PERHAPS, all things considered, a better burlesque than Rebecca and Rowena has never been written in English.Under the cover of a continuation of Ivanhoe, Thackeray brings us back to Scott's well-loved group, and relates with inimitable drollery the ... Read more

PERHAPS, all things considered, a better burlesque than Rebecca and Rowena has never been written in English.Under the cover of a continuation of Ivanhoe, Thackeray brings us back to Scott's well-loved group, and relates with inimitable drollery the story of Ivanhoe's ill-treatment by the fair Rowena, of his flight to Chalus and valiant achievements in the service of Cœur de Lion, of his death and resurrection, and finally of his marriage with the still lovely, still unhappy Rebecca.But the excellence of the burlesque lies not so much in the accomplishment of poetic justice for the Jewess or the manifest cleverness of narration, as in the humorous manner in which Thackeray has reversed Scott's method of dealing with this age of chivalry. In Ivanhoe itself all external scenery imitates with the greatest accuracy the scenery of the Middle Ages; we are introduced to knights equipped with the most authentic armor, with helmets, lances, swords, and shields, emblazoned with the correctest possible devices; they journey through the England of the twelfth century, through moist, green meadow-land, or winding stretches of thick forests—the merry greenwood under whose shade, instead of nymphs and satyrs, lurks the hardy band of a Robin-hood; a turn in the road, and they stand before a huge gray castle, situated with the utmost regard for picturesqueness, surrounded by its well-filled moat, supplied with draw-bridges, dungeons, battlements, turrets, and all manner of needful appurtenances.The stage-setting is perfect—but the actors? They, it is true, sprinkle their conversation with occasional quaint expressions, crack a rough jest or two; but in the main are as highly civilized, as refined, as sensitive, as any that one would meet to-day in the best society of Edinburgh or London.Now Thackeray's humor, for the most part, consists in simply changing the point of entrance for nineteenth century ideas; instead of acting to ameliorate the inner life of these barbarians, they are introduced in such a way as to confuse the external. Our good friends of the twelfth century are accustomed regularly to attend the queen's drawing-rooms; they read their daily news from the St. James's Chronykyll; Ivanhoe must go to London on law-business or to buy stock. Indeed an unbroken vein of sarcasm appears to run through the entire piece. So you are very much amused at these anachronisms of mine. Thackeray seems always half-frowningly saying; yet is my treatment of Mediaevalism a whit more bold or ridiculous than that of the great novelist, who is able to render some of the most savage and blood-thirsty characters of history amiable, jovial companions, for whom one has a hearty sympathy?In all this there is something more than mere fun; the author is pointing to what he considers a blemish in Scott's personation of character—a blemish which, a few years before, none would have noticed. It is evident that, near as these writers stand chronologically, their ideals differ essentially. Ivanhoe and its burlesque are in two separate epochs of English literature.***The illustrations (mostly in color) are by the notable Victorian illustrator Richard Dickie Doyle. Less