fountain, which was the one that had formerly quenched his own thirst; to wit, the Fountain of Disdain.

Alas! it was Angelica herself; and the knight was Orlando. She had allowed him to bring her into France, ostensibly for the purpose of wedding him at the court of Charlemagne, whither the hero's assistance had been called against Agramant king of the Moors, but secretly with the object of discovering Rinaldo. Rinaldo, behold! is discovered; but the fatal averse water has been drunk, and Angelica now hates him in turn, as cordially as he detested her. In vain he accosted her in the humblest and most repentant manner, calling himself the unworthiest of mankind, and entreating to be allowed to love her. Orlando, disclosing himself, fiercely interrupted him; and a combat so terrific ensued, that Angelica fled away on her palfrey till she came to a large plain, in which she beheld an army encamped.

The army was Charlemagne's, who had come to meet Rodamonte, one of the vassals of Agramant. Angelica, in a tremble, related how she had left the two Paladins fighting in the wood; and Charlemagne, who was delighted to find Orlando so near him, proceeded thither with his lords, and parting the combatants by his royal authority, suppressed the dispute between them for the present, by consigning the object of their contention to the care of Namo duke of Bavaria, with the understanding that she was to be the prize of the warrior who should best deserve her in the approaching battle with the infidels.

[This is the last we hear of Angelica in the unfinished poem of Boiardo. For the close of her history see its continuation by Ariosto in the present volume.]

[Footnote 1: "Con parlar basso e bei ragionamenti."]

[Footnote 2: Video meliora, proboque, &c. Writers were now beginning to pride themselves on their classical reading. The present occasion, it must be owned, was a very good one for introducing the passage from Horace. The previous words have an affecting ingenuousness; and, indeed, the whole stanza is beautiful:

  "Io non mi posso dal cor dipartire
    La dolce vista del viso sereno,
  Perch'io mi sento senza lei morire,
    E 'l spirto a poco a poco venir meno.
  Or non mi vale forza, nè l'ardire
    Contra d' amor, the m' ha già posto il freno;
  Nè mi giova saper, ne altrui consiglio:
  Il meglio veggio, ed al peggior m'appiglio."

  Alas! I cannot, though I shut mine eyes,
    Lose the sweet look of that delightful face;
  The very soul within me droops and dies,
    To think that I may fail to gain her grace.
  No strong limbs now, no valour, will suffice
    To burst the spell that roots me to the place:
  No, nor reflection, nor advice, nor force;
  I see the better part, and clasp the worse.]

[Footnote 3:
  [Greek: Argureais logchaisi machou, kai panta krataeseis.]

"Make war with silver spears, and you'll beat all."

The reader will note the allegory or not, as he pleases. It is a very good allegory; but allegory, by the due process of enchantment, becomes matter of fact; and it is pleasant to take it as such.]

[Footnote 4: "Rè Galagron, il maledetto cane"]

[Footnote 5: The lions in the shield of England were leopards in the "olden time," and it is understood, I believe, ought still to be so,—as Napoleon, with an invidious pedantry, once permitted himself to be angry enough to inform us.]

[Footnote 6: The character of Astolfo, the germ of which is in our own ancient British romances, appears to have been completed by the lively invention of Boiardo, and is a curious epitome of almost all which has been discerned in the travelled Englishmen by the envy of poorer and the wit of livelier foreigners. He has the handsomeness and ostentation of a Buckingham, the wealth of a Beckford, the generosity of a Carlisle, the invincible pretensions of a Crichton, the self-commitals and bravery of a Digby, the lucklessness of a Stuart, and the nonchalance "under difficulties" of "Milord What-then" in Voltaire's Princess of Babylon, where the noble traveller is discovered philosophically reading the news-paper in his carriage after it was overturned. English beauty, ever since the days of Pope Gregory, with his pun about Angles and Angels, has been greatly admired in the south of Europe—not a little, perhaps, on account of the general fairness of its complexion. I once heard a fair-faced English gentleman, who would have been thought rather effeminate looking at home, called an "Angel" by a lady in Genoa.]

[Footnote 7:

  "Stava disciolto, senza guardia alcuna,
  Ed intorno a la fonte sollazzava;
  Angelica nel lume de la luna,
  Quanto potea nascosa, lo mirava."

There is something wonderfully soft and lunar in the liquid monotony of the third line.]

[Footnote 8:

  "La qual dormiva in atto tanto adorno,
  Che pensar non si può, non ch'io lo scriva
  Parea che l'erba a lei fiorisse intorno,
  E d'amor ragionasse quella riva."

  Her posture, as she lay, was exquisite
  Above all words—nay, thought itself above:
  The grass seemed flowering round her in delight,
  And the soft river murmuring of love.]

[Footnote 9: Supremely elegant all this appears to me.]

[Footnote 10: Sometimes called in the romances Frusberta (query, from fourbir, to burnish; or, froisser, to crush?). The meaning does not seem to be known. I ought to have observed, in the notes to Pulci, that the name of Orlando's sword, Durlindana (called also Durindana, Durandal, &c.), is understood to mean Hardhitter.]

[Footnote 11: The force of aversion was surely never better imagined than in this scene of the opened arms of beauty, and the knight's preference of the most odious death.]

[Footnote 12: Legalised, I presume, by a divorce from the hero's wife, the fair Alda; who, though she is generally designated by that epithet, seems never to have had much of his attention.]

[Footnote 13: This violent effect of weapons so extremely gentle is beautifully conceived.]

[Footnote 14: The "female eye, lovely and gracious," is charmingly painted per se, but of this otherwise thoroughly beautiful description I must venture to doubt, whether living eyes of any sort, instead of those in the peacock's feathers, are in good taste. The imagination revolts from life misplaced.]

THE

DEATH OF AGRICAN

Argument.

Agrican king of Tartary, in love with Angelica, and baffled by the prowess of the unknown Orlando in his attempts to bring the siege of Albracca to a favourable conclusion, entices him apart from the battle into a wood, in the hope of killing him in single combat. The combat is suspended by the arrival of night-time; and a conversation ensues between the warriors, which is furiously interrupted by Agrican's discovery of his rival, and the latter's refusal to renounce his love. Agrican is slain; and in his dying moments requests baptism at the hand of his conqueror, who, with great tenderness, bestows it.

THE

DEATH OF AGRICAN.

The siege of Albracca was going on formidably under the command of Agrican, and the city of Galafron was threatened with the loss of the monarch's daughter, Angelica, when Orlando, at his earnest prayer, came to assist