1823.] 
The outline of the story is briefly 
thus:—Quentin Durward, a youth 
between nineteen and twenty, as gal- 
lant and as keen a spirit ‘‘as ever 
breathed mountain air,” aud the sole 
survivor of a race ‘“‘ harried” to exter- 
mination in a feud with the Ogilvies, 
finding himself in a state of orphan 
destitution, and too proud of “ fifteen 
descents in his family” to think of 
following ‘‘any other trade than 
arms,” goes upon his almost penny- 
less travels with a determination to let 
out his sword, in the true hero-like 
style, to whatever belligerent poten- 
tate he can make the best bargain 
with. 
Full of spirit, and empty of food, 
“at the ford of a small river, or 
rather a large brook, tributary to the 
Cher, near the royal castle of Plessis,” 
he is encountered, and somewhat 
_ treacherously exposed to a dangerous 
ducking, by “two substantial bur- 
gesses,” as he first supposes ; or, as his 
second thought suggests, ‘‘a money- 
broker or a corn-merchant, and his 
butcher or grazier;” but who prove, in 
reality, to be no other than the noto- 
rious King Louis and his chief hang- 
man. With the former of these, how- 
ever, who calls himself Maitre Picrre, 
(and who. finds the young wanderer 
not to be the Bohemian gipsy, whom 
he had certain politic reasons for con- 
signing either to stream or gallows, as 
might be most convenient,) Durward 
soon becomes better acquainted ; and 
by him is treated, at’ an inn in the 
neighbourhood of the castle, with a 
magnificent and substantial breakfast, 
—to which the hungry Scot does ample 
justice. Atthisinn he becomcs some- 
what smitten with the bright eye and 
dark tresses of “a girl, rather above 
than under fifteen years old,” whocomes 
into the breakfast room to offer her 
attendance on the supposed burgess, 
_and whom he supposes to be the 
daughter or the upper servant of the 
innkeeper. With such a person, of 
course the blood of fifteen descents 
from the Durwards of Glen-houlakin 
does not permit him absolutely to fall 
in love; although he afterwards 
catches a glimpse of her white arm 
across a lute, and hears her sing a 
Jove-ditty in no very barmaid-like 
style. But, after some eccentric ad- 
ventures, and a very narrow escape 
from being hanged on one of the exe- 
eution-oaks that surround the royal 
The Scotch-Novel Family. 
119 
cistle of King Louis, and becoming 
enrolled among the Scotch archers 
who form the body-guard of that cold- 
blooded and detestable tyrant; and 
discovering, during his attendance in 
the royal apartments, that the supposed 
barmaid is no other than the fugitive 
and beautifal Countess Isabelle of 
Croy, whom the king had artfully in- 
duced to seek from him that protection 
he never meant to afford,—the scru- 
ples of fifteen descents are instantly 
dissipated, and the pennyless adventu- 
rous Scot hesitates not to plunge over 
head and ears into the most romantic 
passion for so lovely, and, as it might 
be supposed, so unattainable, a prize. 
The prosecution of this amour, through 
a variety of adventures, (some of 
them very highly interesting, and -by 
his conduet in which, it must be ad- 
mitted, the heroic Scot shows himself 
worthy of the heart and land he 
aspires to,) constitutes the real action 
of these volumes. The story, how- 
ever, is mixed up, according to the 
custom of thé would-be mysterious 
author, with a large portion of histo- 
rical incident, authentic and supposi- 
tious, illustrative of the characters 
and manners, and the state of society, 
in the age and country to which the 
action is assigned. 
This part of the work is certainly 
not without its value, though it over- 
lays, as it were, (especixlly in the last 
volume,) the interest of the main 
action, and produces a very awkward 
sort of jumbling in the very bungling 
conclusion. The pictures it places 
before us of the degradation and mi- 
sery entailed upon mankindby certain 
legitimate forms of institution, are 
pregnant with instruction,—such as 
would not be expected from the 
courtly champion of Toryism, and the 
patron of the northern ‘ Beacon.” 
But this is not the only instance in 
which ‘‘ the Unknown” has manifested 
to the discerning eye either the 
jesuitry of his principles, or the pur- 
blind obscurity of his inductive facul- 
ties; or, in other words, that he either 
means something very different from 
what he professes, or cannot perceive 
the necessary inductions from his own 
premises. ‘‘ Ivanhoe,” (notwithstand- 
ing the caricature misrepresentations 
of our Saxon ancestors,) is an histo- 
rical vindication of whole-length ra- 
dicalism, as ‘‘ Quentin Durward” is 
tho bitterest of satires upon the mo- 
narchic 
