University of Virginia Library

The constitution of Germany, observes Puffendorf, may be said to verify the fable of the Hydra, with this difference, that the heads of the German state bite and devour each other. At the time when Camoens wrote, the German empire was plunged into all the miseries of a religious war, the Catholics using every endeavour to rivet the chains of Popery, the adherents of Luther as strenuously endeavouring to shake them off.

This is a mistake. The title of King of Jerusalem was never assumed by the Kings of England. Robert, Duke of Normandy, son of William the Conqueror, was elected King of Jerusalem by the army in Syria, but declined it in hope of ascending the throne of England, which attempt was defeated. Regnier, Count d'Anjou, father of Margaret, queen of Henry VI. was flattered with the mock royalty of Naples, Cyprus, and Jerusalem, his armorial bearing for the latter, Luna, a cross potent, between four crosses Sol. Hen. VIII. filled the throne of England when our author wrote: his gothic luxury and conjugal brutality amply deserved the censure of the honest Poet.

The French Translator very cordially agrees with the Portuguese Poet in the strictures upon Germany, England, and Italy. But when his own country is touched upon, “Malgré Pestime, says he, que j'ai pour mon auteur, je ne craindrai pas de dire qu'il tombe ici dans une grande injustice: For all the regard I have for my Author, I will not hesitate to say, that here he has committed an enormous injustice.” All Europe besides however will witness the truth of the assertion, which stigmatizes the French politics with the lust of extending their monarchy.

A river in Africa.

However these severe reflections on modern Italy may displease the admirers of Italian manners, the picture on the whole is too just to admit of confutation. Never did the history of any court afford such instances of villainy and all the baseness of intrigue as that of the Popes. The faith and honour of gentlemen banished from the politics of the Vatican, every public virtue must of consequence decline among the higher ranks, while the lower, broken by oppression, sunk into the deepest poverty, and its attendant vices of meanness and pufillanimity. That this view of the lower ranks in the Pope's dominions is just, we have the indubitable testimony of an Addison, confirmed by the miserable depopulation of a province, which was once the finest and most populous of the Roman empire. It has long been the policy of the court of Spain, to encourage the luxury and effeminate dissipation of the Neapolitan nobility; and those of modern Venice resemble their warlike ancestors only in name. That Italy can boast many individuals of a different character, will by no means overthrow these general observations founded on the testimony of the most authentic Writers. Our Poet is besides justifiable, in his censures, for he only follows the severe reflections of the greatest of the Italian Poets. It were easy to give fifty instances, two or three however shall suffice. Dante in his sixth Canto, del Purg.

“Ah, slavish Italy, the Inn of dolour, a ship without a pilot in a horrid tempest, not the mistress of provinces, but a brothel.” Ariosto, Canto 17.

“O inebriated Italy, thou sleepest the sink of every filthy vice.” And Petrarch;

“From the impious Babylon (the Papal court) from whence all shame and all good are fled, the Inn of dolour, the mother of errors, have I hastened away to prolong my life.”

A much admired Sonnet from the same Author shall close these citations.

Though this elegant little Poem is general, yet as the Author and the friend to whom he addresses it, were Italians, that he had a particular regard to the state of their own country must be allowed. I have thus attempted it in English.

It is supposed that this was addressed to a friend, engaged in some literary undertaking of importance and novelty.

Cadmus having slain the dragon which guarded the fountain of Dirce in Bœotia, sowed the teeth of the monster. A number of armed men immediately sprung up, and surrounded Cadmus in order to kill him. By the counsel of Minerva he threw a precious stone among them, in striving for which they slew one another. Only five survived, who afterwards assisted him to build the city of Thebes. Vid. Ovid. Met. IV.

The foundation of this fable appears to be thus: Cadmus having slain a famous Freebooter, who infested Bœotia, a number of his Banditti, not improperly called his teeth, attempted to revenge his death, but quarrelling about the presents which Cadmus sent them to distribute among themselves, they fell by the swords of each other.

Imitated from this fine passage in Lucan:

The Caspian sea, so called from the large river Volga or Wolga, which empties itself into it.

By this barbarous policy the tyranny of the Ottomans has been long sustained. The troops of the Turkish infantry and cavalry, known by the name of Janizaries and Spahis, are thus supported; and the scribes in office called Mufti, says Sandys, “are the sons of Christians (and those the most completely furnished by nature) taken in their childhood from their miserable parents by a levy made every five years, or oftener or seldomer, as occasion requireth.”

See the note on page 194.

Alludes to the discovery and conquest of the Brazils by the Portuguese.

If our former defences of the exuberant declamations of Camoens are allowed by the critic, we doubt not but the disgression, now concluded, will appear with peculiar propriety. The poet having brought his heroes to the shore of India, indulges himself with a review of the state of the western and eastern worlds; the latter of which is now, by the labour of his heroes, rendered accessible to the former. The purpose of his poem is also strictly kept in view. The West and the East he considers as two great empires, the one of the true religion, the other of a false. The professors of the true, disunited and destroying one another; the professors of the false one all combined to extirpate the other. He upbraids the professors of the true religion for their vices, particularly for their disunion and for deserting the interests of holy faith. His countrymen, however, he boasts, have been its defenders and planters, and, without the assistance of their brother powers, will plant it in Asia. This, as it is the purpose of his hero, is directly to the subject of the poem, and the honour, which heaven he says vouchsafed to his countrymen, in chusing them to defend and propagate its laws, is in the genuine spirit of that religious enthusiasm which breathes through the two great epic poems of Greece and Rome, and which gives an air of the most solemn importance to the Gierusalemme of Tasso.

Yet whatever liberties a poet may be allowed to take when he treats of the fabulous ages, any absurdity of opinion, where authentic history, and the state of modern nations afford the topic, must to the intelligent reader appear ridiculous, and therefore a blemish in a solemn poem. There are many, the translator is aware, to whom a serious and warm exhortation to a general crusade will appear as an absurdity, and a blemish of this kind. “The crusaders,” according to what M. Voltaire calls their true character, des brigands liguès pour venir, &c. “were a band of vagabond thieves who had agreed to ramble from the heart of Europe in order to desolate a country they had no right to, and massacre, in cold blood, a venerable prince more than fourscore years old, and his whole people, against whom they had no pretence of complaint.”

Yet however confidently Voltaire and others may please to talk, it will be no difficult matter to prove that the crusades were neither so unjustifiable, so impolitical, nor so unhappy in their consequences as the superficial readers of history are habituated to view them.

Were the Aborigines of all America to form one general confederacy against the descendants of those Europeans, who under that brutal conqueror Fernando Cortez, massacred upwards of forty millions of Mexicans, and other American natives, and were the confederates totally to dispossess the present possessors of an empire so unjustly acquired, no man, it is presumed, would pronounce that their combination and hostilities were against the law of nature or nations. Yet, whatever Voltaire may please to assert, this supposition is by no means unapplicable to the confederacy of the cross. A party of wandering Arabs are joined by the Turks or Turcomans, who inhabited the frozen wilds of mount Caucasus, and whose name signifies wanderers; these, incorporated with other banditti, from the deserts of Scythia, now called Tartary, overrun the regions of Syria, to which they had no title, whose inhabitants had given them no offence. They profess that they are commissioned by heaven to establish the religion of Mohammed by violence and the sword. In a few ages they subdue the finest countries around the Euphrates, and the Christian inhabitants, the rightful possessors, are treated with the brutal policy and cruelty of a Cortez. Bound by their creed to make war on the Christians, their ambition neglects no opportunity to extend their conquests; and already possessed of immense territory, their acknowledged purpose and their power threaten destruction to the Christian empire of the Greeks.

Having conquered and proselited Africa, from the Nile to the Straits of Gibraltar, the princes of that country, their tributaries and allies, combining in the great design to extirpate Christianity, turn their arms against Europe, and are successful: they establish kingdoms in Spain and Portugal; and France, Italy, and the western islands of the mediterranean, suffer by their excursions; while Hungary, Bohemia, Poland, and Italy itself, from its vicinage to Dalmatia, are immediately concerned in the impending fate of the Grecian empire. To these considerations let it be added, that several eastern Christians fled to Europe, and begging as pilgrims from country to country, implored the assistance of the Christian powers to dispossess the cruel and unjust usurpers of their lands. At this period the crusades commence. To suppose that the princes of Europe were so insensible to the danger which threatened them, as some modern writers who have touched upon that subject, appear to be, is to ascribe a degree of stupidity to them by no means applicable to their military character. Though superstition inflamed the multitude, we may be assured however, that several princes found it their political interest to fan the flames of that superstition; and accordingly we find that the princes of Spain and Portugal often greatly availed themselves of it. The immense resources which the Turks received from Egypt, and the neighbouring countries, which had not been attempted by Godfrey and the first crusaders, determined their successors to alter the plan of their operations. They began their hostilities in Spain and Portugal, and proceeded through Barbary to Egypt. By this new route of the crosses, the Spaniards and Portuguese were enabled not only to drive the Moors from Europe, but to give a fatal blow to their power in Africa. Nor was the safety of the Greek empire less necessary to Italy and the eastern kingdoms of Europe. Injuries, however, offered by the crusaders, who even seized the throne of Constantinople, upon which they placed an earl of Flanders, excited the resentment of the Greeks; and their aversion to the papal supremacy rendered them so jealous of the crusaders, that the successors of Godfrey, for want of auxiliary support, after about ninety years possession, were totally driven from their new-erected kingdom in the Holy Land. By the fall of the Greek empire, an event which followed, and which had been long foreseen, the Venetians, the Austrians, the Poles, and the Russians became the natural enemies of the Turks; and many desperate wars, attended with various success, have been continued to the present time. Not much above fifty years ago, their formidable efforts to possess themselves of the Venetian dominions alarmed all the Christian powers; and had it not been for the repeated defeats they received from prince Eugene, a great part of the Austrian territories must have yielded to their yoke. However overlooked, it requires but little political philosophy to perceive the security which would result to Europe were there a powerful and warlike kingdom on the eastern side of the Turkish empire. The western conquests of that fierce warrior Bajazet I. were interrupted by Tamerlane, and by the enemy they found in Kouli Khan, the enraged Porte was prevented from revenging the triumphs of Eugene. A few years ago we beheld them trample on the law of nations, send an ambassador to prison, and command the Russian empress to desert her allies. A war, which now continues, ensued. And however the foresight of the narrow politician may dread the rising power of the Russ, it is to be wished that the arms of Muscovy may fix such barriers to the Turkish empire as will for ever prevent their long meditated and often attempted design to possess themselves of the Venetian dominions, or to extend their conquests on the West, conquests which would render them the most dangerous power to the peace of Europe.

In a word, the crusades, a combination which tended to support the Greek empire for the security of the eastern, and to drive the enemy from the southern parts of Europe, can by no means deserve to be called a most singular monument of human folly, whatever the superstition of its promoters and conductors might be. And however the inutility and absurdity of their professed aim, to rescue the tomb of Christ, may excite the ridicule of the modern philosopher, it was a motive admirably adapted to the superstition of that age; and where it is necessary that an enemy should be restrained, an able politician will avail himself of the most powerful of all incitements to hostility, the superstitious or religious fervour of his army.

Having entered so far into the history of the crusades, it may not be improper to take a view of the happy consequences which flowed from them. “To these wild expeditions,” says Robertson, “the effect of superstition or folly, we owe the first gleams of light which tended to dispel barbarity and ignorance, and introduce any change in government or manners.” Constantinople, at that time the seat of elegance, of arts and commerce, was the principal rendezvous of the European armies. The Greek writers of that age speak of the Latins as the most ignorant barbarians; the Latins, on the other hand, talk with astonishment of the grandeur, elegance, and commerce of Constantinople. The most stupid barbarians, when they have the opportunity of comparison, are sensible of the superiority of civilized nations, and by an acquaintance with them begin to resemble their manners, and emulate their advantages. The fleets which attended the crosses introduced commerce, and the freedom of commercial cities into their mother countries. This, as Robertson observes, proved destructive to the feudal system, which had now degenerated into the most gloomy oppression, and introduced the plans of regular government. “This acquisition of liberty,” says the same most ingenious historian, “made such a happy change in the condition of all the members of communities as roused them from that stupidity and inaction into which they had been sunk by the wretchedness of their former state. The spirit of industry revived, commerce became an object of attention, and began to flourish. Population increased. Independence was established, and wealth flowed into cities which had long been the seat of poverty and oppression.”

Upon the whole it will be found, that the Portuguese poet talks of the political reasons of a crusade, with an accuracy in the philosophy of history, as superior to that of Voltaire as the poetical merit of the Lusiad surpasses that of the Henriade. And the critic in poetry must allow, that to suppose the discovery of Gama the completion of all the endeavours to overthrow the great enemies of the true religion gives a dignity to the poem, and an importance to the hero, similar to that which Voltaire, on the same supposition, allows to the subject of the Jerusalem of Tasso.

Lisbon itself was taken from the Moors, by the assistance of an English feet of crusaders. See the note, p. 108.

A Patriarch of Constantinople declared publickly to the Pope's legate. “That he would much rather behold the turban than the triple crown upon the great altar of Constantinople.”

This is according to the truth of history. While the messenger sent ashore by Gama was borne here and there, and carried off his feet by the throng, who understood not a word of his language, he was accosted in Spanish by a Moorish merchant, a native of Tunis, who, according to Osorius, had been the chief person with whom king Ferdinand had formerly contracted for military stores. He proved himself an honest agent, and of infinite service to Gama, with whom he returned to Portugal, where, according to Faria, he died in the Christian communion. He was named Monzaida.

To eat together was in the east looked upon as the inviolable pledge of protection. As a Persian nobleman was one day walking in his garden, a wretch in the utmost terror prostrated himself before him, and implored to be protected from the rage of a multitude who were in pursuit of him, to take his life. The nobleman took a peach, eat part of it, and gave the rest to the fugitive, assuring him of safety. As they approached the house, they met a crowd who carried the murdered corse of the nobleman's beloved son. The incensed populace demanded the murderer, who stood beside him, to be delivered to their fury. The father, though overwhelmed with grief and anger, replied, “We have eaten together, and I will not betray him.” He protected the murderer of his son from the fury of his domestics and neighbours, and in the night facilitated his escape.

The well-known fable of the descent of Orpheus to hell, and the second loss of his wife, is thus explained. Aëdoneus, king of Thesprotia, whose cruelty procured him the name of Pluto, tyrant of hell, having seized Eurydice, as she fled from his friend Aristæus, detained her as a captive. Orpheus having charmed the tyrant with his music, his wife was restored, on condition that he should not look upon her, till he had conducted her out of Thesprotia. Orpheus, on his journey, forfeited the condition, and irrecoverably lost his spouse.

The Great Mogul and other eastern sovereigns, attended with their courtiers, spend annually some months of the finest season in encampments in the field, in hunting parties, and military amusements.

Properly an immense chain of mountains, known by various names, Caucasus, Taurus, Hemodus, Paropamissus, Orontes, Imaus, &c. and from Imaus extended through Tartary to the sea of Kamchatka.

One Captain Knox, who published an account of Ceylon, in 1681, has the following curious passage. “This for certain, says he, I can affirm, that oftentimes the Devil doth cry with an audible voice in the night: It is very shrill, almost like the barking of a dog. This I have often heard myself, but never heard that he did any body any harm. Only this observation the inhabitants of the land have made of this voice, and I have made it also, that either just before, or very suddenly after this voice, the king always cuts off people. To believe that this is the voice of the Devil these reasons urge; because there is no creature known to the inhabitants that cries like it, and because it will on a sudden depart from one place, and make a noise in another, quicker than any fowl can fly, and because the very dogs will tremble when they hear it; and it is so counted by all the people.” —Knox, Hist. Ceyl. p. 78.

Pliny, imposed upon by some Greeks, who pretended to have been in India, relates this fable. Vid. Nat. Hist. Lib. 12.

Almost all the Indian nations attribute to the Ganges, the virtue of cleansing the soul from the stains of sin. They have such veneration for this river, that if any one in their presence were to throw any filth into the stream, an instant death would punish his audacity. As St. Thomas preached the faith in the east, it is probable that these ablutions are a gross imitation of that baptism, which he published. Castera.

Now called Gazarate. The inhabitants are ingenious, cultivate letters, and are said to be particularly happy in the agreeable Romance. According to ancient tradition, Porus was sovereign of this country. His memory is still preserved with an eclat, worthy of that valour and generosity which attracted the esteem of the great Alexander. Castera. This country was known to the ancients by the name of Gedrosia.

The laws of Narsinga oblige the women to throw themselves into the funeral pile, to be burnt with their deceased husbands. An infallible secret to prevent the desire of widowhood.

There are many accounts in different travellers of the performance of this most barbarous ceremony. The following one is selected as the most picturesque of any in the knowledge of the translator.

“At this time (1710) died the Prince of Marata, aged above eighty years. The ceremony of his funeral, where his forty-seven wives were burned with his corpse, was thus: A deep circular pit was digged in a field without the town; in the middle of the trench was erected a pile of wood, on the top of which, on a couch richly ornamented, lay the body of the deceased Prince in his finest robes. After numberless rituals performed by the Bramins, the pile was set on fire, and immediately the unhappy Ladies appeared, sparkling with jewels and adorned with flowers. These victims of this diabolical sacrifice walked several times about the burning pile, the heat whereof was felt at a considerable distance. The principal Lady then, holding the dagger of her late husband, thus addressed herself to the Prince his successor: Here, said she, is the dagger which the King made use of, to triumph over his enemies: beware never to employ it to other purpose, never to embrue it with the blood of your subjects. Govern them as a father, as he has done, and you shall live long and happy, as he did. Since he is no more, nothing can keep me longer in the world; all that remains for me is to follow him. With these words, she resigned the dagger into the Prince's hands, who took it from her without shewing the least sign of grief or compassion. The Princess now appeared agitated. One of her domestics, a Christian woman, had frequently talked with her on religion, and though she never renounced her idols, had made some impressions on her mind. Perhaps these impressions now revived. With a most expressive look she exclaimed, Alas! what is the end of human happiness! I know I shall plunge myself headlong into hell. On these words, a horror was visible on every countenance; when resuming her courage, she boldly turned her face to the burning pile, and calling upon her gods, flung herself into the midst of the flames. The second Lady was the sister of a Prince of the blood, who was present, and assisted at the detestable sacrifice. She advanced to her brother, and gave him the jewels, wherewith she was adorned. His passion gave way, he burst into tears, and fell upon her neck in the most tender embraces. She, however, remained unmoved, and, with a resolute countenance, sometimes viewed the pile, and sometimes the assistants. Then loudly exclaiming, Chiva, Chiva, the name of one of her idols, she precipitated herself into the flames, as the former had done. The other Ladies soon followed after, some decently composed, and some with the most bewildered, down-cast, sorrowful looks. One of them, shocked above the rest, ran to a Christian soldier, whom she beheld among the guards, and hanging about his neck, implored him to save her. The new convert, stunned with surprize, pushed the unfortunate Lady from him; and shrieking aloud she fell into the fiery trench. The soldier, all shivering with terror, immediately retired, and a delirious fever ended his life in the following night. Though many of the unhappy victims, discovered at first the utmost intrepidity, yet no sooner did they feel the flames, than they roared out in the most dreadful manner; and, weltering over each other, strove to gain the brim of the pit; but in vain: the assistants forced them back with their poles, and heaped new fuel upon them. The next day the Bramins gathered the bones, and threw them into the sea. The pit was levelled, a temple built on the spot, and the deceased Prince and his wives were reckoned among the Deities. To conclude, this detestable cruelty has the appearance of the free choice of the women. But that freedom is only specious; it is almost impossible to avoid it. If they do, they must lie under perpetual infamy, and the relations, who esteem themselves highly disgraced, leave no means untried to oblige them to it. Princesses, and Concubines of Princes, however, are the only persons from whom this species of suicide is expected. When women of inferior rank submit to this abominable custom, they are only urged to it by the impulse of a barbarous pride and vanity of ostentation.” Extracted from a letter from Father Martin, on the mission of Coromandel, to Father de Villete, of the Society of Jesus, published at Paris, in 1719.

Whatever Monzaida relates of the people and their manners, is confirmed by the histories of India, according to Barros, Castaneda, Maffeus, and Don Osorius. Our Author, in this, imitates Homer and Virgil, who are fond of every opportunity to introduce any curious custom or vestige of antiquity. Castera.

Antiquity has talked much, but knew little with certainty of the Brahmins, and their philosophy. Porphyry and others esteem them the same as the Gymnosophists of the Greeks, and divide them into several sects, the Samanæi, the Germanes, the Pramnæ, the Gymnetæ, &c. Their terrible penances are often mentioned by heathen authors, and by the earliest of the Christian fathers. The story of Calanus, who burnt himself in the camp of Alexander, is well known. The Brahmin Mandanis, however, deserves more honour: he rejected with scorn the gifts of the conqueror, and ridiculed his pretensions to divinity. Several ambassadors were sent by a king of India, a king of six hundred kings, to Augustus Cæsar. (Sueton. c. 21.) One of these, a Brahmin philosopher, burned himself at Athens. His life had been extremely prosperous, and he took this method, he said, to prevent a reverse of fortune. Amid a great concourse of people he entered the fire, naked, anointed, and laughing. The epitaph which he desired might be inscribed on his tomb, was, “Here rests Zarmanochagas, the Indian of Bargosa, who, according to the custom of his country, made himself immortal.” On the approach of age or disease, according to antiquity, they had recourse to this means, and it was on the advances of a distemper that Calanus amused Alexander with this exhibition of Indian philosophy. The custom of the wife being burned with the corpse of her deceased husband is also very antient. It is mentioned by Hierome, (Adv. Jov. l. i.) and several others. Postellus (de Orig. c. 13. et 15.) fancies that the Brahmins are descended of Abraham by Keturah, and named Brachmanes, quasi Abrahmanes. Pliny, l. vii. c. 2. relates, that the Indian philosophers called Gymnetæ, from the sun rising to his setting, by way of divination, kept their eyes unalterably fixed on the orb of that luminary. Besides these relations, which correspond with later accounts, the antients had innumerable fables. Pliny talks of men in India with dogs heads; others with only one leg, yet Achilleses for swiftness of foot; of a nation of pigmies; of some, (as already observed in these notes) who lived by the smell; of tribes who had only one eye in their forehead; and of some whose ears hung down to the ground. Others talked of fountains, in India, of liquid gold. But enough. Though Pliny, no doubt, had his admirers, these stories were ridiculed by some, and Horace genteely laughs at them in a single expression.

From the earliest times the Indians have been divided into distinct tribes. The four principal ones are, the Brahmins, (who like the Levites among the Hebrews, are hereditary priests) the soldiers, the mechanics, and the labourers. As these tribes never intermarry, India may properly be said to contain four different nations. They will neither eat together, nor drink out of the same vessel. If they trespass in these or in many other similar points, they are held as polluted, rejected from their tribe, and are obliged to herd with a despised crew, called the Hallachores, who are the lowest of the community, the rabble of India. Among these only, says Scrafton, the popish missionaries have had any success. Urbano Cerri, in his account of the Catholic religion, mentions a Jesuit named Robertus de Nobili, who preached that every one ought to remain in his own tribe, and by that means made many converts. He also proposed to erect a seminary of Christian Brahmins. But the Holy See disapproved of this rational design, and defeated his labours. Jealousy of the secular arts of the Portuguese, was also a powerful preventive of the labours of their priests. A Spaniard being asked by an Indian king, how his Spanish majesty was able to subdue such immense countries as they boasted to belong to him: The Don honestly answered, “that he first sent priests to convert the people, and having thus gained a party of the natives, he sent fleets and soldiers, who with the assistance of the new proselites subdued the rest.” The truth of this confession, which has been often proved, will never be forgotten in the East. But if the bigotted adherence of the Indians to the rites of their tribes, and other causes, have been a bar to the propagation of Christianity among them, the same reasons have also prevented the success of Mohammedism, a religion much more palatable to the luxurious and ignorant. Though the Mogul, and almost all the princes of India, have these many centuries professed the religion of the Koran, Mr. Orme computes that all the Mohammedans of Hindostan do not exceed ten thousand; whereas the Indians, he says, amount to about an hundred millions.

Almost innumerable, and sometimes as whimsically absurd as the Arabian Nights' Entertainments, are the holy legends of India. The accounts of the god Brahma, or Brimha, are more various than those of any fable in the Grecian mythology. According to Father Bohours, in his life of Xavier, the Brahmins hold, that the Great God having a desire to become visible, became man. In this state he produced three sons, Mayso, Visnu, and Brahma; the first, born of his mouth, the second, of his breast, the third, of his belly. Being about to return to his invisibility, he assigned various departments to his three sons. To Brahma he gave the third heaven, with the superintendence of the rites of religion. Brahma having a desire for children, begot the Brahmins, who are the priests of India, and who are believed by the other tribes to be a race of demi-gods, who have the blood of heaven running in their veins. Other accounts say, that Brahma produced the priests from his head, the more ignoble tribes from his breast, thighs, and feet.

According to the learned Kircher's account of the theology of the Brahmins, the sole and supreme god Vistnou, formed the secondary god Brahma, out of a flower that floated on the surface of the great deep before the creation. And afterwards, in reward of the virtue, fidelity, and gratitude of Brahma, gave him power to create the universe.

According to the Danish missionaries , the First Being, say the Brahmins, begat Eternity, Eternity begat Tschinen, Tschinen begat Tschaddy, Tschaddy begat Putady, or the elementary world, Putady begat Sound, Sound begat Nature, Nature begat the great god Tschatatschinen, from whom Brahma was the fourth in a like descent. Brahma produced the soul, the soul produced the visible heaven, the heaven produced the air, the air the fire, the fire the water, and the water the earth. A legend something similar to this appears in Mr. Dow's Dissertation on the Brahmins, prefixed to his ingenious history of Hindostan.

This genealogical nonsense, however, is not confined to India. Hesiod's genealogy of the gods, though refined upon by the schools of Plato, is of the same class. The Jewish fables, foolish questions and genealogies, reproved by saint Paul, (epist. Tit.) were probably of this kind, for the Talmudical legends were not then sprung up. Binah, or Understanding, said the cabalists, begat Cochmah, or Wisdom, &c. till at last comes Milcah, the Kingdom, who begat Shekinah, the Divine Presence. In the same manner the Christian Gnostics, of the sect of Valentinus, held their Πληρωμα, and their thirty ages. Ampsiu and Auraan, they tell us, i. e. Profundity and Silence, begat Bacua and Tharthuu, Mind and Truth; these begat Ubucua and Thardeadie, Word and Life, and these Merexa and Atarbarba, Man and Church. The other conjunctions of their thirty Æones are of similar ingenuity. The prevalence of the same spirit of mythological allegory in such different nations, affords the philosopher a worthy field of speculation.

Almost as innumerable as their legends are the dreadful penances to which the religionists of India submit themselves for the expiation of sins. Some hold the transmigration of souls, and of consequence abstain from all animal food . Yet however austere in other respects, they freely abandon themselves to every species of letchery, some of them esteeming the most unnatural abominations as the privilege of their sanctity. The cow they venerate as sacred. If a dying man can lay hold of a cow's tail , and expire with it in his hands, his soul is sure to be purified, and perhaps will enjoy the signal favour to transmigrate into the body of one of those animals. The temples of India, which are numerous, are filled with innumerable idols of the most horrid figures. Brahma, in particular, appears in many forms: in one as a fat old man, sitting cross-legged, with four faces, and four hands. A species of the antient manicheeism of Persia is mixed with their religion, and the Destroyer, or the Frightful Demon, is worshipped by the authority of their sacred books. The first thing they meet in the morning, be it ass, hog, or dog, they worship during the course of the day. Scarcely more stupid were the Pelusians: Crepitus ventris inflati, says Hierome, Pelusiaca religio est. The Brahmins are allowed to eat nothing but what is cooked by themselves. Astrology is their principal study; yet, though they are mostly a despicable set of fortune-tellers, some of them are excellent moralists, and particularly inculcate the comprehensive virtue of humanity, which is enforced by the opinion, that Divine Beings often assume the habit of mendicants, in order to distinguish the charitable from the inhuman. The Malabrians have several traditions of the virtuous on these happy trials being translated into heaven; the best designed incitement to virtue, perhaps, which their religion contains. Besides the Brahmins, the principal sect of that vast region called India, there are several others, who are divided and subdivided, according to innumerable variations in every province. In Cambaya, the Banians, a sect who strictly abstain from all animal food, are numerous.

Such are the general accounts of the Indian opinions, which till lately have been received in Europe. Accounts much more to the honour of the Indian philosophy have within these few years been laid before the public, by some gentlemen, who, by conversing with some eminent Brahmins, have enjoyed the best opportunities of information. Yet these gentlemen do not agree among themselves. Colonel Dow confesses, that he finds himself obliged to differ from Mr. Holwell almost in every particular concerning the religion of the Hindoos “The Bedang or Shaster, the sacred book of the Brahmins, says Dow, contains various accounts of the creation, one philosophical, the others allegorical. These latter, says he, have afforded ample field for the invention of the Brahmins. From the many allegorical systems of creation contained in the Shasters, many different accounts of the cosmogony of the Hindoos have been promulgated in Europe, some travellers adopting one system, some another.” From this confession we are led to infer, that the different accounts given by our modern travellers, arise from their having conversed with different Brahmins; a circumstance by no means favourable to the opinion of the consistency of the moral and philosophically religious system, which we have been told is contained in the sacred books of India. If we cannot be so warm in our admiration of the religious philosophy of the Hindoos, as some late writers have been, some circumstances of that philosophy, as delivered by themselves, it is hoped, will exculpate our coolness.

The sacred books of the Hindoos are written in a dead language, the Sanscrita, which none but the Brahmins are allowed to study. So strict in this are they, says Mr. Dow, that only one Musselman was ever instructed in it, and his knowledge was obtained by fraud. Mahummud Akbar , emperor of India, though bred a Mohammedan, studied several religions. In the christian he was instructed by a Portuguese. But finding that of the Hindoos inaccessible, he had recourse to art. A boy of parts, named Feizi, was, as the orphan of a Brahmin, put under the care of one of the most eminent of these philosophers, and obtained full knowledge of their hidden religion. But the fraud being discovered, he was laid under the restraint of an oath, and it does not appear that he ever communicated the knowledge thus acquired.

True or false, this story, which is firmly believed in Hindostan, sufficiently shews the great care with which they conceal their tenets, of which even the Mohammedans, their masters, have little or no knowledge. Different from every other sect, the Brahmins admit of no proselites, a circumstance of unparallelled policy. Some may venerate, on this account, the wisdom and sacredness of their doctrines. For our part we cannot help being led, by this very cue, to suspect that there is something extremely absurd, frivolous, and childish, in what is thus religiously enveloped in the veil of darkness. Were analogy allowed us in proof, our suspicion would amount to an assertion. The sacred books, or Shasters, are divided into four Bedas; the first contains principally the science of divination, the second treats of religious and moral duties, the third the rites of religion, sacrifices, penances, &c. and the fourth, the knowledge of the Good Being; and contains, says our author, the whole science of theology and metaphysical philosophy.

Thus, according to Mr. Dow, the Brahmins avow, and their sacred book contains, that most despicable of all pretensions to learning, judicial astrology; that mother of superstition in every country, that engine of villany, by which the priests of India, and the gypsies of England, impose on the credulous and ignorant. Nor can we pass unobserved the rejection of the fourth Beda. By its subject it seems to be the most valuable of the whole, except the second. Yet the Brahmins, says Mr. Dow, have long rejected it, because the Mohammedan religion, they say, is borrowed from it. On the supposition, which they pretend, that their sacred books were dictated by divine authority, the rejection of any part is as unwarrantable as the reason for rejecting the fourth Beda is submissive and ridiculous. Another shrewd suspicion from this also arises. The Brahmins reject a fourth part of their sacred canon, and they have ever kept the whole most carefully concealed from the eyes of every enquirer. Who, that considers these circumstances, can heartily believe the pretended antiquity or the unadulterated text of the sacred records of India?

A philosopher, named Goutam, who lived about 4000 years ago, is acknowledged to have written many of the treatises which are held sacred by the Neadirsen sect; a sect, whose doctrines are professed by the generality of the Brahmins of Bengal, and of the northern provinces. “This philosopher, says Mr. Dow, supposes that the Deity never exerts the power of a providence, but that he remains in eternal rest, taking no concern neither in human affairs, nor in the course of the operations of Nature.” This may be called philosophy, but this article in the creed of Goutam is incompatible with the idea of religion, the philosophical definition of which is certainly thus, A dependence on the Creator, similar to that of a Child on his Father.

“The learned Brahmins says the Colonel, with one voice, deny the existence of inferior divinities. Their polytheism is only a symbolical worship of the divine attributes, and it is much to be doubted, whether the want of revelation and philosophy, those necessary purifiers of religion, ever involved any nation in gross idolatry, as many ignorant zealots have pretended.”..... “Under the name of Brimha, they worship the wisdom and creative power of God; under the appellation of Bishen, his providential and preserving quality; and under that of Shibah, that attribute which tends to destroy.”

“Shibah, says the same author, among many others, is known by the names of Mahoissur, the Great Demon; Bamdebo, the Frightful Spirit; and Mohilla, the Destroyer.”

The same authority also informs us, that they erect temples to Granesh, or Policy, whom they worship at the commencement of any design, represented with the head of an elephant with only one tooth. That they worship Kartic, or Fame; Cobere, or Wealth; Soorage, or the sun; Chunder, or the moon; the deities of water, fire, &c. besides an innumerable herd of local divinities . In another place, our author confesses that the vulgar revere all the elements, and receive as an article of belief every holy legend.

An account of the celebrated sect of the Brahmins, and an enquiry into their philosophy, are undoubtedly requisite in the notes of a Poem which celebrates the discovery of the Eastern World; of a poem where their rites and opinions are necessarily mentioned. To set the subject in the clearest and most just view, as far as his abilities will serve him, is the intention of the translator. The admirers of the Hindoos philosophy will therefore excuse him, should he venture to give his opinion against the apology for the polytheism of the Brahmins. To call it only a symbolical worship of the Divine Attributes, is only to present to us a specious shadow, which will vanish on the slightest touch of examination.

That the polytheism of Egypt, the worship of dogs, crocodiles, and onions, was only a symbolical worship of the divine attributes, has been often said, and with equal justice. For our part we can distinguish no difference between the worship of Janus with two faces, or of Brahma with four. The philosophers of Rome were as able to allegorise as those of India. The apology for the idolatry of the Brahmins is applicable to that of every nation, and, as an argument, falls nothing short of that of a learned Arab, who about the eleventh century wrote a treatise to prove that there never was such a thing as idolatry in the world, for that every man intended to worship some attribute of the divinity, which he believed to reside in his idol.

Nor is a sentiment of Mr. Dow inapplicable to this: “Let us rest assured, says he, that whatever the external ceremonies of religion may be, the self same infinite Being is the object of universal adoration.” Yet whatever the metaphysician may think of this ingenious refinement, the moral philosopher will be little pleased with it, when he considers that the vulgar, that is ninety-nine of every hundred, are utterly incapable of practising their idolatry, according to this philosophical definition. That the learned Brahmins with one voice assert there is but one Supreme God, has been acknowledged by almost all modern travellers. Xavier himself confesses this, and tells us from the authority of a Brahmin, that the ten commandments made a part of their hidden religion. But be their hidden religion what it will, the Brahmins, in public, worship and teach the worship of idols. To give an account both of the popular and what is called the philosophical religion of India, is the purpose of this essay. To abstract our view therefore from the popular practice of the country, and to indulge the spirit of encomium on the enlarged tenets of the learned few, is not here to be expected. To follow this method, a traveller may tell us there is no popery at Rome, or that the divine mission of Mohammed is denied at Constantinople, because at the one he conversed with a deistical Bishop, or at the other with a philosophical Mufti. However pleased therefore the metaphysician may be with ingenious refinement, the moralist will consider, that the question is not, how the philosopher may refine upon any system, but how the people will, of consequence, practise under its influence. And on this view alone, he will pronounce it reprehensible or commendable. That the religion of the Brahmins is highly reprehensible every moralist must allow, when he considers, that the most unworthy ideas of the Divinity, ideas destructive of morality, naturally arise from idol worship; and the vulgar, it is every where confessed, cannot avoid the abuse. What can he think of the piety of a poor superstitious Indian, when he worships the Great Dæmon, the Destroyer, and Frightful Spirit? Does he love what he worships? And can piety exist where the object of adoration is hated? What can the moralist think of the Indian, who, upon religious principles, drowns himself in the Ganges, or throws himself under the wheels of his pagod's chariot, to be crushed to death by the holy load? The duties we owe to our relatives in particular, and to society in general, the Author of Nature has imposed upon us by an indispensible canon. Yet these duties by the pious suicide are refused on the principles of the weakest superstition. Nor can the moralist view the dreadful austerities to which the Brahmin philosophers submit themselves in any other light. He who fixes his eyes on his nose till he can see in no other direction; he who clenches his fist till the nails grow out at the back of his hand; and he who twists his neck about, till his face is fixed unalterably backward; (three modes of penance mentioned by Mr. Dow) and he who drowns himself at once, equally incapacitate themselves for the duties of society Nor ought other parts of the Brahmin superstition, in our examination of their tenets and practises, to be here omitted. From the concurrent accounts of many travellers who understood their language, and conversed with the Brahmins, among many other most absurd rites, we are informed that they pay a superstitious regard, and ascribe great holiness to the ashes of burned cowdung; that they persuade the people that their idols eat and drink, and for this purpose extort contributions from the multitude; and for this purpose too, prostitution is enjoyned, and the price of it received from the hands of poor women. If all this is not gross idolatry, nothing ever transacted on earth can deserve the name.

If we may be allowed to digress a little from the subject of the Brahmins, the futility of our refined apology for idolatry will still appear in a stronger light. What will the definition avail in the ballance of morality, when all the inhuman, impure, and immoral rites of idolatry are laid in the other scale? Palestine, Tyre, and Carthage made their children “pass through the fire unto Moloch;” and human sacrifices have prevailed at one time or other in every land. No philosophers ever entertained sublimer ideas of the Divinity, and of the human soul, than the antient Druids. Yet what shall we think of the Wicker Man! A gigantic figure! the body, each leg and arm was a mast, to which an hundred or more human victims were bound with wicker. When there was a deficiency of malefactors or prisoners of war, the innocent helpless were seized, that the horrid sacrifice might be complete. When all the rites were performed, the sublime Druids gave the hecatomb to the flames, as an offering grateful to their gods, as the assurance of protection . In the most polished ages of antient Greece and Rome, the rites of religion were often highly immoral, basely impure. To mention any particular would be an insult to the scholar. Impurities which make the blood recoil, which, like Swift, make one detest the Yahoo species, are a part of the religious externals of many barbarous tribes. A citation from Baumgarten's travels, as quoted by Mr. Locke, here offers itself. “Insuper sanctum illum, quem eo loco [in Egypt] vidimus, publicitus apprimé commendari, eum esse hominem sanctum, divinum à integritate præcipuum; eo quod, nec fœminarum unquam esset, nec puerorum, sed tantummodo aselarum cuncubitor atque mularum.” Decency will allow no translation of this. In a word, where idolatry is practised, whether in the churches of Rome, or in the temples of Brahma, the consequences are felt, and a remedy is wanted: the vulgar are gross idolators; the wiser part see the cheat, and become almost indifferent to every tie of religion.

To all this let it be added, that as Mr. Holwell's and Mr. Dow's Brahmins did not give the same accounts of their hidden religion to these gentlemen; so it is an observation founded on experience, that the zealot of any sect, in giving an account of his religion to one who knows nothing about it, will give every circumstance the best gloss, and strain every feature, as much as possible, to a conformity to the ideas of his intelligent friend. In this manner Josephus, a man of great abilities, wrote his history of the Jews. He has altered, suppressed, glossed, and falsified, on purpose to adopt the manners and opinions of his countrymen, as much as possible, to the taste of the Greek and Roman philosophers. In the same manner, we believe, it may be asserted, that every jesuit behaves, when he defends popery in conversation with an intelligent dissenter from the church of Rome, who has the art to appear ignorant of the doctrines of the papacy, and of the writers of that communion. One may often meet with a sensible papist, who either from ignorance of the history of his own religion, or from prejudice in its favour, will very confidently deny the horrid cruelties, superstitions, and villanous arts of Holy Church; those intrigues and transactions which form the principal part of the history of Europe during six or seven monkish centuries. Yet what wise man will upon such evidence reject the testimony of ages. The allusion is apt, and the inference is the same. Every one, who is acquainted with the history of the human mind, knows what an alteration in the manners of that most bigotted people the Jews, was introduced by the Babylonian captivity. Before that period amazingly dull and stupid, after their return from Assyria they began to philosophize. The superstition and idolatry of the modern Brahmins have certainly, in the same manner, received great improvement of features from the conversation of Europeans, whose example, however otherwise vicious, could not fail to convince them of the absurdity of such mental weakness. The horrible custom of burning the wives with the corpse of the deceased husband, is now, says Mr. Dow, in disuse. From whence the late alteration? Not surely from any text of their hidden sacred canon, which they pretend to have enjoyed so many thousand years .

By the light of all these considerations it will appear, that the accounts of the superstition and idolatry of the Brahmins, which, till lately were received, were by no means without foundation. And indeed it were an unparallelled circumstance, were the concurrent testimony of the most authentic writers and intelligent travellers of the 16th and 17th centuries, to deserve no credit. The difference of the religious legends, by these writers ascribed to the Indians, is fairly accounted for by Mr. Dow; by whom also, as just cited, every charge of superstition is virtually confirmed.

Two cardinal points of the philosophy of the Brahmins remain to be mentioned. They hold that dissolutions of the universe, and new creations, at certain periods, shall succeed one another to all eternity . Of the human soul they say, that after various transmigrations and purifications, it shall be absorbed in the Deity and consciousness lost in bliss. By this unintelligible sublimity, we are put in mind of some of the reveries of a Shaftesbury or a Malebranche; but wild imaginations are the growth of every country.

Nor must the religious sect of the Fakier be omitted. These, according to Mr. Dow, are a set of sturdy beggars, who admit any ruffian of good parts, to join them; and, under pretence of religious pilgrimages, ramble about in armies of ten or twelve thousand men. The country people fly before them, leaving their goods and their wives, (who esteem it a holiness to be embraced by a Fakier) to the mercy and lust of these villains. The prayers of a Fakier are highly esteemed, and often implored, in cases of sterility. The wife and the Fakier retire together to prayer, a signal is left that the Fakier is with the lady, and a sound drubbing is the reward should the husband dare to interrupt their devotions.

We cannot finish this note, long as it is, without observing the vast similarity which obtains among all barbarous nations. When the Portuguese admiral, Pedro de Cabral, discovered the Brazils, he found a sect of religionists called Pages, who were venerated in the same manner as the Fakiers of India. “Hi quocunque veniunt, says Osorius, summo omnium plausu recipiuntur, &c. Wherever these come, they are received with the loudest acclamations, the ways are crowded, verses sung to the music of the country, and dances are performed before them. The most beautiful women, whether virgins or wives, are submitted to their embraces. Opiniuntur enim miseri, si illos placatos habuerint, omnia sibi feliciter eventura; for these wretched ignorants believe, that if they can please these men, every thing will happen well to them.”

To conclude: The writers who have treated of the mission of Xavier, relate, that there is extant in India the writings of a Malabar poet, who wrote nine hundred epigrams, each consisting of eight verses, in ridicule of the worship of the Brahmins, whom he treats with great asperity and contempt. Would any of our diligent enquirers after oriental learning favour the Public with an authentic account of the works of this poet of Malabar, he would undoubtedly confer a singular favour on the republic of letters.

See Phillips's Collection of their Letters published at London in 1717.

Though from the extracts given by Mr. Dow, the philosopher Goutam appears to have been a very Duns Scotus or Aquinas in metaphysics, the Pythagorean reason why the Brahmins abstain from animal food, is a convincing proof of their ignorance in natural philosophy. Some will let vermin over-run them; some of the Banians cover their mouth with a cloth, least they should suck in a gnat with their breath; and some carefully sweep the floor ere they tread upon it, lest they dislodge the soul of an insect. And yet they do not know that in the water they drink, and in every sallad they eat, they cause the death of innumerable living creatures.

Bohours.

This Akbar chose, as his last and best religion, to worship the sun. While he performed his public devoirs to that bright deity, he himself, by his own order, was worshipped by the crowd below.

Perimal, who, according to some of their holy legends, was the son of a cow, was worshipped as a god in the kingdom of Narsinga. Near the city of Preseti was a wood full of apes, esteemed of a divine race, and of the houshold of Perimal, in whom some thousands of the gods had taken refuge. In the city of Cidambaram was a stately temple erected to one of these apes, named Hanimant. Being threatened with some danger, Hanimant put himself at the head of many thousand of his brother gods, and led them to the sea side; where finding no ship, he took a leap into the ocean, and an island immediately rose under his feet. At every leap the miracle was repeated, and in this manner he brought his divine brotherhood all safe to the island of Ceylon. A tooth of Hanimant was kept there as a sacred relick, and many pilgrimages were made to visit it. In 1554, the Portuguese made a descent on that island, and among other things seized the holy tooth. The Indian princes (says Linschoten, c. 44.) offered 700,000 ducats in ransom, but by the persuasion of the archbishop, the Portuguese viceroy burned it in the presence of the Indian ambassadors. A Banian, however, had the art to persuade his countrymen that he was invisibly present when the Portuguese burnt the tooth, that he had secreted the holy one, and put another in its place, which was the one committed to the flames. His story was believed, says our author, and the king of Bisnagar gave him a great sum for a tooth which he produced as the sacred relick. The striking resemblance which this fable of the apes bears to the Egyptian mythology, which tells us that their gods had taken refuge in dogs, crocodiles, onions, frogs, and even in cloacis, is worthy of observation.

Abraham Roger, in particular. He lived fifteen years among the Brahmins, and was in intimate friendship with one of them, named Padmanaba. He returned to Holland in 1647, where he published his writings, which prove him to have been a learned man, and a diligent enquirer. Of his good sense let one sentiment bear testimony. “Can we believe, says he, that there is a generous spirit residing in a people who for two or three thousand years have placed the greatest degree of sanctity and prudence in half starving themselves, and in depriving themselves of the lawful conveniencies of life? Yet such austerities were the chief employments of the ancient Brachmanæ, and are now of the modern Bramines.”

To have represented the Devil on a neighbouring mountain, delighted with the yells and steam of this sacrifice, would have been an incident worthy of the Paradise Lost, and might have come in excellent place, had the great author continued the visions of the eleventh, in place of the far inferior narrative of the twelfth book.

Nay, a text of the sacred Shaster plainly encourages the horrid practice. “The woman who dies with her husband, shall enjoy life eternal with him in heaven.” Feeble minds, says Mr. Dow, misinterpreted this into a precept. To those however who are unskilled in casuistry, no admonition can be more obvious.

According to Joannes Oranus, the Brahmins of Agra say, that the world shall last four ages or worlds, three whereof are past. The first continued one million seven hundred and twenty-eight thousand years. Men in that world lived ten thousand years, were of enormous stature, and of great integrity. Thrice in that period did God visibly appear upon the earth. First in the form of a fish, that he might recover the book of Brahma (for almost the same legend, see Dow) which one Causacar had thrown into the sea. The second time in the form of a snail, (See Dow's account of the symbolical representations of Brahma) that he might make the earth dry and solid. The other time like a hog, to destroy one who called himself God, or as others say, to recover the earth from the sea, which had swallowed it. The second world lasted one million ninety-two thousand and six years, in which period men were as tall as before, but only lived a thousand years. In this, God appeared four times, once as a monstrous lion, with the lower parts of a woman, to repress the wickedness of a pretender to deity. Secondly, like a poor Brahmin, to punish the impiety of a king who had invented a method to fly to heaven. Thirdly, he came in the likeness of a man called Parcaram, to revenge the death of a poor religious man. And lastly in the likeness of one Ram, who slew Parcaram The third continued eight hundred and four thousand years, in which time God appeared twice. The fourth world shall endure four hundred thousand years, whereof only four thousand six hundred and ninety-two are elapsed. In this period God is to appear once, and some hold that he has already appeared in the person of the emperor Echebar, the fame Mahummud Akbar already mentioned. The wiser part of the Brahmins, says Oranus, decry the absurdity of these fables, yet support them before the multitude, lest their influence, their wealth and superstition, should vanish together. That these fables are very antient, we have the authority of Strabo, who tells us that Calanus told Onesicritus of a golden world, where the fountains streamed with milk, honey, wine, and oil, and where the wheat was as plentiful as dust; that God had in punishment of human wickedness altered it, and imposed a life of labour on men. Onesicritus was willing to hear farther, but one of the Brahmin penances being enjoyned as the condition, the Greek philosopher was contented with what he had heard.

Chimera, a monster slain by Bellerophon.

Briareus.

In this instance, Camoens has with great art deviated from the truth of history. As it was the great purpose of his hero to propagate the law of heaven in the East, it would have been highly absurd to have represented Gama and his attendants as on their knees in a Pagan temple. This, however, was the case. “Gama, who had been told, says Osorius, that there were many Christians in India, conjectured that the temple, to which the Catual led him, was a Christian church. At their entrance they were met by four priests, who seemed to make crosses on their foreheads. The walls were painted with many images. In the middle was a little round chapel, in the wall of which, opposite to the entrance, stood an image which could hardly be discovered; Erat enim locus ita ab omni solis radio seclusus, ut vix aliquis malignæ lucis splendor in eum penetraret. The four priests ascending, some entered the chapel by a little brass door, and pointing to the benighted image, cried aloud, Mary, Mary. The Catual and his attendants prostrated themselves on the ground, while the Lusians on their bended knees adored the blessed virgin. Virginemque Dei matrem more nostris usitato venerantur.” Thus Osorius. Another writer says, that a Portuguese having some doubt exclaimed, If this be the Devil's image, I however worship God.

The description of the palace of the Zamorim, situated among aromatic groves, is according to history; the embellishment of the walls is in imitation of Virgil's description of the palace of king Latinus:

This is in the perspective manner of the beautiful descriptions of the figures on the shield of Achilles. Il. xviii.

The Theban Bacchus, to whom the Greek fabulists ascribed the Indian expedition of Sesostris or Osiris king of Egypt.

The infamous passion of Semiramis for a horse, has all the air of a fable invented by the Greeks to signify the extreme libidiny of that queen. Her incestuous passion for her son Nynias, however, is confirmed by the testimony of the best authors. Shocked at such an horrid amour, Nynias ordered her to be put to death. Castera.

The bon mot of Olympias on this pretension of her son Alexander, was admired by the ancients. “This hot-headed youth, forsooth, cannot be at rest unless he embroil me in a quarrel with Juno.” Quint. Curt.

According to Osorius.

The Betel.

The tenor of this first conversation between the Zamorim and Gama, is according to the truth of history.

The enthusiasm with which Monzaida, a Moor, talks of the Portuguese, may perhaps to some appear unnatural. Camoens seems to be aware of this by giving a reason for that enthusiasm in the first speech of Mozaida to Gama;

And that this Moor did conceive a great affection to Gama, whose religion he embraced, and to whom he proved of the utmost service, is according to the truth of history.

Gen. ix. 20. And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard, and he drank of the wine, &c.

The opinion of the sacredness of the table is very ancient in the East. It is plainly to be discovered in the history of Abraham. When Melchizedek, a king and priest, blessed Abraham, it is said, And he brought forth bread and wine and he blessed him. Gen. xiv. 18. The Patriarchs only drank wine, says Dr. Stukely, on their more solemn festivals, when they were said to rejoice before the Lord. Other customs of the Indians are mentioned by Camoens in this book. If a noble should touch a person of another another tribe,

Nothing, says Osorius, but the death of the unhappy commoner can wipe off the pollution. Yet we are told by the same author, that Indian nobility cannot be forfeited, or even tarnished by the basest and greatest of crimes; nor can one of mean birth become great or noble by the most illustrious actions. The noblemen, says the same writer, adopt the children of their sisters, esteeming there can be no other certainty of the relationship of their heirs. But what above all may be called the characteristic of the Indian, is his total insensibility to the passion of Love;

To some perhaps the feebleness of the constitutions of the Gentoos may account for this apothy; and to several circumstances may their feebleness be attributed. The men marry before fourteen and the women at about ten or eleven. Rice, their principal food, affords but little nourishment, and they are extremely averse to any manly exercise. It is better to sit than to walk, they say, to lie down than to sit, to sleep than to wake, and death is better than all. The unparallelled pusillanimity with which they have long submitted to the oppressions of a few Arabs, their Mohammedan masters, likewise, shews their deadness to every manly resentment. Yet, notwithstanding all this, though incapable of the passion of love, they prove the position, (for which physicians can easily account) that debility and letchery go hand in hand. Montesquieu, in enumerating his reasons why Christianity will never prevail in the East, advances, as one, the prohibition of polygamy, which he mentions as the appointment of nature, and necessary in these climates. Tristram Shandy tells us, that his father was a most excellent system-builder, was sure to make his Theory look well, though no man ever crucified the truth at such an unmerciful rate. With all due deference to the great genius of Montesquieu, his blunder here is rather ludicrous. In every country the births of males and females are nearly proportioned to each other. “Polygamy, says Mr. Dow, is permitted in Hindostan, but seldom practised; for they very rationally think, that one wife is sufficient for one man.” If in any country polygamy is the appointment of nature, the more athletic nations of Europe have the best claim. But the warlike independent spirit of the northern tribes, who viewed their princes as their companions in war, would never allow their leaders to appropriate eight hundred or a thousand of the finest women, each for his own particular luxury. Their natural ideas of liberty forbade it; while on the other hand the slavish Asiatics, who viewed their masters as beings of a superior rank, submitted to the lust of these masters, whose debility prompted the desire of unbounded variety. This history of polygamy will be found to be just. It is not the child of nature, it is the offspring of tyranny, and is only to be found where the most absolute tyranny subsists. Neither to the genial vigour of passion, but to raging, irritated debility, both the philosopher and physician will attribute the unblushing prevalence of some crimes, crimes which disgrace human nature, and which particularly characterise the depraved manners of the enfeebled East.

Though Camoens began his Lusiad in Portugal, almost the whole of it was written while on the ocean, while in Africa, and in India. See his Life.

Daughter of Eolus. Her father having thrown her incestuous child to the dogs, sent her a sword, with which she slew herself. In Ovid she writes an epistle to her husband-brother, where she thus describes herself;

See the Life of Camoens.

Hezekiah. See Isaiah xxxviii.

This, and the whole paragraph from

Alludes to his fortunes in India. The latter circumstance relates particularly to the base and inhuman treatment he received on his return to Goa, after his unhappy shipwreck. See his Life.

Similarity of condition has produced similarity of sentiment in Camoens and Spenser. Each was the ornament of his country and of his age, and each was cruelly neglected by the Men of Power, who, in truth, were incapable to judge of their merit, or to relish their writings. We have seen several of the strictures of Camoens on the barbarous Nobility of Portugal. The similar complaints of Spenser will shew that neglect of Genius, however, was not confined to the court of Lisbon.

It is thought Lord Burleigh, who withheld the bounty intended by Queen Elisabeth, is here meant. But he is more clearly stigmatized in these remarkable lines, where the misery of dependence on Court-favour is painted in colours which must recal several strokes of the Lusiad to the mind of the Reader.

These lines exasperated still more the inelegant, the illiberal Burleigh. So true is the observation of Mr. Hughes, that, “even the sighs of a miserable man are sometimes resented as an affront by him that is the ocsion of them.”

The arrival of Gama in India—In several parts of the Lusiad the Portuguese Poet has given ample proof that he could catch the genuine spirit of Homer and Virgil. The seventh Lusiad throughout bears a striking resemblance to the seventh and eighth Æneid. Much of the action is naturally the same; Æneas lands it Italy, and Gama in India; but the conduct of Camoens, in his masterly imitation of his great master, particularly demands observation. Had Statius or Ovid described the landing or reception of Æneas, we should undoubtedly have been presented with pictures different from those of the pencil of Virgil. We should have seen much bustle and fire, and perhaps much smoke and false dignity. Yet if we may judge from the Odyssey, Homer, had he written the Æneid, would have written as the Roman Poet wrote, would have presented us with a calm majestic narrative, till every circumstance was explained, and then would have given the concluding books of hurry and fire. In this manner has Virgil written, and in this manner has Camoens followed him, as far as the different nature of his subject would allow. In Virgil, king Latinus is informed by prodigies and prophecy of the fate of his kingdom, and of the newlanded strangers. Æneas enters Latium. The dinner on the grass, and the prophecy of famine turned into a jest. He sends ambassadors to Latinus, whose palace is described. The embassy is received in a friendly manner. Juno, enraged, calls the assistance of the Fiends, and the truce is broken. Æneas, admonished in a dream, seeks the aid of Evander. The voyage up the Tyber, the court of Evander, and the sacrifices in which he was employed are particularly described. In all this there is no blaze of fire, no earnest hurry. These are judiciously reserved for their after and proper place. In the same manner Camoens lands his hero in India, and though in some circumstances the resemblance to Virgil is evident, yet he has followed him as a free imitator, who was conscious of his own strength, and not as a Copyist. He has not deserved that shrewd satire which Mr. Pope, not unjustly, throws on Virgil himself. “Had the galley of Sergestus been broken, says he, if the chariot of Eumelus had not been demolished? Or Mnestheus been cast from the helm, had not the other been thrown from his seat?” In a word, that calm dignity of poetical narrative which breathes through the seventh and eighth Æneid, is judiciously copied, as most proper for the subject; and with the hand of a master characteristically sustained throughout the seventh book of the Poem which celebrates the discovery of the Eastern World.