ind, been
one of these; nor can I ever believe that such a woman, so admirable, so
tender, so heroic, so beautiful, could disappear altogether before such
another woman as Rowena, that vapid, flaxen-headed creature, who is,
in my humble opinion, unworthy of Ivanhoe, and unworthy of her place as
heroine. Had both of them got their rights, it ever seemed to me that
Rebecca would have had the husband, and Rowena would have gone off to
a convent and shut herself up, where I, for one, would never have taken
the trouble of inquiring for her.

But after all she married Ivanhoe. What is to be done? There is no help
for it. There it is in black and white at the end of the third volume
of Sir Walter Scott's chronicle, that the couple were joined together in
matrimony. And must the Disinherited Knight, whose blood has been fired
by the suns of Palestine, and whose heart has been warmed in the company
of the tender and beautiful Rebecca, sit down contented for life by the
side of such a frigid piece of propriety as that icy, faultless, prim,
niminy-piminy Rowena? Forbid it fate, forbid it poetical justice! There
is a simple plan for setting matters right, and giving all parties their
due, which is here submitted to the novel-reader. Ivanhoe's history MUST
have had a continuation; and it is this which ensues. I may be wrong in
some particulars of the narrative,--as what writer will not be?--but
of the main incidents of the history, I have in my own mind no sort of
doubt, and confidently submit them to that generous public which likes
to see virtue righted, true love rewarded, and the brilliant Fairy
descend out of the blazing chariot at the end of the pantomime, and make
Harlequin and Columbine happy. What, if reality be not so, gentlemen and
ladies; and if, after dancing a variety of jigs and antics, and jumping
in and out of endless trap-doors and windows, through life's shifting
scenes, no fairy comes down to make US comfortable at the close of the
performance? Ah! let us give our honest novel-folks the benefit of their
position, and not be envious of their good luck.

No person who has read the preceding volumes of this history, as the
famous chronicler of Abbotsford has recorded them, can doubt for a
moment what was the result of the marriage between Sir Wilfrid of
Ivanhoe and Lady Rowena. Those who have marked her conduct during
her maidenhood, her distinguished politeness, her spotless modesty of
demeanor, her unalterable co