FOOTNOTE:
[A] The reader is requested to call to mind, that this is the description of the Theatrical Profession, at that period of its history in this country, when the plays of Farquhar, and others of the same taste, occupied the stage; and were performed by persons who too nearly resembled in reality the characters they represented.—With Garrick and revived Shakspeare, morals and propriety were restored:—and at the head of our present British actresses who possess the "grace of delicate reserve, which is the indispensable work of a true English gentlewoman;" no one can fail to respect Mrs. Siddons.
CHAP. IV.
He slept, and the scene was renewed with a thousand strange varieties. Imagination recalled, in fantastic vision, all that he had read of enchanted pleasures, or of descending goddesses mingling their immortal nature with favoured man. He now lost his own identity in the person of Rogero, slumbering away life in the arms of Alcina; and then became the indignant Rinaldo, cutting his way through the entangling thickets of Armida's wood.—He awoke heated, and unrefreshed. His heart panted with his imaginary contest; and his fevered temples beat to agony as he sprung from his disordered bed, and throwing open the window towards the breezes of the sea, inhaled their cooling freshness. His tremulous frame gradually recovered a braced tone; and wrapping his dressing-gown around him, he stood gazing on the opposite rocks of Lindisfarne, with feelings as new to him as had been the spectacle of the night before. He blushed as he thought of rejoining the dear inhabitants of that sacred spot.—A strange faintness seized on his heart—a sense of shame!
"For what?" cried he, "what have I done, to cause this self-accusation?—I have not broken my word with my uncle; I did not consent willingly, to stay till this morning: I made the sacrifice to Sir Anthony's feelings."
Thus far, his conscience acquitted him; and he breathed freer: but still he could not say, my heart is lightened of its load.
"I feel myself polluted!" cried he; "I know not what was said and done last night, to change me thus; but the wine I drank, and those women's looks and words; and my very dreams, seem to have contaminated my soul and body!—Oh, holy Lindisfarne!—My uncle, my sweet cousins, why did I ever leave your innocent presence!"
With this agonized invocation, he hastened to dress himself; that he might fly from the castle, and all its present mischiefs.