ird is called "The
Crowning of Marian," and is devoted to pictures, colloquies, and
incidents, now serious and now comical, showing the life of the
Foresters and the humorous yet discriminative justice of their gypsy
chief. Sir Richard Lea is ill and he cannot be moved. The outlaws crown
Marian, with an oaken chaplet, and declare her to be their queen. Robin
Hood vindicates his vocation, and in a noble speech on
freedom--deriving his similes from the giant oak tree, as Tennyson has
ever loved to do--declares himself the friend of the poor and the
servant of the king; the absent Richard of the Lion Heart, for whose
return all good men are eager. Various beggars, friars, and other
travellers are halted on the road, in practical illustration of Robin's
doctrine; comic incidents from the old ballads are reproduced; and so
the episode ends merrily of these frolics in the wood. At that point a
delicious fairy pageant is introduced, presenting Queen Titania and her
elves and illustrating at once the grievance of the fairies against the
men whose heavy feet have crushed their toads and bats and flowers and
mystic rings, and Marian's dream of love. Sir Arthur Sullivan's music is
here again used, and again it is felt to be characteristic, melodious,
and uncommonly sweet and tender. Act fourth begins in a forest bower at
sunrise. Marian and Robin meet there and talk of Sir Richard and of his
bond to the Abbot of York--soon to fall due and seemingly to remain
unpaid. Robin has summoned the Abbot and his justiciary to come into the
forest and to bring the bond. King Richard, unrecognised, now arrives,
and in submission to certain laws of the woodland he engages in an
encounter of buffets, and prevails over all his adversaries. At the
approach of the Abbot, however, fearing premature recognition, the
monarch will flit away; but his gypsy friends compel him to accept a
bugle, upon which he is to blow a blast when in danger. The Abbot and
his followers arrive, and Robin Hood offers the money to redeem Sir
Richard's bond; but, upon a legal quibble, the Abbot declines to receive
it--preferring to seize the forfeited land. Prince John and the Sheriff
of Nottingham appear, and Robin and his Foresters form an ambuscade. Sir
Richard Lea has been brought in, upon his litter, and Marian stays
beside him. Prince John attempts to seize her, but this time he is
frustrated by the sudden advent of King Richard--from whose presence he
slinks away. Th