illustrious a defender.

The other champion, who, in the mean time, had been looking on through
the eyelets of his visor, was now entreated to disclose his own face. He
did so with peculiar emotion, and king and all recognised with transport
the face of the loved and, as it was supposed, lost Ariodante. The
pilgrim, however, had told no falsehood. The lover had indeed thrown
himself into the sea, and disappeared from the man's eyes; but (as
oftener happens than people suppose) the death which was desired when
not present became hated when it was so; and Ariodante, lover as he
was, rising at a little distance, struck out lustily for the shore, and
reached it.[4] He felt even a secret contempt for his attempt to kill
himself; yet putting up at an hermitage, became interested in the reports
concerning the princess, whose sorrow flattered, and whose danger,
though he could not cease to think her guilty, afflicted him. He grew
exasperated with the very brother he loved, when he found that Lurcanio
pursued her thus to the death; and on all these accounts he made his
appearance at the place of combat to fight him, though not to slay. His
purpose was to seek his own death. He concluded that Ginevra would then
see who it was that had really loved her, while his brother would mourn
the rashness which made him pursue the destruction of a woman. "Guilty
she is," thought he, "but no such guilt can deserve so cruel a
punishment. Besides, I could not bear that she should die before me. She
is still the woman I love, still the idol of my thoughts. Right or wrong,
I must die in her behalf."

With this intention he purchased a suit of black armour, and obtained a
squire unknown in those parts, and so made his appearance in the lists.
What ensued there I need not repeat; but the king was so charmed with the
issue of the whole business, with the resuscitation of the favourite whom
he thought dead, and the restoration of the more than life of his beloved
daughter, that, to the joy of all Scotland, and at the special instance
of the great Paladin, he made the two lovers happy without delay; and the
bride brought her husband for dowry the title and estates of the man who
had wronged him.

[Footnote 1: The main point of this story, the personation of Ginevra by
one of her ladies, has been repeated by many writers--among others by
Shakspeare, in _Much Ado about Nothing_. The circumstance is said to have
actually occurred in Ferrara, and in