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It was a ground, too, which was rich in associations of history and romance, the arena of gallant struggle and heroic effort for many and many an age; a place that called up memories of Hannibal, with his conquering armies; of Rome, with her invincible legions; of Charlemagne, with his Paladins; of Abd-er-Rahman, with his brilliant Saracens; of the steel-clad Crusaders; of the martial hosts of Arragon; of the resistless infantry of Ferdinand and Isabella; of the wars of the Spanish succession; of the redcoats of Wellington; through all the ages down to the time of this story, when Don Carlos was standing among these northern mountains, as Pelajo stood more than a thousand years ago, leading on his hardy warriors to battle against all the rest of Spain.
He lingered spell-bound among the scenes of mediaeval chivalry. His spirit had dwelt until almost naturalized in the mystic dreamland of the Paladins, Crusaders, and Knights Templars; with Monmouth and Percy, with Bois-Guilbert and Ivanhoe and the bold McGregor; with the Cavaliers of Rupert, and the iron enthusiasts of Fairfax."
One volume, square 12mo. $2.00. This volume is intended as a companion to "The Story of Siegfried." As Siegfried was an adaptation of Northern myths and romances to the wants and the understanding of young readers, so is this story a similar adaptation of the middle-age romances relating to Charlemagne and his paladins.
Just behind the fortifications the Spaniards were hooked up into rather high links of the chains, so that, from the front, they appeared to be looking over the wall and defending the city. Carlo Magno and his paladins brought ladders, scaled the wall, fought the Spaniards and effected an entrance. The fights were mostly duels.
Another typical piece, of a highly decorative allegorical character, is a rectangular coffret with arched lid, the ornament being in colours and gilt. On the front is a knight and a lady, on the lid two paladins mounted on griffins, two savages with clubs and shields, and two images of the sun, these typifying the story of the delivery of a captured lady by a knight.
This son of Gan, meanwhile, and several of the paladins, who distrusted the misbelievers, and were anxious at all events to be with Orlando, had joined the hero in the fatal valley; so that the little Christian host, considering the tremendous valor of their lord and his friends, were not to be sold for nothing.
This son of Gan, meantime, and several of the Paladins who were disgusted with Charles's credulity, and anxious at all events to be with Orlando, had joined the hero in the fated valley; so that the little Christian host, considering the tremendous valour of their lord and his friends, and the comparative inefficiency of that of the infidels, were at any rate not to be sold for nothing.
Not the less, however, for this, did the Paladins continue to fight as if with joy. They killed and trampled wheresoever they went; Rinaldo fatiguing himself with sending infinite numbers of souls to Ashtaroth, and Orlando making a bloody passage towards Marsilius, whom he hoped to settle as he had done Falseron.
Gifted with almost superhuman insight and energy himself, he too often credited his paladins with possessing the same divine afflatus. Furthermore, he had a supreme contempt for his enemies. Victorious in a hundred fights over second-rate opponents in his youth, he could not now school his hardened faculties to the caution needed in a contest with Wellington, Gneisenau, and Blücher.
Besides, Fables make us imagine divers events possible, which are not so: And that even the most faithfull Histories, if they neither change or augment the value of things, to render them the more worthy to be read, at least, they always omit the basest and less remarkable circumstances; whence it is, that the rest seems not as it is; and that those who form their Manners by the examples they thence derive, are subject to fall into the extravagancies of the Paladins of our Romances, and to conceive designes beyond their abilities.
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