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The beautiful daughter of Count Julian was
received with great favour by the Queen Exilona
and admitted among the noble damsels that
attended upon her person. Here she lived in
honour and apparent security, and surrounded by
innocent delights. To gratify his queen, Don
Roderick had built for her rural recreation a
palace without the walls of Toledo, on the banks
of the Tagus. It stood in the midst of a garden,
adorned after the luxurious style of the East.
The air was perfumed by fragrant shrubs and
flowers; the groves resounded with the song of
the nightingale, while the gush of fountains and
water-falls, and the distant murmur of the Tagus,
made it a delightful retreat during the sultry days
of summer. The charm of perfect privacy also
reigned throughout the place, for the garden
walls were high, and numerous guards kept
watch without to protect it from all intrusion.

In this delicious abode, more befitting an oriental
voluptuary than a Gothic king, Don Roderick

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was accustomed to while away much of that time
which should have been devoted to the toilsome
cares of government. The very security and
peace which he had produced throughout his
dominions by his precautions to abolish the means
and habitudes of war, had effected a disastrous
change in his character. The hardy and heroic
qualities which had conducted him to the throne,
were softened in the lap of indulgence. Surrounded
by the pleasures of an idle and effeminate
court, and beguiled by the example of his
degenerate nobles, he gave way to a fatal sensuality
that had lain dormant in his nature during
the virtuous days of his adversity. The mere
love of female beauty had first enamoured him
of Exilona, and the same passion, fostered by
voluptuous idleness, now betrayed him into the
commission of an act fatal to himself and Spain.
The following is the story of his error as gathered
from an old chronicle and legend.

In a remote part of the palace was an apartment
devoted to the queen. It was like an eastern
harem, shut up from the foot of man, and
where the king himself but rarely entered. It
had its own courts, and gardens, and fountains,
where the queen was wont to recreate herself
with her damsels, as she had been accustomed
to do in the jealous privacy of her father's palace.

One sultry day, the king, instead of taking his

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siesta, or mid-day slumber, repaired to this
apartment to seek the society of the queen. In
passing through a small oratory, he was drawn
by the sound of female voices to a casement over-hung
with myrtles and jessamines. It looked
into an interior garden or court, set out with
orange trees, in the midst of which was a marble
fountain, surrounded by a grassy bank, enamelled
with flowers.

It was the high noontide of a summer day,
when, in sultry Spain, the landscape trembles to
the eye, and all nature seeks repose, except the
grasshopper, that pipes his lulling note to the
herdsman as he sleeps beneath the shade.

Around the fountain were several of the damsels
of the queen, who, confident of the sacred
privacy of the place, were yielding in that cool
retreat to the indulgence prompted by the season
and the hour. Some lay asleep on the flowery
bank; others sat on the margin of the fountain,
talking and laughing, as they bathed their feet in
its limpid waters, and King Roderick beheld
delicate limbs shining through the wave, that
might rival the marble in whiteness.

Among the damsels was one who had come
from the Barbary coast with the queen. Her
complexion had the dark tinge of Mauritanea,
but it was clear and transparent, and the deep
rich rose blushed through the lovely brown.

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Her eyes were black and full of fire, and flashed
from under long silken eyelashes.

A sportive contest arose among the maidens,
as to the comparative beauty of the Spanish and
Moorish forms; but the Mauritanian damsel revealed
limbs of voluptuous symmetry that seemed
to defy all rivalry.

The Spanish beauties were on the point of
giving up the contest, when they bethought themselves
of the young Florinda, the daughter of
Count Julian, who lay on the grassy bank, abandoned
to a summer slumber. The soft glow of
youth and health mantled on her cheek; her
fringed eyelashes scarcely covered their sleeping
orbs; her moist and ruby lips were lightly
parted, just revealing a gleam of her ivory teeth,
while her innocent bosom rose and fell beneath
her boddice, like the gentle swelling and sinking
of a tranquil sea. There was a breathing tenderness
and beauty in the sleeping virgin, that
seemed to send forth sweetness like the flowers
around her.

“Behold,” cried her companions exultingly,
“the champion of Spanish beauty!”

In their playful eagerness they half disrobed
the innocent Florinda before she was aware.
She awoke in time, however, to escape from their
busy hands; but enough of her charms had been
revealed to convince the monarch that they were

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not to be rivalled by the rarest beauties of Mauritanea.

From this day the heart of Roderick was inflamed
with a fatal passion. He gazed on the
beautiful Florinda with fervid desire, and sought
to read in her looks whether there was levity or
wantonness in her bosom; but the eye of the
damsel ever sunk beneath his gaze, and remained
bent on the earth in virgin modesty.

It was in vain he called to mind the sacred
trust reposed in him by Count Julian, and the
promise he had given to watch over his daughter
with paternal care; his heart was vitiated by
sensual indulgence, and the consciousness of
power had rendered him selfish in his gratifications.

Being one evening in the garden where the
queen was diverting herself with her damsels,
and coming to the fountain where he had beheld
the innocent maidens at their sport, he could no
longer restrain the passion that raged within his
breast. Seating himself beside the fountain, he
called Florinda to him to draw forth a thorn
which had pierced his hand. The maiden knelt
at his feet, to examine his hand, and the touch of
her slender fingers thrilled through his veins.
As she knelt, too, her amber locks fell in rich
ringlets about her beautiful head, her innocent
bosom palpitated beneath the crimson boddice,

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and her timid blushes increased the effulgence of
her charms.

Having examined the monarch's hand in vain,
she looked up in his face with artless perplexity.

“Senior,” said she, “I can find no thorn, nor
any sign of wound.”

Don Roderick grasped her hand and pressed
it to his heart. “It is here, lovely Florinda!”
said he, “It is here! and thou alone canst pluck
it forth!”

“My lord!” exclaimed the blushing and astonished
maiden.

“Florinda!” said Don Roderick, “dost thou
love me?”

“Senior,” said she, “my father taught me to
love and reverence you. He confided me to
your care as one who would be as a parent to
me, when he should be far distant, serving your
majesty with life and loyalty. May God incline
your majesty ever to protect me as a father.”
So saying, the maiden dropped her eyes to the
ground, and continued kneeling: but her countenance
had become deadly pale, and as she knelt
she trembled.

“Florinda,” said the king, “either thou dost
not, or thou wilt not understand me. I would
have thee love me, not as a father, nor as a monarch,
but as one who adores thee. Why dost
thou start? No one shall know our loves; and,

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moreover, the love of a monarch inflicts no degradation
like the love of a common man—riches
and honours attend upon it. I will advance thee
to rank and dignity, and place thee above the
proudest females of my court. Thy father, too,
shall be more exalted and endowed than any
noble in my realm.”

The soft eye of Florinda kindled at these
words. “Senior,” said she, “the line I spring
from can receive no dignity by means so vile;
and my father would rather die than purchase
rank and power by the dishonour of his child.
But I see,” continued she, “that your majesty
speaks in this manner only to try me. You may
have thought me light and simple, and unworthy
to attend upon the queen. I pray your majesty
to pardon me, that I have taken your pleasantry
in such serious part.”

In this way the agitated maiden sought to
evade the addresses of the monarch, but still her
cheek was blanched, and her lip quivered as she
spake.

The king pressed her hand to his lips with fervour.
“May ruin seize me,” cried he, “if I
speak to prove thee. My heart, my kingdom,
are at thy command. Only be mine, and thou
shalt rule absolute mistress of myself and my
domains.”

The damsel rose from the earth where she

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had hitherto knelt, and her whole countenance
glowed with virtuous indignation. “My lord,”
said she, “I am your subject, and in your power;
take my life if it be your pleasure, but nothing
shall tempt me to commit a crime which would
be treason to the queen, disgrace to my father,
agony to my mother, and perdition to myself.”
With these words she left the garden, and the
king, for the moment, was too much awed by her
indignant virtue to oppose her departure.

We shall pass briefly over the succeeding
events of the story of Florinda, about which so
much has been said and sung by chronicler and
bard: for the sober page of history should be
carefully chastened from all scenes that might
inflame a wanton imagination; leaving them to
poems and romances, and such like highly seasoned
works of fantasy and recreation.

Let it suffice to say, that Don Roderick pursued
his suit to the beautiful Florinda, his passion
being more and more inflamed by the resistance
of the virtuous damsel. At length, forgetting
what was due to helpless beauty, to his own
honour as a knight, and his word as a sovereign,
he triumphed over her weakness by base and
unmanly violence.

There are not wanting those who affirm that
the hapless Florinda lent a yielding ear to the
solicitations of the monarch, and her name has

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been treated with opprobrium in several of the
ancient chronicles and legendary ballads that
have transmitted, from generation to generation,
the story of the woes of Spain. In very truth,
however, she appears to have been a guiltless
victim, resisting, as far as helpless female could
resist, the arts and intrigues of a powerful monarch,
who had nought to check the indulgence of
his will, and bewailing her disgrace with a poignancy
that shows how dearly she had prized her
honour.

In the first paroxysm of her grief she wrote a
letter to her father, blotted with her tears and
almost incoherent from her agitation. “Would
to God, my father,” said she, “that the earth had
opened and swallowed me ere I had been reduced
to write these lines. I blush to tell thee,
what it is not proper to conceal. Alas, my
father! thou hast entrusted thy lamb to the guardianship
of the lion. Thy daughter has been dishonoured,
the royal cradle of the Goths polluted,
and our lineage insulted and disgraced. Hasten,
my father, to rescue your child from the power
of the spoiler, and to vindicate the honour of
your house.”

When Florinda had written these lines, she
summoned a youthful esquire, who had been a
page in the service of her father. “Saddle thy
steed,” said she, “and if thou dost aspire to

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knightly honour, or hope for lady's grace; if
thou hast fealty for thy lord, or devotion to his
daughter, speed swiftly upon my errand. Rest
not, halt not, spare not the spur, but hie thee day
and night until thou reach the sea; take the first
bark, and haste with sail and oar to Ceuta, nor
pause until thou give this letter to the count my
father.” The youth put the letter in his bosom.
“Trust me, lady,” said he, “I will neither halt,
nor turn aside, nor cast a look behind, until I
reach Count Julian.” He mounted his fleet
steed, sped his way across the bridge, and soon
left behind him the verdant valley of the Tagus.

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