Where ROLLE may be, what ROLLO was before.
This, as may be naturally supposed, excites the curiosity of the Duke; but MERLIN declares, that it is not permitted him to reveal the glories of the Upper house. The hero must first fulfil his fates, by mortally wounding the Saxon drummer, whom Providence shall inspire in his last moments for this particular purpose.
Ere yet thou know, what higher honours wait
Thy future race, accomplish them thy fate.
When now the bravest of our Saxon train
Beneath thy conquering arms shall press the plain;
What yet remains, his voice divine in death
Shall tell, and Heav’n for this shall lengthen out his breath.
Which last line is most happily lengthened out into an Alexandrine, to make the sound an echo to the sense. The pause too after the words “shall tell,” finely marks the sudden catches and spasmodic efforts of a dying man. Some extracts from the Drummer’s prophecies have already been given to the public; and from these specimens of his loquacity with a thurst in quarte through his lungs, our readers will probably see the propriety with which the immediate hand of Heaven is here introduced. The most rigid critic will not deny that here is truly the
Dignus vindice nodus,
which Horace requires to justify the interposition of a Divinity.
We are now come to the concluding lines of the sixth book. Our readers are probably acquainted with the commonly-received superstition relative to the exit of Magicians, that they are carried away by Devils. The poet has made exquisite use of this popular belief, though he could not help returning in the last line to his favourite Virgil. Classical observers will immediately perceive the allusion to
———Revocare gradum, superasque evadere ad auras
Hic labor, hoc opus est;
in the description of ROLLO’s re-ascent from the night-cellar into the open air.
The Prophet foreseeing his instant end,