of Chalons, and there
they both do wondrous deeds, Ivanhoe always surpassing the king. The
jealousy of the courtiers, the ingratitude of the king, and the
melancholy of the knight, who is never comforted except when he has
slaughtered some hundreds, are delightful. Roger de Backbite and Peter
de Toadhole are intended to be quite real. Then his majesty sings,
passing off as his own, a song of Charles Lever's. Sir Wilfrid declares
the truth, and twits the king with his falsehood, whereupon he has the
guitar thrown at his head for his pains. He catches the guitar, however,
gracefully in his left hand, and sings his own immortal ballad of _King
Canute_,--than which Thackeray never did anything better.

"Might I stay the sun above us, good Sir Bishop?" Canute cried;
"Could I bid the silver moon to pause upon her heavenly ride?
If the moon obeys my orders, sure I can command the tide.

Will the advancing waves obey me, Bishop, if I make the sign?"
Said the bishop, bowing lowly; "Land and sea, my lord, are thine."
Canute turned towards the ocean; "Back," he said, "thou foaming
brine."

But the sullen ocean answered with a louder deeper roar,
And the rapid waves drew nearer, falling, sounding on the shore;
Back the keeper and the bishop, back the king and courtiers bore.

We must go to the book to look at the picture of the king as he is
killing the youngest of the sons of the Count of Chalons. Those
illustrations of Doyle's are admirable. The size of the king's head, and
the size of his battle-axe as contrasted with the size of the child, are
burlesque all over. But the king has been wounded by a bolt from the bow
of Sir Bertrand de Gourdon while he is slaughtering the infant, and
there is an end of him. Ivanhoe, too, is killed at the siege,--Sir Roger
de Backbite having stabbed him in the back during the scene. Had he not
been then killed, his widow Rowena could not have married Athelstane,
which she soon did after hearing the sad news; nor could he have had
that celebrated epitaph in Latin and English;

Hie est Guilfridus, belli dum vixit avidus.
Cum gladeo et lancea Normannia et quoque Francia
Verbera dura dabat. Per Turcos multum equitabat.
Guilbertum occidit;--atque Hyerosolyma vidit.
Heu! nunc sub fossa sunt tanti militis ossa.
Uxor Athelstani est conjux castissima Thani.[5]

The translation we are told was by Wamba;

Und