Ivanhoe [antikvár]

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION The great historical novelists have always been inclined to take their history as Wamba took his pedigree, lightly, and one cannot read far in Ivanhoe without finding that Scott in its pages made the most of his liberty. He is quite frank about it. He ofíers a disclaimer, along with his explanation of his methods, in his preamble to the story, and he repeats it with equal plainness in his notes:— "I neither can nor do pretend," he says, "to the observation of complete accuracy, even in matters of outward costume, much less in the more important points of language and manners." Historical romance was, in fact, for Sir Walter Scott a very free translation indeed of the past into the present. It was not only that his stated formula was "ancient manners in modem language"; its application in his books was easy and variable. So we find him discussing apropos of Ivanhoe Strutt's Queenhoo Hall, a romance which few have read to-day, but which is very well worth reading by all who care to settle the difficult business of getting the greatest common measure between the science and the fantasy of history. What Scott says about this almost forgotten book is the more interesting because he had some hand in putting it finally into shape. Strutt's method was not Scott's; in Queenhoo Hall the archae-ologue outsteps the romancer, and a distinct bid is made for the obsolete. A passage from it may be given for the sake of comparison with kindred passages in Ivanhoe. It occurs near the opening of the story, where Jack of Wellwyn, Robin Tosspot, Gillys the juggler, and some other choice spirits meet at Hob Filcher's tavern, and v/ear their costumes and speak their lines with somewhat of a Wardour Street air. "That same borrel knight," said Hugh, "benemp him how ye may, was a tall man and a brave-" "He a tall man!" cried Hob, "the foul fiend afray him, he is a carle, a princox. I'll tell ye, my hearts, this taU man, With his gay train as crank as peacock's, passed my doors