binson
Crusoe' and the 'Arabian Nights' and other favourites of our own
childhood, and such at least should pore over the 'Gentle and free
passage of arms at Ashby,' admire those incredible feats with the
long-bow which would have enabled Robin Hood to meet successfully a
modern volunteer armed with the Martini-Henry, and follow the terrific
head-breaking of Front-de-Boeuf, Bois-Guilbert, the holy clerk of
Copmanshurst, and the _Noir Faineant_, even to the time when, for no
particular reason beyond the exigencies of the story, the Templar
suddenly falls from his horse, and is discovered, to our no small
surprise, to be 'unscathed by the lance of the enemy,' and to have died
a victim to the violence of his own contending passions. If 'Ivanhoe'
has been exploded by Professor Freeman, it did good work in its day. If
it were possible for a critic to weigh the merits of a great man in a
balance, and to decide precisely how far his excellences exceed his
defects, we should have to set off Scott's real services to the spread
of a genuine historical spirit against the encouragement which he
afforded to its bastard counterfeit. To enable us rightly to appreciate
our forefathers, to recognise that they were living men, and to feel our
close connection with them, is to put a vivid imagination to one of its
worthiest uses. It was perhaps inevitable that we should learn to
appreciate our ancestors by paying them the doubtful compliment of
external mimicry; and that only by slow degrees, and at the price of
much humiliating experience, should we learn the simple lesson that a
childish adult has not the grace of childhood. Even in his errors,
however, Scott had the merit of unconsciousness, which is fast
disappearing from our more elaborate affectations; and, therefore,
though we regret, we are not irritated by his weakness and deficiency in
true insight. He really enjoys his playthings too naively for the
pleasure not to be a little contagious, when we can descend from our
critical dignity. In his later work, indeed, the effort becomes truly
painful, tending more to the provocation of sadness than of anger. But
that work is best forgotten except as an occasional warning.

Scott, however, understood, and nobody has better illustrated by
example, the true mode of connecting past and present. Mr. Palgrave,
whose recognition of the charm of Scott's lyrics merits our gratitude,
observes in the notes to the 'Golden Treasury' that the songs