University of Virginia Library

The city of Mexico is environed with an extensive lake; or, according to Cortez, in his second narration to Charles V. with two lakes, one of fresh, the other of salt water, in circuit about fifty leagues. This situation, said the Mexicans, was appointed by their God Vitziliputzli, who, according to the explanation of their picture-histories, led their fore-fathers a journey of fourscore years, in search of the promised land; the apish Devil, say some Spanish writers, in this imitating the journies of the Israelites. Four of the principal priests carried the Idol in a coffer of reeds. Whenever they halted they built a tabernacle for their God in the midst of their camp, where they placed the coffer and the altar. They then sowed the land, and their stay or departure, without regard to the harvest, was directed by the orders received from their idol, till at last by his command they fixed their abode on the fite of Mexico. The origin of the Mexicans is represented by men coming out of caves, and their different journies and encampments are pourtrayed in their picture-histories; one of which was sent to Charles V. and is said to be still extant in the Escurial. According to the reigns of their kings, their first emigration was about A. D. 720. Vide Boterus, Gomara, Acosta, and other Spanish writers.

Mark Anthony.

It was a custom of the ancients in warm climates to mix the coolest spring water with their wine, immediately before drinking; not, we may suppose, to render it less intoxicating, but on account of the cooling flavour it thereby received. Homer tells us that the wine which Ulysses gave to Polypheme would bear twenty measures of water. Modern luxury has substituted preserved ice, in place of the more ancient mixture.

Alluding to the fable of Orpheus. Fanshaw's translation, as already observed, was published fourteen years before the Paradise Lost. These lines of Milton,

bear a resemblance to these of Fanshaw,

To slumber amid their punishment, though omitted by Fanshaw, is literal,

It is not certain when Camoens wrote this. It seems however not long to precede the publication of his poem, at which time he was in his fifty-fifth year. This apostrophe to his Muse may perhaps by some be blamed as another digression; but so little does it require defence, that one need not hesitate to affirm, that had Homer, who often talks to his Muse, introduced, on these favourable opportunities, any little picture or history of himself, these digressions would have been the most interesting parts of his works. Had any such little history of Homer complained like this of Camoens, it would have been bedewed with the tears of ages.

P. Alvarez Cabral, the second Portuguese commander who sailed to India, entered into a treaty of alliance with Trimumpara king of Cochin and high priest of Malabar. The Zamorim raised powerful armies to dethrone him. His fidelity to the Portuguese was unalterable, though his affairs were brought to the lowest ebb. For an account of this war, and the almost incredible atchievements of Pacheco, see the history in the preface.

Thus Virgil;

That the visionary boat of Charon groaned under the weight of Eneas is a fine poetical stroke; but that the crazy rents let in the water is certainly lowering the image. The thought however, as managed in Camoens, is much grander than in Virgil, and affords a happy instance, where the hyperbole is truly poetical.

Poetical allusions to, or abridgements of historical events, are either extremely insipid and obscure, or particularly pleasing to the reader. To be pleasing, a previous acquaintance with the history is necessary, and for this reason the poems of Homer and Virgil were peculiarly relished by their countrymen. When a known circumstance is placed in an animated poetical view, and cloathed with the graces of poetical language, a sensible mind must feel the effect. But when the circumstance is unknown, nothing but the most lively imagery and finest colouring can prevent it from being tiresome. The Lusiad affords many instances which must be highly pleasing to the Portuguese, but dry to those who are unacquainted with their history. Nor need one hesitate to assert, that were we not acquainted with the Roman history from our childhood, a great part of the Eneid would appear to us intollerably uninteresting. Sensible of this disadvantage which every version of historical poetry must suffer, the Translator has not only in the notes added every incident which might elucidate the subject, but has also, all along, in the episode in the third and fourth books, in the description of the painted ensigns in the eighth, and in the allusions in the present book, endeavoured to throw every historical incident into that universal language, the picturesque of poetry. The circumstances unsusceptible of imagery are hastened over, and those which can best receive it, presented to the view. When Hector storms the Grecian camp, when Achilles marches to battle, every reader understands and is affected with the bold painting. But when Nestor talks of his exploits at the funereal games of Amarynces, (Iliad. xxiii.) the critics themselves cannot comprehend him, and have vied with each other in inventing explanations.

Proas—or paraos, Indian vessels which lie low on the water, are worked with oars, and carry 100 men and upwards apiece.

See the history in the preface.

How Pacheco avoided this formidable danger, see the history in the preface.

When Porsenna besieged Rome, Horatius Cocles defended the pass of a bridge till the Romans destroyed it behind him. Having thus saved the pass, heavy armed as he was, he swimmed across the river to his companions. The Roman history, however, at this period, is often mixt with fable. Miltiades obtained a great victory over Darius at Marathon. The stand of Leonidas is well known. The battles of Pacheco were in defence of the fords by which the city of Cochin could only be entered. The numbers he withstood by land and sea, and the victories he obtained, are much more astonishing than the stand at Thermopylæ. See the preface.

See the history in the preface.

The English history affords an instance of similar resolution in Admiral Bembo, who was supported in a wooden frame, and continued the engagement after his legs and thighs were shivered in splinters. Contrary to the advice of his officers the young Almeyda refused to bear off, though almost certain to be overpowered, and though both wind and tide were critically against him. His father had sharply upbraided him for a former retreat, where victory was thought impossible. He now fell the victim of his father's ideas of military glory. See the preface.

After having cleared the Indian seas, the Viceroy Almeyda attacked the combined fleets of Egypt, Cambaya, and the Zamorim, in the entrance and harbour of Diu, or Dio. The fleet of the Zamorim almost immediately fled. That of Melique Yaz, Lord of Diu, suffered much; but the greatest slaughter fell upon the Egyptians and Turks, commanded by Mir-Hocem, who had defeated and killed the young Almeyda. Of 800 Mamulucks or Turks, who fought under Mir-Hocem, only 22, says Osorius, survived this engagement. Melique Yaz, says Faria y Sousa, was born in slavery, and descended of the Christians of Roxia. The road to preferment is often a dirty one; but Melique's was much less so than that of many. As the king of Cambaya was one day riding in state, an unlucky kite dunged upon his royal head. His majesty in great wrath swore he would give all he was worth to have the offender killed. Melique, who was an expert archer, immediately dispatched an arrow, which brought the audacious hawk to the ground. For the merit of this eminent service he was made Lord of Diu, or Dio, a considerable city, the strongest and most important fortress at that time in all India. See Faria, L. 2. c. 2.

See the note on page 208.

Tristan de Cunha, or d'Acugna. See the history in the preface.

See the note on page 63. Some writers relate, that when Albuquerque besieged Ormuz, a violent wind drove the arrows of the enemy backward upon their own ranks. Osorius says, that many of the dead Persians and Moors were found to have died by arrows. But as that weapon was not used by the Portuguese, he conjectures, that in their despair of victory many of the enemy had thus killed themselves, rather than survive the defeat.

This important place was made an Archbishoprick, the capital of the Portuguese empire in the East, and the seat of their Viceroys; for which purposes it is advantageously situated on the coast of Decan. It still remains in the possession of the Portuguese.

The conquest of this place was one of the greatest actions of Albuquerque. It became the chief port of the eastern part of Portuguese India, and second only to Goa. Besides a great many pieces of ordnance which were carried away by the Moors who escaped, 3000 large cannon remained the prize of the victors. When Albuquerque was on the way to Malacca, he attacked a large ship, but just as his men were going to board her, she suddenly appeared all in flames, which obliged the Portuguese to bear off. Three days afterward the same vessel sent a boat to Albuquerque, offering an alliance, which was accepted. The flames, says Osorius, were only artificial, and did not the least damage. Another wonderful adventure immediately happened. The admiral soon after sent his long boats to attack a ship commanded by one Nehoada Beeguea. The enemy made an obstinate resistance. Nehoada himself was pierced with several mortal wounds, but lost not one drop of blood, till a bracelet was taken off his arm, when immediately the blood gushed out. According to Osorius, this was said to be occasioned by the virtue of a stone in the bracelet taken out of an animal called Cabrisia, which when worn on the body could prevent the effusion of blood from the most grievous wounds.

A detail of all the great actions of Albuquerque would have been tedious and unpoetical. Camoens has chosen the most brilliant, and has happily suppressed the rest by a display of indignation. The French translator has the following note on this passage, “Behold another instance of our Author's prejudice! The action which he condemns had nothing in it blameable: but as he was of a most amorous constitution, he thought every fault which could plead an amour in its excuse ought to be pardoned; but true heroes, such as Albuquerque, follow other maxims. This great man had in his palace a beautiful Indian slave. He viewed her with the eyes of a father, and the care of her education was his pleasure. A Portuguese soldier, named Ruy Diaz, had the boldness to enter the General's apartment, where he succeeded so well with the girl, that he obtained his desire. When Albuquerque heard of it, he immediately ordered him to the gallows.”

Camoens, however, was no such undistinguishing libertine as this would represent him. In a few pages we find him praising the continence of Don Henry de Meneses, whose victory over his passions he calls the highest excellence of youth. Nor does it appear by what authority the Frenchman assures us of the chaste paternal affection which Albuquerque bore to this Indian girl. It was the great aim of Albuquerque to establish colonies in India, and for that purpose he encouraged his soldiers to marry with the natives. The most sightly girls were selected, and educated in the religion and household arts of Portugal, and portioned at the expence of the General. These he called his daughters, and with great pleasure he used to attend their weddings, several couples being usually joined together at one time. At one of these nuptials, says Faria, the festivity having continued late, and the brides being mixed together, several of the bridegrooms committed a blunder. The mistakes of the night however, as they were all equal in point of honour, were mutually forgiven in the morning, and each man took his proper wife whom he had received at the altar. This delicate anecdote of Albuquerque's sons and daughters, is as bad a commentary on the note of Castera, as it is on the severity which the commander shewed to poor Diaz. Nor does Camoens stand alone in the condemnation of the General. The Historian agrees with the Poet. Mentioning the death of D. Antonio Noronha, “This gentleman, says Faria, used to moderate the violent temper of his uncle Albuquerque, which soon after shewed itself in rigid severity. He ordered a soldier to be hanged for an amour with one of the slaves whom he called daughters, and whom he used to give in marriage. When some of his officers asked him what authority he had to take the poor man's life, he drew his sword, told them that was his commission, and instantly broke them.” To marry his soldiers with the natives was the plan of Albuquerque, his severity therefore seems unaccountable, unless we admit the perhaps of Camoens, ou de cioso, perhaps it was jealousy.—But whatever incensed the General, the execution of the soldier was contrary to the laws of every nation ; and the honest indignation of Camoens against one of the greatest of his countrymen, one who was the grand architect of the Portuguese empire in the East, affords a noble instance of that manly freedom of sentiment which knows no right by which king or peer may do injustice to the meanest subject. Nor can we omit the observation, that the above note of Castera is of a piece with the French devotion we have already seen him pay to the name of king, a devotion which breathes the true spirit of the blessed advice given by Father Paul to the republic of Venice: “When a nobleman commits an offence against a subject, says the Jesuit, let every means be tried to justify him. But if a subject has offended a nobleman, let him be punished with the utmost severity.”

Osorius relates the affair of Diaz with some other circumstances; but with no difference that affects this assertion.

Campaspe, the most beautiful concubine of Alexander, was given by that monarch to Apelles, whom he perceived in love with her. Araspas had strict charge of the fair captive Panthea. His attempt on her virtue was forgiven by Cyrus.

“Baldwin, surnamed Iron-arm, Grand Forester of Flanders, being in love with Judith, the daughter of Charles the Bald and widow of Ethelwolfe, king of England, obtained his desire by force. Charles, though at first he highly resented, afterwards pardoned his crime, and consented to his marriage with the Princess.” Castera.

This digression in the song of the nymph bears, in manner, a striking resemblance to the histories which often, even in the heat of battle, the heroes of Homer relate to each other. That these little episodes have their beauty and propriety in an Epic poem, will strongly appear from a view of M. de la Motte's translation of the Iliad into French verse. The four and twenty books of Homer he has contracted into twelve, and these contain no more lines than about four books of the original. A thousand embelishments which the warm poetical feelings of Homer suggested to him, are thus thrown out by the Frenchman. But what is the consequence of this improvement? The work of la Motte is unread, even by his own countrymen, and despised by every Foreigner who has the least relish for poetry and Homer.

Medina, the city where Mohammed is buried. About six years after Gama's discovery of India, the Sultan of Egypt sent Maurus, the abbot of the monks at Jerusalem, who inhabit Mount Sion, on an embassy to Pope Julius II. The Sultan, with severe threats to the Christians of the East in case of refusal, intreated the Pope to desire Emmanuel king of Portugal to send no more fleets to the Indian seas. The Pope sent Maurus to Emmanuel, who returned a very spirited answer to his Holiness, assuring him that no threats, no dangers could make him alter his resolutions, and lamenting that it had not yet been in his power to fulfil his purpose of demolishing the sepulchre and erazing the memorials of Mohammed from the earth. This, he says, was the first purpose of sending his fleets to India. Nobis enim, cum iter in Indiam classibus nostris aperire, & regiones majoribus nostris incognitas explorare decrevimus, hoc propositum fuit, ut ipsum Mahumetanæ sectæ caput . . . . . extingueremus— It is with great art that Camoens so often reminds us of the grand design of the expedition of his heroes, to subvert Mohammedism and found a Christian empire in the East. But the dignity which this gives his poem is already observed in the preface.

The Abyssinians contend that their country is the Sheba mentioned in the scripture, and that the queen who visited Solomon bore a son to that monarch, from whom their royal family, to the present time, is descended.

Gama only reigned three months Viceroy of India. During his second voyage, the third which the Portuguese made to India, he gave the Zamorim some considerable defeats by sea, besides his victories over the Moors. These, however, are judiciously omitted by Camoens, as the less striking part of his character.

The French Translator is highly pleased with the prediction of Gama's death, delivered to himself at the feast. “The Syren, says he, persuaded that Gama is a hero exempt from weakness, does not hesitate to mention the end of his life. Gama listens without any mark of emotion; the feast and the song continue. If I am not deceived, this is truly great.”

Don Henry de Menezes. He was only twenty-eight when appointed to the government of India. He died in his thirtieth year, a noble example of the most disinterested heroism. See the preface.

Pedro de Mascarenhas. The injustice done to this brave officer, and the usurpation of his governmentship by Lopez Vaz de Sampayo, afford one of the most interesting periods of the history of the Portuguese in India. See the preface.

Nunio de Cunha, one of the most worthy of the Portuguese governors. See the preface.

That brave generous spirit, which prompted Camoens to condemn the great Albuquerque for injustice to a common soldier, has here deserted him. In place of poetical compliment, on the terrors of his name, Noronha deserved infamy. The siege of Dio, it is true, was raised on the report of his approach, but that report was the stratagem of Coje Zofar, one of the general officers of the assaillants. The delays of Noronha were as highly blameable, as his treatment of his predecessor, the excellent Nunio, was unworthy of a gentleman. See the history of the Portuguese Commanders in India, in the preface.

Stephen de Gama. See the preface.

Martin Alonzo de Souza. He was celebrated for clearing the coast of Brazil of several pirates, who were formidable to that infant colony.

This is as near the original as elegance will allow—de sangue cheyo—which Fanshaw has thus punned,

a place near Banbury in Oxfordshire.

When the victories of the Portuguese began to overspread the East, several Indian princes, by the counsels of the Moors, applied for assistance to the Sultan of Egypt and the Grand Signior. The troops of these Mohammedan princes were in the highest reputation for bravery, and though composed of many different nations, were known among the orientals by one common name. Ignorance delights in the marvellous. The history of ancient Rome made the same figure among the Easterns, as that of the fabulous or heroic ages, does with us, with this difference, it was better believed. The Turks of Romania pretended to be the descendants of the Roman Conquerors, and the Indians gave them and their auxiliaries the name of Rumes, or Romans. In the same manner the fame of Godfrey in the East conferred the name of Franks on all the western Christians, who on their part gave the name of Moors to all the Mohammedans of the East.

The commander of Diu, or Dio, during this siege, one of the most memorable in the Portuguese history.

The title of the Lords or Princes of Decan, who in their wars with the Portuguese have sometimes brought 400,000 men into the field. The prince here mentioned, after many revolts, was at last finally subdued by Don John de Castro, the fourth Viceroy of India, with whose reign our Poet judiciously ends the prophetic song. Albuquerque laid the plan, and Castro compleatd the system of the Portuguese empire in the East. (For an account of which, see the preface.) It is with propriety therefore that the prophecy given to Gama is here summed up. Nor is the discretion of Camoens in this instance inferior to his judgment. He is now within a few years of his own times, when he himself was upon the scene in India. But whatever he had said of his cotemporaries would have been liable to misconstruction, and every sentence would have been branded with the epithets of flattery or malice. A little Poet would have been happy in such an opportunity to resent his wrongs. But the silent contempt of Camoens does him true honour.

In this historical song, as already hinted, the Translator has been attentive, as much as he could, to throw it into these universal languages, the picturesque and characteristic. To convey the sublimest instruction to princes, is, according to Aristotle, the peculiar province of the Epic Muse. The striking points of view, in which the different characters of the Governors of India are here placed, are in the most happy conformity to this ingenious canon of the Stageryte.

The motions of the heavenly bodies, in every system, bear, at all times, the same uniform relation to each other; these expressions, therefore, are strictly just. The first relates to the appearance, the second to the reality. Thus while to us the sun appears to go down, to more western inhabitants of the globe he appears to rise, and while he rises to us, he is going down to the more eastern; the difference being entirely relative to the various parts of the earth. And in this the expressions of our Poet are equally applicable to the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems. The ancient hypothesis which made our earth the centre of the Universe, is the system adopted by Camoens, a happiness, in the opinion of the Translator, to the English Lusiad. The new system is so well known, that a poetical description of it would have been no novelty to the English reader. The other has not only that advantage in its favour; but this description is perhaps the finest and fullest that ever was given of it in poetry, that of Lucretius, l. v. being chiefly argumentative, and therefore less picturesque.

Our Author studied at the university of Coimbra, where the ancient system and other doctrines of the Aristotelians then, and long afterward, prevailed.

Called by the old philosophers and school divines the Sensorium of the Deity.

According to the Peripatetics the universe consisted of Eleven Spheres inclosed within each other, as Fanshaw has familiarly expressed it by a similie which he has lent our Author. The first of these spheres, he says,

In their accounts of this first mentioned, but Eleventh Sphere, which they called the Empyrean or heaven of the Blest, the disciples of Aristotle, and the Arab Moors, gave a loose to all the warmth of imagination. And several of the Christian Fathers applied to it the descriptions of heaven which are found in the Holy Scripture.

This is the Tenth Sphere, the Primum Mobile of the ancient system. To account for the appearances of the heavens, the Peripatetics ascribed double motion to it. While its influence drew the other orbs from east to west, they supposed it had a motion of its own from west to east. To effect this, the ponderous weight and interposition of the Ninth Sphere, or Chrystalline Heaven, was necessary. The ancient Astronomers observed that the stars shifted their places. This they called the motion of the Chrystalline Heaven, expressed by our Poet at the rate of one pace during two hundred solar years. The famous Arab astronomer Abulhasan, in his Meadows of Gold, calculates the revolution of this sphere to consist of 49,000 of our years. But modern discoveries have not only corrected the calculation , but have also ascertained the reason of the apparent motion of the fixt stars. The earth is not a perfect sphere; the quantity of matter is greater at the equator; hence the earth turns on her axis in a rocking motion, revolving round the axis of the ecliptic, which is called the procession of the equinoxes, and makes the stars seem to shift their places at about the rate of a degree in 72 years; according to which all the stars seem to perform one revolution in the space of 25,920 years, after which they return exactly to the same situation as at the beginning of this period. However imperfect in their calculations, the Chaldaic astronomers perceived that the motions of the heavens composed one great revolution. This they called the Annus Magnus, which those who did not understand them mistook for a restoration of all things to their first originals, and that the world was at that period to begin anew in every respect. Hence the old Egyptian notion, that every one was at the end of thirty-nine thousand years to resume every circumstance of his present life, to be exactly the same in every contingency. And hence also the Legends of the Bramins and Mandarins, their periods of fifty thousand years, and the worlds which they tell us are already past and eternally to succeed each other.

However deficient the astronomy of Abulhasan may be, it is nothing to the calculation of his Prophet Mohammed, who tells his disciples, that the stars were each about the bigness of an house, and hung from the sky on chains of gold.

This was called the Firmament or Eighth Heaven. Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Apollo, Venus, Mercury, and Diana, were the planets which gave name to, and whose orbits composed the other spheres or heavens.

Commonly called Charleswain. Of Calisto, or the Bear, see the note on page 195. Andromeda was the daughter of Cepheus, king of Ethiopia, and of Cassiope. Cassiope boasted that she and her daughter were more beautiful than Juno and the Nereids. Andromeda, to appease the goddess, was, at her father's command, chained to a rock to be devoured by a sea-monster, but was saved by Perseus, who obtained of Jupiter that all the family should be placed among the stars. Orion was a hunter, who, for an attempt on Diana, was stung to death by a serpent. The star of his name portends tempests. The Dogs; Fable gives this honour to those of different hunters. The faithful dog of Erigone, however, that died mad with grief for the death of his mistress, has the best title to preside over the dog-days. The Swan; that whose form Jupiter borrowed to enjoy Leda. The Hare, when pursued by Orion, was saved by Mercury, and placed in heaven, to signify that Mercury presides over melancholy dispositions. The Lyre, with which Orpheus charmed Pluto. The Dragon which guarded the golden apples of the Hesperides, and the ship Argo, compleat the number of the constellations mentioned by Camoens. If our Author has blended the appearances of heaven with those of the painted artificial sphere, it is in the manner of the classics. Ovid, in particular, thus describes the heavens, in the second book of his Metamorphoses.

Though a modern narrative of bawdy-house adventures by no means requires the supposition of a particular Providence, that supposition, however, is absolutely necessary to the grandeur of an Epic Poem. The great examples of Homer and Virgil prove it; and Camoens understood and felt its force. While his fleet combat all the horrors of unplowed oceans, we do not view his heroes as idle wanderers; the care of heaven gives their voyage the greatest importance. When Gama falls on his knees and spreads his hands to heaven on the discovery of India, we are presented with a figure infinitely more noble than that of the most successful Conqueror, who is supposed to act under the influence of fatalism or chance. The human mind is conscious of its own weakness. It expects an elevation in poetry, and demands a degree of importance superior to the caprices of unmeaning accident. The poetical reader cannot admire the hero who is subject to such blind fortuity. He appears to us with an abject uninteresting littleness. Our poetical ideas of permanent greatness demand a Gama, a hero whose enterprises and whose person interest the care of heaven and the happiness of his people. Nor must this supposition be confined merely to the machinery. The reason why it pleases also requires that the supposition should be uniform throughout the whole poem. Virgil, by dismissing Eneas through the ivory gate of Elysium, has hinted that all his pictures of a future state were merely dreams, and has thus destroyed the highest merit of the compliment to his patron Augustus. But Camoens has certainly been more happy. A fair opportunity offered itself to indulge the opinions of Lucretius and the Academic Grove; but Camoens, in ascribing the government of the Universe to the Will of God, has not only preserved the philosophy of his poem perfectly uniform, but has also shewn that the Peripatetic system is, in this instance, exactly conformable to the Newtonian. But this leads us from one defence of our Author to another. We have seen that the supposition of a Providence is certainly allowable in a Poet: nor can we think it is highly to be blamed even in a philosopher. The Principia of Newton offer, what some perhaps may esteem, a demonstration of the truth of this opinion. Matter appeared to Sir Isaac as possessed of no property but one, the vis inertiæ, or dead inactivity. Motion, the centripetal and centrifugal force, appeared therefore to that great man, as added by the agency of something distinct from matter, by a Being of other properties. And from the infinite combinations of the universe united in one great design, he inferred the omnipotence and omniscience of that primary Being.

If we admit, and who can possibly deny it, that man has an idea of right and wrong, and a power of agency in both, he is then a moral, or in other words, a reasonable agent; a Being placed in circumstances, where his agency is infallibly attended with degrees of happiness or misery infinitely more real and durable than any animal sensation. Now to suppose that the Being who has provided for every want of animal nature, who has placed even the meanest insect in its proper line, and has rendered every purpose of its agency or existence complete, to suppose that he has placed the infinitely superior intellectual nature of man in an agency of infinitely greater consequence, but an agency of which he takes no superintendance —to suppose this, is only to suppose that the Author of Nature is a very imperfect Being. For no proposition can be more self-evident, than that an attention to the merest comparative trifles, attended with a neglect of infinitely greater concerns, implies an intellectual imperfection. Yet some philosophers, who tell us there never was an Athiest, some who are not only in raptures with the great machinery of the universe, but are lost in admiration at the admirable adaption of an oyster-shell to the wants of the animal; some of these philosophers, with the utmost contempt of the contrary opinion, make no scruple to exclude the care of the Deity from any concern in the moral world. Dazzled, perhaps, by the mathematics, the case of many a feeble intellect; or bewildered and benighted in metaphysics, the case of many an ingenious philosopher; they erect a standard of truth in their own minds, and utterly forgetting that this standard must be founded on partial views, with the utmost assurance they reject whatever does not agree with the infallibility of their beloved test. There is another cast of philosophers no less ingenious, whose minds, absorbed in the innumerable wonders of natural enquiry, can perceive nothing but a God of cockle-shells, and of grubs turned into butterflies. With all the arrogance of superior knowledge these virtuosi smile at the opinion which interests the Deity in the moral happiness or misery of man. Nay, they will gravely tell you, that such misery or happiness does not exist. At ease themselves in their elbow chairs, they cannot conceive there is such a thing in the world as oppressed innocence feeling its only consolation in an appeal to heaven, and its only hope, a trust in its care. Though the Author of Nature has placed man in a state of moral agency, and made his happiness and misery to depend upon it, and though every page of human history is stained with the tears of injured innocence and the triumphs of guilt, with miseries which must affect a moral or thinking being, yet we have been told, that God perceiveth it not, and that what mortals call moral evil vanishes from before his more perfect fight. Thus the appeal of injured innocence, and the tear of bleeding virtue fall unregarded, unworthy of the attention of the Deity . Yet with what raptures do these enlarged virtuosi behold the infinite wisdom and care of their Beelzebub, their god of flies, in the admirable and various provision he has made for the preservation of the eggs of vermin, and the generation of maggots.

Much more might be said in proof that our Poet's philosophy does not altogether deserve ridicule. And those who allow a general, but deny a particular Providence, will, it is hoped, excuse Camoens, on the consideration, that if we estimate a general moral providence by analogy of that providence which presides over vegetable and animal nature, a more particular one cannot possibly be wanted. If a particular providence, however, is still denied, another consideration obtrudes itself; if one pang of a moral agent is unregarded, one tear of injured innocence left to fall unpitied by the Deity, if Ludit in humanis Divina potentia rebus, the consequence is, that the human conception can form an idea of a much better God: And it may modestly be presumed we may hazard the laugh of the wisest philosopher, and without scruple assert, that it is impossible that a created mind should conceive an idea of perfection, superior to that which is possessed by the Creator and Author of existence.

Perhaps, like Lucretius, some philosophers think this 'would be too much trouble to the Deity. But the idea of trouble to the Divine Nature, is much the same as another argument of the same philosopher, who having asserted, that before the creation the gods could not know what seed would produce, from thence wisely concludes, that the world was made by chance.

Ray, in his wisdom of God in the creation, (though he did not deny the moral providence) has carried this extravagance to the highest pitch. “To give life, says he, is the intention of the creation; and how wonderful does the goodness of God appear in this, that the death and putrefaction of one animal is the life of thousands.” So the misery of a family on the death of a parent is nothing, for ten thousand maggots are made happy by it.—Oh, Philosophy, when wilt thou forget the dreams of thy slumbers in Bedlam!

As Europe is already described in the Third Lusiad, this short account of it has as great propriety, as the manner of it contains dignity.

This just and strongly picturesque description of Africa is finely contrasted with the character of Europe. It contains also a masterly compliment to the expedition of Gama, which is all along represented as the harbinger and diffuser of the blessings of civilization.

Gonsalo de Sylveyra, a Portuguese Jesuit, in 1555 sailed from Lisbon on a mission to Monomotapa. His labours were at first successful; but ere he effected any regular establishment he was murdered by the Barbarians. Castera abridged.

“Don Pedro de Naya . . . . . In 1505 he erected a fort in the kingdom of Sofala, which is subject to Monomotapa. Six thousand Moors and Cafres laid seige to this garrison, which he defended with only thirty-five men. After having several times suffered by unexpected sallies, the Barbarians fled, exclaiming to their king that he had led them to fight against God.” Castera abridged.

Christianity was planted here in the first century, but mixed with many Jewish rites unused by other Christians of the East. This appears to give some countenance to the pretensions of their Emperors, who claim their descent from Solomon and the queen of Sheba, and at least reminds us of Acts 8. 27. where we are told, that the Treasurer of the queen of Ethiopia came to worship at Jerusalem. Innumerable monasteries, we are told, are in this country. But the clergy are very ignorant, and the laity gross barbarians. Much has been said of the hill Amara,

and where, according to Urreta, a Spanish Jesuit, is the library founded by the queen of Sheba, and encreased with all those writings, of which we have either possession or only the names. The works of Noah, and the lectures on the mathematics which Abraham read in the plains of Mamre, are here. And so many are the volumes, that 200 monks are employed as librarians. It is needless to add, that Father Urreta is a second Sir John Mandevylle.

When Don Stephen de Gama was governor of India, the Christian Emperor and Empress-mother of Ethiopia, solicited the assistance of the Portuguese against the usurpations of the Pagan king of Zeyla. Don Stephen sent his brother Don Christoval with 500 men. The prodigies of their valour astonished the Ethiopians. But after having twice defeated the Tyrant, and reduced his great army to the last extremity, Don Christoval, urged too far by the impetuosity of his youthful valour, was taken prisoner. He was brought before the Usurper, and put to death in the most cruel manner. Waxed threads were twisted with his beard and afterwards set on fire. He was then dipped in boiling wax, and at last beheaded by the hand of the Tyrant. The Portuguese esteem him a martyr, and say that his torments and death were inflicted because he would not renounce the Faith. See Faria y Sousa.

He must be a dull Reader indeed who cannot perceive and relish the amazing variety which prevails in our poet. In every page it appears. In the historical narrative of wars, where it is most necessary, yet from the sameness of the subject, most difficult to attain, our author always attains it with the most graceful ease. In the description of countries he not only follows the manner of Homer and Virgil, not only distinguishes each region by its most striking characteristic, but he also diversifies his geography with other incidents introduced by the mention of the place. St. Catherine, Virgin and Martyr, according to Romish histories, was buried on Sinai, and a chapel erected over her grave.

Don Pedro de Castel-Branco. He obtained a great victory, near Ormuz, over the combined fleets of the Moors, Turks, and Persians.

The island of Barem is situated in the Persian gulph, near the influx of the Euphrates and Tygris. It is celebrated for the plenty, variety and fineness of its diamonds.

This was the character of the Persians when Gama arrived in the East. Yet though they thought it dishonourable to use the musket, they esteemed it no disgrace to rush from a thicket on an unarmed foe. This reminds one of the spirit of the old romance. Orlando having taken the first invented cannon from the king of Friza, throws it into the sea with the most heroic execrations. Yet the heroes of chivalry think it no disgrace to take every advantage afforded by invulnerable hides, and inchanted armour.

Presuming on the ruins which are found on this island, the natives pretend that the Armuzia of Pliny and Strabo was here situated. But this is a mistake, for that city stood on the continent. The Moors, however, have built a city in this isle, which they call by the ancient name.

Pedro de Cabral, of whom see the preface.

Macon, a name of Mecca, the birth place of Mohammed.

There are, to talk in the Indian style, a cast of gentleman, whose hearts are all impartiality and candour to every religion, except one, the most moral one which ever the world heard. A tale of a Bramin or a priest of Jupiter would to them appear worthy of poetry. But to introduce an Apostle—Common sense, however, will prevail; and the episode of St. Thomas will appear to the true Critic equal in dignity and propriety. In propriety, for

To renew and compleat the labours of the Apostle, the messenger of heaven, is the great design of the hero of the poem, and of the future missions in consequence of the discoveries which are the subject of it.

The Christians of St. Thomas, found in Malabar on the arrival of Gama, we have already mentioned, p. 49. but some farther account of the subject will certainly be agreeable to the curious. The Jesuit missionaries have given most pompous accounts of the Christian antiquities of India and China. When the Portuguese arrived in India, the head of the Malabar Christians, named Jacob, stiled himself Metrapolitan of India and China. And a Chaldaic breviary of the Indian Christians offers praise to God for sending St. Thomas to India and China. In 1625, in digging for a foundation near Siganfu, metropolis of the province of Xensi, was found a stone with a cross on it, full of Chinese, and some Syriac characters, containing the names of bishops, and an account of the Christian religion, “that it was brought from Judea; that having been weakened, it was renewed under the reign of the great Tam,” (cir. A. D. 630.) But the Christians, say the Jesuits, siding with the Tartars, cir. A. D. 1200, were extirpated by the Chinese. In 1543, Fernand Pinto, observing some ruins near Peking, was told by the people, that 200 years before, a holy man, who worshiped Jesus Christ, born of a Virgin, lived there; and being murdered, was thrown into a river, but his body would not sink; and soon after the city was destroyed by earthquake. The same Jesuit found people at Caminam who knew the doctrines of Christianity, which they said was preached to their fathers by John the disciple of Thomas. In 1635, some heathens by night passing through a village in the province of Fokien saw some stones which emitted light, under which were found the figure of crosses. From China St. Thomas returned to Meliapore in Malabar, at a time when a prodigious beam of timber floated on the sea near the coast. The king endeavoured to bring it ashore, but all the force of men and elephants was in vain. St. Thomas desired leave to build a church with it, and immediately dragged it to shore with a single thread. A church was built, and the king baptized. This enraged the Bramins, the chief of whom killed his own son, and accused Thomas of the murder. But the Saint, by restoring the youth to life, discovered the wickedness of his enemies. He was afterwards killed by a lance while kneeling at the altar; after, according to tradition, he had built 3300 stately churches, many of which were rebuilt, cir. 800, by an Armenian, named Thomas Cananeus. In 1523, the body of the Apostle, with the head of the lance beside him, was found in his church by D. Duarte de Meneses; and in 1558 was by D. Constantine de Braganza removed to Goa. To these accounts, selected from Faria y Sousa, let two from Osorius be added. When Martin Alonzo de Souza was viceroy, some brazen tables were brought to him, inscribed with unusual characters, which were explained by a learned Jew, and imported that St. Thomas had built a church in Meliapore. And by an account sent to Cardinal Henrico, by the Bp. of Cochin, in 1562, when the Portuguese repaired the ancient chapel of St. Thomas, there was found a stone cross with several characters on it, which the best antiquarians could not interpret, till at last a Bramin translated it, “That in the reign of Sagam, Thomas was sent by the Son of God, whose disciple he was, to teach the law of heaven in India; that he built a church, and was killed by a Bramin at the altar.”

A view of Portuguese Asia, which must include the labours of the Jesuits, forms a necessary part in the comment on the Lusiad: This note, therefore, and some obvious reflections upon it, are in place. It is as easy to bury an inscription and find it again, as it is to invent a silly tale; but though suspicio of fraud on the one hand, and silly absurdity on the other, lead us to despise the authority of the Jesuits, yet one fact remains indisputable. Christianity had been much better known in the East, several centuries before, than it was at the arrival of Gama. Where the name was unknown, and where the Jesuits were unconcerned, crosses were found. The long existence of the Christians of St. Thomas in the midst of a vast Pagan empire, proves that the learned of that empire must have some knowledge of their doctrines. And these facts give countenance to some material conjectures concerning the religion of the Bramins. For these we shall give scope immediately.

The existence of this breviary is a certain fact. These Christians had the Scripture also in the Chaldaic language.

This was a very ancient building, in the very first style of Christian churches. The Portuguese have now disfigured it with their repairs and new buildings.

Of this, thus Osorius; “Terna fila ab huméro dextero in latus sinistrum gerunt, ut designent trinam in natura divina rationem.” They (the Bramins) wear three threads, which reach from the right shoulder to the left side, as significant of the trinal distinction in the Divine Nature.” That some sects of the Bramins wear a symbolical Tessera of three threads, is acknowledged on all hands; but from whatever the custom arose, it is not to be supposed that the Bramins, who have thousands of ridiculous contradictory legends, should agree in their accounts or explanations of it. Faria says, that according to the sacred books of the Malabrians, the religion of the Bramins proceeded from fishermen, who left the charge of the temples to their successors, on condition they should wear some threads of their nets, in remembrance of their original. They have various accounts of a Divine Person having assumed human nature. And the God Brahma, as observed by Cudworth, is generally mentioned as united in the government of the universe with two others, sometimes of different names. They have also images with three heads rising out of one body, which they say represent the Divine Nature . But are there any traces of these opinions in the accounts which the Greek and Roman writers have given us of the Bramins? And will the wise pay any credit to the authority of those books which the public never saw, and which, by the obligation of their keepers, they are never to see? and some of which, by the confession of their keepers, since the appearance of Mohammed, have been rejected? The Platonic idea of a trinity of divine attributes was well known to the ancients, yet perhaps the Athanasian controversy offers a fairer field to the conjecturist. That controversy for several ages engrossed the conversation of the East. All the subtilty of the Greeks was called forth, and no speculative contest was ever more universally or warmly disputed; so warmly, that it is a certain fact that Mohammed, by inserting into his Koran some declarations in favour of the Arians, gained innumerable proselytes to his new religion. Abyssinia, Egypt, Syria, Persia, and Armenia, were perplexed with this unhappy dispute, and from the earliest times these countries have had a commercial intercourse with India. The number, blasphemy, and absurdity of the Jewish legends of the Talmuds and Targums, bear a striking resemblance to the holy legends of the Bramins. The Jews also assert the great antiquity of their Talmudical legends. Adam, Enoch and Noah are named among their authors; but we know their date; Jerusalem, ere their birth, was destroyed by Titus. We also know that the accounts which the Greek writers give of the Bramins fall infinitely short of those extravagancies which are confessed even by their modern admirers. And Mohammedism is not more different from Christianity, than the account which even these gentlemen give, is from that of Porphyry. That laborious philosopher, though possessed of all the knowledge of his age, though he mentions their metempsicosis and penances, has not a word of any of their idols, or the legends of Brahma or his brothers. On the contrary he represents their worship as extremely pure and simple. Strabo's account of them is similar. And Eusebius has assured us they worshipped no images . Yet on the arrival of the modern Europeans in India, innumerable were their idols, and all the superstition of ancient Egypt in the adoration of animals and vegetables, seemed more than revived by the Bramins. Who that considers this striking alteration in their features, can withhold his contempt when he is told of the religious care with which these philosophers have these four thousand years preserved their sacred rites: An absurdity only equal to that of those who tell us that God instructed Adam in the mysteries of free masonry, and that Noah every new moon held a mason's lodge in the ark.

Ignorant or unmindful of what the Greeks and Romans have related of the Bramins, and unacquainted with the respectable authorities of many modern travellers, some gentlemen have lately assumed to themselves the only knowledge of the true doctrines of the East. Other Enquirers, and their means of intelligence, have been compared to an Indian receiving his knowledge of Christianity from a London car-man. Yet alas, duped by the conversation of a learned Bramin, an adept in Jesuitism, who is sure to give an intelligent stranger the most glossing account, and not only thus ignorant and duped, but also strongly tinctured with the zeal of enthusiasm for their beloved researches, more than one of these gentlemen have contradicted each other, and have gravely pronounced, that every account of the Bramins, prior to his, was grossly erroneous, and that he himself has enjoyed the only means of knowledge, the friendship and instruction of an Indian philosopher—But let these gentlemen read, and be modest; let them learn to excuse those who cannot so warmly admire the wisdom of India; and let them consider how complete is the ridicule, when, on publishing their discoveries in England, they are obliged to confess that they entirely disagree with each other, though each confidently boasts the infallibility of his learned and honest Bramin—But the whole of the matter appears plainly to be this; The philosophy and mythology of the Bramins form such a boundless chaos of confusion and contradictions, that no two of these philosophers, unacquainted with each other, can possibly give the same or a consistent account of their tenets: And whenever one of superior ingenuity vamps up a fine philosophical theory out of the original mass, another, perhaps equally ingenious, puts one in mind of the spider in Swift's battle of the books, when the bee had destroyed her web. “A plague split you, (quoth the spider) for a giddy whoreson, is it you, with a vengeance, have made all this litter . . . . . and do you think I have nothing else to do, in the devil's name, but to mend and repair after your a ------?” In this strain, verily, may the Bramins of some modern discoverers exclaim to each other.

In the dissertation on the religion of the Bramins, (Lusiad VII.) several specimens of their legends are already given. The Translator, however, is tempted to add another, from Faria's account of the sacred books of the Malabrians. They hold an eternal succession of worlds, each to take place after an Annus Magnus. Every thing at the end of these periods is destroyed, except Ixoreta or the Deity, which is then reduced to the size of a dew drop; when, having chirped like a cricket, the divine substance in itself produces the five element, (for what they call the heavenly matter they esteem the fifth) and then dividing itself, the heavens and the earth are formed. In terra, simulac formata est, apparet mons argenteus, cujus in vertice conspiciuntur τα αιδοια, quæ verum Ixoreta sive Numen appellant, et causam causarum. Tum deus Ixora pene suo, insigni magnitudine, terrarum orbem in septem maria, septemque terras arando dividit. Liræ montes sunt, sulci vero valles ac flumina. Exoritur e tergo dei Ixora femina Chati, verbis quibusdam magicis evocata. Hi duo coire concupiunt, sed obstat longitudo membri dei Ixora; ille vero abscindit partes octodecim, ex quibus arma facta sunt, nimirum hasta, arcus, ensis, &c. Deinde nimis arctam in femina Chati digito aperit viam, et sanguinem vulneris in palma receptum, in aerem dispergit, ex quo Sol, luna, stellæ, rosæ, herbæ odoriferæ, et angues, (quod genus animalium apud eos sacrum est) protinus formantur; et impedimento omni jam sublato, coeunt Ixora et Chati, procreantque ad terram incolendam homines, bruta, et dæmones malificos; in cælo autem generant animarum 33,000,000. Besides this, almost infinite are the absurd legends of the god Ixora, and his brothers Vistnu and Brama. One other shall only be added. Vistnu, having metamorphosed himself into his younger brother Siri Christna, overcame the serpent Caliga, of nine leagues in length, which lived in a lake made by its own venom. This, and the origin of Chati, afford some obvious hints to the investigators of mythology.

To these undoubted facts the author will not add the authority of a Xavier, who tells us, that he prevailed upon a Bramin to explain to him some part of their hidden religion; when to his surprize, the Indian, in a low voice, repeated the Ten Commandments.

—χιλιαδες πολλαι των λεγομενων Βραχμανων, οιτινες κατα παραδισον των προγονων και κ/μων, ουτε φονευουσιν, ΟΥΤΕ ΞΟΑΝΑ ΣΕΒΟΝΤΑΙ— Euseb. Prep. Evan. Lib. 6. c. 10 p. 275. Ed. Paris. 1628.

The versification of the original is here exceedingly fine. Even those who are unacquainted with the Portuguese may perceive it.

It is now the time to sum up what has been said of the labours of the Jesuits. Diametrically opposite to this advice was their conduct in every Asiatic country where they pretended to propagate the gospel. Sometimes we find an individual sincere and pious, but the great principle which always actuated them as an united body was the lust of power and secular emolument, the possession of which they thought could not be better secured, than by rendering themselves of the utmost importance to the See of Rome. In consequence of these principles, where ever they came, their first care was to find what were the great objects of the fear and adoration of the people. If the Sun was esteemed the giver of life, Jesus Christ was the son of that luminary, and they were his younger brethren, sent to instruct the ignorant. If the barbarians were in dread of evil spirits, Jesus Christ came on purpose to banish them from the world, had driven them from Europe , and the Jesuits were sent to the East to complete his unfinished mission. If the Indian converts still retained a veneration for the powder of burned cow-dung, the Jesuits made the sign of the cross over it, and the Indian besmeared himself with it as usual. Heaven, or universal matter, they told the Chinese, was the God of the Christians, and the sacrifices of Confucius were solemnized in the churches of the Jesuits. This worship of Confucius, Voltaire (Gen. Hist.) with his wonted accuracy denies. But he ought to have known, that this, with the worship of Tien or Heaven, had been long complained of at the court of Rome, (see, Dupin) and that after the strictest scrutiny the charge was fully proved, and Clement XI. in 1703, sent Cardinal Tournon to the small remains of the Jesuits in the East with a papal decree to reform these abuses. But the Cardinal, soon after his arrival, was poisoned in Siam by the holy fathers. Xavier, and the other Jesuits who succeeded him, by the dextrous use of the great maxims of their master Loyala, Omnibus omnia, et omnia munda mundis, gained innumerable proselytes. They contradicted none of the favourite opinions of their converts, they only baptized, and gave them crucifixes to worship, and all was well. But their zeal in uniting to the See of Rome the Christians found in the East descended to the minutest particulars. And the native Christians of Malabar were so violently persecuted as schismatics, that the heathen princes took arms in their defence in 1570, (see Geddes, Hist. of Malab.) and the Portuguese were almost driven from India. Abyssinia, by the same arts, was steeped in blood, and two or three emperors lost their lives in endeavouring to establish the Pope's supremacy. An order at last was given from the throne, to hang every missionary without trial, wherever apprehended, the Emperor himself complaining that he could not enjoy a day in quiet for the intrigues of the Romish friars. In China also they soon rendered themselves insufferable. Their skill in mathematics and the dependent arts introduced them to great favour at court, but all their cunning could not conceal their villainy. Their unwillingness to ordain the natives raised suspicions against a profession thus monopolized by strangers; their earnest zeal in amassing riches, and their interference with, and deep designs on secular power, the fatal rock on which they have so often been shipwrecked, appeared, and their churches were levelled with the ground. About 90000 of the new converts, together with their teachers, were massacred, and their religion was prohibited. In Japan the rage of government even exceeded that of China, and in allusion to their chief object of adoration, the cross, several of the Jesuit fathers were crucified by the Japonese, and the revival of the Christian name was interdicted by the severest laws. Thus, in a great measure, ended in the East the labours of the society of Ignatius Loyala, a society which might have diffused the greatest blessings to mankind, could honesty have been added to their great learning and abilities. Had that zeal which laboured to promote the interests of their own brotherhood and the Roman See, had that indefatigable zeal been employed in the real interests of humanity and civilization, the great design of diffusing the law of heaven, challenged by its author as the purpose of the Lusiad, would have been amply compleated, and the remotest hords of Tartary and Africa ere now had been happily civilized. But though the Jesuits have failed, they have afforded a noble lesson to mankind,

This trick, it is said, has been played in America within these twenty years, where the notion of evil spirits gives the poor Indians their greatest misery. The French Jesuits told the six nations, that Jesus Christ was a Frenchman, and had driven all evil dæmons from France; that he had a great love for the Indians, whom he intended also to deliver, but taking England in his way, he was crucified by the wicked Londoners.

The innumerable superstitions performed on the banks of this river, afford a pityable picture of the weakness of humanity. These circumstances here mentioned are literally true. And it is no uncommon scene for the English ships to be surrounded with the corpses which come floating down this hallowed stream.

The tradition of this country boasted this infamous and impossible original. While other nations pretend to be descended of demi-gods, the Pegusians were contented to trace their pedigree from a Chinese woman and a dog, the only living creatures which survived a shipwreck on their coast. See Faria. This infamy, however, they could not deserve. Animals of a different species may generate together, but nature immediately displays her abhorrence, in unvariably depriving the unnatural production of the power of procreation.

Thus in the original:

Relatum est de Regina quadam terræ Peguensis, quod ad coercendum crimen turpissimum subditorum suorum, legem tulit, ut universi mares orbiculum vel orbiculos quosdam æratos in penem illatos gererent. Ita ut: Cultro penis cuticulam dividunt, eamque in orbiculos hosce superinducunt: statim a prima septimana vulnus conglutinatur. Inseruntur plerumque tres orbiculi: magnitudine infimus ad modum juglandis, primus ferme ad tenerioris gallinæ ovi modum extat. Trium liberorum parens ad libitum onus excutiat. Si horum aliquis a rege dono detur, ut gemma quantivis pretii æstimatur. To this let the testimony of G. Arthus, (Hist. Ind. Orient. p. 313.) be added, Virgines in hoc regno omnino nullas reperire licet: Puellæ enim omnes statim a pueritia sua medicamentum quoddam usurpant, quo muliebria distenduntur & aperta continentur: idque propter globulos quos in virgis viri gestant; illis enim admittendis virgines arctiores nullo modo sufficerent.

According to Balby, and Cæsar Frederic, the empire of Pegu, which the year before sent armies of two millions to the field, was in 1598, by famine and the arms of the neighbouring princes of Ava, Brama, and Siam, reduced to the most miserable state of desolation, the few natives who survived having left their country an habitation for wild beasts.

See the same account of Sicily. Virg. En. III.

Sumatra has been by some esteemed the Ophir of the Holy Scriptures; but the superior fineness of the gold of Sofala, and its situation, favour the claim of that Ethiopian isle. See Bochart. Geog. Sacr.

The extensive countries between India and China, where Ptolemy places his man-eaters, and where Mandevylle found men without heads, who saw and spoke through holes in their breasts, continues still very imperfectly known. The Jesuits have told many extravagant lies of the wealth of these provinces. By the most authentic accounts they seem to have been peopled by colonies from China. The religion and manufactures of the Siamese, in particular, confess the resemblance. In some districts, however, they have greatly degenerated from the civilization of the mother country.

Much has been said on this subject, some denying and others asserting the existence of Anthropophagi, or man-eaters. Porphyry, (de Abstin. l. 4. § 21. ) says that the Massagetæ and Derbices (people of northeastern Asia) esteeming those most miserable who died of sickness, when their parents and relations grew old, killed and eat them, holding it more honourable thus to consume them, than that they should be destroyed by vermin. Hieronymus has adopted this word for word, and has added to it an authority of his own, Quid loquar, says he, (Adv. Jov. l. 2. c. 6.) de cæteris nationibus; cum ipse adolescentulus in Gallia viderim Scotos, gentem Britannicam, humanis vesci carnibus, et cum per sylvas porcorum greges & armentorum, pecudumque reperiant, pastorum nates, et fæminarum papillas solere abscindere, & has solas ciborum delicias arbitrari? Mandevylle ought next to be cited. “Aftirwarde men gon be many yles be see unto a yle that men clepen Milhe: there is a full cursed peple: thei delyten in ne thing more than to fighten and to sle men, and to drynken gladlyest mannes blood, which they clepen Dieu.” p. 235. Yet whatever absurdity may appear on the face of these tales; and what can be more absurd, than to suppose that a few wild Scots or Irish (for the name was then proper to Ireland) should so lord it in Gaul, as to eat the breasts of the women and the hips of the shepherds? Yet whatever absurdities our Mandevylles may have obtruded on the public, the evidence of the fact is not thereby wholly destroyed. Though Dampier and other visiters of barbarous nations have assured us that they never met with any man-eaters, and though Voltaire has ridiculed the opinion, yet one may venture the assertion of their existence, without partaking of a credulity similar to that of those foreigners, who believed that the men of Kent were born with tails like sheep, (see Lambert's Peramb.) the punishment inflicted upon them for the murder of Thomas a Becket. Many are the credible accounts, that different barbarous nations used to eat their prisoners of war. According to the authentic testimony of the best Portuguese writers, the natives of Brazil, on their high festivals, brought forth their captives, and after many barbarous ceremonies, at last roasted and greedily devoured their mangled limbs. During his torture, the unhappy victim prided himself in his manly courage, upbraiding their want of skill in the art of tormenting, and telling his murderers that his belly had been the grave of many of their relations. Thus the fact was certain, long before a late voyage discovered the horrid practice in New Zealand. To drink human blood has been more common. The Gauls and other ancient nations practised it. When Magalhaens proposed Christianity to the King of Subo, a north eastern Asiatic island, and when Francis de Castro discovered Santigana and other islands, an hundred leagues north of the Maluccos, the conversion of their kings was confirmed by each party drinking of the blood of the other. Our poet Spenser tells us, in his View of the State of Ireland, that he has seen the Irish drink human blood, particularly he adds, “at the execution of a notable traitor at Limmerick, called Murrogh O'Brien, I saw an old woman, who was his foster-mother, take up his head whilst he was quartering, and suck up all the blood that run thereout, saying, that the earth was not worthy to drink it, and therewith also steeped her face and breast and tore her hair, crying out and shrieking most terribly.” It is worthy of regard that the custom of marking themselves with hot irons, and tattooing, is the characteristic both of the Guios of Camoens and of the present inhabitants of New Zealand. And if, as its animals indicate, the island of Otaheite was first peopled by a shipwreck, the friendship existing in a small society might easily obliterate the memory of one custom, while the less unfriendly one of tattooing was handed down, a memorial that they owed their origin to the north eastern parts of Asia, where that custom particularly prevails.

Ιστορουνται γαρ Μασσαγεται και Δερβικες αθλεωτατους ηγεισθαι των οικειων τους α[]ματους τελευτησαντας δυο και φθασαντες καταθεουσιν και εστεωνται των φιλτατων τους γεγηρακοτας.

That queen Elizabeth reigned in England, is not more certain than that the most ignorant nations in all ages have had the idea of a state after death. The same faculty which is conscious of existence, whispers the wish for it; and so little acquainted with the deductions of reasoning have some tribes been, that not only their animals, but even the ghosts of their domestic utensils have been believed to accompany them in the islands of the Blessed. Long ere the voice of philosophy was heard, the opinion of an after state was popular in Greece. The works of Homer bear incontestible evidence of this. And there is not a feature in the history of the human mind better ascertained, than that no sooner did speculation seize upon the topic, than belief declined, and as the great Bacon observes, the most learned became the most atheistical ages. The reason of this is obvious. While the human mind is all simplicity, popular opinion is cordially received; but when reasoning begins, proof is expected, and deficiency of demonstration being perceived, doubt and disbelief naturally follow. Yet strange as it may appear, if the writer's memory does not greatly deceive him, these certain facts were denied by Hobbes. If he is not greatly mistaken, that gentleman, who gave a wretched, a most unpoetical translation of Homer, has so grossly misunderstood his author, as to assert that his mention of a future state was not in conformity to the popular opinion of his age, but only his own poetical fiction. He might as well have assured us, that the sacrifices of Homer had never any existence in Greece. But as no absurdity is too gross for some geniuses, our murderer of Homer, our Hobbes, has likewise asserted, that the belief of the immortality of the human mind was the child of pride and speculation, unknown in Greece till long after the appearance of the Iliad.

It was on the mouth of this river that Camoens suffered the unhappy shipwreck which rendered him the sport of fortune during the remainder of his life. Our Poet metions himself and the saving of his Lusiads with the greatest modesty. But though this indifference has its beauty in the original, it is certainly the part of a Translator to add a warmth of colouring to a passage of this nature. For the literal translation of this place and farther particulars, see the Life of Camoens.

According to Le Comte's memoirs of China, and those of other travellers, the mariner's compass, fire-arms, and printing were known in that empire, long ere the invention of these arts in Europe. But the accounts of Du Halde, Le Compte, and the other Jesuits, are by no means to be depended on. It was their interest, in order to gain credit in Europe and at the court of Rome, to magnify the splendor of the empire where their mission lay, and they have magnified it into Romance itself. It is pretended that the Chinese used firearms in their wars with Zenghis Khan, and Tamerlane; but it is also said that the Sogdianians used cannon against Alexander. The mention of any sulphurous composition in an old writer is with some immediately converted into a regular tire of artillery. The Chinese, indeed, on the first arrival of Europeans, had a kind of mortars, which they called fire-pans, but they were utter strangers to the smaller fire-arms. Verbiest, a Jesuit, was the first who taught them to make brass cannon set upon wheels. And even so late as the hostile menance which Anson gave them, they knew not how to level or manage their ordinance to any advantage. Their printing is indeed much more ancient than that of Europe, but it does not deserve the same name, the blocks of wood with which they stamp their sheets being as inferior to the use of, as different from the moveable types of Europe. The Chinese have no idea of the graces of fine writing; here most probably the fault exists in their language; but the total want of nature in their painting and of symetry in their architecture, in both of which they have so long been experienced, afford a heavy accusation against their genius. But in planning gardens, and in the arts of beautifying the face of their country, they are unequalled. Yet even in their boasted gardening their genius stands accused. The art of ingrafting, so long known to Europe, is still unknown to them. And hence their fruits are vastly inferior in flavour to those of the western world. The amazing wall of defence against the Tartars, though 1500 miles in extent, is a labour inferior to the canals, lined on the sides with hewn stone, which every where enrich and adorn their country; some of which reach 1000 miles, and are of depth to carry vessels of burthen. These grand remains of antiquity prove there was a time when the Chinese were a much more accomplished people than at present. Though their princes for these many centuries have discovered no such efforts of genius as these, the industry of the people still remains, in which they rival and resemble the Dutch. In every other respect they are the most unamiable of mankind: Amazingly uninventive, for, though possessed of them, the arts have made no progress among the Chinese these many centuries: Even what they were taught by the Jesuits is almost lost: So false in their dealings, they boast that none but a Chinese can cheat a Chinese: The crime which disgraces human nature, is in this nation of athiests and the most stupid of all idolaters, common as that charter'd libertine, the Air. Destitute even in idea of that elevation of soul, which is expressed by the best sense of the word piety, in the time of calamity whole provinces are desolated by self-murder; an end, as Hume says of some of the admired names of antiquity, not unworthy of so detestable a character: And, as it is always found congenial to baseness of heart, the most dastardly cowardice compleats the description of that of the Chinese.

Unimproved as their arts is their learning. Though their language consists of few words, it is almost impossible for a stranger to attain the art of speaking it. And what an European learns ere he is seven years old, to read, is the labour of the life of a Chinese. In place of our 24 letters, they have more than 60,000 marks, which compose their writings; and their paucity of words, all of which may be attained in a few hours, requires such an infinite variety of tone and action, that the slightest mistake in modulation renders the speaker unintelligible. And in addressing a great man, in place of my Lord, you may call him a beast, the word being the same, all the difference consisting in the tune of it. A language like this must ever be a bar to the progress and accomplishments of literature. Of medicine they are very ignorant. The ginseng, which they pretended was an universal remedy, is found to be a root of no singular virtue. Their books consist of odes without poetry, and of moral maxims, excellent in themselves, but without investigation or reasoning. For to philosophical discussion and the metaphysics they seem utterly strangers, and when taught the mathematics by the Jesuits, their greatest men were lost in astonishment. Whatever their political wisdom has been, at present it is narrow and barbarous. Jealous least strangers steal their arts, arts which are excelled at Dresden and other parts of Europe, they preclude themselves from the great advantages which arise from an intercourse with civilized nations. Yet in the laws which they impose on every foreign ship which enters their ports for traffic, they even exceed the cunning and avarice of the Hollanders. In their internal policy the military government of Rome under the emperors is revived with accumulated barbarism. In every city and province the military are the constables and peace officers. What a picture is this! Nothing but Chinese or Dutch industry could preserve the traffic and population of a country under the controul of armed ruffians. But hence the emperor has leisure to cultivate his gardens, and to write despicable odes to his concubines.

Whatever was their most ancient doctrine, certain it is that the legislators who formed the present system of China presented to their people no other object of worship than Tien Kamti, the material heavens and their influencing power; by which an intelligent principle is excluded. Yet finding that the human mind in the rudest breasts is conscious of its weakness, and prone to believe the occurrences of life under the power of lucky or unlucky observances, they permitted their people the use of sacrifices to these Lucretian Gods of superstitious fear. Nor was the principle of devotion imprinted by heaven in the human heart alone perverted; another unextinguishable passion was also misled. On tables, in ever family, are written the names of the last three of their ancestors, added to each, Here rests his soul; and before these tables they burn incense and pay adoration. Confucius, who, according to their histories, had been in the West about 500 years before the Christian æra, appears to be only the confirmer of their old opinions; but the accounts of him and his doctrine are involved in uncertainty. In their places of worship however, boards are set up, inscribed, This is the seat of the soul of Confucius, and to these and their ancestors they celebrate solemn sacrifices, without seeming to possess any idea of the intellectual existence of the departed mind. The Jesuit Ricci, and his brethren of the Chinese mission, very honestly told their converts, that Tien was the God of the Christians, and that the label of Confucius was the term by which they expressed his divine majesty. But after a long and severe scrutiny at the Court of Rome, Tien was found to signify nothing more than heavenly or universal matter, and the Jesuits of China were ordered to renounce this heresy. Among all the sects who worship different idols in China, there is only one who have any tolerable idea of the immortality of the soul; and among these, says Leland, Christianity at present obtains some footing. But the most interesting particular of China yet remains to be mentioned. Conscious of the obvious tendency, Voltaire and others have triumphed in the great antiquity of the Chinese, and in the distant period they ascribe to the creation. But the bubble cannot bear the touch. If some Chinese accounts fix the æra of creation 40000 years ago, others are contented with no less than 884953. But who knows not that every nation has its Geoffry of Monmouth? And we have already observed the legends which took their rise from the Annus Magnus of the Chaldean and Egyptian astronomers, an apparent revolution of the stars, which in reality has no existence. To the fancyful, who held this Annus Magnus, it seemed hard to suppose that our world was in its first revolution of the great year, and to suppose that many were past was easy. And that this was the case we have absolute proof in the doctrines of the Bramins, (see the note on the VII. Lusiad) who, though they talk of hundreds of thousands of years which are past, yet confess, that this, the fourth world, has not yet attained its 6000th year. And much within this compass are all the credible proofs of Chinese antiquity comprehended. To three heads all these proofs are reduceable. Their form of government, which, till the conquest of the Tartars in 1644, bore the marks of the highest antiquity; their astronomical observations, and their history.

Simply and purely patriarchal every father was the magistrate in his own family, and the emperor, who acted by his substitutes the Mandarines, was venerated and obeyed as the father of all. The most passive submission to authority thus branched out was inculcated by Confucius and their other philosophers as the greatest duty of morality. But if there is an age in sacred or prophane history, where the manners of mankind are thus delineated, no superior antiquity is proved by the form of Chinese government. Their ignorance of the very ancient art of ingrafting fruit-trees, and the state of their language, so like the Hebrew in its paucity of words, a paucity characteristical of the ages when the ideas of men required few syllables to clothe them, prove nothing farther than the early separation of the Chinese colony from the rest of mankind. Nothing farther, except that they have continued till very lately without any material intercouse with the other nations of the world.

A continued succession of astronomical observations, for 4000 years, was claimed by the Chinese, when they were first visited by the Europeans. Voltaire, that son of truth, has often with great triumph mentioned the undubitable proofs of Chinese antiquity; but at these times he must have received his information from the same dream which told him that Camoens accompanied his friend Gama in the voyage which discovered the East Indies. If Voltaire and his disciples will talk of Chinese astronomy and the 4000 years antiquity of its perfection, let them enjoy every consequence which may possibly result from it. But let them allow the same liberty to others. Let them allow others to draw their inferences from a few stubborn facts, facts which demonstrate the ignorance of the Chinese in astronomy. The earth, they imagined, was a great plain, of which their country was the midst; and so ignorant were they of the cause of eclipses, that they believed the sun and moon were assaulted, and in danger of being devoured by a huge dragon. The stars were considered as the directors of human affairs, and thus their boasted astronomy ends in that silly imposition, judicial astrology. Though they had made some observations on the revolutions of the planets, and though in the emperor's palace there was an observatory, the first apparatus of proper instruments ever known in China was introduced by father Verbiest. After this it need scarcely be added, that their astronomical observations which pretend an antiquity of 4000 years, are as false as a Welch genealogy, and that the Chinese themselves, when instructed by the Jesuits, were obliged to own that their calculations were erroneous and impossible. The great credit and admiration which their astronomical and mathematical knowledge procured to the Jesuits, afford an indubitable confirmation of these facts.

Ridiculous as their astronomical, are their historical antiquities. After all Voltaire has said of it, the oldest date to which their history pretends is not much above 4000 years. During this period 236 kings have reigned, of 22 different families. The first king reigned 100 years, then we have the names of some others, but without any detail of actions, or that concatenation of events which distinguishes authentic history. That mark of truth does not begin to appear for upwards of 2000 years of the Chinese legends. Little more than the names of kings, and these often interrupted with wide chasms, compose all the annals of China, till about the period of the Christian æra. Something like a history then commences, but that is again interrupted by a wide chasm, which the Chinese know not how to fill up otherwise, than by asserting that a century or two elapsed in the time, and that at such a period a new family mounted the throne. Such is the history of China, full brother in every family feature to those Monkish tales, which sent a daughter of Pharoah to be queen of Scotland, which sent Brutus to England, and a grandson of Noah to teach school among the mountains in Wales.

The Chinese Colony! Yes, let philosophy smile; let her talk of the different species of men which are found in every country, let her brand as absurd the opinion of Montesquieu, which derives all the human race from one family. Let her enjoy her triumph. Peace to her insolence, peace to her dreams and her reveries. But let common sense be contented with the demonstration (See Whiston, Bentley, &c.) that a Creation in every country is not wanted, and that one family is sufficient in every respect for the purpose. If philosophy will talk of black and white men as different in species, let common sense ask her for a demonstration, that climate and manner of life cannot produce this difference, and let her add, that there is the strongest presumptive experimental proof, that the difference thus happens. If philosophy draw her inferences from the different passions of different tribes; let common sense reply, that stript of every accident of brutalization and urbanity, the human mind in all its faculties, all its motives, hopes and fears, is most wonderfully the same in every age and country. If philosophy talk of the impossibility of peopling distant islands and continents from one family, let common sense tell her to read Bryant's Mythology. If philosophy assert that the Celts where ever they came found Aborigines, let common sense reply, there were tyrants enough almost 2000 years before their emigrations, to drive the wretched survivers of slaughtered hosts to the remotests wilds. She may also add, that many islands have been found which bore not one trace of mankind, and that even Otaheite bears the evident marks of receiving its inhabitants from a shipwreck, its only animals being the hog, the dog, and the rat. In a word, let common sense say to philosophy, “I open my egg with a pen-knife, but you open yours with the blow of a sledge hammer.”

Tartary, Siberia, Samoyada, Kamchatki, &c. A short account of the Grand Lama of Thibet Tartary shall complete our view of the superstitions of the East. While the other Pagans of Asia worship the most ugly monstrous idols, the Tartars of Thibet adore a real living God. He sits cross-legged on his throne in the great Temple, adorned with gold and diamonds. He never speaks, but sometimes elevates his hand in token that he approves of the prayers of his worshippers. He is a ruddy well looking young man, about 25 or 27, and is the most miserable wretch on earth, being the mere puppet of his priests, who dispatch him whenever age or sickness make any alteration in his features; and another, instructed to act his part, is put in his place. Princes of very distant provinces send tribute to this Deity and implore his blessing, and as Voltaire has merrily told us, think themselves secure of benediction, if favoured with something from his Godship, esteemed more sacred than the hallowed cow-dung of the Bramins.

By this beautiful metaphor, omitted by Castera, Camoens alludes to the great success, which in his time attended the Jesuit missionaries in Japan. James I. sent an embassy to the sovereign, and opened a trade with this country, but it was soon suffered to decline. The Dutch are the only Europeans who now traffic with the Japonese, which it is said they obtain by trampling on the cross and by abjuring the Christian name. In religion the Japonese are much the same as their neighbours of China. And in the frequency of self-murder, says Voltaire, they vie with their brother islanders of England.

These are commonly called the birds of Paradise. It was the old erroneous opinion that they always soared in the air, and that the female hatched her young on the back of the male. Their feathers bear a mixture of the most beautiful azure, purple and golden colours, which have a fine effect in the rays of the sun.

Streams of this kind are common in many countries. Castera attributes this quality to the excessive cold of the waters, but this is a mistake. The waters of some springs are impregnated with sparry particles, which adhering to the herbage or the clay on the banks of their channel, harden into stone and incrust the original retainers.

Benjamin, a species of frankincense. The oil mentioned in the next line, is that called the rock oil, a black fœtid mineral oleum, good for bruises and sprains.

A sea plant, resembling the palm, grows in great abundance in the bays about the Maldivian islands. The boughs rise to the top of the water, and bear a kind of apple, called the coco of Maldivia, which is esteemed an antidote against poison.

The imprint of a human foot is found on the high mountain, called the Pic of Adam. Legendary tradition says, that Adam, after he was expelled from Paradise, did penance 300 years on this hill, on which he left the print of his footstep. This tale seems to be Jewish or Mohammedan, for the natives, according to Capt. Knox, who was twenty years a captive in Ceylon, pretend the impression was made by the God Buddow, when he ascended to heaven, after having for the salvation of mankind, appeared on the earth. His priests beg charity for the sake of Buddow, whose worship they perform among groves of the Bogahah-tree, under which, when on earth, they say he usually sat and taught.

Madagascar is thus named by the natives.

The sublimity of this eulogy on the expedition of the Lusiad has been already observed. What follows is a natural completion of the whole; and, the digressive exclamation at the end excepted, is exactly similar to the manner in which Homer has concluded the Iliad.

We are now presented with a beautiful view of the American world. Columbus discovered the West Indies before, but not the Continent till 1498, the year after Gama sailed from Lisbon.

Cabral, the first after Gama who sailed to India, was driven by Tempest to the Brazils, a proof that more ancient voyagers might have met with the same fate. He named the country Santa Cruz, or Holy Cross; it was afterward named Brazil, from the colour of the wood, with which it abounds. It is one of the finest countries in the new world, and still remains subject to the crown of Portugal.

Camoens, though he boasts of the actions of Magalhaens as an honour to Portugal, yet condemns his defection to the king of Spain, and calls him

“In deeds truly a Portuguese, but not in loyalty.” And others have bestowed upon him the name of Traytor, but perhaps undeservedly. Justice to the name of this great man requires an examination of the charge. Ere he entered into the service of the king of Spain by a solemn act he unnaturalized himself. Osorius is very severe against this unavailing rite, and argues that no injury which a prince may possibly give, can authorize a subject to act the part of a traytor against his native country. This is certainly true, but it is not strictly applicable to the case of Magalhaens. Many eminent services performed in Africa and India entitled him to a certain allowance, which, though inconsiderable in itself, was esteemed as the reward of distinguished merit, and therefore highly valued. For this Magalhaens petitioned in vain. He found, says Faria, that the malicious accusations of some men had more weight with his sovereign than all his services. After this unworthy repulse, what patronage at the court of Lisbon could he hope? And though no injury can vindicate the man who draws his sword against his native country, yet no moral duty requires that he who has some important discovery in meditation should stifle his design, if uncountenanced by his native prince. It has been alledged, that he embroiled his country in disputes with Spain. But neither is this strictly applicable to the neglected Magalhaens. The courts of Spain and Portugal had solemnly settled the limits within which they were to make discoveries and settlements, and within these did Magalhaens and the court of Spain propose that his discoveries should terminate. And allowing that his calculations might mislead him beyond the bounds prescribed to the Spaniards, still his apology is clear, for it would have been injurious to each court, had he supposed that the faith of the boundary treaty would be trampled upon by either power. If it is said that he aggrandised the enemies of his country, the Spaniards, and introduced them to a dangerous rivalship with the Portuguese settlements; let the sentence of Faria on this subject be remembered, “let princes beware, says he, how by neglect or injustice they force into desperate actions the men who have merited rewards.” As to rivalship, the case of Mr. Law, a North Briton, is apposite. This gentleman wrote an excellent treatise on the improvement of the trade and fisheries of his native country, but his proposals were totally neglected by the commissioners, whose office and duty it was to have patronised him. Was Law, therefore, to sit down in obscurity on a barren field, to stifle his genius, lest a foreign power, who might one day be at war with Great Britain, should be aggrandised by his efforts in commercial policy? No, surely. Deprived of the power of raising himself at home, Mr. Law went to France, where he became the founder of the Misissippi and other important schemes of commerce; yet Law was never branded with the name of traytor. The reason is obvious. The government of Great Britain was careless of what they lost in Mr. Law, but the Portuguese perceived their loss in Magalhaens, and their anger was vented in reproaches.

In the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th centuries, the spirit of discovery broke forth in its greatest vigour. The east and the west had been visited by Gama and Columbus; and the bold idea of sailing to the east by the west was revived by Magalhaens. Revived, for misled by Strabo and Pliny, who place India near to the west of Spain, Columbus expecting to find the India of the ancients when he landed on Hispaniola, thought he had discovered the Ophir of Solomon. And hence the name of Indies was given to that and the neighbouring islands. Though America and the Moluccas were now found to be at a great distance, the genius of Magalhaens still suggested the possibility of a western passage. And accordingly, possessed of his great design, and neglected with contempt at home, he offered his service to the court of Spain, and was accepted. With five ships and 250 men he sailed from Spain in September 1519, and after many difficulties, occasioned by mutiny and the extreme cold, he entered the great Pacific Ocean or South Seas by those straits which bear his Spanish name Magellan. From these straits, in the 52 ½ degree of southern latitude, he traversed that great ocean, till in the 10th degree of North latitude he landed on the island of Subo or Marten. The king of this country was then at war with a neighbouring prince, and Magalhaens, on condition of his conversion to christianity, became his auxiliary. In two battles the Spaniards were victorious, but in the third, Magalhaens, together with one Martinho, a judicial astrologer, whom he usually consulted, was unfortunately killed. Chagrined with the disappointment of promised victory, the new baptized king of Subo made peace with his enemies, and having invited to an entertainment the Spaniards on shore, he treacherously poisoned them all. The wretched remains of the fleet arrived at the Portuguese settlements in the isles of Banda and Ternate, where they were received, says Faria, as friends, and not as intruding strangers; a proof that the boundary treaty was esteemed sufficiently sacred. Several of the adventurers were sent to India, and from thence to Spain, in Portuguese ships, one ship only being in a condition to return to Europe by the Cape of Good Hope. This vessel, named the Victoria, however, had the honour to be the first which ever surrounded the globe; an honour by some ignorantly attributed to the ship of Sir Francis Drake. Thus unhappily ended, says Osorius, the expedition of Magalhaens. But the good Bishop was mistaken, for a few years after he wrote, and somewhat upwards of fifty after the return of the Victoria, Philip II. of Spain availed himself of the discoveries of Magalhaens. And the navigation of the South Seas between Spanish America and the Asian Archipelago, at this day forms the basis of the power of Spain. A basis, however, which is at the mercy of Great Britain, while her ministers are wise enough to preserve her great naval superiority. A Gibraltar in the South Seas is only wanting. But when this is mentioned, who can withold his eyes from the isthmus of Darien? the rendezvous appointed by nature for the fleets which may one day give law to the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans: A settlement which to-day might have owned subjection to Great Britain, if justice and honour had always presided in the cabinet of William the Third.

The Patagonians. Various are the fables of navigators concerning these people. The Spaniards who went with Magalhaens affirmed they were about ten feet in height, since which voyage they have risen and fallen in their stature, according to the different humours of our sea wits.

We are now come to the conclusion of the fiction of the island of Venus, a fiction which is divided into three principal parts. In each of these the poetical merit is obvious, nor need we fear to assert that the happiness of our author, in uniting all these parts together in one great episode, would have excited the admiration of Longinus. The heroes of the Lusiad receive their reward in the island of Love. They are led to the palace of Thetis, where, during a divine feast, they hear the glorious victories and conquests of the heroes who are to succeed them in their Indian expedition, sung by a Syren; and the face of the globe itself, described by the Goddess, discovers the universe, and particularly the extent of the Eastern World, now given to Europe by the success of Gama. Neither in grandeur nor in happiness of completion may the Eneid or Odyssey be mentioned in comparison. The Iliad alone, in Epic conduct (as already observed) bears a strong resemblance. But however great in other views of poetical merit, the games at the funeral of Patroclus and the redemption of the body of Hector, considered as the interesting conclusion of a great whole, can never in propriety and grandeur be brought into competition with the admirable episode which concludes the Poem on the Discovery of India.

Soon after the appearance of the Lusiad, the language of Spain was also enriched with an heroic poem. The author of which has often imitated the Portuguese poet, particularly in the fiction of the globe of the world, which is shewed to Gama. In the Araucana, a globe surrounded with a radiant sphere, is also miraculously supported in the air; and on this an enchanter shews to the Spaniards the extent of their dominions in the new world. But Don Alonzo d'Arcilla is in this, as in every other part of his poem, greatly inferior to the poetical spirit of Camoens. Milton, whose poetical conduct in concluding the action of his Paradise Lost, as already pointed out, seems formed upon the Lusiad, appears to have had this passage particularly in his eye. For though the machinery of a visionary sphere was rather improper for the situation of his personages, he has nevertheless, though at the expence of an impossible supposition, given Adam a view of the terrestial globe. Michael sets the father of mankind on a mountain.

And even the mention of America seems copied by Milton,

It must also be owned by the warmest admirer of the Paradise Lost, that the description of America in Camoens,

Conveys a bolder and a grander idea than all the names enumerated by Milton.

Some short account of the Writers, whose authorities have been adduced in the course of these notes, may not now be improper. Fernando Lopez de Castagneda went to India on purpose to do honour to his countrymen, by enabling himself to record their actions and conquests in the East. As he was one of the first writers on that subject, his geography is often imperfect. This defect is remedied in the writings of John de Barros, who was particularly attentive to this head. But the two most eminent, as well as fullest, writers on the transactions of the Portuguese in the East, are Manuel de Faria y Sousa, knight of the order of Christ, and Hieronimus Osorius, bishop of Sylves. Faria, who wrote in Spanish, was a laborious enquirer, and is very full and circumstantial. With honest indignation he reprehends the rapine of commanders and the errors and unworthy resentments of kings. But he is often so dryly particular, that he may rather be called a journalist than an historian. And by this uninteresting minuteness, his style for the greatest part is rendered inelegant. The Bishop of Sylves, however, claims a different character. His latin is elegant, and his manly and sentimental manner entitles him to the name of Historian, even where a Livy, or a Tacitus, are mentioned. But a sentence from himself, unexpected in a Father of the communion of Rome, will characterise the liberality of his mind. Talking of the edict of king Emmanuel, which compelled the Jews to embrace Christianity, under severe persecution; Nec ex lege, nec ex religione factum . . . . . . . tibi assumas, says he, ut libertatem voluntatis impedias, et vincula mentibus effrenatis injicias? At id neque fieri potest, neque Christi sanctissimum numen approbat. Voluntarium enim sacrificium non vi malo coactum ab hominibus expetit: Neque vim mentibus inferri, sed voluntates ad studium veræ religionis allici & invitari jubet.

It is said, in the preface to Osorius, that his writings were highly esteemed by Queen Mary of England, wife of Philip II. What a pity is it, that this manly indignation of the good Bishop against the impiety of religious persecution, made no impression on the mind of that bigotted Princess!

Thus in all the force of ancient simplicity, and the true sublime ends the Poem of Camoens. What follows, is one of those exuberances we have already endeavoured to defend in our Author, nor in the strictest sense is this concluding one without propriety. A part of the proposition of the Poem is artfully addressed to King Sebastian, and he is now called upon in an address, which is an artful second part to the former, to behold and preserve the glories of his throne.

John I. and Pedro the Just, two of the greatest of the Portuguese monarchs.

Thus imitated, or rather translated into Italian by Guarini.

Similarity of condition, we have already observed, produced similarity of complaint and sentiment in Spenser and Camoens. Each was unworthily neglected by the Gothic grandees of his age, yet both their names will live, when the remembrance of the courtiers who spurned them shall sink beneath their mountain tombs. Three beautiful stanzas from Phinehas Fletcher on the memory of Spenser, may also serve as an epitaph for Camoens. The unworthy neglect, which was the lot of the Portuguese Bard, but too well appropriates to him the elegy of Spenser. And every Reader of taste, who has perused the Lusiad, will think of the Cardinal Henrico, and feel the indignation of these manly lines.

Colin Clout, Spenser.

Glorian, Elizabeth in the Faerie Queen.

The Earl of Essex.

Lord Burleigh.