secret of the delight they give us is their being poetical comments,
as it were, on fancies and metaphors of our own. Thus, we say of
a suspicious man, that he is suspicion itself; Ariosto turns him
accordingly into an actual being of that name. We speak of the flights of
the poets; Ariosto makes them literally flights--flights on a hippogriff,
and to the moon. The moon, it has been said, makes lunatics; he
accordingly puts a man's wits into that planet. Vice deforms beauty;
therefore his beautiful enchantress turns out to be an old hag. Ancient
defeated empires are sounds and emptiness; therefore the Assyrian and
Persian monarchies become, in his limbo of vanities, a heap of positive
bladders. Youth is headstrong, and kissing goes by favour; so Angelica,
queen of Cathay, and beauty of the world, jilts warriors and kings, and
marries a common soldier.

And what a creature is this Angelica! what effect has she not had upon
the world in spite of all her faults, nay, probably by very reason of
them! I know not whether it has been remarked before, but it appears to
me, that the charm which every body has felt in the story of Angelica
consists mainly in that very fact of her being nothing but a beauty and
a woman, dashed even with coquetry, which renders her so inferior in
character to most heroines of romance. Her interest is founded on nothing
exclusive or prejudiced. It is not addressed to any special class. She
might or might not have been liked by this person or that; but the world
in general will adore her, because nature has made them to adore beauty
and the sex, apart from prejudices right or wrong. Youth will attribute
virtues to her, whether she has them or not; middle-age be unable to help
gazing on her; old-age dote on her. She is womankind itself, in form and
substance; and that is a stronger thing, for the most part, than all our
figments about it. Two musical names, "Angelica and Medoro," have become
identified in the minds of poetical readers with the honeymoon of