At length she mounts her chariot, and flies with the wings of revenge to the veteran camp at Brescia. The terror impressed on the people by her hasty departure is imaged with great sublimity.
She seem’d their city’s Genius as she pass’d,
Who, by their sins expell’d, would ne’er return.
The third canto brings us to Brescia, where Hubert’s arrival with the dead body of Oswald excites every emotion of surprize, grief and fury in the breasts of the brave veterans. They spend the night in this storm of contending passions; and at day-break assemble round the tent of Hubert, who by a noble harangue gives additional fire to their revenge. They instantly arm, and demand to be led to Bergamo; when Gartha arrives. She turns their vengeance against the court, where she represents the triumph of Gondibert’s faction, and the dishonour cast upon their own. The rage discovered in her countenance, overpowering the symptoms of grief, is painted with amazing grandeur in the following simile:
The Sun did thus to threat’ned nature show
His anger red, whilst guilt look’d pale in all,
When clouds of floods did hang about his brow;
And then shrunk back to let that anger fall.
This tempest is, however, allayed in the next canto by the arrival of the wife Hermegild; who, though grown aged in war and politics, is possessed with a youthful passion for Gartha. He solemnly binds his services to their party, for the reward of Gartha’s love; but persuades them to submit to more cautious and pacific measures. Gartha returns with him to the court; and the funeral of Oswald with Roman rites, “Which yet the world’s last law had not forbid,” is described in the remaining part of the canto.
From scenes of rage and tumult the poet then leads us to the quiet shades of philosophy in the house of Astragon. This change is not better calculated for the reader’s relief, than for a display of the richness and elevation of the writer’s mind. That the friend of Hobbes should despise the learned lumber of the schools will not be thought extraordinary; but that he should distinctly mark out such plans of acquiring knowledge as have since been pursued with the greatest success, may well be deemed a remarkable proof of high and comprehensive genius. In Astragon’s domain is a retired building, upon which is written in large letters, GREAT NATURE’S OFFICE. Here sit certain venerable sages, stiled Nature’s Registers, busied in recording what is brought them by a throng called their Intelligencers. These men are diversly employed in exploring the haunts of beasts, of birds, and of fishes, and collecting observations of their manners, their prey, their increase, and every circumstance of their œconomy. Near this place is NATURE’S NURSERY, stocked with every species of plants, of which the several properties and virtues are diligently examined. Is it not striking to find, in the house of Astragon so exact a model of the school of Linnæus?