1823.] 
qualify a little the degradation of-this 
condition; ‘* Your ancestress (said the 
duke,) was won at a tourney,—you 
shall be fought for in real melée. Only 
thus far, for Count Keinold’s.sake, the 
successful shall be a gentleman, of 
unimpeached birth, -and unstained 
bearings; but be he such, and the 
poerest who ever drew the tongue of a 
bucklé through the strap of a sword- 
~ belt, he shall have at least the proffer 
of your hand. Lswearby St. George, 
by my ducal crown, and by the order 
that i wear! Ha! messires, (he add- 
ed, turning to the nobles present,) this 
at least is, [ think, conformable to the 
rules of chivalry?” 
And is it thus, said I, that by the 
threadbare expedient of the old chival- 
rous romance, but stripped of all the 
splendour and poetical consistency of 
those imaginative legends, the diffi- 
culties and entanglements of the fable 
are to be cut through, rather than un- 
ravelled?. Is it thus that the drunken 
fury of Charles the Bold of Burgundy, 
(or the anti-chivalrous bully whom the 
author has decked out in his titles,) is 
inade to spell out, at bap-hazard, the 
disqualifying qualifications, and to 
predict the fortunate achievement of 
the pennyless Scottish archer, with 
his blood of fifteen descents? Quentin 
Durward, then, is to cut off the head 
of the bandit murderer of the Bishop 
of Liege, and to receive. the hand of 
the lovely countess he had so gallantly 
protected and preserved, as his unde- 
signed reward. Even in this, how- 
ever, we are somewhat disappointed. 
The catastrophe is. still more bung- 
lingly brought about., The author has 
not eventhe judgment or the invention 
to do justice to his own hero. He 
shows him worthy of the‘ undivided 
honour; but he knows not how to 
eonfer it upon him. Quentin indeed, 
through the means of the executed 
Bohemian atheist (Maugrabin), and, 
by the connivance of his geiitle coun- 
tess, obtains the exclusive knowledge 
of certain devices by which the dis- 
‘guised Boar of Ardens may be singled 
ont and-encountered in the most con- 
fusedly-described conflictwhich ensues 
at Liege, und engages with him; but 
he is not permitted to achieve the 
ultimate exploit. This is reserved 
for the Ajax-Ass, his uncle Lodovic, 
who, being “somewhat the worse for 
wear, and Joving the wine-house bet- 
‘der than « lady’s summer parlour, and, 
Montuty Mac, No. 386. 
~ The Scotch-Novel Family. - 
121 
in short, having some barrack tastes 
and likings, which would make great- 
ness in his own person rather an‘ in- 
cumbrance to him, resigns the pre- 
teusions acquired to his maternal 
nephew.” sree 
No words can, in short compass, 
convey an adequate idea of the bun- 
gling and incredible manner in which 
this lame and impotent conclusion is 
broughtabout. And, asthe publication 
for which this is designed cannot be 
expected to find space for the quota- 
tion of the whole inthe words of the 
author, I must refer the reader to the 
original, if he hath patience enough 
for the perusal. The conclusion, in- 
deed, is strongly marked with the 
characteristic hand of the real author. 
All his productions, in verse or in 
prose, (the “ Lady. of the Lake” alone 
excepted,) are marred, to a certain 
degree, by a halting and awkward 
tameness in the denowement ; and all of 
them, without exception, in some way 
or other, contrive to sink the hero, or 
the character who ought 'to be such, 
into a sort of secondary estimation; 
and even Quentin Durward, who, du- 
ring so large a portion of the present 
work, had maintained, in many re- 
spects, his just pre-eiminence, must, 
somehow or other, be shorn of his 
eclat in the last adventure. Even he 
must ‘be a hero who ultimately 
atchieyes nothing; but owes the re- 
ward and happiness he has been in 
quest of to the blundering.achievement 
of another. I could add another 
trait which identifies the origin of the 
poetical and prose romances,—the 
approximation of, so many of them to 
the times and the incidents of chival- 
rous romance, and the total failure, in 
such their approximations, of the dis- 
play of the true chivalrous spirit, or the 
splendour of chivalrous manners and 
adventure. It is the dross, and not 
the ore, of chivalry, that is presented 
on all such occasions; as will be 
found most especially, for example, 
in the comparison of ‘‘ Marmion” and 
“ Quentin Durward.” 
But it will be said, that I have for- 
gotten the positive denial of this 
identity in the introduction to the work 
under review. No, I have not forgot- 
ten it. On the contrary, I have writ- 
ten an examine of that very passage, 
in which, if I mistake not, I have gone 
far towards proving, from that yery 
passage, the very fact which it pro- 
R fesses 
