turning health-How couldst thou hope to inflict wounds on others, ere that be healed which thou thyself hast received ?” "Rebecca," he replied,

"thou knowest not

how impossible it is for one trained to actions of chivalry, to remain passive as a priest, or a woman, when they are acting deeds of honour around him. The love of battle is the food upon which we live the dust of the mellay is the breath of our nostrils! We live not-we wish to live no longer than while we are victorious and renowned—Such, maiden, are the laws of chivalry to which we are sworn, and to which we offer all that we hold dear."

"Alas!" said the fair Jewess," and what is it, valiant knight, save an offering of sacrifice to a dæmon of vain glory, and a passing through the fire to Moloch ?-What remains to you as the prize of all the blood you have spilled--of all the travail and pain you have endured-of all the tears which your deeds have caused, when death hath broken the strong man's spear, and overtaken the speed of his war-horse ?"

"What remains ?" cried Ivanhoe; "Glory,

maiden, glory! which gilds our sepulchre and embalms our name."

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Glory?" continued Rebecca; " alas, is the rusted mail which hangs as a hatchment over the champion's dim and mouldering tomb-is the defaced sculpture of the inscription which the ignorant monk can hardly read to the inquiring pilgrim-are these sufficient rewards for the sacrifice of every kindly affection, for a life spent miserably that ye may make others miserable? Or is there such virtue in the rude rhymes of a wandering bard, that domestic love, kindly affection, peace and happiness, are so wildly bartered, to become the hero of these ballads which vagabond minstrels sing to drunken churls over their evening ale ?”

"By the soul of Hereward!" replied the knight impatiently, "thou speakest, maiden, of thou knowest not what. Thou wouldst quench the pure light of chivalry, which alone distinguishes the noble from the base, the gentle knight from the churl and the savage; which rates our life far, far beneath the pitch of our

honour; raises us victorious over pain, toil, and suffering, and teaches us to fear no evil but disgrace. Thou art no Christian, Rebecca; and to thee are unknown those high feelings which swell the bosom of a noble maiden when her lover hath done some deed of emprize which sanctions his flame. Chivalry !—why, maiden, it is the nurse of pure and high affection-the stay of the oppressed, the redresser of grievances, the curb of the power of the tyrant-Nobility were but an empty name without her, and liberty finds the best protection in her lance and her sword." "I am, indeed," said Rebecca, "sprung from a race whose courage was distinguished in the defence of their own land, but who warred not, even while yet a nation, save at the command of the Deity, or in defending their country from oppression. The sound of the trumpet wakes Judah no longer, and her despised children are now but the unresisting victims of hostile and military oppression. Well hast thou spoken, Sir Knight, until the God of Jacob shall raise up for his chosen people a second Gideon, or a new

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Maccabæus, it ill beseemeth the Jewish damsel
to speak of battle or of war."

The high-minded maiden concluded the argu-
ment in a tone of sorrow, which deeply express-
ed her sense of the degradation of her people,
embittered perhaps by the idea that Ivanhoe con-
sidered her as one not entitled to interfere in a
case of honour, and incapable of expressing sen-
timents of honour and génerosity.

"How little he knows this bosom," she said,
"to imagine that cowardice or meanness of soul
must needs be its guests, because I have cen-
sured the fantastic chivalry of the Nazarenes!
Would to heaven that the shedding of mine
own blood, drop by drop, could redeem the cap-
tivity of Judah! Nay, would to God it could
avail to set free my father, and this his benefac-
tor, from the chains of the oppressor! The proud
Christian should then see whether the daughter
of God's chosen people dared not to die as brave-
ly as the proudest Nazarene maiden, that boasts
her descent from some petty chieftain of the rude
and frozen north !"

She then looked towards the couch of the

wounded knight.

"He sleeps," she said; "nature exhausted by sufferance and the waste of spirits, his wearied frame embraces the first moment of temporary relaxation to sink into slumber. Alas! is it a crime that I should look upon him, when it may be for the last time?—When yet but a short space, and those fair features will be no longer animated by the bold and buoyant spirit which forsakes them not even in sleep!—When the nostril shall be distended, the mouth agape, the eyes fixed and blood-shot; and when the proud and noble knight may be trodden on by the lowest caitiff of this accursed castle, yet stir not when the heel is lifted up against him!—And my father!-oh, my father! evil is it with his daughter, when his grey hairs are not remembered because of the golden locks of youth !—What know I but that these evils are the messengers of Jehovah's wrath to the unnatural child, who thinks of a stranger's captivity before a parent's? who forgets the desolation of Judah, and looks upon the comeliness of a Gentile and a stranger?