tutor, the greater or at least bolder villain of the two. But the
fisherman Grim, who is chosen as his murderer, discovers that the child
has, at night, a _nimbus_ of flame round his head; renounces his crime
and escapes by sea with the child and his own family to Grimsby.
Havelok, growing up undistinguished from his foster-brethren, takes
service as a scullion with the English usurper. This usurper is seeking
how to rid himself of the princess without violence, but in some way
that will make her succession to the crown impossible, and Havelok
having shown prowess in sports is selected as the maiden's husband. She,
too, discovers his royalty at night by the same token; and the pair
regain their respective inheritances and take vengeance on their
respective traitors, in a lively and adventurous fashion. There are all
the elements of a good story in this: and they are by no means wasted or
spoilt in the actual handling. It is not a mere sequence of incident;
from the mixture of generosity and canniness in the fisherman who
ascertains that he is to have traitor's wages before he finally decides
to rescue Havelok, to the not unnatural repugnance of Goldborough at
her forced wedding with a scullion, the points where character comes in
are not neglected, though of course the author does not avail himself of
them either in Shakespearean or in Richardsonian fashion. They are
_there_, ready for development by any person who may take it into his
head to develop them.

So too is it in the less powerful and rather more cut and dried _King
Horn_. Here the opening is not so very different; the hero's father is
murdered by pirate invaders, and he himself set adrift in a boat. But in
this the princess (daughter of course of the king who shelters him)
herself falls in love with Horn, and there is even a scene of
considerable comic capabilities in which she confides this affection by
mistake to one of his companions (fortunately a faithful one) instead of