a
Parea che l'erba a lei fiorisse intorno,
E d'amor ragionasse quella riva."

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

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

[Footnote 10: Sometimes called in the romances _Frusberta_ (query, from
_fourbir_, to burnish; or, _froisser_, to crush?). The meaning does not
seem to be known. I ought to have observed, in the notes to Pulci, that
the name of Orlando's sword, _Durlindana_ (called also _Durindana,
Durandal_, &c.), is understood to mean _Hardhitter_.]

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

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

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

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

THE

DEATH OF AGRICAN

Argument.

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

THE

DEATH OF AGRICAN.

The siege of Albracca was going on formidably under the command of
Agrican, and the city of Galafron was threatened with the loss of the
monarch's daughter, Angelica, when Orlando, at his earnest prayer, came
to assist him, and changing at once the whole course of the war, threw
the enemy in his turn into transports of anxiety. Wherever the