Page:Omniana 2.djvu/232

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222
OMNIANA.

A storm drives him from Constantinople to Barbary, where he is made a slave, but gradually obtains such power, that at last he conquers and converts all the Kings in that country, and returns with them, as his allies, to relieve the Emperor. Then he defeats the Turks, reconquers all the places which they had taken, and makes a peace for an hundred years. Carmesina is given him in marriage, as the reward of these services; but as he is returning to complete the ceremonies, he is seized with a pleurisy, makes his will, and dies. The Emperor dies next. Carmesina dies a few hours afterwards of grief, and the Empress then marries Hippolito, a cousin of Tirante, with whom she had long carried on an adulterous intercourse.

The worst romance which I ever before met with is pure when compared with this. Its obscenity, however, is not so extraordinary as the grossness of manners which it represents, and which exceeds