Irving that he should die if he did not see the heather once a year. He loved outdoor life, and was a famous sportsman and rider. His affection for dogs and horses, indeed, for all dumb animals, was exceedingly strong; and he had a peculiar tenderness for sheep, arising, he thought, from his having often been laid beside them when a child, by a shepherd who had him in charge.

He had strong political prejudices, having been an inveterate Tory and Conservative all his life. Yet he had a kindly leaning to smugglers and poachers and "ne'er-do-weels" generally. He had a large-hearted and open-handed charity, and was never happier than when helping others. If the spiritual side of his nature was not greatly developed, it may have been because those experiences that try the soul did not come till late in life. Of the purely natural man, he was as noble an example as the world has seen.

The tree of romance that Scott planted has borne wondrous and varied fruitage. The two generations that have gone by since he died have seen the novel take on many forms. Bulwer, Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, these are names not only of individuals, but of schools. In our own day, taste runs strongly to the fiction of analysis, to the vivisection of character, rather than the portrayal of incident. It is thought clever to write a novel with no story at all. This is probably a temporary fashion. Romantic art is eternal, because it appeals to an indestructible natural appetite. And Walter Scott is, and will remain, king of the romantics.

1.- A PICTURE OF ANGLO-NORMAN DAYS.

[The following admirable piece of historico-descriptive writing forms the opening chapter of Scott's romance of Ivanhoe.]

FIRST READING.

IN that pleasant1 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 pleasant2 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 War of the Roses; 5 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 Rich

1 In that pleasant, etc. What two factions into which the counkind of sentence, rhetorically?

2 pleasant. Improve the sentence by substituting a synonym.

3 Doncaster. Locate this town. 4 Dragon of Wantley, a monster that figures in English folk-lore.

5 War of the Roses. A disastrous civil contest which desolated England during the thirty years from 1455 to 1485: so called because the

try was divided upheld the two several claims to the throne put forth by the house (family) of York and the house of Lancaster, whose badges were the white and the red rose respectively. The accession of Henry VII. (1456-1509) may be said to have terminated this civil war.

6 outlaws... song. As the ballad of Robin Hood.

ard the First, when his return from his long captivity had become an event rather wished than hoped for by his despairing subjects, who were in the mean time subjected to every species of subordinate oppression.

The nobles, whose power had become exorbitant 2 during the reign of Stephen, and whom the prudence of Henry the Second had scarcely reduced into some degree of subjection to the Crown, had now resumed their ancient license in its utmost extent; despising the feeble interference of the English Council of State, fortifying their castles, increasing the number of their dependents, 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.

6

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 trea

ties 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 hazard2 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,3 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 Norman 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 interests, two hostile races, one of which still felt the elation of triumph,

1 temporary repose. Explain. 2 hazard. Give a synonym. 3 barons. Equivalent to nobles, used in a previous paragraph. 4 pretext. See Glossary.

6 inoffensive. What is the force of the prefix in? Give other examples of in in composition.

6 Duke William of Normandy. This prince invaded and conquered England in 1066, and made the Anglo-Saxon inhabitants subject to the Normans, whom he brought over in large numbers.

7 elation (literally uplifting), pride.

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 5 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.

4

At court, and in the castles of the great nobles, where the pomp and state of a court was emulated, Norman

1 event, result.

2 extirpated. Explain.

3 illegal not legal. The prefix

=

il is a form of in, meaning not.

4 antipathy. Give a synonym. 5 predilection, regard, favoritism.

6 laws of the chase. An admirable account of these laws, and

of this whole period, will be found in Freeman's History of the Norman Conquest.

7 fixed upon the necks. Substitute a literal for this figurative expression.

8 subjugated. Note how the adjective continues the figure. 9 emulated, rivaled, imitated.