he left him, and so mounted the opposite bank, and again rushed over the country.  A more terrible bridge than this was in his way—­even a precipitous pass of frightful height over a valley; but still he scoured onwards, throwing over it the agonised passengers that dared, in their ignorance of his strength, to oppose him; and so always rushing and raging, he came down the mountains by the sea-side to Barcelona, where he cast his eyes on the sands, and thought, in his idiot mind, to make himself a house in them for coolness and repose; and so he grubbed up the sand, and laid himself down in it:  and this was the terrible madman whom Angelica and Medoro saw looking at them as they were approaching the city.

Neither of them knew him, nor did he know Angelica; but, with an idiot laugh, he looked at her beauty, and liked her, and came horribly towards her to carry her away.  Shrieking, she put spurs to her horse and fled; and Medoro, in a fury, came after the pursuer and smote him, but to no purpose.  The great madman turned round and smote the other’s horse to the ground, and so renewed his chase after Angelica, who suddenly regained enough of her wits to recollect the enchanted ring.  Instantly she put it into her lips and disappeared; but in her hurry she fell from her palfrey, and Orlando forgot her in the instant, and, mounting the poor beast, dashed off with it over the country till it died; and so at last, after many dreadful adventures by flood and field, he came running into a camp full of his brother Paladins, who recognised him with tears; and, all joining their forces, succeeded in pulling him down and binding him, though not without many wounds:  and by the help of these friends, and the special grace of the apostle St. John (as will be told in another place), the wits of the champion of the church were restored, and he became ashamed of that passion for an infidel beauty which the heavenly powers had thus resolved to punish.

But Angelica and Medoro pursued the rest of their journey in peace, and took ship on the coast of Spain for India; and there she crowned her bridegroom King of Cathay.  The description of Orlando’s jealousy and growing madness is reckoned one of the finest things in Italian poetry; and very fine it surely is—­as strong as the hero’s strength, and sensitive as the heart of man.  The circumstances are heightened, one after the other, with the utmost art as well as nature.  There is a scriptural awfulness in the account of the hero’s becoming naked; and the violent result is tremendous.  I have not followed Orlando into his feats of ultra-supernatural strength.  The reader requires to be prepared for them by the whole poem.  Nor are they necessary, I think, to the production of the best effect; perhaps would hurt it in an age unaccustomed to the old romances.

* * * * *

[Footnote 1:  See p. 58 of the present volume.]

[Footnote 2: