country performing charities, slaying robbers, rescuing the distressed, and achieving noble feats of arms.  Dragons and giants existed in his day no more, or be sure he would have had a fling at them:  for the truth is, Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe was somewhat sick of the life which the hermits of Chalus had restored to him, and felt himself so friendless and solitary that he would not have been sorry to come to an end of it.  Ah, my dear friends and intelligent British public, are there not others who are melancholy under a mask of gayety, and who, in the midst of crowds, are lonely?  Liston was a most melancholy man; Grimaldi had feelings; and there are others I wot of:—­but psha!—­let us have the next chapter.

CHAPTER V.

Ivanhoe to the rescue.

The rascally manner in which the chicken-livered successor of Richard of the Lion-heart conducted himself to all parties, to his relatives, his nobles, and his people, is a matter notorious, and set forth clearly in the Historic Page:  hence, although nothing, except perhaps success, can, in my opinion, excuse disaffection to the sovereign, or appearance in armed rebellion against him, the loyal reader will make allowance for two of the principal personages of this narrative, who will have to appear in the present chapter in the odious character of rebels to their lord and king.  It must be remembered, in partial exculpation of the fault of Athelstane and Rowena, (a fault for which they were bitterly punished, as you shall presently hear,) that the monarch exasperated his subjects in a variety of ways,—­that before he murdered his royal nephew, Prince Arthur, there was a great question whether he was the rightful king of England at all,—­that his behavior as an uncle, and a family man, was likely to wound the feelings of any lady and mother,—­finally, that there were palliations for the conduct of Rowena and Ivanhoe, which it now becomes our duty to relate.

When his Majesty destroyed Prince Arthur, the Lady Rowena, who was one of the ladies of honor to the Queen, gave up her place at court at once, and retired to her castle of Rotherwood.  Expressions made use of by her, and derogatory to the character of the sovereign, were carried to the monarch’s ears, by some of those parasites, doubtless, by whom it is the curse of kings to be attended; and John swore, by St. Peter’s teeth, that he would be revenged upon the haughty Saxon lady,—­a kind of oath which, though he did not trouble himself about all other oaths, he was never known to break.  It was not for some years after he had registered this vow, that he was enabled to keep it.