The interruption of these scenes by a bugle call from without, the demand for the release of the captives made by Wamba, Gurth, the Black Knight, and Locksley, captain of the outlaws, followed by the siege and burning of the castle, constitute perhaps the climax of the story, and are even more impressive than its third great scene, the trial of Rebecca for sorcery, and her deliverance by Ivanhoe, who appears as her champion at the last moment.

Certain episodes are almost as attractive as the main thread of the narrative. For instance, the drinking bout between Friar Tuck and the Black Knight (who turns out to be King Richard) in the chapel in the forest.

There are improbabilities in this work which show us very clearly that it is a creation of the imagination rather than a transcript of observations from actual life. Take, for instance, the conversation between Brian de Bois-Guilbert and the captive Rebecca in the castle. It is safe to say that no knight, however profligate, ever began a love-suit to a maiden with a satirical reminder that her father was then being tortured for money in another part of the castle, in such words as the following:

“Know, bright lily of the vale of Baca, that thy father is already in the hands of a powerful alchemist, who knows how to convert into gold and silver even the rusty bars of a dungeon grate. The venerable Isaac is subjected to an alembic, which will distill from him all he holds dear, without any assistance from my requests or thy entreaty. Thy ransom must be paid by love and beauty, and in no other coin will I accept it.”

And yet, in spite of such defects, the heroism displayed by Rebecca in this particular scene has made it one of the most attractive in the entire story. Rebecca is indeed one of the noblest characters in fiction, and the portrait is natural and human, as well as heroic. Although she was delivered from the stake by her champion, the story ends sadly for her, since the knight whom she loves has become the husband of Rowena. Scott tells us in his preface that he has been censured for this, but he adds, with admirable taste, that he thinks that a character of a highly virtuous and lofty stamp is degraded rather than exalted by an attempt to reward virtue with temporal prosperity.

But to my mind the most attractive person in the book is Wamba, the jester. He appears to me in many ways a close imitation of some of Shakespeare’s clowns. His jests are on an average quite as good, and he everywhere awakens our liveliest interest and sympathy, from the hour when he interposes his shield of brawn in front of the Jew at the tournament until the time when he exchanges repartees and songs with the Black Knight on their way through the forest. There is, moreover a strain of pathos in his merriment, and when he enters the castle of Front-de-Boeuf, disguised as a monk, and exchanges his garments with his master, remaining within the castle in expectation of death, the gibes with which he accompanies his sacrifice give to his character something very human, lovable, and withal heroic. Even Shakespeare has hardly given us a better clown.

The resuscitation and the appearance of the Saxon noble Athelstane at his own funeral feast is far from artistic. Scott himself calls it a tour de force, and says he put it in at the vehement entreaties of his friend and printer, who was inconsolable at the Saxon being conveyed to the tomb,—an example which ought to be a warning to authors to follow their own judgment rather than that of their friends.

In the crucible of Scott’s imagination moral qualities are sometimes fused together in such manner that the original ingredients are quite undiscernible. Robin Hood and his outlaws become generous heroes, and Friar Tuck, who is in reality a dissolute and hypocritical monk, becomes amiable and attractive. Indeed, this great writer of romance is filled with such ever present optimism and love of honorable qualities, that it is almost impossible for him to draw the picture of a really detestable man. His novels offer the strongest possible contrast to the pessimistic realism of some of the more recent works of fiction.