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IMOGEN
A Pastoral Romance
_From the Ancient British_
By WILLIAM GODWIN
Preface
[_By_ WILLIAM GODWIN]
The following performance, as the title imports, was originally composed
in the Welch language. Its style is elegant and pure. And if the
translator has not, as many of his brethren have done, suffered the
spirit of the original totally to evaporate, he apprehends it will be
found to contain much novelty of conception, much classical taste, and
great spirit and beauty in the execution. It appears under the name of
Cadwallo, an ancient bard, who probably lived at least one hundred years
before the commencement of our common era. The manners of the primitive
times seem to be perfectly understood by the author, and are described
with the air of a man who was in the utmost degree familiar with them.
It is impossible to discover in any part of it the slightest trace of
Christianity. And we believe it will not be disputed, that in a country
so pious as that of Wales, it would have been next to impossible for the
poet, though ever so much upon his guard, to avoid all allusion to the
system of revelation. On the contrary, every thing is Pagan, and in
perfect conformity with the theology we are taught to believe prevailed
at that time.
These reasons had induced us to admit, for a long time, that it was
perfectly genuine, and justly ascribed to the amiable Druid. With
respect to the difficulty in regard to the preservation of so long a
work for many centuries by the mere force of memory, the translator,
together with the rest of the world, had already got over that objection
in the case of the celebrated Poems of Ossian. And if he be not blinded
by that partiality, which the midwife is apt to conceive for the
productions, that she is the instrument of bringing into the world, the
Pastoral Romance contains as much originality, as much poetical beauty,
and is as happily calculated to make a deep impression upon the memory,
as either Fingal, or Temora.
The first thing that led us to doubt its authenticity, was the striking
resemblance that appears between the plan of the work, and Milton's
celebrated Masque at Ludlow Castle. We do not mean however to hold forth
this circumstance as decisive in its condemnation. The pretensions of
Cadwallo, or whoever was the author of the performance, are very high to
originality. If the date of the Romance be previous to that of Comus, it
may be truly said of the author, that he soared above all imitation, and
derived his merits from the inexhaustible source of his own invention.
But Milton, it is well known, proposed some classical model to himself
in all his productions. The Paradise Lost is almost in every page an
imitation of Virgil, or Homer. The Lycidas treads closely in the steps
of the Daphnis and Gallus of Virgil. The Sampson Agonistes is formed
upon the model of Sophocles. Even the little pieces, L'Allegro and Il
Penseroso have their source in a song of Fletcher, and two beautiful
little ballads that are ascribed to Shakespeare. But the classical model
upon which Comus was formed has not yet been discovered. It is
infinitely unlike the Pastoral Comedies both of Italy and England. And
if we could allow ourselves in that licence of conjecture, which is
become almost inseparable from the character of an editor, we should
say: That Milton having written it upon the borders of Wales, might have
had easy recourse to the manuscript whose contents are now first given
to the public: And that the singularity of preserving the name of the
place where it was first performed in the title of his poem, was
intended for an ingenuous and well-bred acknowledgement of the source
from whence he drew his choicest materials.
But notwithstanding the plausibility of these conjectures, we are now
inclined to give up our original opinion, and to ascribe the performance
to a gentleman of Wales, who lived so late as the reign of king William
the third. The name of this amiable person was Rice ap Thomas. The
romance was certainly at one time in his custody, and was handed down as
a valuable legacy to his descendants, among whom the present translator
has the honour to rank himself. Rice ap Thomas, Esquire, was a man of a
most sweet and inoffensive disposition, beloved and respected by all his
neighbours and tenants, and "passing rich with 'sixty' pounds a year."
In his domestic he was elegant, hospitable, and even sumptuous, for the
time and country in which he lived. He was however naturally of an
abstemious and recluse disposition. He abounded in singularities, which
were pardoned to his harmlessness and his virtues; and his temper was
full of sensibility, seriousness, and melancholy. He devoted the greater
part of his time to study; and he boasted that he had almost a complete
collection of the manuscript remains of our Welch bards. He was often
heard to prefer even to Taliessin, Merlin, and Aneurim, the effusions of
the immortal Cadwallo, and indeed this was the only subject upon which
he was ever known to dispute with eagerness and fervour. In the midst of
the controversy, he would frequently produce passages from the Pastoral
Romance, as decisive of the question. And to confess the truth, I know
not how to excuse this piece of jockeyship and ill faith, even in Rice
ap Thomas, whom I regard as the father of my family, and the chief
ornament of my beloved country.
Some readers will probably however be inclined to apologise for the
conduct of Mr. Thomas, and to lay an equivalent blame to my charge. They
will tell me, that nothing but the weakest partiality could blind me to
the genuine air of antiquity with which the composition is every where
impressed, and to ascribe it to a modern writer. But I am conscious to
my honesty and defy their malice. So far from being sensible of any
improper bias in favour of my ancestor, I am content to strengthen their
hands, by acknowledging that the manuscript, which I am not at all
desirous of refusing to their inspection, is richly emblazoned with all
the discoloration and rust they can possibly desire. I confess that the
wording has the purity of Taliessin, and the expressiveness of Aneurim,
and is such as I know of no modern Welchman who could write. And yet, in
spite as they will probably tell me of evidence and common sense, I
still aver my persuasion, that it is the production of Rice ap Thomas.
But enough, and perhaps too much, for the question of its antiquity. It
would be unfair to send it into the world without saying something of
the nature of its composition. It is unlike the Arcadia of sir Philip
Sidney, and unlike, what I have just taken the trouble of running over,
the Daphnis of Gessner. It neither on the one hand leaves behind it the
laws of criticism, and mixes together the different stages of
civilization; nor on the other will it perhaps be found frigid,
uninteresting, and insipid. The prevailing opinion of Pastoral seems to
have been, that it is a species of composition admirably fitted for the
size of an eclogue, but that either its nature will not be preserved, or
its simplicity will become surfeiting in a longer performance. And
accordingly, the Pastoral Dramas of Tasso, Guarini, and Fletcher,
however they may have been commended by the critics, and admired by that
credulous train who clap and stare whenever they are bid, have when the
recommendation of novelty has subsided been little attended to and
little read. But the great Milton has proved that this objection is not
insuperable. His Comus is a master-piece of poetical composition. It is
at least equal in its kind even to the Paradise Lost. It is interesting,
descriptive and pathetic. Its fame is continually increasing, and it
will be admired wherever the name of Britain is repeated, and the
language of Britain is understood.
If our hypothesis respecting the date of the present performance is
admitted, it must be acknowleged that the ingenious Mr. Thomas has
taken the Masque of Milton for a model; and the reader with whom Comus
is a favourite, will certainly trace some literal imitations. With
respect to any objections that may be made on this score to the Pastoral
Romance, we will beg the reader to bear in mind, that the volumes before
him are not an original, but a translation. Recollecting this, we may,
beside the authority of Milton himself, and others as great poets as
ever existed who have imitated Homer and one another at least as much as
our author has done Comus, suggest two very weighty apologies. In the
first place, imitation in a certain degree, has ever been considered as
lawful when made from a different language: And in the second, these
imitations come to the reader exaggerated, by being presented to him in
English, and by a person who confesses, that he has long been conversant
with our greatest poets. The translator has always admired Comus as much
as the Pastoral Romance; he has read them together, and been used to
consider them as illustrating each other. Any verbal coincidences into
which he may have fallen, are therefore to be ascribed where they are
due, to him, and not to the author. And upon the whole, let the
imperfections of the Pastoral Romance be what they will, he trusts he
shall be regarded as making a valuable present to the connoisseurs and
the men of taste, and an agreeable addition to the innocent amusements
of the less laborious classes of the polite world.
BOOK THE FIRST
CHARACTER OF THE SHEPHERDESS AND HER LOVER.--FEAST OF RUTHYN.--SONGS OF
THE BARDS.
Listen, O man! to the voice of wisdom. The world thou inhabitest was not
intended for a theatre of fruition, nor destined for a scene of repose.
False and treacherous is that happiness, which has been preceded by no
trial, and is connected with no desert. It is like the gilded poison
that undermines the human frame. It is like the hoarse murmur of the
winds that announces the brewing tempest. Virtue, for such is the decree
of the Most High, is evermore obliged to pass through the ordeal of
temptation, and the thorny paths of adversity. If, in this day of her
trial, no foul blot obscure her lustre, no irresolution and instability
tarnish the clearness of her spirit, then may she rejoice in the view of
her approaching reward, and receive with an open heart the crown that
shall be bestowed upon her.
The extensive valley of Clwyd once boasted a considerable number of
inhabitants, distinguished for primeval innocence and pastoral
simplicity. Nature seemed to have prepared it for their reception with
all that luxuriant bounty, which characterises her most favoured spots.
The inclosure by which it was bounded, of ragged rocks and snow-topt
mountains, served but for a foil to the richness and fertility of this
happy plain. It was seated in the bosom of North Wales, the whole face
of which, with this one exception, was rugged and hilly. As far as the
eye could reach, you might see promontory rise above promontory. The
crags of Penmaenmawr were visible to the northwest, and the unequalled
steep of Snowden terminated the prospect to the south. In its farthest
extent the valley reached almost to the sea, and it was intersected,
from one end to the other, by the beautiful and translucent waters of
the river from which it receives its name.
In this valley all was rectitude and guileless truth. The hoarse din of
war had never reached its happy bosom; its river had never been
impurpled with the stain of human blood. Its willows had not wept over
the crimes of its inhabitants, nor had the iron hand of tyranny taught
care and apprehension to seat themselves upon the brow of its shepherds.
They were strangers to riches, and to ambition, for they all lived in a
happy equality. He was the richest man among them, that could boast of
the greatest store of yellow apples and mellow pears. And their only
objects of rivalship were the skill of the pipe and the favour of
beauty. From morn to eve they tended their fleecy possessions. Their
reward was the blazing hearth, the nut-brown beer, and the merry tale.
But as they sought only the enjoyment of a humble station, and the
pleasures of society, their labours were often relaxed. Often did the
setting sun see the young men and the maidens of contiguous villages,
assembled round the venerable oak, or the wide-spreading beech. The
bells rung in the upland hamlets; the rebecs sounded with rude harmony;
they danced with twinkling feet upon the level green or listened to the
voice of the song, which was now gay and exhilarating, and now soothed
them into pleasing melancholy.
Of all the sons of the plain, the bravest, and the most comely, was
Edwin. His forehead was open and ingenuous, his hair was auburn, and
flowed about his shoulders in wavy ringlets. His person was not less
athletic than it was beautiful. With a firm hand he grasped the
boar-spear, and in pursuit he outstripped the flying fawn. His voice was
strong and melodious, and whether upon the pipe or in the song, there
was no shepherd daring enough to enter the lists with Edwin. But though
he excelled all his competitors, in strength of body, and the
accomplishments of skill, yet was not his mind rough and boisterous.
Success had not taught him a despotic and untractable temper, applause
had not made him insolent and vain. He was gentle as the dove. He
listened with eager docility to the voice of hoary wisdom. He had always
a tear ready to drop over the simple narrative of pastoral distress.
Victor as he continually was in wrestling, in the race, and in the song,
the shout of triumph never escaped his lips, the exultation of insult he
was never heard to utter. On the contrary, with mild and unfictitious
friendship, he soothed the breast of disappointment, and cheered the
spirits of his adversary with honest praise.
But Edwin was not more distinguished among his brother shepherds, than
was Imogen among the fair. Her skin was clear and pellucid. The fall of
her shoulders was graceful beyond expression. Her eye-brows were arched,
and from her eyes shot forth the grateful rays of the rising sun. Her
waist was slender; and as she ran, she outstripped the winds, and her
footsteps were printless on the tender herb. Her mind, though soft, was
firm; and though yielding as wax to the precepts of wisdom, and the
persuasion of innocence, it was resolute and inflexible to the
blandishments of folly, and the sternness of despotism. Her ruling
passion was the love of virtue. Chastity was the first feature in her
character. It gave substance to her accents, and dignity to her
gestures. Conscious innocence ennobled all her reflexions, and gave to
her sentiments and manner of thinking, I know not what of celestial and
divine.
Edwin and Imogen had been united in the sports of earliest infancy. They
had been mutual witnesses to the opening blossoms of understanding and
benevolence in each others breasts. While yet a boy, Edwin had often
rescued his mistress from the rude vivacity of his playmates, and had
bestowed upon her many of those little distinctions which were
calculated to excite the flame of envy among the infant daughters of the
plain. For her he gathered the vermeil-tinctured pearmain, and the
walnut with an unsavoury rind; for her he hoarded the brown filberd, and
the much prized earth-nut. When she was near, the quoit flew from his
arm with a stronger whirl, and his steps approached more swiftly to the
destined goal. With her he delighted to retire from the heat of the sun
to the centre of the glade, and to sooth her ear with the gaiety of
innocence, long before he taught her to hearken to the language of love.
For her sake he listened with greater eagerness to the mirthful
relation, to the moral fiction, and to the song of the bards. His store
of little narratives was in a manner inexhaustible. With them he
beguiled the hour of retirement, and with them he hastened the sun to
sink behind the western hill.
But as he grew to manly stature, and the down of years had begun to
clothe his blushing cheek, he felt a new sensation in his breast
hitherto unexperienced. He could not now behold his favourite companion
without emotion; his eye sparkled when he approached her; he watched her
gestures; he hung upon her accents; he was interested in all her
motions. Sometimes he would catch the eye of prudent age or of
sharp-sighted rivalry observing him, and he instantly became embarrassed
and confused, and blushed he knew not why. He repaired to the
neighbouring wake, in order to exchange his young lambs and his hoard of
cheeses. Imogen was not there, and in the midst of traffic, and in the
midst of frolic merriment he was conscious to a vacancy and a
listlessness for which he could not account. When he tended his flocks,
and played upon his slender pipe, he would sink in reverie, and form to
himself a thousand schemes of imaginary happiness. Erewhile they had
been vague and general. His spirit was too gentle for him not to
represent to himself a fancied associate; his heart was not narrow
enough to know so much as the meaning of a solitary happiness. But
Imogen now formed the principal figure in these waking dreams. It was
Imogen with whom he wandered beside the brawling rill. It was Imogen
with whom he sat beneath the straw-built shed, and listened to the
pealing rain, and the hollow roaring of the northern blast. If a moment
of forlornness and despair fell to his lot, he wandered upon the heath
without his Imogen, and he climbed the upright precipice without her
harmonious voice to cheer and to animate him. In a word, passion had
taken up her abode in his guileless heart before he was aware of her
approach. Imogen was fair; and the eye of Edwin was enchanted. Imogen
was gentle; and Edwin loved.
Simple as was the character of the inhabitants of this happy valley, it
is not to be supposed that Edwin found many obstacles to the enjoyment
of the society of his mistress. Though strait as the pine, and beautiful
as the gold-skirted clouds of a summer morning, the parents of Imogen
had not learned to make a traffic of the future happiness of their care.
They sought not to decide who should be the fortunate shepherd that
should carry her from the sons of the plain. They left the choice to her
penetrating wit, and her tried discretion. They erected no rampart to
defend her chastity; they planted no spies to watch over her reputation.
They entrusted her honour to her own keeping. They were convinced, that
the spotless dictates of conscious innocence, and that divinity that
dwells in virtue and awes the shaggy satyr into mute admiration, were
her sufficient defence. They left to her the direction of her conduct.
The shepherdess, unsuspicious by nature, and untaught to view mankind
with a wary and a jealous eye, was a stranger to severity and caprice.
She was all gentleness and humanity. The sweetness of her temper led her
to regard with an eye of candour, and her benevolence to gratify all the
innocent wishes, of those about her. The character of a woman
undistinguishing in her favours, and whose darling employment is to
increase the number of her admirers, is in the highest degree unnatural.
Such was not the character of Imogen. She was artless and sincere. Her
tongue evermore expressed the sentiments of her heart. She drew the
attention of no swain from a rival; she employed no stratagems to
inveigle the affections; she mocked not the respect of the simple
shepherd with delusive encouragement. No man charged her with broken
vows; no man could justly accuse her of being cruel and unkind.
It may therefore readily be supposed, that the subject of love rather
glided into the conversation of Edwin and Imogen, than was regularly and
designedly introduced. They were unknowing in the art of disguising
their feelings. When the tale spoke of peril and bravery, the eyes of
Edwin sparkled with congenial sentiments, and he was evermore ready to
start from the grassy hilloc upon which they sat. When the little
narrative told of the lovers pangs, and the tragic catastrophe of two
gentle hearts whom nature seemed to have formed for mildness and
tranquility, Imogen was melted into the softest distress. The breast of
her Edwin would heave with a sympathetic sigh, and he would even
sometimes venture, from mingled pity and approbation, to kiss away the
tear that impearled her cheek. Intrepid and adventurous with the hero,
he began also to take a new interest in the misfortunes of love. He
could not describe the passionate complaints, the ingenuous tenderness
of another, without insensibly making the case his own. "Had the lover
known my Imogen, he would no longer have sighed for one, who could not
have been so fair, so gentle, and so lovely." Such were the thoughts of
Edwin; and till now Edwin had always expressed his thoughts. But now the
words fell half-formed from his trembling lips, and the sounds died away
before they were uttered. "Were I to speak, Imogen, who has always
beheld me with an aspect of benignity, might be offended. I should say
no more than the truth; but Imogen is modest. She does not suspect that
she possesses half the superiority over such as are called fair, which I
see in her. And who could bear to incur the resentment of Imogen? Who
would irritate a temper so amiable and mild? I should say no more than
the truth; but Imogen would think it flattery. Let Edwin be charged with
all other follies, but let that vice never find a harbour in his bosom;
let the imputation of that detested crime never blot his untarnished
name."
Edwin had received from nature the gift of an honest and artless
eloquence. His words were like the snow that falls beneath the beams of
the sun; _they melted as they fell_. Had it been his business to
have pleaded the cause of injured innocence or unmerited distress, his
generous sympathy and his manly persuasion must have won all hearts. Had
he solicited the pursuit of rectitude and happiness, his ingenuous
importunity could not have failed of success. But where the mind is too
deeply interested, there it is that the faculties are most treacherous.
Ardent were the sighs of Edwin, but his voice refused its assistance,
and his tongue faultered under the attempts that he made. Fluent and
voluble upon all other subjects, upon this he hesitated. For the first
time he was dissatisfied with the expressions that nature dictated. For
the first time he dreaded to utter the honest wishes of his heart,
apprehensive that he might do violence to the native delicacy of Imogen.
But he needed not have feared. Imogen was not blind to those perfections
which every mouth conspired to praise. Her heart was not cold and
unimpassioned; she could not see these perfections, united with youth
and personal beauty, without being attracted. The accents of Edwin were
music to her ear. The tale that Edwin told, interested her twice as much
as what she heard from vulgar lips. To wander with Edwin along the
flowery mead, to sit with Edwin in the cool alcove, had charms for her
for which she knew not how to account, and which she was at first
unwilling to acknowledge to her own heart. When she heard of the feats
of the generous lover, his gallantry in the rural sports, and his
reverence for the fair, it was under the amiable figure of Edwin that he
came painted to her treacherous imagination. She was a stranger to
artifice and disguise, and the renown of Edwin was to her the feast of
the soul, and with visible satisfaction she dwelt upon his praise. Even
in sleep her dreams were of the deserving shepherd. The delusive
pleasures that follow in the train of dark-browed night, all told of
Edwin. The unreal mockery of that capricious being, who cheats us with
scenes of fictitious wretchedness, was full of the unmerited calamities,
the heartbreaking woe, or the untimely death of Edwin. From Edwin
therefore the language of love would have created no disgust. Imogen was
not heedless and indiscreet; she would not have sacrificed the dignity
of innocence. Imogen was not coy; she would not have treated her admirer
with affected disdain. She had no guard but virgin modesty and that
conscious worth, _that would be wooed, and not unsought be won_.
Such was the yet immature attachment of our two lovers, when an
anniversary of religious mirth summoned them, together with their
neighbour shepherds of the adjacent hamlet, to the spot which had long
been consecrated to rural sports and guiltless festivity, near the
village of Ruthyn. The sun shone with unusual splendour; the Druidical
temples, composed of immense and shapeless stones, heaped upon each
other by a power stupendous and incomprehensible, reflected back his
radiant beams. The glade, the place of destination to the frolic
shepherds, was shrouded beneath two venerable groves that encircled it
on either side. The eye could not pierce beyond them, and the
imagination was in a manner embosomed in the vale. There were the
quivering alder, the upright fir, and the venerable oak crowned with
sacred mistletoe. They grew upon a natural declivity that descended
every way towards the plain. The deep green of the larger trees was
fringed towards the bottom with the pleasing paleness of the willow.
From one of the groves a little rivulet glided across the plain, and was
intersected on one side by a stream that flowed into it from a point
equally distant from either extremity of its course. Both these streams
were bordered with willows. In a word, upon the face of this beautiful
spot all appeared tranquility and peace. It was without a path, and you
would imagine that no human footsteps had ever invaded the calmness of
its solitude. It was the eternal retreat of the venerable anchorite; it
was the uninhabited paradise in the midst of the trackless ocean.
Such was the spot where the shepherds and shepherdesses of a hundred
cots were now assembled. In the larger compartiments of the vale, the
more muscular and vigorous swains pursued the flying ball, or contended
in the swift-footed race. The bards, venerable for their age and the
snowy whiteness of their hair, sat upon a little eminence as umpires of
the sports. In the smaller compartiments, the swains, mingled with the
fair, danced along the level green, or flew, with a velocity that
beguiled the eager sight, beneath the extended arms of their fellows.
Here a few shepherds, apart from the rest, flung the ponderous quoit
that sung along the air. There two youths, stronger and more athletic
than the throng, grasped each others arms with an eager hand, and
struggled for the victory. Now with manly vigour the one shook the
sinewy frame of the other; now they bended together almost to the earth,
and now with double force they reared again their gigantic stature. At
one time they held each other at the greatest possible distance; and
again, their arms, their legs and their whole bodies entwined, they
seemed as if they had grown together. When the weaker or less skilful
was overthrown, he tumbled like a vast and mountain oak, that for ages
had resisted the tumult of the winds; and the whole plain resounded at
his fall. Such as were unengaged formed a circle round the wrestlers,
and by their shouts and applause animated by turns the flagging courage
of either.
And now the sun had gained his meridian height, and, fatigued with
labour and heat, they seated themselves upon the grass to partake of
their plain and rural feast. The parched wheat was set out in baskets,
and the new cheeses were heaped together. The blushing apple, the golden
pear, the shining plum, and the rough-coated chesnut were scattered in
attractive confusion. Here were the polished cherry and the downy peach;
and here the eager gooseberry, and the rich and plenteous clusters of
the purple grape. The neighbouring fountain afforded them a cool and
sparkling beverage, and the lowing herds supplied the copious bowl with
white and foaming draughts of milk. The meaner bards accompanied the
artless luxury of the feast with the symphony of their harps.
The repast being finished, the company now engaged in those less active
sports, that exercise the subtility of the wit, more than the agility or
strength of the body. Their untutored minds delighted themselves in the
sly enigma, and the quaint conundrum. Much was their laughter at the
wild guesses of the thoughtless and the giddy; and great the triumph of
the swain who penetrated the mystery, and successfully removed the
abstruseness of the problem. Many were the feats of skill exhibited by
the dextrous shepherd, and infinite were the wonder and admiration of
the gazing spectators. The whole scene indeed was calculated to display
the triumph of stratagem and invention. A thousand deceits were
practised upon the simple and unsuspecting, and while he looked round to
discover the object of the general mirth, it was increased into bursts
of merriment, and convulsive gaiety. At length they rose from the
verdant green, and chased each other in mock pursuit. Many flew towards
the adjoining grove; the pursued concealed himself behind the dark and
impervious thicket, or the broad trunk of the oak, while the pursuers ran
this way and that, and cast their wary eyes on every side. Carefully
they explored the bushes, and surveyed each clump of tufted trees. And
now the neighbouring echoes repeated the universal shout, and proclaimed
to the plain below, that the object of their search was found. Fatigue
however, in spite of the gaiety of spirit with which their sports were
pursued, began to assert his empire, and they longed for that
tranquility and repose which were destined to succeed.
At this instant the united sound of the lofty harp, the melodious rebec,
and the chearful pipe, summoned them once again to the plain. From every
side they hastened to the lawn, and surrounded, with ardent eyes, and
panting expectation, the honoured troop of the bards, crowned with
laurel and sacred mistletoe. And now they seated themselves upon the
tender herb; and now all was stilness and solemn silence. Not one
whisper floated on the breeze; not a murmur was heard. The tumultuous
winds were hushed, and all was placid composure, save where the gentle
zephyr fanned the leaves. The tinkling rill babbled at their feet; the
feathered choristers warbled in the grove; and the deep lowings of the
distant herds died away upon the ear. The solemn prelude began from a
full concert of the various instruments. It awakened attention in the
thoughtless, and composed the frolic and the gay into unbroken
heedfulness. The air was oppressed with symphonious sounds, and the ear
filled with a tumult of harmony.
On a sudden the chorus ceased: Those instruments which had united their
force to fill the echoes of every grove, and of every hill, were silent.
And now a bard, of youthful appearance, but who was treated with every
mark of honour and distinction, and seated on the left hand of the hoary
Llewelyn, the prince of song, struck the lyre with a lofty and daring
hand. His eye sparkled with poetic rapture, and his countenance beamed
with the sublime smile of luxuriant fancy and heaven-born inspiration.
He sung of the wanton shepherd, that followed, with ungenerous
perseverance, the chaste and virgin daughter of Cadwallo. The Gods took
pity upon her distress, the Gods sent down their swift and winged
messenger to shield her virtue, and deliver her from the persecution of
Modred. With strong and eager steps the ravisher pursued: timid
apprehension, and unviolated honour, urged her rapid flight. But Modred
was in the pride of youth; muscular and sinewy was the frame of Modred.
Beauteous and snowy was the person of the fair: her form was delicate,
and her limbs were tender. If heaven had not interposed, if the Gods had
not been on her side, she must have fallen a victim to savage fury and
brutal lust. But, in the crisis of her fate, she gradually sunk away
before the astonished eyes of Modred. That beauteous frame was now no
more, and she started from before him, swifter than the winds, a timid
and listening hare. Still, still the hunter pursued; he suspended not
the velocity of his course. The speed of Modred was like the roe upon
the mountains; every moment he gained upon the daughter of Cadwallo. But
now the object of his pursuit vanished from his sight, and eluded his
eager search. In vain he explored every thicket, and surveyed all the
paths of the forest. While he was thus employed, on a sudden there burst
from a cave a hungry and savage wolf; it was the daughter of Cadwallo.
Modred started with horror, and in his turn fled away swifter than the
winds. The fierce and ravenous animal pursued; fire flashed from the
eye, and rage and fury sat upon the crest. Mild and gentle was the
daughter of Cadwallo; her heart relented; her soft and tender spirit
belied the savage form. They approached the far famed stream of Conway.
Modred cast behind him a timid and uncertain eye; the virgin passed
along, no longer terrible, a fair and milk white hind. Modred inflamed
with disappointment, reared his ponderous boar spear, and hurled it from
his hand. Too well, ah, cruel and untutored swain! thou levelest thy
aim. Her tender side is gored; her spotless and snowy coat is deformed
with blood. Agitated with pain, superior to fear, she plunges in the
flood. When lo! a wonder; on the opposite shore she rises, radiant and
unhurt, in her native form. Modred contemplates the prodigy with
astonishment; his lust and his brutality inflame him more than ever.
Eagerly he gazes on her charms; in thought he devours her inexpressive
beauties. And now he can no longer restrain himself; with sudden start
he leaps into the river. The waves are wrought into a sudden tempest;
they hurry him to and fro. He buffets them with lusty arms; he rides
upon the billows. But vain is human strength; the unseen messenger of
the Gods laughs at the impotent efforts of Modred. At length the waters
gape with a frightful void; the bottom, strewed with shells, and
overgrown with sea-weed, is disclosed to the sight. Modred, unhappy
Modred, sinks to rise no more. His beauty is tarnished like the flower
of the field; his blooming cheek, his crimson lip, is pale and
colourless. Learn hence, ye swains, to fear the Gods, and to reverence
the divinity of virtue. Modred never melted for another's woe; the tear
of sympathy had not moistened his cheek. The heart of Modred was
haughty, insolent and untractable; he turned a deaf ear to the
supplication of the helpless, he listened not to the thunder of the
Gods. Let the fate of Modred be remembered for a caution to the
precipitate; let the children of the valley learn wisdom. Heaven never
deserts the cause of virtue; chastity wherever she wanders (_be it not
done in pride or in presumption_) is sacred and invulnerable.
Such was the song of the youthful bard. Every eye was fixed upon his
visage while he struck the lyre; the multitude of the shepherds appeared
to have no faculty but the ear. And now the murmur of applause began;
and the wondering swains seemed to ask each other, whether the God of
song were not descended among them. "Oh glorious youth," cried they,
"how early is thy excellence! Ere manhood has given nerve and vigour to
thy limbs, ere yet the flowing beard adorns thy gallant breast, nature
has unlocked to thee her hidden treasures, the Gods have enriched thee
with all the charms of poetry. Great art thou among the bards;
illustrious in wisdom, where they all are wise. Should gracious heaven
spare thy life, we will cease to weep the death of Hoel; we will lament
no longer the growing infirmities of Llewelyn."
While they yet spoke, a bard, who sat upon the right hand of the prince,
prepared to sweep the string. He was in the prime of manhood. His
shining locks flowed in rich abundance upon his strong and graceful
shoulders. His eye expressed more of flame than gaiety, more of
enthusiasm than imagination. His brow, though manly, and, as it should
seem, by nature erect, bore an appearance of solemn and contemplative.
He had ever been distinguished by an attachment to solitude, and a love
for those grand and tremendous objects of uncultivated nature with which
his country abounded. His were the hanging precipice, and the foaming
cataract. His ear drank in the voice of the tempest; he was rapt in
attention to the roaring thunder. When the contention of the elements
seemed to threaten the destruction of the universe, when Snowdon bowed
to its deepest base, it was then that his mind was most filled with
sublime meditation. His lofty soul soared above the little war of
terrestrial objects, and rode expanded upon the wings of the winds. Yet
was the bard full of gentleness and sensibility; no breast was more
susceptible to the emotions of pity, no tongue was better skilled in the
soft and passionate touches of the melting and pathetic. He possessed a
key to unlock all the avenues of the heart.
Such was the bard, and this was the subject of his song. He told of a
dreadful famine, that laid waste the shores of the Menai. Heaven, not to
punish the shepherds, for, alas, what had these innocent shepherds done?
but in the mysterious wisdom of its ways, had denied the refreshing
shower, and the soft-descending dew. From the top of Penmaenmawr, as far
as the eye could reach, all was uniform and waste. The trees were
leafless, not one flower adorned the ground, not one tuft of verdure
appeared to relieve the weary eye. The brooks were dried up; their beds
only remained to tell the melancholy tale, Here once was water; the
tender lambs hastened to the accustomed brink, and lifted up their
innocent eyes with anguish and disappointment. The meadows no longer
afforded pasture of the cattle; the trees denied their fruits to man. In
this hour of calamity the Druids came forth from their secret cells, and
assembled upon the heights of Mona. This convention of the servants of
the Gods, though intended to relieve the general distress, for a moment
increased it. The shepherds anticipated the fatal decree; they knew that
at times like this the blood of a human victim was accustomed to be shed
upon the altars of heaven. Every swain trembled for himself or his
friend; every parent feared to be bereaved of the staff of his age. And
now the holy priest had cast the lots in the mysterious urn; and the lot
fell upon the generous Arthur. Arthur was beloved by all the shepherds
that dwelt upon the margin of the main; the praise of Arthur sat upon
the lips of all that knew him. But what served principally to enhance
the distress, was the attachment there existed between him and the
beauteous Evelina. Mild was the breast of Evelina, unused to encounter
the harshness of opposition, or the chilly hand and forbidding
countenance of adversity. From twenty shepherds she had chosen the
gallant Arthur, to reward his pure and constant love. Long had they been
decreed to make each other happy. No parent opposed himself to their
virtuous desires; the blessing of heaven awaited them from the hand of
the sacred Druid. But in the general calamity of their country they had
no heart to rejoice; they could not insult over the misery of all around
them. "Soon, oh soon," cried the impatient shepherd, "may the wrath of
heaven be overpast! Extend, all-merciful divinity, thy benign influence
to the shores of Arvon! Once more may the rustling of the shower refresh
our longing ears! Once more may our eyes be gladdened with the pearly,
orient dew! May the fields be clothed afresh in cheerful green! May the
flowers enamel the verdant mead! May the brooks again brawl along their
pebbly bed! And may man and beast rejoice together!" Ah, short-sighted,
unapprehensive shepherd! thou dost not know the misfortune that is
reserved for thyself; thou dost not know, that thou shalt not live to
behold those smiling scenes which thy imagination forestallest; thou
dost not see the dart of immature and relentless death that is suspended
over thee. Think, O ye swains, what was the universal astonishment and
pity, when the awful voice of the Druid proclaimed the decree of heaven!
Terror sat upon every other countenance, tears started into every other
eye; but the mien of Arthur was placid and serene. He came forward from
the throng; his eyes glistened with the fire of patriotism. "Hear me, my
countrymen," cried he, "for you I am willing to die. What is my
insignificant life, when weighed against the happiness of Arvon? Be
grateful to the Gods, that, for so poor a boon, they are willing to
spread wide the hand of bounty, and to exhaust upon your favoured heads
the horn of plenty." While he spoke he turned his head to the spot from
which he had advanced, and beheld, a melting object, Evelina, pale and
breathless, supported in the arms of the maidens. For a moment he forgot
his elevated sentiments and his heroism, and flew to raise her.
"Evelina, mistress of my heart, awake. Lift up thine eyes and bless thy
Arthur. Be not too much subdued by my catastrophe. Live to comfort the
grey hairs, and to succour the infirmities of your aged parent." While
the breast of Arthur was animated with such sentiments, and dictated a
conduct like this, the priests were employed in the mournful
preparations. The altar was made ready; the lambent fire ascended from
its surface; the air was perfumed with the smoke of the incense; the
fillets were brought forth; and the sacred knife glittered in the hand
of the chief of the Druids. The bards had strung their harps, and began
the song of death. The sounds were lofty and animating, they were fitted
to inspire gallantry and enterprise into the trembling coward; they were
fitted to breathe a soul into the clay-cold corse. The spirit of Arthur
was roused; his eye gleamed with immortal fire. The aged oak, that
strikes its root beneath the soil, so defies the blast, and so rears its
head in the midst of the whirlwind. But oh, who can paint the distress
of Evelina? Now she dropped her head, like the tender lily whose stalk,
by some vulgar and careless hand has been broken; and now she was wild
and ungovernable, like the wild beast that has been robbed of its young.
For an instant the venerable name of religion awed her into mute
submission. But when the fatal moment approached, not the Gods, if the
Gods had descended in all their radiant brightness, could have
restrained her any longer. The air was rent with her piercing cries. She
spoke not. Her eyes, in silence turned towards heaven, distilled a
plenteous shower. At length, swifter than the winged hawk, she flew
towards the spot, and seized the sacred and inviolable arm of the holy
Druid, which was lifted up to strike the final blow. "Barbarous and
inhuman priest," she cried, "cease your vile and impious mummery! No
longer insult us with the name of Gods. If there be Gods, they are
merciful; but thou art a savage and unrelenting monster. Or if some
victim must expire, strike here, and I will thank thee. Strike, and my
bosom shall heave to meet the welcome blow. Do any thing. But oh, spare
me the killing, killing spectacle!" During this action the maidens
approached and hurried her from the plain. "Go," cried Arthur, "and let
not the heart of Evelina be sad. My Death has nothing in it that
deserves to be deplored. It is glorious and enviable. It shall be
remembered when this frame is crumbled into dust. The song of the bards
shall preserve it to never dying fame." The inconsolable fair one had
now been forced away. The intrepid shepherd bared his breast to the
sacred knife. His nerves trembled not. His bosom panted not. And now
behold the lovely youth, worthy to have lived through revolving years,
sunk on the ground, and weltering in his blood. Yes, gallant Arthur,
thou shalt possess that immortality which was the first wish of thy
heart! My song shall embalm thy precious memory, thy generous, spotless
fame! But, ah, it is not in the song of the bards to sooth the rooted
sorrow of Evelina. Every morning serves only to renew it. Every night
she bathes her couch in tears. Those objects, which carry pleasure to
the sense of every other fair, serve only to renew thy unexhausted
grief. The rustling shower, the pearly dew, the brawling brook, the
cheerful green, the flower-enameled mead, all join to tell of the
barbarous and untimely fate of Arthur. Smile no more, O ye meads; mock
not the grief of Evelina. Let the trees again be leafless; let the
rivers flow no longer in their empty beds. A scene like this suits best
the settled temper of Evelina.
He ceased. And his pathetic strain had awakened the sympathy of the
universal throng. Every shepherd hung his mournful head, when the
untimely fate of Arthur was related; every maiden dropped a generous
tear over the sorrows of Evelina. They listened to the song, and forgot
the poet. Their souls were rapt with alternate passions, and they
perceived not the matchless skill by which they were excited. The lofty
bard hurried them along with the rapidity of his conceptions, and left
them no time for hesitation, and left them no time for reflection. He
ceased, and the melodious sounds still hung upon their ear, and they
still sat in the posture of eager attention. At length they recollected
themselves; and it was no longer the low and increasing murmur of
applause: it was the exclamation of rapture; it was the unpremeditated
shout of astonishment.
In the mean time, the reverend Llewelyn, upon whose sacred head ninety
winters had scattered their snow, grasped the lyre, which had so often
confessed the master's hand. Though far advanced in the vale of years,
there was a strength and vigour in his age, of which the degeneracy of
modern times can have little conception. The fire was not extinguished
in his flaming eye; it had only attained that degree of chasteness and
solemnity, which had in it by so much the more, all that is majestic,
and all that is celestial. His looks held commerce with his native
skies. No vulgar passion ever visited his heaven-born mind. No vulgar
emotion ever deformed the godlike tranquility of his soul. He had but
one passion; it was the love of harmony. He was conscious only to one
emotion; it was reverence for the immortal Gods. He sat like the
anchorite upon the summit of Snowdon. The tempests raise the foaming
ocean into one scene of horror, but he beholds it unmoved. The rains
descend, the thunder roars, and the lightnings play beneath his feet.
Llewelyn struck the lyre, and the innumerable croud was noiseless and
silent as the chambers of death. They did not now wait for the pleasing
tale of a luxuriant imagination, or the pathetic and melting strain of
the mourner. They composed their spirits into the serenity of devotion.
They called together their innocent thoughts for the worship of heaven.
By anticipation their bosoms swelled with gratitude, and their hearts
dilated into praise.
The pious Llewelyn began his song from the rude and shapeless chaos. He
magnified the almighty word that spoke it into form. He sung of the
loose and fenny soil which gradually acquired firmness and density. The
immeasurable, eternal caverns of the ocean were scooped. The waters
rushed along, and fell with resounding, foamy violence to the depth
below. The sun shone forth from his chamber in the east, and the earth
wondered at the object, and smiled beneath his beams. Suddenly the
whole face of it was adorned with a verdant, undulating robe. The purple
violet and the yellow crocus bestrewed the ground. The stately oak
reared its branchy head, and the trees and shrubs burst from the surface
of the earth. Impregnated by power divine, the soil was prolific in
other fruits than these. The clods appeared to be informed with a
conscious spirit, and gradually assumed a thousand various forms. The
animated earth seemed to paw the verdant mead, and to despise the mould
from which it came. A disdainful horse, it shook its flowing mane, and
snuffed the enlivening breeze, and stretched along the plain. The
red-eyed wolf and the unwieldy ox burst like the mole the concealing
continent, and threw the earth in hillocs. The stag upreared his
branching head. The thinly scattered animals wandered among the
unfrequented hills, and cropped the untasted herb. Meantime the birds,
with many coloured plumage, skimmed along the unploughed air, and taught
the silent woods and hills to echo with their song.
Creatures, hymn the praises of your creator! Thou sun, prolific parent
of a thousand various productions, by whose genial heat they are
nurtured, and whose radiant beams give chearfulness and beauty to the
face of nature, first of all the existences of this material universe
acknowledge him thy superior, and while thou dispensest a thousand
benefits to the inferior creation, ascribe thine excellencies solely to
the great source of beauty and perfection! And when the sun has ceased
his wondrous course, do thou, O moon, in milder lustre show to people of
a thousand names the honours of thy maker! Thou loud and wintery north
wind, in majestic and tremendous tone declare his lofty praise! Ye
gentle zephyrs, whisper them to the modest, and softly breathe them in
the ears of the lowly! Ye towering pines, and humble shrubs, ye fragrant
flowers, and, more than all, ye broad and stately oaks, bind your heads,
and wave your branches, and adore! Ye warbling fountains, warbling tune
his praise! Praise him, ye beasts, in different strains! And let the
birds, that soar on lofty wings, and scale the path of heaven, bear, in
their various melody, the notes of adoration to the skies! Mortals, ye
favoured sons of the eternal father, be it yours in articulate
expressions of gratitude to interpret for the mute creation, and to
speak a sublimer and more rational homage.
Heard ye not the music of the spheres? Know ye not the melody of
celestial voices? On yonder silver-skirted cloud I see them come. It
turns its brilliant lining on the setting day. And these are the accents
of their worship. "Ye sons of women, such as ye are now, such once were
we. Through many scenes of trial, through heroic constancy, and
ever-during patience, have we attained to this bright eminence. Large
and mysterious are the paths of heaven, just and immaculate his ways. If
ye listen to the siren voice of pleasure, if upon the neck of heedless
youth you throw the reins, that base and earth-born clay which now you
wear, shall assume despotic empire. And when you quit the present narrow
scene, ye shall wear a form congenial to your vices. The fierce and
lawless shall assume the figure of the unrelenting wolf. The
unreflecting tyrant, that raised a mistaken fame from scenes of
devastation and war, shall spurn the ground, a haughty and indignant
horse; and in that form, shall learn, by dear experience, what were the
sufferings and what the scourge that he inflicted on mankind. The
sensual shall wear the shaggy vesture of the goat, or foam and whet his
horrid tusks, a wild and untame'd boar. But virtue prepares its
possessor for the skies. Upon the upright and the good, attendant angels
wait. With heavenly spirits they converse. On them the dark machinations
of witchcraft, and the sullen spirits of darkness have no power. Even
the outward form is impressed with a beam of celestial lustre. By slow,
but never ceasing steps, they tread the path of immortality and honour.
Then, mortals, love, support, and cherish each other. Fear the Gods, and
reverence their holy, white-robed servants. Let the sacred oak be your
care. Worship the holy and everlasting mistletoe. And when all the
objects that you now behold shall be involved in universal
conflagration, and time shall be no more; ye shall mix with Gods, ye
shall partake their thrones, and be crowned like them with never-fading
laurel."
[Illustration]
BOOK THE SECOND
THUNDER STORM.--THE RAPE OF IMOGEN.--EDWIN ARRIVES AT THE GROTTO OF
ELWY.--CHARACTER OF THE MAGICIAN.--THE END OF THE FIRST DAY.
The song of Llewelyn was heard by the shepherds with reverence and mute
attention. Their blameless hearts were lifted to the skies with the
sentiment of gratitude; their honest bosoms overflowed with the fervour
of devotion. They proved their sympathy with the feelings of the bard,
not by licentious shouts and wild huzzas, but by the composure of their
spirits, the serenity of their countenances, and the deep and
unutterable silence which universally prevailed. And now the hoary
minstrel rose from the little eminence, beneath the aged oak, from whose
branches depended the ivy and the honeysuckle, on which the veneration
of the multitude had placed him. He came into the midst of the plain,
and the sons and the daughters of the fertile Clwyd pressed around him.
Fervently they kissed the hem of his garment; eagerly with their eyes
they sought to encounter the benign rays of his countenance. With the
dignity of a magistrate, and the tenderness of a father, he lifted his
aged arms, and poured upon them his mild benediction. "Children, I have
met your fathers, and your fathers fathers, beneath the hills of Ruthyn.
Such as they were, such are ye, and such ever may ye remain. The lily is
not more spotless, the rose and the violet do not boast a more fragrant
odour, than the incense of your prayers when it ascends to the footstool
of the Gods. Guileless and undesigning are you as the yearling lamb;
gentle and affectionate as the cooing dove. Qualities like these the
Gods behold with approbation; to qualities like these the Gods assign
their choicest blessings. My sons, there is a splendour that dazzles,
rather than enlightens; there is a heat that burns rather than
fructifies. Let not characters like these excite your ambition. Be yours
the unfrequented sylvan scene. Be yours the shadowy and unnoticed vale
of obscurity. Here are the mild and unruffled affections. Here are
virtue, peace and happiness. _Here also are_ GODS."
Having thus said, he dismissed the assembly, and the shepherds prepared
to return to their respective homes. Edwin and Imogen, as they had come,
so they returned together. The parents of the maiden had confided her to
the care of the gallant shepherds. "She is our only child," said they,
"our only treasure, and our life is wrapt up in her safety. Watch over
her like her guardian genius. Bring her again to our arms adorned with
the cheerfulness of tranquility and innocence." The breast of Edwin was
dilated with the charge; he felt a gentle undulation of pride and
conscious importance about his heart, at the honour conferred upon him.
The setting sun now gilded the western hills. His beams played upon
their summits, and were reflected in an irregular semi-circle of
splendour, spotless and radiant as the robes of the fairies. The heat of
the day was over, the atmosphere was mild, and all the objects round
them quiet and serene. A gentle zephyr fanned the leaves; and the
shadows of the trees, projecting to their utmost length, gave an
additional coolness and a soberer tint to the fields through which they
passed.
The conversation of these innocent and guileless lovers was, as it were,
in unison with the placidness of the evening. The sports, in which they
had been engaged, had inspired them with gaiety, and the songs they had
heard, had raised their thoughts to a sublimer pitch than was usual to
them. They praised the miracles of the tale of Modred; they sympathised
with the affliction of Evelina; and they spoke with the most unfeigned
reverence of the pious and venerable Llewelyn.
But the harmless chearfulness of their conversation did not last long.
The serenity that was around them was soon interrupted, and their
attention was diverted to external objects. Suddenly you might have
perceived a cloud, small and dark, that rose from the bosom of the sea.
By swift advances it became thicker and broader, till the whole heavens
were enveloped in its dismal shade. The gentle zephyr, that anon played
among the trees, was changed into a wind hollow and tumultuous. Its
course was irregular. Now all was still and silent as the caverns of
death; and again it burst forth in momentary blasts, or whirled the
straws and fallen leaves in circling eddies. The light of day was
shrouded and invisible. The slow and sober progress of evening was
forestalled. The woods and the hills were embosomed in darkness. Their
summits were no longer gilded. One by one the beams of the sun were
withdrawn from each; and at length Snowdon itself could not be
perceived.
Our shepherd and his charge had at this moment reached the most
extensive and unprotected part of the plain. No friendly cot was near to
shield them from the coming storm. And now a solemn peal of thunder
seemed to roll along over their heads. They had begun to fly, but the
tender Imogen was terrified at the unexpected crash, and sunk, almost
breathless, into the arms of Edwin. In the mean time, the lightnings
seemed to fill the heavens with their shining flame. The claps of
thunder grew louder and more frequent. They reverberated from rock to
rock, and from hill to hill. If at any time, for a transitory interval,
the tremendous echoes died away upon the ear, it was filled with the
hollow roaring of the winds, and the boisterous dashing of the distant
waves. At length the pealing rain descended. It seemed as if all the
waters of heaven were exhausted upon their naked heads. The anxious and
afflicted Edwin took his beauteous and insensible companion in his arms,
and flew across the plain.
But at this instant, a more extraordinary and terrifying object
engrossed his attention. An oak, the monarch of the plain, towards which
he bent his rapid course, was suddenly struck with the bolt of heaven,
and blasted in his sight. Its large and spreading branches were
withered; its leaves shrunk up and faded. In the very trunk a gaping and
tremendous rift appeared. At the same moment two huge and craggy cliffs
burst from the surrounding rocks, to which they had grown for ages, and
tumbling with a hideous noise, trundled along the plain.
At length a third spectacle, more horrible than the rest, presented
itself to the affrighted eyes of Edwin. He saw a figure, larger than the
human, that walked among the clouds, and piloted the storm. Its
appearance was dreadful, and its shape, loose and undistinguishable,
seemed to be blended with the encircling darkness. From its coutenance
gleamed a barbarous smile, ten times more terrific than the frown of any
other being. Triumph, inhuman triumph, glistened in its eye, and, with
relentless delight, it brewed the tempest, and hurled the destructive
lightning. Edwin gazed upon this astonishing apparition, and knew it for
a goblin of darkness. The heart of Edwin, which no human terror could
appal, sunk within him; his nerves trembled, and the objects that
surrounded him, swam in confusion before his eyes. But it is not for
virtue to tremble; it is not for conscious innocence to fear the power
of elves and goblins. Edwin presently recollected himself, and a gloomy
kind of tranquility assumed the empire of his heart. He was more
watchful than ever for his beloved Imogen; he gazed with threefold
earnestness upon the fearful spectre.
A sound now invaded his ear, from the shapeless rocks behind him. They
repeated it with all their echoes. It was hollow as the raging wind; and
yet it was not the raging wind. It was loud as the roaring thunder; and
yet it was not the voice of thunder. But he did not remain long in
suspense, from whence the voice proceeded. A wolf, whom hunger had made
superior to fear, leaped from the rock, upon the plain below. Edwin
turned his eyes upon the horrid monster; he grasped his boarspear in his
hand. The unconscious Imogen glided from his arms, and he advanced
before her. He met the savage in his fury, and plunged his weapon in his
side. He overturned the monster; he drew forth his lance reeking with
his blood; his enemy lay convulsed in the agonies of death. But ere he
could return, he heard the sound of a car rattling along the plain. The
reins were of silk, and the chariot shone with burnished gold. Upon the
top of it sat a man, tall, lusty, and youthful. His hair flowed about
his shoulders, his eyes sparkled with untamed fierceness, and his brow
was marked with the haughty insolence of pride. It was Roderic, lord of
a hundred hills; but Edwin knew him not. The goblin descended from its
eminence, and directed the course of Roderic. In a moment, he seized the
breathless and insensible Imogen, and lifted her to his car. Edwin
beheld the scene with grief and astonishment; his senses were in a
manner overwhelmed with so many successive prodigies. But he did not
long remain inactive; grief and astonishment soon gave way to revenge.
He took his javelin, still red with the blood of the mountain wolf, and
whirled it from his hand. Edwin was skilled to toss the dart; from his
hand it flew unerring to its aim. Forceful it sung along the air; but
the goblin advanced with hasty steps among the clouds. It touched it
with its hand, and it fell harmless and pointless to the ground. During
this action the car of Roderic disappeared. The goblin immediately
vanished; and Edwin was left in solitude.
The storm however had not yet ceased. The rain descended with all its
former fury. The thunder roared with a strong and deafening sound. The
lightnings flamed from pole to pole. But the lightnings flamed, and the
thunder roared unregarded. The storm beat in vain upon the unsheltered
head of Edwin. "Where," cried he, with the voice of anguish and despair,
"is my Imogen, my mistress, my wife, the charmer of my soul, the solace
of my heart?" Saying this, he sprung away like the roe upon the
mountains. His pace was swifter than that of the zephyr when it sweeps
along over the unbending corn. He soon reached the avenue by which the
chariot had disappeared from his sight. He leaped from rock to rock; he
ascended to the summit of the cliff. His eye glanced the swift-flying
car of Roderic; he knew him by his gilded carriage, and his spangled
vest. But he saw him only for a moment. His aching eye pursued the
triumphant flight in vain. "Stay, stay, base ravisher, inglorious
coward!" he exclaimed. "If thou art a man, return and meet me. I will
encounter thee hand to hand. I will not fear the strength of thy
shoulders, and the haughtiness of thy crest. If in such a cause, with
the pride of virtue on my side, with all the Gods to combat for me, I am
yet vanquished, then be Imogen thine: then let her be submitted to thy
despotic power, to thy brutal outrage, and I will not murmur."
But his words were given to the winds of heaven. Roderic fled far, far
away. The heart of Edwin was wrung with anguish. "Ye kind and merciful
Gods!" exclaimed he, "grant but this one prayer, and the voice of Edwin
shall no more importune you with presumptuous vows. Blot from the book
of fate the tedious interval. Give me to find the potent villain. Though
he be hemmed in with guards behind guards; though his impious mansion
strike its foundations deep to the centre, and rear its head above the
clouds; though all the powers of hell combine on his side, I will search
him out, I will penetrate into his most hidden recess. I can but die.
Oh, if I am to be deprived of Imogen, how sweet, how solacing is the
thought of death! Let me die in her cause. That were some comfort yet.
Let me die in her presence, let her eyes witness the fervour of my
attachment, and I will die without a groan."
Having thus poured forth the anguish of his bosom, he resumed the
pursuit. But how could Edwin, alone, on foot, and wearied with the
journey of the day, hope to overtake the winged steeds of Roderic? And
indeed had his speed been tenfold greater than it was, it had been
exerted to no purpose. As the ravisher arrived at the edge of the
mountain, he struck into a narrow and devious path that led directly to
his mansion. But Edwin, who had for some time lost sight of the chariot,
took no notice of a way, covered with moss and overgrown with bushes;
and pursued the more beaten road. Swift was his course; but the swifter
he flew, the farther still he wandered from the object of his search. A
rapid brook flowed across his path, which the descending rains had
swelled into a river. Without a moment's hesitation, accoutered as he
was, he plunged in. Instantly he gained the opposite bank, and divided
the air before him, like an arrow in its flight.
In the mean time, the storm had ceased, the darkness was dispersed, and
only a few thin and fleecy clouds were scattered over the blue expanse.
The sun had for some time sunk beneath the western hills. The heavens,
clear and serene, had assumed a deeper tint, and were spangled over with
stars. The moon, in calm and silver lustre, lent her friendly light to
the weary traveller. Edwin was fatigued and faint. He tried to give vent
to his complaints; but his tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth: his
spirits sunk within him. No sound now reached his ears but the baying of
the shepherds dogs, and the _drowsy tinklings_ of the _distant
folds_. The owl, the solemn bird of night, sat buried among the
branches of the aged oak, and with her melancholy hootings gave an
additional serenity to the scene. At a small distance, on his right
hand, he perceived a contiguous object that reflected the rays of the
moon, through the willows and the hazels, and chequered the view with a
clear and settled lustre. He approached it. It was the lake of Elwy; and
near it he discovered that huge pile of stones, so well known to him,
which had been reared ages since, by the holy Druids. It was upon this
spot that they worshipped the Gods. But they had no habitation near it.
They repaired thither at stated intervals from the woods of Mona, and
the shores of Arvon. One only Druid lived by the banks of the silver
flood, and watched the temple day and night, that no rude hand might do
violence to the sanctity of the place, and no profaner mortal, with
sacrilegious foot might enter the mysterious edifice. It was surrounded
with a wall of oaks. The humbler shrubs filled up their interstices, and
there was no avenue to the sacred shade, except by two narrow paths on
either side the lake.
The solemn stilness of the scene for a moment hushed the sorrows of
Edwin into oblivion. Ah, short oblivion! scarcely had he gazed around
him, and drank of the quietness and peace of the scene, ere those recent
sorrows impressed his bosom with more anguish than before. Recollecting
himself however, he trod the mead with nimble feet, and approached,
trembling and with hesitation, to the eastern avenue. "Hear me, sage and
generous Madoc," cried the shepherd, with a voice that glided along the
peaceful lake, "hear the sorrows of the most forlorn of all the sons of
Clwyd!" The hermit, who sat at the door of his grotto, perceived the
sound, and approached to the place from which it proceeded. The accent
was gentle; and he feared no boisterous intrusion. The accent was tender
and pathetic; and never was the breast of Madoc steeled against the
voice of anguish. "Approach, my son," he cried. "What disastrous event
has brought thee hither, so far from thy peaceful home, and at this
still and silent hour of night? Has any lamb wandered from thy fold, and
art thou come hither in pursuit of it?" Edwin was silent. His heart
seemed full almost to bursting, and he could not utter a word. "Hast
thou wandered from thy companions and missed the path that led to the
well-known hamlet?" "Alas," said Edwin, "I had a companion once!" and he
lifted up his eyes to heaven in speechless despair. "Has thy mistress
deserted thee, or have her parents bestowed her on some happier swain?"
"Yes," said Edwin, "I have lost her, who was dear to me as the _ruddy
drops that visit my sad heart._ But she was constant. Her parents
approved of my passion, and consigned her to my arms." "Has sickness
then overtaken her, or has untimely death put a period to thy prospects,
just as they began to bloom?" "Oh, no," said the disconsolate shepherd,
"I have encountered a disaster more comfortless and wasteful than
sickness. I had a thousand times rather have received her last sigh, and
closed her eyes in darkness!"
During this conversation, they advanced along the banks of Elwy, and
drew towards the grotto of the hermit. The hospitable Madoc brought some
dried fruits and a few roots from his cell, and spread them before his
guest. He took a bowl of seasoned wood, and hastening to the fountain,
that fell with a murmuring noise down the neighing [sic] rock, he
presented the limpid beverage. "Such," said he, "is my humble fare;
partake it with a contented heart, and it shall be more grateful to thy
taste, than the high flavoured viands of a monarch." In the mean time,
Madoc, pleased with the benevolent pursuit, gathered some bits of dry
wood, and setting them on fire, besought the swain to refresh himself
from the weariness of his travel, and the inclemency of the storm. But
the heart of Edwin was too full to partake of the provisions that his
attentive host had prepared. The chearfulness however of the blazing
hearth and the generous officiousness of the hermit, seemed by degrees
to recover him from the insensibility and lethargy, that for a time had
swallowed up all his faculties.
Madoc had hitherto contemplated his guest in silence. He permitted him
to refresh his wearied frame and to resume his dissipated spirits
uninterrupted; he suppressed the curiosity by which he was actuated, to
learn the story of the woes of Edwin. In the midst of his dejection, he
perceived the symptoms of a nobility of spirit that interested him; and
the anguish of the shepherd's mind had not totally destroyed the traces
of that mild affability, and that manly frankness for which he was
esteemed.
Edwin had no sooner appeared to shake off a small part of his
melancholy, his eye no sooner sparkled with returning fire, than Madoc
embraced the favourable omen. "My son," said he, "you seem to be full of
dejection and grief. Grief is not an inmate of the plain; the hours of
the shepherd are sped in gaiety and mirth. Suspicion and design are
stranger to his bosom. With him the voice of discord is not heard. The
scourge of war never blasted his smiling fields; the terror of invasion
never banished him from the peaceful cot. You too are young and uninured
even to the misfortunes of the shepherd. No contagion has destroyed your
flock; no wolf has broken its slender barriers: you have felt the
anguish of no wound, and been witness to the death of no friend. Say
then, my son, why art thou thus dejected and forlorn?"
"Alas," replied Edwin, "our equal lot undoubtedly removes us from the
stroke of many misfortunes; but even to us adversity extends its rod. I
have been exposed to the ravages of an invader, more fearful than the
wolf, more detested than the conqueror. From an affliction like mine, no
occupation, no rank, no age can exempt. Sawest thou not the descending
storm? Did not the rain beat upon thy cavern, and the thunder roar among
the hills?" "It did," cried Madoc, "and I was struck with reverence, and
worshipped the God who grasps the thunder in his mighty hand. Wast thou,
my son, exposed to its fury?" "I was upon the bleak and wide extended
heath. With Imogen, the fairest and most constant of the daughters of
Clwyd, I returned from the feast of Ruthyn. But alas," added the
shepherd, "the storm had no terrors, when compared with the scenes that
accompanied it. I beheld, Madoc, nor are the words I utter the words of
shameless imposition, or coward credulity; I beheld a phantom, that
glided along the air, and rode among the clouds. At his command, a wolf
from the forest, with horrid tusks, and eyes of fire, burst upon me. I
advanced towards it, that I might defend the fairest of her sex from its
fury, and plunged my javelin in its heart. But, oh! while I was thus
engaged, a chariot advanced on the opposite side! Its course was
directed by the spectre. The rider descended on the plain, and seized
the spotless, helpless Imogen; and never, never shall these eyes behold
her more! Such, O thou servant of the Gods, has been my adversity. The
powers of darkness have arrayed themselves against me. For me the storm
has been brewed; all the arrows of heaven have been directed against my
weak, defenceless head. For me the elements have mixed in tremendous
confusion; portents and prodigies have been accumulated for my
destruction. Oh, then, generous and hospitable Druid, what path is
there, that is left for my deliverance? What chance remains for me, now
that a host of invisible beings combats against me? Teach me, my friend,
my father, what it is that I must do. Tell me, is there any happiness in
store for Edwin, or must I sink, unresisting, into the arms of
comfortless despair?"
"My son," cried the venerable hermit, "hope is at all times our duty,
and despair our crime. It is not in the power of events to undermine the
felicity of the virtuous. Goblins, and spirits of darkness, are
permitted a certain scope in this terrestrial scene; but their power is
bounded; beyond a certain line they cannot wander. In vain do they
threaten innocence and truth. Innocence is a wall of brass upon which
they can make no impression. Virtue is an adamant that is sacred and
secure from all their efforts. He whose thoughts are full of rectitude
and heaven, who knows no guile, may wander in safety through
uncultivated forests, or sandy plains, that have never known the trace
of human feet. Before him the robber is just, and the satyr tame; for
him the monsters of the desert are disarmed of their terrors, and he
shall lead the wild boar and the wolf in his hand. Such is the sanctity
that heaven has bestowed on unblemished truth."
"Alas, my father," cried Edwin, "this is the lesson that was first
communicated to my childhood; and my infant heart bounded with the
sacred confidence it inspired. But excuse the presumption of a
distracted heart. This lesson, to which at another time I could have
listened with rapture and enthusiasm, seems now too loose and general
for a medicine to my woes. Innocence the Gods have made superior and
invulnerable. And, oh, in what have I transgressed? Yet, my father, I am
wounded in the tenderest part. Shall I ever recover my Imogen? Is she
not torn from me irreversibly? How shall I engage with powers invisible,
and supernatural? How shall I discover my unknown, human enemy? No,
Madoc, I am lost in impenetrable darkness. For me there is no hope, no
shadow of approaching ease."
"Be calm, my son," rejoined the anchorite. "Arrogance and impatience
become not the weak and uninformed children of the earth. Be calm, and I
will administer a remedy more appropriate to your wrongs. But remember
this is your hour of trial. If now you forget the principles of your
youth, and the instructions of the sacred Druids, you shall fall from
happiness, never to regain it more. But if you come forth pure and
unblemished from the fierce assay, your Imogen shall be yours, the Gods
shall take you into their resistless protection, and in all future ages,
when men would cite an example of distinguished felicity, they shall
say, as fortunate as Edwin of the vale." Edwin bended his knee in mute
submission.
"Listen, my son," continued the Druid. "I know your enemy, and can point
out to you his obscure retreat." The shepherd lifted up his eyes, lately
so languid, that now flashed with fire. He eagerly grasped the hand of
Madoc. "Alas," continued the hermit, "to know him would little answer
the purpose of thy bold and enterprising spirit. They adversary, as thou
mayest have conjectured, is in league with the powers of darkness.
Against them what can courage, what can adventure avail? They can
unthread thy joints, and crumble all thy sinews. They can chain up thy
limbs in marble. For how many perils, how many unforseen disasters ought
he to be prepared, who dares to encounter them?"
"The name of him who has ravished from thee the dearest treasure of thy
heart, is Roderic. His mother--attend, oh Edwin, for whatever the
incredulous may pretend, the tales related by the bards in their
immortal songs, of ghosts, and fairies, and dire enchantment, are not
vain and fabulous.--You have heard of the inauspicious fame and the bad
eminence of Rodogune. She withdrew from the fields of Clwyd within the
memory of the elder of shepherds. Various were the conjectures
occasioned by her disappearance. Some imagined, that for the haughtiness
of her humour, and the malignity of her disposition, characters that
were wholly unexampled in the pastoral life, she had been carried away
before the period limited by nature to the place of torment by the
goblins of the abyss. Others believed that she concealed herself in the
top of the highest mountain that was near them, and by a commerce with
invisible, malignant beings, still exercised the same gloomy temper in
more potent, and therefore more inauspicious harm. The blight that
overspread the meadows, the destructive contagion that diffused itself
among the flocks, the raging tempest that rooted up the oak, when the
thunder roared among the hills, and the lightning flashed from pole to
pole, they ascribed to the machinations and the sorcery of Rodogune.
Their conjectures indeed were blind, but their notions were not wholly
mistaken.
"Rodogune was the mother of Roderic. She was deeply skilled in those
dark and flagitious arts, which have cast a gloom upon this mortal
scene. The intellectual powers bestowed upon her by the Gods were great
and eminent, and were given for a far different purpose than to be
employed in these sinister pursuits. But all conspicuous talents are
liable, my son, to base perversion; and such was the fate of those of
Rodogune. She delighted in the actions which her dark and criminal
alliance with invisible powers enabled her to perform. It was her's to
mislead the benighted shepherd. It was Sher's to part the happy lovers.
For this purpose she would swell the waves, and toss the feeble bark.
She dispensed, according to the dictates of her caprice, the mildew
among the tender herb, and the pestilence among the folds of the
shepherds. By the stupendous powers of enchantment, she raised from the
bosom of a hill a wondrous edifice. The apartments were magnificent and
stately; unlike the shepherd's cot, and not to be conceived by the
imagination of the rustic. Here she accumulated a thousand various
gratifications; here she wantoned in all the secret and licentious
desires of her heart. But her castle was not merely a scene of
thoughtless pleasure. Within its circle she held crouds of degenerate
shepherds, groveling through the omnipotence of her incantations in
every brutal form. Even the spectres and the elves that disobeyed her
authority, she held in the severest durance. She compressed their tender
forms in the narrowest prison, or gave them to the stormy winds, to be
whirled, _with restless violence, round about_ the ample globe. In
a word, her mansion was one uninterrupted scene of ingenious cruelty and
miserable despair. To be surrounded with the face of disappointment and
agony was the happiness of Rodogune.
"When first by her art she raised that edifice which is now inhabited by
her son, she had been desirous to conceal it from the prying eyes of the
wanderer. In order to this, though it stood upon an eminence, she chose
an eminence that was surrounded by higher hills, and hills which,
according to the neighbouring shepherds, were impassable. No adventurous
step had ever since the day they were created pierced beyond them. It
was imagined that the space they surrounded was the haunt of elves, and
the resort of those who held commerce with evil spirits. The curling
smoke, which of late has frequently been seen to ascend from their
bosom, has confirmed this tradition. And in order to render her
habitation still more impervious, Rodogune surrounded it with a deep
grove of oaks, whose thick branches entwined together, permitted no
passage so much as to the light of day.
"Roderic was her only child, the darling of her age, and the central
object of all her cares. At his birth the elves and the fairies were
summoned together. They bestowed upon him every beauty of person and
every subtlety of wit. To every weapon they made him invulnerable. And,
without demanding from him that care and persevering study, that had
planted wrinkles on his mother's brow, they gave him to enjoy his wishes
instantly and uncontroled. One only goblin was daring enough to
pronounce a curse upon him. 'WHEN RODERIC,' cried he, 'SHALL BE
OVERREACHED IN ALL HIS SPELLS BY A SIMPLE SWAIN, UNVERSED IN THE VARIOUS
ARTS OF SORCERY AND MAGIC: WHEN RODERIC SHALL SUE TO A SIMPLE MAID, WHO
BY HIS CHARMS SHALL BE MADE TO HATE THE SWAIN THAT ONCE SHE LOVED, AND
WHO YET SHALL RESIST ALL HIS PERSONAL ATTRACTIONS AND ALL HIS POWER;
THEN SHALL HIS POWER BE AT AN END. HIS PALACES SHALL BE DISSOLVED, HIS
RICHES SCATTERED, AND HE HIMSELF SHALL BECOME AN UNFITTED, NECESSITOUS,
MISERABLE VAGABOND.' Such was the mysterious threat; and dearly did the
threatner abide it. In the mean time, an elf more generous, more
attached to Rodogune, and more potent than the rest, bestowed upon the
infant a mysterious ring. By means of this he is empowered to assume
what form he pleases. By means of this it was hoped he would be able to
subdue the most prepossessed, and melt the most obdurate female heart.
By means of this it was hoped, he might evade not only the simple swain,
but all the wiles of the most experienced and subtle adversary.
"Roderic now increased in age, and began to exhibit the promises of that
manly and graceful beauty that was destined for him. He inherited his
mother's haughtiness, and his wishes and his passions were never
subjected to contradiction. A few years since that mother died, and the
youth has been too much engaged in voluptuousness and luxury to embark
in the malicious pursuits of Rodogune, Sensuality has been his aim, and
pleasure has been his God. To gratify his passions has been the sole
object of his attentions; and he has remitted no exertion that could
enhance to him the joys of the feast and the fruition of beauty. One
low-minded gratification has succeeded to another; pleasures of an
elevated and intellectual kind have been strangers to his heart; and
were it not that the subtlety of wit was a gift bestowed upon him by
supernatural existencies, he must long ere this have sunk his mind to
the lowest savageness and the most contemptible imbecility."
Edwin heard the tale of the Druid with the deepest attention. He was
interested in the information it contained; he was astonished at the
unfathomable witcheries of Rodogune; and he could not avoid the being
apprehensive of the unexpanded powers of Roderic. But the daring and
adventurous spirit of youth, and the anxiety that he felt for the
critical situation of Imogen, soon overpowered and obliterated these
impressions. The Druid finished; and he started from his seat. "Point
me, kind and generous Madoc, to the harbour of the usurper. I will
invade his palace. I will enter fearlessly the lime-twigs of his spells.
I will trust in the omnipotency of innocence. Though the magician should
be encircled with all the horrid forms that ingenious fear ever created,
though all the grizly legions of the infernal realm should hem in, I
will find him out, and force him to relinquish his prize, or drag him by
his shining hair to a death, ignominious and accursed, as has been the
conduct of his life."
The Druid assumed a sterner and a severer aspect. "How long, son of the
valley," cried he, "wilt thou be deaf to the voice of instruction? When
wilt thou temper thy heedless and inconsiderate courage with the
coolness of wisdom and the moderation of docility? But go," added he, "I
am to blame to endeavour to govern thy headlong spirit, or stem the
torrent of youthful folly. Go, and endure the punishment of thy
rashness. Encounter the magician in the midst of his spells. Expose thy
naked and unprotected head to glut his vengeance. Over thy life indeed,
he has no power. Deliberate guilt, not unreflecting folly, can deprive
thee of thy right to that. But, oh, shepherd, what avails it to live in
hopeless misery? With ease he shall shut thee up for revolving years in
darkness tangible; he shall plunge thee deep beneath the surface of the
mantled pool, the viscous spume shall draw over thy miserable head its
dank and dismal shroud; or perhaps, more ingenious in mischief, he shall
chain thee up in inactivity, a conscious statue, the silent and passive
witness of the usurped joys that once thou fondly fanciedst thy own."
"Oh, pardon me, sage and venerable Madoc," replied the shepherd. "Edwin
did not come from the hands of nature obstinate and untractable. But
grief agitates my spirits; anxiety and apprehension conjure up a
thousand horrid phantoms before my distracted imagination, and I am no
longer myself. I will however subdue my impatient resentments. I will
listen with coolness to the voice of native sagacity and hoary
experience. Tell me then, my father, and I will hearken with mute
attention, nor think the lesson long,--instruct me how I shall escape
those tremendous dangers thou hast described. Say, is there any remedy,
canst thou communicate any potent and unconquerable amulet, that shall
shield me from the arts of sorcery? Teach me, and my honest heart shall
thank thee. Communicate it, and the benefit shall be consecrated in my
memory to everlasting gratitude."
"My son," replied Madoc, "I am indeed interested for thee. Thy heart is
ingenuous and sincere; thy misfortune is poignant and affecting. Listen
then to my directions. Receive and treasure up this small and sordid
root. In its external appearance, it is worthless and despicable; but,
Edwin, we must not judge by appearances; that which is most valuable
often delights to shroud itself under a coarse and unattractive outside.
In a richer climate, and under a more genial sun, it bears a beauteous
flower, whose broad leaves expand themselves to the day, and are clothed
with a deep and splendid purple, glossy as velvet, and bedropped with
gold. This root is a sovereign antidote against all blasts,
enchantments, witchcrafts, and magic. With this about thee, thou mayest
safely enter the haunts of Roderic; thou mayest hear his incantations
unappalled; thou mayest boldly dash from his hand his magic glass, and
shed the envenomed beverage on the ground. Then, when he stands
astonished at the unexpected phenomenon, wrest from him his potent wand.
Invoke not the unhallowed spirits of the abyss; invoke the spotless
synod of the Gods. Strike with his rod the walls of his palace, and they
shall turn to viewless air; the monster shall be deprived of all his
riches, and all his accumulated pleasures; and thou and thy Imogen,
delivered from the powers of enchantment, shall be, for one long,
uninterrupted day, happy in the enjoyment of each other.
"Attend, my son, yet attend, to one more advice, upon which all thy
advantage and all thy success in this moment of crisis hang. Engage not
in so arduous and important an enterprise immaturely. Thou hast yet no
reason for despair. Thou art yet beheld with favour by propitious
heaven. But thou mayest have reason for despair. One false step may ruin
thee. One moment of heedless inconsideration may plunge thee in years of
calamity. One moment of complying guilt may shut upon thee the door of
enjoyment and happiness for ever."
Such was the sorrow, and such were the consolations of Edwin. But far
different was the situation, and far other scenes were prepared for his
faithful shepherdess. For some time after she had been seized by
Roderic, she had remained unconscious and supine. The terrors that had
preceded the fatal capture, had overpowered her delicate frame, and sunk
her into an alarming and obstinate fit of insensibility. They had now
almost reached the palace of the magician, when she discovered the first
symptoms of returning life. The colour gradually remounted into her
bloodless cheeks; her hands were raised with a feeble and involuntary
motion, and at length she lifted up her head, and opened her languid,
unobserving eyes. "Edwin," she cried, "my friend, my companion, where
art thou? Where have we been? Oh, it is a long and tedious evening!"
Saying this, she looked upon the objects around her. The sky was now
become clear and smiling; the lowring clouds were dissipated, and the
blue expanse was stretched without limits over their head. The sources
of her former terror were indeed removed, but the objects that presented
themselves were equally alarming. All was unexpected and all was
unaccountable. Imogen had remained without consciousness from the very
beginning of the storm, and it was during her insensibility that the
goblin had been visible, and the magician descended to the plains. She
found herself mounted upon a car, and hurried along by rapid steeds. She
saw beside her a man whose face, whose garb, and whose whole appearance
were perfectly unknown to her.
"Ah," exclaimed the maiden, in a voice of amazement apprehension, "where
am I? What is become of my Edwin? And what art thou? What means all
this? These are not the well-known fields; this is not the brook of
Towey, nor these hills of Clwyd. Oh, whither, whither do we fly? This
track leads not to the cottage of my parents, and the groves of
Rhyddlan." "Be not uneasy, my fair one," answered Roderic. "We go,
though not by the usual path, to where your friends reside. I am not
your enemy, but a swain who esteems it his happiness to have come
between you and your distress, and to have rescued you from the pelting
of the storm. Suspend, my love, for a few moments your suspicions and
your anxiety, and we shall arrive where all your doubts will be removed,
and all I hope will be pleasure and felicitation." While he thus spoke
the chariot hastened to the conclusion of their journey, and entered the
area in the front of the mansion of Roderic.
The suspicions of Imogen were indeed removed, but in a manner too cruel
for her tender frame. The terror and fatigue she had previously
undergone had wasted her spirits, and the surprise she now experienced,
was more than she could sustain. As the chariot entered the court, she
cried out with a voice of horror and anguish, and sunk breathless into
the arms of her ravisher. Though the passion he had already conceived
for her, made this a circumstance of affliction, he yet in another view
rejoiced, that he was able, by its intervention, to conduct his prize in
a manner by stealth into his palace, and thus to prevent that struggle
and those painful sensations, which she must otherwise have known. For
could she have borne, without emotion, to see herself conveyed into a
wretched imprisonment? Could she have submitted, without opposition, to
be shut up, as it were, from the hope of revisiting those scenes, where
once her careless childhood played, and those friends whom she valued
more than life?
The leading pursuit of Roderic, as it had been stated by the Druid of
Elwy, was the love of pleasure, an attachment to sensuality, luxury and
lust. He often spent whole days in the bosom of voluptuousness, reposing
upon couches of down, under ceilings of gold. His senses were at
intervals awakened, by the most exquisite music, to a variety of
delight. He often recreated his view with beholding, from a posture of
supineness and indolence, the frolic games, and the mazy dance.
Sometimes, in order to diversify the scene, he would mix in the sports,
and, by the graceful activity of his limbs, and the subtle keenness of
his wit, would communicate relish and novelty to that which before had
palled upon the performers. When he moved, every eye was fixed in
admiration. When he spoke all was tranquility of attention, and every
mouth was open to applaud. Then were set forth the luxuries of the
feast. Every artifice was employed to provoke the appetite. The viands
were savoury, and the fruits were blushing; the decorations were
sumptuous, and the halls shone with a profusion of tapers, whose rays
were reflected in a thousand directions by an innumerable multitude of
mirrors and lustres. And now the intoxicating beverage went swiftly
round the board. The conversation became more open and unrestrained.
Quick were the repartees and loud the mirth. Loose, meaning glances were
interchanged between the master of the feast and the mingled beauties
that adorned his board. With artful inadvertence the gauze seemed to
withdraw from their panting bosoms, and new and still newer charms
discovered themselves to enchant the eyes and inflame the heart. The bed
of enjoyment succeeded to the board of intemperance. Such was the
history of the life of Roderic.
But man was not born for the indolence of pleasure and the uniformity of
fruition. No gratifications, but especially not those that address
themselves only to the senses, and pamper this brittle, worthless
mansion of the immortal mind, are calculated to entertain us for any
long duration. We need something to awaken our attention, to whet our
appetite, and to contrast our joys. Happiness in this sublunary state
can scarcely be felt, but by a comparison with misery. It is he only
that has escaped from sickness, that is conscious of health; it is he
only that has shaken off the chains of misfortune, that truly rejoices.
The wisdom of these maxims was felt by Roderic. Full of pleasures,
surrounded with objects of delight, he was not happy. Their uniformity
cloyed him. He had received, by supernatural endowment, an activity and
a venturousness of spirit, that were little formed for such scenes as
these. He was devoured with spleen. He sighed he knew not why; he was
peevish and ill-humoured in the midst of the most assiduous attention
and the most wakeful service. And the command he possessed over the
elements of nature was no remedy for sensations like these.
Oppressed with these feelings, Roderic was accustomed to withdraw
himself from the pomps and luxuries that surrounded him, to fly from the
gilded palace and the fretted roofs, and to mix in the simple and
undebauched scenes of artless innocence that descended on every side
from the hills he inhabited. The name of Roderic was unknown to all the
shepherds of the vallies, and he was received by them with that
officiousness and hospitality which they were accustomed to exercise to
the stranger. It was his delight to give scope to his imagination by
inventing a thousand artful tales of misfortune, by which he awakened
the compassion, and engaged the attachment of the simple hinds. In order
the more effectually to evade that curiosity which would have been fatal
to his ease, he assumed every different time that he came among them a
different form. By this contrivance, he passed unobserved, he partook
freely of their pastimes, he made his observations unmolested, and was
perfectly at leisure for the reflections, not always of the most
pleasant description, that these scenes, of simple virtue and honest
poverty, were calculated to excite. "Oh, impotence of power," exclaimed
he, wrapt up and secure in the disguise he assumed, "to what purpose art
thou desired? Ambition is surely the most foolish and misjudging of all
terrestrial passions. My condition appears attractive. I am surrounded
with riches and splendour; no man approaches me but with homage and
flattery; every object of gratification solicits my acceptance. I am not
only endowed with a capacity of obtaining all that I can wish, and that
by supernatural means, but I am almost constantly forestalled in my
wishes. Who would not say, that I am blessed? Who that heard but a
description of my state, would not envy me? O ye shepherds, happy,
thrice happy, in the confinedness of your prospects, ye would then envy
me! Instructed as I am, instructed by too fatal experience, with reason
I envy you. Hark to that swain who is now leading his flock from the
durance in which they were held till the morning peeped over the eastern
hills! The little lambs frisk about him, thankful for the liberty they
have regained, and he stretches out his hand for them to lick. Now he
drives them along the extended green, and in a wild and thoughtless note
carols a lively lay. He sings perhaps of the kind, but bashful
shepherdess. His hat is bound about with ribbon; the memorial of her coy
compliance and much-prized favour. How light is his heart, how chearful
his gait, and how gay his countenance! He leads in a string a little
frolic goat with curving horns: I suppose the prize that he bore off in
singing, which is not yet tamed to his hand, and familiarised to his
flock. What though his coat be frieze? What though his labour constantly
return with the returning day? I wear the attire of kings; far from
labouring myself, thousands labour for my convenience. And yet he is
happier than I. Envied simplicity; venerable ignorance; plenteous
poverty! How gladly would I quit my sumptuous palace, and my magic arts,
for the careless, airy, and unreflecting joys of rural simplicity!"
It was in a late excursion of this kind that he had beheld the beauteous
Imogen. His eye was struck with the charms of her person, and the
amiableness of her manners. Never had he seen a complexion so
transparent, or an eye so expressive. Her vermeil-tinctured lips were
new-blown roses that engrossed the sight, and seemed to solicit to be
plucked. His heart was caught in the tangles of her hair. Such an
unaffected bashfulness, and so modest a blush; such an harmonious and
meaning tone of voice, that expressed in the softest accents, the most
delicate sense and the most winning simplicity, could not but engage the
attention of a swain so versed in the science of the fair as Roderic.
From that distinguished moment, though he still felt uneasiness, it was
no longer vacuity, it was no longer an uneasiness irrational and
unaccountable. He had now an object to pursue. He was not now subjected
to the fatigue of forming wishes for the sake of having them instantly
gratified. When he reflected upon the present object of his desires, new
obstacles continually started in his mind. Unused to encounter
difficulty, he for a time imagined them insurmountable. Had his desires
been less pressing, had his passion been less ardent, he would have
given up the pursuit in despair. But urged along by an unintermitted
impulse, he could think of nothing else, he could not abstract his
attention to a foreign subject. He determined at least once again to
behold the peerless maiden. He descended to the feast of Ruthyn; and
though the interval had been but short, from the time in which he had
first observed her, in the eye of love she seemed improved. The charms
that erst had budded, were now full blown. Her beauties were ripened,
and her attractions spread themselves in the face of day. Nor was this
all. He beheld with a watchful glance her slight and silent intercourse
with the gallant Edwin; an intercourse which no eye but that of a lover
could have penetrated. Hence his mind became pregnant with all the
hateful brood of dark suspicions; he was agitated with the fury of
jealousy. Jealousy evermore blows the flame it seems formed to
extinguish. The passion of Roderic was more violent than ever. His
impatient spirit could not now brook the absence of a moment. Luxury
charmed no longer; the couch of down was to him a bed of torture, and
the solicitations of beauty, the taunts and sarcasms of infernal furies.
He invoked the spirit of his mother; he brought together an assembly of
elves and goblins. By their direction he formed his plan; by their
instrumentality the tempest was immediately raised; and under the
guidance of the chief of all the throng he descended upon his prey, like
the eagle from his eminence in the sky.
The success of his exploit has already been related. The scheme had
indeed been too deeply laid, and too artfully digested, to admit almost
the possibility of a miscarriage. Who but would have stood appalled,
when the storm descended upon our lovers in the midst of the plain, and
the thunders seemed to rock the whole circle of the neighbouring hills?
Who could have conducted himself at once with greater prudence and
gallantry than the youthful shepherd? Did he not display the highest
degree of heroism and address, when he laid the gaunt and haughty wolf
prostrate at his feet? But it was not for human skill to cope with the
opposition of infernal spirits. Accordingly Roderic had been victorious.
He had borne the tender maiden unresisted from the field; he had
outstripped the ardent pursuit of Edwin with a speed swifter than the
winds. In fine, he had conducted his lovely prize in safety to his
enchanted castle, and had introduced her within those walls, where every
thing human and supernatural obeyed his nod, in a state of unresisting
passivity.
Roderic, immediately upon his entrance into the castle, had committed
the fair Imogen to the care of the attendant damsels. He charged them by
every means to endeavour to restore her to sense and tranquility, and
not to utter any thing in her hearing, which should have the smallest
tendency to discompose her spirits. In obedience to orders, which they
had never known what it was to dispute, they were so unwearied in their
assiduities to their amiable charge, that it was not long before she
began once again to exhibit the tokens of renewed perception. She raised
by degrees a leaden and inexpressive eye, to the objects that were about
her, without having as yet spirit and recollectedness enough to
distinguish them. "My mother," cried she, "my venerable Edith, I am not
well. My head is quite confused and giddy. Do press it with your
friendly hand." A female attendant, as she uttered these words, drew
near to obey them. "Go, go," exclaimed Imogen, with a feeble tone, and
at the same time putting by the officious hand, "you naughty girl. You
are not my mother. Do not think to make me believe you are."
While she spoke this she began gradually to gain a more entire
sedateness and self-command. She seemed to examine, with an eager and
inquisitive eye, first one object, and then another by turns. The
novelty of the whole scene appeared for an instant to engross her
attention. Every part of the furniture was unlike that of a shepherd's
cot; and completely singular and unprecedented by any thing that her
memory could suggest. But this self-deception, this abstraction from her
feelings and her situation was of a continuance the shortest that can be
conceived. All seemed changed with her in a moment. Her eye, which, from
a state of languor and unexpressiveness, had assumed an air of intent
and restless curiosity, was now full of comfortless sorrow and
unprotected distress. "Powers that defend the innocent, support, guard
me! Where am I? What have I been doing? What is become of me? Oh, Edwin,
Edwin!" and she reclined her head upon the shoulder of the female who
was nearest her.
Recovering however, in a moment, the dignity that was congenial to her,
she raised herself from this remiss and inactive posture, and seemed to
be immersed in reflection and thought. "Yes, yes," exclaimed she, "I
know well enough how it is. You cannot imagine what a furious storm it
was: and so I sunk upon the ground terrified to death: and so Edwin left
me, and ran some where, I cannot tell where, for shelter. But sure it
could not be so neither. He could not be so barbarous. Well but however
somebody came and took me up, and so I am here. But what am I here for,
and what place is this? Tell me, ye kind shepherdesses, (if
shepherdesses you are) for indeed I am sick at heart."
The broken interrogatories of Imogen were heard with a profound silence.
"What," said the lovely and apprehensive maiden, "will you not answer
me? No, not one word. Ah, then it must be bad indeed. But I have done
nothing that should make me be afraid. I am as harmless and as chearly
as the little red-breast that pecks out of my hand? So you will not hurt
me, will you? No, I dare swear. You do not frown upon me. Your looks are
quite sweet and good-natured. But then it was not kind not to answer me,
and tell me what I asked you." "Fair stranger," replied one of the
throng, "we would willingly do any thing to oblige you. But you are weak
and ill; and it is necessary that you should not exert yourself, but try
to sleep."
"Sleep," replied the shepherdess, "what here in this strange place? No,
that I shall not, I can tell you. I never slept from under the thatch of
my father's cottage in my life, but once, and that was at the wedding of
my dear, obliging Rovena. But perhaps," added she, "my father and mother
will come to me here. So I will even try and be compilable, for I never
was obstinate. But indeed my head is strangely confused; you must excuse
me."
Such was the language, and such the affecting simplicity of the innocent
and uncultivated Imogen. She, who had been used to one narrow round of
chearful, rustic scenes, was too much perplexed to be able to judge of
her situation. Her repeated faintings had weakened her spirits, and for
a time disordered her understanding. She had always lived among the
simple; she had scarcely ever been witness to any thing but sincerity
and innocence. Suspicion therefore was the farthest in the world from
being an inmate of her breast. Suspicion is the latest and most
difficult lesson of the honest and uncrooked mind. Imogen therefore
willingly retired to rest, in compliance with the soliciation of her
attendants. She beheld no longer her ravisher, whose eye beamed with
ungovernable desires, and whose crest swelled with pride. Every
countenance was marked with apparent carefulness and sympathy. She was
even pleased with their officious and friendly-seeming demeanour.
Tell me, ye vain cavillers, ye haughty adversaries of the omnipotence of
virtue, where could artful vice, where could invisible and hell-born
seduction, have found a fitter object for their triumph? Imogen was not
armed with the lessons of experience: Imogen was not accoutered with the
cautiousness of cultivation and refinement. She was all open to every
one that approached her. She carried her heart in her hand. Ye, I doubt
not, have already reckoned upon the triumph, and counted the advantages.
But, if I do not much mistake the divine lessons I am commissioned to
deliver, the muse shall tell a very different story.
[Illustration]
BOOK THE THIRD
PURPOSES OF RODERIC.--THE CARRIAGE OF IMOGEN.--HER CONTEMPT OF RICHES.
The fatigue which Imogen had undergone in the preceding day, prepared
her to rest during the night with more tranquility than could otherwise
have been expected. The scenes to which she had successively been
witness, and the objects that now surrounded her, were too novel and
extraordinary in their character, to allow much room for the severity of
reflection, and the coolness of meditation. Her frame was tired with the
various exercises in which she had engaged; her mind was hurried and
perplexed without knowing upon what to fix, or in what manner to account
for the events that had befallen her: she therefore sunk presently into
a sweet and profound sleep; and while every thing seemed preparing for
her destruction, while a thousand enchantments were essayed, and a
thousand schemes revolved in the busy mind of Roderic, she remained
composed and unapprehensive. Innocence was the sevenfold shield that
protected her from harm; her eyes were closed in darkness, and a smile
of placid benignity played upon the lovely features of her countenance.
Roderic in the mean time had retired to his chamber. His mind was turbid
and unquiet. So restless are the waves of the ocean before the coming
tempest. They assume a darker hue, and reflect a more cloudy heaven.
They roll this way and that in a continual motion, and yet without any
direction, till the loud and hoarse-echoing wind determines their course
and carries them in mountains to the sounding shore. The mind of the
victim was all quiet and unruffled; such is the kindly influence of
conscious truth. The mind of the ravisher exhibited nothing but
uneasiness and confusion; such are the boons which vice bestows upon her
misjudging votaries.
The conqueror, doubly misled by fierce and unruly passions and by his
inauspicious commerce with the goblins of the abyss, retired not
immediately to his couch, but walked up and down his apartments, with a
hasty and irregular step. "Thanks to my favourable stars," exclaimed he,
"I am triumphant! What power can resist me? Where is the being that
shall dare to say, that one wish of my heart shall go unfulfilled? Well
then, I have got the fair the charming she into my power. She is shut up
in a palace, unseen by every human eye, to which no human foot ever
found its way but at my bidding. She is closed round with spells and
enchantment. I can by a word deprive her every limb of motion. If I but
wave this wand, the leaden God of sleep shall sink her in a moment in
the arms of forgetfulness, whatever were before her anxieties and her
wakeful terrors. In what manner then shall I, thus absolute and
uncontroled in all I bid exist, proceed? Shall I press the unwilling
beauty to my bosom, and riot in her hoard of charms, without waiting
like meaner mortals to sue for the consent of her will? There is
something noble, royal, and independent, in the thought. Beauty never
appears so attractive as from behind a veil of tears. Oh, how I enjoy
infancy [sic] the anger that shall flush her lovely cheek! Perhaps she
will even kneel to me to deprecate that which an education of prejudices
has taught her to consider as the worst of evils. Yes, my lovely maid, I
will raise thee. Do not turn from me those scornful indignant eyes. I
will be thy best friend. I will not hurt a hair of thy head. Oh, when
her spotless bosom pants with disdain, how sweet to beat the little
chiders, and by a friendly violence, which true and comprehensive wisdom
cannot stigmatize, to teach her what is the true value of beauty, and
for what purpose such enchanting forms as her's were sent to dwell
below!"
Thus spoke the ravisher, and as he spoke he assumed, although alone, a
firmer stride and a more haughty crest. Upon the instant however his
ears were saluted with a low and continual sound, that became, by just
degrees, stronger and more strong. The walls of his palace shook; a
sudden and supernatural light gleamed along his apartment, and a spectre
stood before him. Roderic lifted up his eyes, and immediately recognised
the features of that goblin, who from the hour of his birth, had
declared himself his adversary. He had been repeatedly used to the
visits of this malicious spirit, who delighted to subvert all his
schemes, and to baffle his deepest projects. This was the only
misfortune, the sovereign of the hills had ever known; this was the only
instance in which he had at any time been taught what it was to have his
power controled and his nod unobeyed. He had often sought, by means of
the confederacy he held with other spirits of the infernal regions, to
restrain his enemy, or by punishment and suffering to make him rue his
opposition. But the goblin he had to encounter, though not the most
potent, was of all the rest the most crafty in his wiles, and the most
abundant in expedients. As many times as his fellows had by the
instigation of Roderic undertaken to encounter him, so often had they in
the end been eluded and defeated. The contest was now given up, and the
goblin was at liberty to haunt and threaten his impotant adversary as
much as he pleased.
"Roderic," cried he, with a harsh and unpleasant accent, "I am come to
humble the haughtiness of thy triumph, and to pull down thy aspiring
thoughts. Impotent and rancorous mortal! Know, that innocence is
defended with too strong a shield for thee to pierce! Boast not thyself
of the immensity of thy walls, and put no confidence in the subtlety of
thy enchantments. Before the mightiness that waits on innocence, they
are not less impotent than the liquid wax, or the crumbling ruin. Learn,
oh presumptuous mortal, that sacred and unyielding chastity is
invulnerable to all the violence of men, and all the stratagems of
goblins. I would not name to thee so salutary an advice as to dismiss
thy innocent and unsuspicious prize, did not I know thee too obstinate
and headstrong to listen to the voice of wisdom. Essay then thy base and
low-minded temptations, thy corrupt and sophistical reasonings, to
tarnish the unsullied purity of her mind, and it is well. If by such a
wretch as thee she can be seduced from the obedience of virtue and the
Gods, then let her fall. She were then a victim worthy of thee. But if
thou essayest the means of tyranny and force, the attempt will be fatal
to thee. I will in that case enjoy my vengeance; I will triumph in thy
desolation. In the hour then of action and enterprise, remember me!"
With these words the spectre vanished from his sight. Roderic was
inflamed with anger and disgust; but he had none, upon whom to wreak his
revenge. His heart boiled with the impotence of malice. "What," cried
he, "am I to be bounded and hedged in, in all my exploits? Am I to be
curbed and thwarted in every wish of my heart? This, this was nearest to
me. This was the first pursuit of my life in which my whole heart was
engaged; the first time I ever felt a passion |
