ably interesting to any but those to
whom they are familiar. Even Scott and Cervantes owe great part of their
success to the skill with which they have combined the noble manners and
exalted ideas, engendered in the European heart by the institutions of
chivalry, and as widely spread as its spirit, with the graphic picture of
the manners in the different countries where the scene of their romances
was laid. And it is not every man who can draw the bow of Ulysses.

_Ivanhoe_, the _Abbot_, and _Old Mortality_, may be considered as the
perfection of historical romances, so far as subject goes. They all relate
to events of national history, well known to all persons possessing any
information in England and Scotland, and deeply connected with the most
interesting associations to those of cultivated minds. The undaunted
courage and jovial manners of the Lion-hearted hero; the cruel oppression
of Norman rule; the bold spirit of Saxon independence; the deep sorrows
and ever-doubtful character of the heroic Queen of Scots; the fearful
collision of Puritan zeal with Cavalier loyalty, from which issued the
Great Rebellion--are engraven on every heart in the British islands. They
formed the most appropriate subjects, therefore, for the foundation or
substratum of novels to be permanently interesting to the Anglo-Saxon
race, with the addition of such imaginary characters or incidents as might
illustrate still further the manners and ideas of the times. Nor are such
subjects of universal and national interest by any means yet exhausted. On
the contrary, many of the most admirable of these have never yet been
touched on. The cruel conquest of Wales by Edward I.; the heroic struggles
of Wallace against the same monarch; the glorious establishment of
Scottish independence by Robert Bruce; the savage ferocity and
heart-rending tragedies of the wars of the Roses; the martyr-like death of
Charles I.; the heart-stirring conquests of Edward III. and the Black
Prince; the heartless gallantry of the age of Charles II.; the noble
efforts of the Highlanders in 1715 and 1745 for their hereditary
sovereign, form a few of the periods of British history, either not at
all, or as yet imperfectly, illustrated by historical romance. Nor is the
stock terminated; on the contrary, it is growing, and hourly on the
increase. The time has already come when the heroism of La Vendee, the
tragedies of the Revolution, form the appropriate subject of French
imagi