Then there comes a little burst of the author's own feelings, while he is burlesquing.

"Ah my dear friends and British public, are there not others who are melancholy under a mask of gaiety, and who in the midst of crowds are lonely! Liston was a most melancholy man; Grimaldi had feelings; and then others I wot of.

But psha!--let us have the next chapter." In all of which there was a touch of earnestness.
Ivanhoe's griefs were enhanced by the wickedness of king John, under whom he would not serve.

"It was Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, I need scarcely say, who got the Barons of England to league together and extort from the king that famous instrument and palladium of our liberties, at present in the British Museum, Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury,--The Magna Charta." Athelstane also quarrels with the king, whose orders he disobeys, and Rotherwood is attacked by the royal army.

No one was of real service in the way of fighting except Ivanhoe,--and how could he take up that cause?
"No; be hanged to me," said the knight bitterly.
"This is a quarrel in which I can't interfere.