ady of Windeck is an episode.

How at the shooting-match, which of course ensued, Otto shot for and won
the heart of a fair lady, the duke's daughter, need not be told here,
nor how he quarrelled with the Rowski of Donnerblitz,--the hideous and
sulky, but rich and powerful, nobleman who had come to take the hand,
whether he could win the heart or not, of the daughter of the duke. It
is all arranged according to the proper and romantic order. Otto, though
he enlists in the duke's archer-guard as simple soldier, contrives to
fight with the Rowski de Donnerblitz, Margrave of Eulenschrenkenstein,
and of course kills him. "'Yield, yield, Sir Rowski!' shouted he in a
calm voice. A blow dealt madly at his head was the reply. It was the
last blow that the count of Eulenschrenkenstein ever struck in battle.
The curse was on his lips as the crashing steel descended into his brain
and split it in two. He rolled like a dog from his horse, his enemy's
knee was in a moment on his chest, and the dagger of mercy at his
throat, as the knight once more called upon him to yield." The knight
was of course the archer who had come forward as an unknown champion,
and had touched the Rowski's shield with the point of his lance. For
this story, as well as the rest, is a burlesque on our dear old
favourite Ivanhoe.

That everything goes right at last, that the wife comes back from her
monastery, and joins her jealous husband, and that the duke's daughter
has always, in truth, known that the poor archer was a noble
knight,--these things are all matters of course.

But the best of the three burlesques is _Rebecca and Rowena, or A
Romance upon Romance_, which I need not tell my readers is a
continuation of _Ivanhoe_. Of this burlesque it is the peculiar
characteristic that, while it has been written to ridicule the persons
and the incidents of that perhaps the most favourite novel in the
English language, it has been so written that it would not have offended
the author had he lived to read it, nor does it disgust or annoy those
who most love the original. There is not a word in it having an
intention to belittle Scott. It has sprung from the genuine humour
created in Thackeray's mind by his aspect of the romantic. We remember
how reticent, how dignified was Rowena,--how cold we perhaps thought
her, whether there was so little of that billing and cooing, that
kissing and squeezing, between her and Ivanhoe which we used to think
necessary to love