OUTLINE OF STORY. 409 Julian; and is so far overmastered by his passion, as, in a moment of frenzy, to offer violence to her person. Her father in revenge of this cruel wrong, invites the Moors to seize on the kingdom of the guilty monarch; - and, assuming their faith, guides them at last to a signal and sanguinary victory. Roderick, after performing prodigies of valour, in a seven-days fight, feels at length that Heaven has ordained all this misery as the penalty of his offences; and, overwhelmed with remorse and inward agony, falls from his battle horse in the midst of the carnage: Stripping off his rich armour, he then puts on the dress of a dead peasant; and, pursued by revengeful furies, rushes desperately on through his lost and desolated kingdom, till he is stopped by the sea; on the rocky and lonely shore of which he passes more than a year in constant agonies of penitence and humiliation, -till he is roused at length, by visions and impulses, to undertake something for the deliverance of his suffering people. Grief and abstinence have now so changed him, that he is recognized by no one; and being universally believed to have fallen in battle, he traverses great part of his former realm, witnessing innumerable scenes of wretchedness and valour, and rousing, by his holy adjurations, all the generous spirits in Spain, to unite against the invaders. After a variety of trials and adventures, he at last recovers his good war horse, on the eve of a great battle with the infidels; and, bestriding him in his penitential robes, rushes furiously into the heart of the fight, where, kindling with the scene and the cause, he instinctively raises his ancient war cry, as he deals his resistless blows on the heads of the misbelievers; and the thrilling words of "Roderick the Goth! Roderick and victory!" resounding over the astonished field, are taken up by his inspired followers, and animate them to the utter destruction of the enemy. At the close of the day, however, when the field is won, the battle horse is found without its rider! and the sword which he wielded lying at its feet. The poem closes with a brief intimation, that it was not known till many centuries thereafter, that the 410 SOUTHEY'S RODERICK FLIGHT OF RODERICK. heroic penitent had again sought the concealment of a remote hermitage, and ended his days in solitary penances. The poem, however, both requires and deserves a more particular analysis. The First Book or canto opens with a slight sketch of the invasion, and proceeds to the fatal defeat and heartstruck flight of Roderick. The picture of the first descent of the Moorish invaders, is a good specimen of the author's broader and more impressive manner. is addressing the rock of Gibraltar. "Thou saw'st the dark blue waters flash before He The agony of the distracted king, as he flies in vain from himself through his lost and ruined kingdom; and the spectacle which every where presented itself of devastation and terror, and miserable emigration, are represented with great force of colouring. At the end of the seventh day of that solitary and despairing flight, he arrives at the portal of an ancient convent, from which all its holy tenants had retired on the approach of the Moors, except one aged priest, who had staid to deck the altar, and earn his crown of martyrdom from the infidel host. By him Roderick is found grovelling at the foot of the cross, and drowned in bitter and penitential sorrows. He leads him in with compassionate soothings, and supplicates him before the altar to be of comfort, and to trust in mercy. The result is told with great feeling and admirable effect: and the worthy father weeps and watches with his penitent through the night: and in the morning resolves to forego the glories of martyrdom for his sake, and to bear him company in the retreat to which he is hastening. They set out together, ROUSES FROM HIS AGONY. 411 and fix themselves in a little rocky bay, opening out to the lonely roar of the Atlantic. "Behind them was the desert, off'ring fruit a'd As in perpetual jubilee, proclaim' The wonders of the Almighty, filling thus Where better could the wanderers rest than here?" The Second Book begins with stating, that Roderick passed twelve months in penance and austerities, in this romantic retreat.-At the end of that time, his ghostly father dies; and his agonies become more intolerable, in the utter desolation to which he is now left. The author, however, is here a little unlucky in two circumstances, which he imagines and describes at great length, as aggravating his unspeakable misery;-one is the tameness of the birds of which we have spoken already the other is the reflection which he very innocently puts into the mouth of the lonely king, that all the trouble he has taken in digging his own grave, will now be thrown away, as there will probably be nobody to stretch him out, and cover him decently up in it! However, he is clearly made out to be very miserable; and prays for death, or for the imposition of some more active penance— At length he is visited, in his sleep, by a vision of his tender mother; who gives him her blessing in a gentle voice, and says, "Jesus have mercy on thee." The air and countenance of this venerable shade, as she bent in sorrow over her unhappy son, are powerfully depicted in the following allusion to her domestic calamities. He traced there, it seems, not only the settled sadness of her widowhood "But a more mortal wretchedness than when Had done their work, and in her arms she held 412 SOUTHEY'S RODERICK-BEGINS HIS CRUsade. Which still his tortures forc'd from every pore; While he gazes on this piteous countenance, the character of the vision is suddenly altered; and the verses describing the alteration afford a good specimen both of Mr. Southey's command of words, and of the profusion with which he sometimes pours them out on his readers. "And lo! her form was chang'd! Radiant in arms she stood! a bloody Cross Rose like the Berecynthian Goddess crown'd Rout and pursuit, and death! and over all The shout of Victory . . . of Spain and Victory!"—p. 24, 25. In awaking from this prophetic dream, he resolves to seek occasion of active service, in such humble capacity as becomes his fallen fortune; and turns from this first abode of his penitence and despair. The Third Book sets him on his heroic pilgrimage; opens with a fine picture. and "'T was now the earliest morning; soon the Sun, Amid the forest, and with ray aslant Ent'ring its depth illum'd the branchless pines; We do not know that we could extract from the whole book a more characteristic passage than that which describes his emotion on his first return to the sight of FIRST SIGHT OF HIS CONQUERED REALM. 413 man, and the altered aspect of his fallen people. He approaches to the walls of Leyria. Of turban, girdle, robe, and scymitar, And tawny skins, awoke contending thoughts Confus'd him now, and through the streets he went Craz'd or bewilder'd. "One stopt him short, Put alms into his hand, and then desir'd, A Christian woman spinning at her door Wept like a child! Beside a little rill, and brake the loaf; And shedding o'er that unaccustom'd food He breathed thanksgiving forth; then made his bed After this, he journeys on through deserted hamlets and desolated towns, till, on entering the silent streets of Auria, yet black with conflagration, and stained with blood, the vestiges of a more heroic resistance appear before him. "Helmet and turban, seymitar and sword, Christian and Moor in death promiscuous lay |