atrocious crime, imagines that he is performing a religious act; but as soon as we begin to reason and to generalize our ideas, the persecutions of fanaticism appear in their genuine colours, and are recognized as the result of a blind and wicked passion, which directly leads to the dissolution of all divine laws and of all social compacts.

As soon as the Siren has concluded her prophetic song on the splendid actions of the Portuguese, Thetis, leading Vasco de Gama by the hand, conducts him to the pinnacle of a mountain, where she shews him a celestial globe of transparent materials, on which she describes to him the whole structure of the heavens, according to the system of Ptolemy. In the centre of the globe, she points out to him the earth, and the different regions he has already traversed, with those that yet remain to be discovered when he shall be no more. Here, likewise, are described the whole of the geographical discoveries made within little more than half a century, already, at that time, astonishing by their vast extent. To these are added the bold enterprises and discoveries of all the Portuguese navigators, up to the time of Magalhaens, who, on being offended by king Emmanuel, abandoned his service to enter into that of Castile, and conducted his Spanish comrades through the Strait which yet bears his name, to the acquisition of the Moluccas, till then in the sole possession of the Portuguese. After having exhibited these astonishing events to the eyes of Gama, Thetis addresses him in a speech, with which, and with the poet's apostrophe to king Sebastian, we shall close our extracts and our remarks on this celebrated pcem.

How calm the waves, how mild the balmy gale!
The halcyons call, ye Lusians, spread the sail !
Old Ocean now appeased shall rage no more,
Haste, point the bowsprit to your native shore:
Soon shall the transports of the natal soil

O'erwhelm in bounding joy the thoughts of every toil.
The goddess spake; and VASCO waved his hand,
And soon the joyful heroes crowd the strand.
The lofty ships with deepen'd burthens prove
The various bounties of the Isle of Love.

Nor leave the youths their lovely brides behind,
In wedded bands, while time glides on, conjoin'd;
Fair as immortal fame in smiles array'd,

In bridal smiles, attends each lovely maid.
O'er India's sea, wing'd on by balmy gales

That whisper'd peace, soft swell'd the steady sails:

Smooth as on wing unmoved the eagle flies,
When to his eyrie cliff he sails the skies,
Swift o'er the gentle billows of the tide,
So smooth, so soft, the prows of Gama glide;
And now their native fields, for ever dear,
In all their wild transporting charms appear;
And Tago's bosom, while his banks repeat
The sounding peals of joy, receives the fleet.
With orient titles and immortal fame

The hero band adorn their monarch's name,
Sceptres and crowns beneath his feet they lay,
And the wide East is doom'd to Lusian sway.
*Enough, my muse, thy wearied wing no more
Must to the seat of Jove triumphant soar.
Chill'd by my nation's cold neglect, thy fires
Glow bold no more, and all thy rage expires.
Yet thou, Sebastian, thou, my king, attend;
Behold what glories on thy throne descend!
Shall haughty Gaul or sterner Albion boast
That all the Lusian fame in thee is lost!
Oh, be it thine these glories to renew,

And John's bold path and Pedro's course pursue:
Snatch from the tyrant noble's hand the sword,
And be the rights of human-kind restored.
The statesman prelate to his vows confine,

Alone auspicious at the holy shrine ;

The priest, in whose meek heart heaven pours its fires,
Alone to heaven, not earth's vain pomp, aspires.

Nor let the muse, great king, on Tago's shore,

In dying notes the barbarous age deplore.

The king or hero to the Muse unjust
Sinks as the nameless slave, extinct in dust.
But such the deeds thy radiant morn portends,
Awed by thy frown ev'n now old Atlas bends
His hoary head, and Ampeluza's fields
Expect thy sounding steeds and rattling shields.
And shall these deeds unsung, unknown, expire?
Oh, would thy smiles relume my fainting ire!
I then inspired, the wondering world should see
Great Ammon's warlike son revived in thee;
Revived, unenvied of the Muse's flame

That o'er the world resounds Pelides' name.

MISCELLANEOUS

CHAPTER XXXIX.

POEMS OF CAMOENS: GIL VICENTE; RODRIGUEZ LOBO; CORTEREAL; PORTUGUESE HISTORIANS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

WE have now completed our long examination of the great master-piece of Portuguese poetry. The Lusiad is a

*Canto x. str. 145, 159.

work of a conception so wholly new, and at the same time so lofty and national in its character, that it appeared important to give some account not only of its most celebrated episodes, but also of its general plan and of the objects which the author had in view. We dwelt with pleasure on the union of so many claims to renown advanced by the poet in favour of a nation so little known; and we beheld as it were the completion of Spanish poetry, in the epic, which alone remained to be added to the literature of the two nations. Scarcely any other Portuguese poetry is known beyond the limits of the kingdom, and even the professed students of foreign literature are often unacquainted with the names of the numerous other poets of Portugal. Their works are, indeed, so rare, that I have with difficulty been enabled to obtain a small number by repeated journeys and researches into all the public and private libraries. The Portuguese themselves, for the most part, are little better acquainted with their own poetic treasures. I have known men who, on their return from Lisbon, were desirous of purchasing a few volumes as a kind of remembrance of their residence in that singular country, but who invariably received the same answer from the booksellers, whose knowledge of the Portuguese poets was confined to Camoens alone.

The species of composition in which the Spaniards most excelled, and with which they are most abundantly supplied, is almost entirely wanting to Portugal. Her dramatic literature presents a barren field. There is only one solitary poet, of any name, who has written in the spirit of his nation. This is Gil Vicente, of whom we shall have occasion to say more hereafter. Their other pieces consist of comedies and classical tragedies, composed rather on the model of the ancients, than with a view to the dramatic wants of the nation. These are

rather essays of power by a few distinguished characters, in a career wholly new, than finished productions, calculated to form the elements of a school and to be relished by the public. Their theatrical success was short, and the stage of Lisbon exhibits little else besides Italian operas and Spanish comedies represented in their original form and language.

This, however, will be found to be the only branch of poetic composition which this ingenious nation has not cultivated with success. The same chivalric and romantic spirit which inspired the Spaniards, was felt, perhaps, in a superior degree by the Portuguese, inasmuch as they were called to

the performance of great exploits with far inferior means. Engaged in continual combats with enemies, from whom they recovered their country foot by foot; without communication with the rest of Europe, with the single exception of a rival nation in possession of all their frontiers; inclosed between sea and mountain, and compelled to risk upon the ocean that adventurous spirit too closely circumscribed within their own narrow boundaries; habituated to the tempest and to the imposing image of the infinite which boundless seas present to the imagination, the Portuguese, likewise, were familiar with the most delightful and magnificent objects in their own country. Here they found every thing which could develope the powers of imagination, and imbue the very soul with poetry; a land of myrtles and of orange bowers, delicious valleys, and mountains whose wild ranges comprehended all the variety of forms and temperature in the world. If their language did not possess all the dignity and sonorous harmony of the Spanish; if it was rather too abundant in vowels and nasal syllables, it was yet equally smooth and sweet as the Italian, and had even something more affecting in its tone, and more suited to exhibit the passion of love. Its richness and suppleness supplied it with the most brilliant ornaments and with the boldest figures, while the variety and freedom of its structure enabled it, far beyond that of the French, to produce a very striking effect by a happy combination and position of the words. Poetry was considered in Portugal, more than in any other country, as the relaxation of warriors, rather than as a source of exclusive glory. The glowing passions of the South were poured forth with perfect ease in strains which seemed to spring fresh from the soul, and to which the harmony of the language and the variety of terminations gave an unrivalled facility of execution. The poet felt satisfied in having given expression to the feeling that oppressed him; and his hearers scarcely bestowed any attention on it. They seemed to discover in his effusions only the developement of their own ideas; and the highest degree of talent procured little celebrity. Camoens lived in obscurity, and died in wretchedness; though from his earliest years, before his departure for the Indies, he had given decisive proofs of his astonishing powers of poetry. The publication of the Lusiad, of which two editions were given in 1572, equally failed to draw the attention of his countrymen, and

the encouragement of his prince; and during the last seven years of his life he supported his existence by alms, not granted to the celebrity of the poet who had conferred honour upon his nation, but to the importunity of a friendless servant wandering through the streets, without a recommendation or a name. We have noticed the complaints in which he frequently indulged in his poem, of the neglect evinced by his countrymen towards the literature of his country, and the national glory, which he supposed to be blended with it. The minority of the king Sebastian, only ten years of age at the period of the publication of the Lusiad, may likewise serve to account for the slight attention bestowed by the government upon the great poet of Portugal. The subsequent misfortunes of the monarchy commencing during the life of Camoens, the death of Don Sebastian in Africa, in 1578, and the subjection of Portugal to Spain in the year 1580, destroyed all the beneficial effects which so noble an example might have produced on the national spirit of the people.

In the poems of Camoens alone we discover examples of almost every different kind of verse. The first portion of his works consists of sonnets, and in the most correct editions of this great bard they amount to no less than three hundred. But in the edition of 1633, which I have now before me, they do not exceed one hundred and five. Camoens never made any collection of his own productions; and it was only by degrees that his noblest and best pieces were united in a regular work. In many of these sonnets he dwells upon his passion for a lady, whose name he no where mentions; nor do they contain any circumstances which might serve to throw light upon his private life. They are, for the most part, full of studied ideas, antitheses, and conceits, in which they bear too great a resemblance to those of the Italian muse. A few, however, are inspired with a bolder and richer feeling, bearing the impression of the author's wild and agitated career. They are evidently the efforts of a man who had nourished great designs; who had traversed both hemispheres in pursuit of honour and of fortune; who, during his whole life, failed to acquire them; who yet struggled firmly against his calamities; and who approached the termination of his career, cruelly disappointed in all his hopes. In the three editions of Camoens, of which I have availed myself, I have found neither historical preface, notes, nor any kind of chro