“And this,” exclaimed the gallant shepherd, “is the residence prepared for infamy and lust. The sun pours upon it his light with as large a hand, the herbage, the flowers and the fruits as fully partake of the bounteous care of nature, as the vales of simplicity and the fields of innocence. How venerable and alluring is the edifice I behold! Does not peace dwell within, and are not the hours of its possessor winged with happiness? Had my youth been spent among the beasts of the forests, had not my ears drank in the sacred instructions of the godlike Druids, I might have thought so. But, no. In vain in the extensive empire that the arts of sorcery and magic afford, shall felicity be sought. What avails all this splendour? and to what purpose this mighty profusion? All the possessions that I can boast, are my little flock, my wattled cottage, and my slender pipe. And yet I carol as jocound a lay, my heart is as light and frolic, and the tranquility of self-acquittal spreads her wings as wide over my bosom, as they could were I lord of a hundred hills, and called all the streamlets of the valley my own. The magician possesses a large hoard of beauty, and he can wander from fair to fair with unlimited and fearless licence. All merciful and benign beings, who dwell above this azure concave, give me my Imogen! Restore her safe and unhurt to these longing, faithful arms! Let not this arbitrary and imperious tyrant, who grasps wide the fairest productions of thy creation with a hundred hands,—let him not wrest from me my solitary lamb,—let him not seize for ever upon that companion, in whom the most expansive and romantic wishes of my heart had learned to be satisfied.”
Such were the beautiful and virtuous sentiments of Edwin, as he beheld the empire of his rival from the head of the rock, and as he crossed the glade that still divided him from the object of all his exertions. From the eminence upon which he had paused for a few contemplative moments, the distance had appeared narrow and trifling. But the equal height of the ground upon which he stood, and of that which afforded a situation for the palaces of Roderic, had deceived him. When he looked towards the scene that was to form the termination of his journey, the glade below escaped from his sight. But when he descended to the plain, it was otherwise. One swell of the surface he had to traverse succeeded another; and the irregularity of the ground caused him sometimes to be lost, in a manner, in the length of the way, and took from him the consolation of being able so much as to perceive the object of his destination. As he passed the hills, and climbed each successive ascent, a murmur rose in his bosom; his impatience grew more and more ungovernable, and the eagerness of his pursuit taught him to imagine, that his little labour would never be done.