charmed no longer; the couch of down was to him a bed of torture, and
the solicitations of beauty, the taunts and sarcasms of infernal furies.
He invoked the spirit of his mother; he brought together an assembly of
elves and goblins. By their direction he formed his plan; by their
instrumentality the tempest was immediately raised; and under the
guidance of the chief of all the throng he descended upon his prey, like
the eagle from his eminence in the sky.

The success of his exploit has already been related. The scheme had
indeed been too deeply laid, and too artfully digested, to admit almost
the possibility of a miscarriage. Who but would have stood appalled,
when the storm descended upon our lovers in the midst of the plain, and
the thunders seemed to rock the whole circle of the neighbouring hills?
Who could have conducted himself at once with greater prudence and
gallantry than the youthful shepherd? Did he not display the highest
degree of heroism and address, when he laid the gaunt and haughty wolf
prostrate at his feet? But it was not for human skill to cope with the
opposition of infernal spirits. Accordingly Roderic had been victorious.
He had borne the tender maiden unresisted from the field; he had
outstripped the ardent pursuit of Edwin with a speed swifter than the
winds. In fine, he had conducted his lovely prize in safety to his
enchanted castle, and had introduced her within those walls, where every
thing human and supernatural obeyed his nod, in a state of unresisting
passivity.

Roderic, immediately upon his entrance into the castle, had committed
the fair Imogen to the care of the attendant damsels. He charged them by
every means to endeavour to restore her to sense and tranquility, and
not to utter any thing in her hearing, which should have the smallest
tendency to discompose her spirits. In obedience to orders, which they