Chambers's repository of instructive and amusing tracts Volume 3 - Tapa blanda

Reseña del editor

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1854 Excerpt: ...to secrete their only child, through dread of tie lady's father. A 'trusty maid' carried it far into the fields, having first taken note of a mole, like a rose-bud, on the infant's bosom; there old Melibee found the babe--So home unto his honest wife it bore, Who as her own it nursed, and named evermore. The well-remembered mark, and the coincidence of her story, discover Pastorella to be their daughter and heiress; and her espousals to Sir Calidore would have gone forward immediately, but the doings of the Blatant Beast in that neighbourhood coming to his ears, reminds him of his 'vowed quest.' The knight accordingly goes forth, leaving his plighted lady with her parents. 'By the track of his outrageous spoil,' he follows the monster from place to place--Through all estates he found that he had passed, In which he many massacres had left, And to the clergy now was come at last;In which such spoil, such havoc, and such theft He wrought, that thence all goodness he bereft, That endless were to tell. The elfin knight, Who now no place besides unsought had left, At length into a monastery did light, Where he him found despoiling all with maine and might. Through cloister and church, Sir Calidore chases him, and at length overtakes him in a narrow place where he can fly no further, attacks him with sword and shield, while the beast makes a terrible defence with 'his cruel claws' and 'open mouth, that would contain a full peck,' set round with iron teeth in 'ranges twain;' and still more dangerously armed with a thousand tongues, some of which were like dogs to bark, some like serpents, and far the worst--Were tongues of mortal men Which spake reproachfully, not caring where nor when. In spite of all these weapons, the valorous knight overcomes and drags him for...