lie in the vicinity of the Dead Sea,”. a district known to many latter-day visitors to Jerusalem, that has tried their endurance, though not to the degree it tried that of the iron-strong warriors of the Red-cross. His refuge for the night was the cell of a hermit of Engedi, a man who, like most of the medieval characters that we know, had in his private life a mystery.

Engedi was once a town "in the wilderness of Judah," about the middle of the western shore of the Dead Sea. "Here is a rich plain, half a mile square, sloping very gently from the base of the mountains to the water, and shut in on the north by a lofty promontory. About a mile up the western acclivity, and at an elevation of some four hundred feet above the plain, is the fountain of Ain Jidy, from which the place gets its name," and perhaps identical with a fountain described in the novel. The history of this spot reaches back nearly four thousand years into early Jewish times, and continually suggests connection with sacred affairs. From the hermit's cell, Sir Kenneth was led to the chapel of a convent, - for monas

ticism had penetrated those remote regions. There among the devotees he recognized Lady Edith Plantagenet, a kinswoman of King Richard of England and the heroine of the Tale. He also witnessed several curious acts by peculiar persons. The convent may reasonably be thought to have been that of St. Saba, situated about four leagues to the south-east of Jerusalem, and known to travellers for its massive and impressive character, and for its commanding and picturesque position on lofty crags above the Kidron. It is said to have been founded twelve hundred years ago, and has long been one of the chief Greek monasteries in Palestine. Its size, intricacy, and strangeness render it a place in which almost any romantic incident might well be imagined. Thence the scene changed to the camp of the King, "then stationed betwixt Jean d'Acre and Ascalon; and containing that army with which he of the Lion Heart had promised himself a triumphant march to Jerusalem, and in which he would probably have succeeded, if not hindered by the jealousies of the Christian princes engaged in the same enterprise," "who, his equals in rank, were yet far his inferiors in courage, hardihood, and military talents." The machinations and quarrels of these personages form no small part of the story, in connection with the contrasted characters of the two great leaders, — Richard the Christian, and Saladin the Moslem, and with the affairs of Sir Kenneth and the Lady Edith. At this camp

occurred most of the action of the Tale; and, as that is rather to be read simply as an illustration of actors in the Crusades, without associations with topography, these pages need not present a sketch of the composition or a betrayal of secrets of its charac

ters.

The objects that now illustrate the Third Crusade (apart from the incidents of this story,—most of which, their author informs, are fictitious) will be found few. Acre - strong and famous to our times, especially for withstanding the two months' attack of Napoleon I.-surrendered to the Crusaders two years before the events of the story. This victory, and that at Azotus, and many feats of chivalrous prowess, did not, however, cause the surrender of the Holy Sepulchre by the Moslems to the Christians. The Crusade virtually ended at Jaffa, scene of Richard's last Crusading battle and port from which he left Palestine. Then, as now, it was the sea approach to Jerusalem; and, as such, it is now well known to travellers in the East. Its harbor is inferior. The town itself, not fascinating, is "built on a conical eminence overhanging the sea, and surrounded on the land side with a wall in which there are towers at unequal intervals.”

The object, called the Lee-penny, from which the romance derived its name, — has long been kept by the Lockharts of Lee, in Scotland. Until very recently it was deemed possessed of miraculously curative powers, and even now may not have lost all that reputation. It was obtained in the Holy Land by a Scottish Crusader, Sir Simon Lockhart of Lee, ancestor of its latter holders, and in the following manner, Scott informs us: Sir Simon “made prisoner in battle an Emir of considerable wealth and consequence. The aged mother of the captive came to the Christian camp, to redeem her son from his state of captivity. Lockhart is said to have fixed the price at which his prisoner should ransom himself; and the lady, pulling out a large embroidered purse, proceeded to tell down the ransom, like a mother who pays little respect to gold in comparison of her son's liberty. In this operation, a pebble inserted in a coin-some say of the Lower Empire - fell out of the purse; and the Saracen matron testified so much haste to recover it, as gave the Scottish knight a high idea of its value, when compared with gold or silver. I will not consent,' he said, 'to grant your son's liberty, unless that amulet be added to his ransom.' The lady not only consented to this, but explained to Sir Simon

Lockhart the mode in which the Talisman was to be used, and the uses to which it might be put. The water in which it was dipt operated as a styptic, as a febrifuge, and possessed several other properties as a medical talisman." "It is a stone of a dark-red color and triangular shape, and its size is about half an inch each side." It is set in what is supposed to be a shilling of Edward I. The story represents it to have been a nuptial present sent by "Saladin, on an occasion described at the end of "The Talisman"

XLVII.

"COUNT ROBERT OF PARIS."

Twenty-eighth Novel of the Series; Written 1830-31; Published November, 1831; Author's age, 60; Time of action, 1996.

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FIRST, or an early suggestion or design of this work occurred to Sir Walter Scott, while, during the winter of 1826, he was reading old chivalrous chronicles, - particularly those of Jacques de Lalain. A romance, such as he then fancied, he deemed "would be light summer work." The composition of it was, however, delayed for nearly five years, until the period when his gigantic struggles against misfortune had impaired his wonderful powers; when the radiance of his genius was sometimes obscured; when his work elicited hitherto unused comment; when sometimes he "showed a momentary consciousness that, like Samson in the lap of the Philistine, 'his strength was passing from him, and he was becoming weak like unto other men.'' "Then came the strong effort of aroused will; the cloud dispersed as if before an irresistible current of purer air; all was bright and serene as of old, — and then it closed again in yet deeper darkness." But, as Lockhart added, "who dares to say that, had he executed the work when he sketched the outline of its plan, he might not have achieved as signal a triumph over all critical prejudices as he had done when he rescued Scottish romance from the mawkish degradation in which 'Waverley' found it?" Farther insight into the original conception of this work is perceptible in his “ 'Essay on

Romance." The epoch of action chosen was "one that brought ... the childish forms and bigotries, the weak pomps and drivelling pretensions, the miserable plots and treacheries, the tame wornout civilization of those European Chinese,". -the Byzantines of the eleventh century, "into contact with the vigorous barbarism both of western Christendom and the advancing Ottoman." After various interruptions, the work was completed in September, 1831,— on the twenty-third day of which he left Abbotsford on his last tour. It was published at the close of November, with "Castle Dangerous," as the Fourth Series of "Tales of My Landlord;" and, with the latter, formed the last issue of those immortal fictions named from the first of their number, and the last work, also, given to the world by the marvellously industrious, comprehensive, and fertile imagination of their author. It consequently must always possess interest apart from its intrinsic merits, that, although less than of his earlier works, rise above those of most other writers who have attempted to illustrate the affairs of the Capital and the people of the Eastern Empire.

This story, like "The Talisman," is to be read for its general portrayal of people and affairs, rather than of particular incidents and individuals associated with certain places. In both works, the two of Scott's chief prose fictions most remote in time and locality of scenes from his own days and home, the actual hero is represented to have been a fellow-countryman. The action of the story opens at Constantinople, to which Austrian and French steamers readily convey travellers from Jaffa, and at once introduces this person, Hereward, one of the Varangian Guard of the Emperor Alexius I., a body of picked foreign mercenaries in his Majesty's more personal service. Hereward was strolling near the triumphal arch, decorated and gilded by Theodosius the Great, and hence called the Golden Gate. He there experienced the sentiment with which his corps was regarded by the people, and by men in other departments of the military service, who were jealous of its privileges and full of hatred for its personal prowess; for there, at an unguarded moment, he narrowly escaped assassination. Thence, he went with his officer, Achilles Tatius, to the Blacquernal Palace, and was conducted into an extensive black-marble hall, — apparently the vestibule of correspondingly extensive imperial dungeons. His doubt whether these were to be the end of his unwonted visit to the edifice, was dispelled, only to be replaced by wonder, when

he was at length introduced into a principal apartment dedicated to the special service of the Princess Anna Comnena, authoress of the "Alexiad" and historian of the reign of her father, the Emperor Alexius Comnenus. There he had the delightful honor and profit of hearing the learned and exalted lady read her account of military operations at Laodicea, where he had been in the thickest of the fight, of which he, as a faithful witness, had been summoned to give evidence. The passage read is described by the author of the romance as "a curious fragment, which, without his exertions, must probably have passed to the gulf of total oblivion." During the recital, Hereward listened to an account of the death of his brother Edward, who fell bravely fighting for the Emperor. In acknowledgment of Hereward's relation to one so faithful, and of the interest he expressed in the history, the Princess gave him a precious ring. Next day, at an Imperial Council assembled in the Blacquernal, the arrival of the Crusaders — of the First, and perhaps most triumphant, Crusade - was announced. The event, like many descriptions and episodes of the story, is historical, and fully described in records of fact. The more imaginary action of the story leads to a ruined temple of Cybele. There Hereward beheld some impressive remains of early Egyptian sacred architecture. He was then with Agelastes, a Cynic philosopher, who afterwards, at the same place, appeared with Achilles Tatius, engaged in a conspiracy that became ultimately of no small importance. This scene was succeeded by one of historical character and significance, enacted outside the city upon a terrace above the shore of the Propontis, in which the leaders of the vast armies of the First Crusade, thus far in their march to the Holy Land, paid homage to the Emperor, who, surrounded by his splendid court and brilliant guards, received, with Oriental stateliness, the representatives of the partially civilized and wholly impassioned hosts of Western Europe. Conspicuous among the latter appeared, for the first time, the bold, insolent, half-savage Frank, whose name forms the title of this work. Seizing an opportunity, when the Emperor had stepped forward from his throne to do distinguished honor to one of the Crusading chiefs, Count Robert of Paris rushed to the vacant seat and defiantly occupied it, until he was withdrawn, quickly as possible, by a fellow-soldier. Affairs were such that Alexius, with politic restraint, "resolved to let the insult pass, as one of the rough pleasantries of the Franks." The Count cared