"Write an account of the contest in archery by means of a conversation among a group of yeomen on the following evening, Hubert being the chief speaker.". Mrs. H. A. Davidson, The Study of Ivanhoe. CHAP. XIV. In the middle of page 154 Scott says: "Now, it is well known, that a man may with more impunity be guilty of an actual breach either of real good breeding or of good morals, than appear ignorant of the most minute point of fashionable etiquette." Tell a story of modern life illustrating this statement. What difference is there in this particular between the society of men and the society of books? See Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies. CHAP. XV. Give an imaginary conversation between Fitzurse and a disaffected baron. Without reading ahead, tell the story of De Bracy's attack upon the Saxons. CHAP. XVI. The keeper of the forest has seen the hermit kill one of the king's deer. As the holy man is trying to escape he meets the Black Knight. CHAP. XVIII. Let Rowena tell the story of Cedric's persistence in urging Athelstane's suit. CHAP. XIX. Tell the story of Locksley's investigation of the identity of Cedric's captors. CHAP. XX. The experience of the captives during the night, told by Rebecca. Be sure to show feelings of narrator. CHAP. XXI. Imagine that Locksley and his companions had overtaken De Bracy and the Templar before they reached Torquilstone. CHAP. XXII. See page 229: "Wert thou now in thy treasurechamber at York, and were I craving a loan of thy shekels," etc. Write an account of the scene. Cf. Merchant of Venice, Act I, sc. iii. CHAP. XXIII. Imagine that Ivanhoe, entirely recovered and fully armed, enters the chamber after secretly listening to De Bracy's proposal. CHAP. XXIX. This chapter and the two following should be read in class. Topics can best be assigned by asking pupils to relate the experiences of each of several of the characters in the first person. CHAP. XXXII. This chapter and the next constitute a comic interlude, which serves as a relief from the intensity of the scenes S.C. just preceding. The same principle is exemplified very often in Shakespeare's plays. It will add much to the interest to do a large share of the reading of such passages in dramatic form, as suggested in the Introduction. CHAP. XXXIII. See page 368: "Hold father,' said the Jew," etc. Cf. the famous passage in The Merchant of Venice, Act I, sc. iii: Signior Antonio, many a time and oft In the Rialto have you rated me CHAP. XXXV. Give an account of Isaac's interview with Brian de Bois-Guilbert if the Grand Master had not been at Templestowe. CHAP. XXXVII. Give an account of the scene between Malvoisin and the men who swore to the evidences of Rebecca's witchcraft at Torquilstone. Cf. the conversation between Malvoisin and MontFitchet, page 409. CHAP. XXXVIII. Imagine a conference between Malvoisin and Bois-Guilbert after the trial. Bois-Guilbert's trial in a modern court. CHAP. XLII. Isaac's arrival at Coningsburg and his dialogue with Ivanhoe. S.C. IVANHOE IN CHAPTER FIRST. Thus communed these; while to their lowly dome, With din obstreperous, and ungrateful cries. POPE'S ODYSSEY. N that pleasant district of merry England which is watered by the river Don, there extended in ancient times a large forest, covering the greater part of the beautiful hills and valleys which lie between Sheffield and the pleasant town of Doncaster. The remains of this extensive wood are still to be seen at the noble seats of Wentworth, of Wharncliffe Park, and around Rotherham. Here haunted of yore the fabulous Dragon of Wantley; here were fought many of the most desperate battles during the Civil Wars of the Roses; and here also flourished in ancient times those bands of gallant outlaws, whose deeds have been rendered so popular in English song. Such being our chief scene, the date of our story refers to a period towards the end of the reign of Richard I., when his return from his long captivity had become an event rather wished than hoped for by his despairing subjects, who were in the meantime subjected to every species of subordinate oppression. The nobles, whose power had become exorbitant during the reign of Stephen, and whom the prudence of Henry the Second had scarce reduced into some degree of subjection to the Crown, had now resumed their ancient license in its utmost extent; despising the Civil Wars of the Roses: These were wars between the Houses of York and Lancaster in the fifteenth century for the sovereignty of England. The Lancastrian badge was a red, and the Yorkist a white rose. feeble interference of the English Council of State, fortifying their castles, increasing the number of their dependants, reducing all around them to a state of vassalage, and striving by every means in their power to place themselves each at the head of such forces as might enable him to make a figure in the national convulsions which appeared to be impending. The situation of the inferior gentry, or Franklins, as they were called, who, by the law and spirit of the English constitution, were entitled to hold themselves independent of feudal tyranny, became now unusually precarious. If, as was most generally the case, they placed themselves under the protection of any of the petty kings in their vicinity, accepted of feudal offices in his household, or bound themselves, by mutual treaties of alliance and protection, to support him in his enterprises, they might indeed purchase temporary repose; but it must be with the sacrifice of that independence which was so dear to every English bosom, and at the certain hazard of being involved as a party in whatever rash expedition the ambition of their protector might lead him to undertake. On the other hand, such and so multiplied were the means of vexation and oppression possessed by the great Barons, that they never wanted the pretext, and seldom the will, to harass and pursue, even to the very edge of destruction, any of their less powerful neighbors, who attempted to separate themselves from their authority, and to trust for their protection, during the dangers of the times, to their own inoffensive conduct, and to the laws of the land. A circumstance which greatly tended to enhance the tyranny of the nobility, and the sufferings of the inferior classes, arose from the consequences of the Conquest by Duke William of Normandy. Four generations had not sufficed to blend the hostile blood of the Normans and Anglo-Saxons, or to unite, by common language and mutual Feudal tyranny: Under the feudal law each estate was held from the Crown by its tenant on condition of military service at the royal call. Duke William of Normandy: In 1066 the Normans under Duke William invaded England and gained possession of the country by a desperate battle fought at Hastings, in which Harold, the English king, was killed, and William obtained the crown. interests, two hostile.races, one of which still felt the elation of triumph, while the other groaned under all the consequences of defeat. The power had been completely placed in the hands of the Norman nobility, by the event of the battle of Hastings, and it had been used, as our histories assure us, with no moderate hand. The whole race of Saxon princes and nobles had been extirpated or disinherited, with few or no exceptions; nor were the numbers great who possessed land in the country of their fathers, even as proprietors of the second, or of yet inferior classes. The royal policy had long been to weaken, by every means, legal or illegal, the strength of a part of the population which was justly considered as nourishing the most inveterate antipathy to their victor. All the monarchs of the Norman race had shown the most marked predilection for their Norman subjects; the laws of the chase, and many others equally unknown to the milder and more free spirit of the Saxon constitution, had been fixed upon the necks of the subjugated inhabitants, to add weight, as it were, to the feudal chains with which they were loaded. At court, and in the castles of the great nobles, where the pomp and state of a court was emulated, Norman-French was the only language employed; in courts of law, the pleadings and judgments were delivered in the same tongue. In short, French was the language of honor, of chivalry, and even of justice, while the far more manly and expressive Anglo-Saxon was abandoned to the use of rustics and hinds, who knew no other. Still, however, the necessary intercourse between the lords of the soil, and those oppressed inferior beings by whom that soil was cultivated, occasioned the gradual formation of a dialect, compounded betwixt the French and the Anglo-Saxon, in which they could render themselves mutually intelligible to each other; and from this necessity arose by degrees the structure of our present English language, in which the speech of the victors and the vanquished have been so happily blended together; and which has since been so richly improved by importations from the classical languages, and from those spoken by the southern nations of Europe. Hinds: farm-laborers. |