THE TALBA, OR "Souls made of fire, and children of the sun, With whom revenge is virtue." YOUNG. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, ANd green, PATERNOSTER-ROW. 1830. THE TALBA. CHAPTER I. "And Cintra's summits tell How the grim Saracen's dread legions fell." MICKLE. ON one of the mountain eminences of Cintra in Portugal, a pile of rugged and broken rocks, adorned in part by the scanty herbage that grows within their cavities, overhangs a smooth and somewhat broad space of ground, where, notwithstanding the heat of the climate, a carpet of the finest grass appears always verdant, being refreshed by a little rush of water that wells out beneath the rocks, and, running in a narrow channel through the midst of the grassy glade, finds its way down the precipice which forms a boundary to this delightful spot. The view it |