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The ocean's great discoverer he fhines;

Nor lefs his honours in the martial lines:

The

Talia, per clypeum Vulcani, dona parentis

Miratur: rerumque ignarus imagine gaudet.

Thefe obfervations, which the tranflator believes have efcaped the critics, were fuggefted to him by the conduct of Camoëns, whofe defign, like that of Virgil, was to write a poem which might contain all the triumphs of his country. As the fhield of Æneas fupplies what could not be introduced in the vifion of Elyfium, fo the enfigns of Gama complete the purpose of the third and fourth Lufiads. The ufe of that long episode, the converfation with the king of Melinda, and its connection with the fubject, have been already obferved. The feeming episode of the pictures, while it fulfils the promife,

And all my country's wars the fong adorn

The Indians

and power of In every proThe regent and

is also admirably connected with the conduct of the poem. naturally defire to be informed of the country, the history, their foreign vifitors, and Paulus fets it before their eyes. greffion of the fcenery the business of the poem advances. his attendants are ftruck with the warlike grandeur and power of the ftrangers, and to accept of their friendship, or to prevent the forerunners of fo martial a nation from carrying home the tidings of the discovery of India, becomes the great object of their confideration. And from the paffions of the Indians and Moors, thus agitated, the great catastrophe of the Lufiad is both naturally and artfully produced.

As every reader is not a critic in poetry, to fome perhaps the expreffions

And the tired ox lows on his weary way

loud fhouts aftound the ear-→→→

And the abrupt speech of an enraged warrior, afcribed to a picture;

Here no foreign throne

Shall fix its bafe, my native king alone

Shall reign

may appear as unwarrantable.

This however, let them be affured, is the language of the genuine fpirit of poetry, when the productions of the fifter mufe are the object of defcription. Let one very bold inftance of this appear in the picture of the dance of the youths and maidens on the fhield of Achilles, thus faithfully rendered by Mr. Pope;

Now

The painted flag the cloud-wrapt fiege displays;
There Ceuta's rocking wall its truft betrays.

Black yawns the breach; the point of many a spear
Gleams through the fmoke; loud fhouts aftound the ear.
Whose step first trod the dreadful pafs? whofe fword
Hew'd its dark way, firft with the foe begored?
'Twas thine, O glorious Henry, first to dare
The dreadful pass, and thine to close the war.
Taught by his might, and humbled in her gore
The boastful pride of Afric tower'd no more.

Numerous though these, more numerous warriors fhine Th' illuftrious glory of the Lufian line.

But

Now all at once they rife, at once defcend,

With well-taught feet: now fhape, in oblique ways,

Confus'dly regular, the moving maze:

Now forth at once, too fwift for fight they fpring,

And undistinguish'd blend the flying ring:

So whirls a wheel, in giddy circles toft,

And rapid as it runs, the fingle spokes are loft.

The gazing multitudes admire around:

Two active tumblers in the centre bound;

Now high, now low, their pliant limbs they bend:
And gen'ral fongs the fprightly revel end.

II. XVIII.

Sometimes when defcribing a picture, poetry will fay, the figures feem to move, to tremble, or to fing. Homer has once or twice, on the shield of his hero, given this hint how to understand him. But often to repeat the qualification were quite oppofite to the bold and free spirit of poefy, which delights in perfonification, and in giving life and paffion to every thing it describes. It is owing to the superior force of this spirit, together with the more beautiful colouring of its landscape views, that the shield of Achilles, în poetical merit, fo greatly excels the buckler of Æneas, though the diving workman of the latter had the former as a pattern before him.

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But ah, forlorn, what shame to barbarous 1 pride!
Friendless the mafter of the pencil died;
Immortal fame his deathlefs labours gave;
Poor man, He funk neglected to the grave!

The gallant Paulus faithful thus explain'd
The various deeds the pictured flags retain'd,
Still o'er and o'er, and still again untired,

The wondering regent of the wars inquired;
Still wondering heard the various pleasing tale,
Till o'er the decks cold fighed the evening gale;
The falling darkness dimm'd the eastern shore,
And twilight hover'd o'er the billows hoar
Far to the weft, when with his noble band
The thoughtful regent fought his native strand.

O'er

1 But ab, forlorn, what shame to barbarous pride.—In the original,

Mas faltamlhes pincel, faltamlbes cores,
Honra, premio, favor, que as artes crião.

But the pencil was wanting, colours were wanting, honour, reward, This feemed to the tranflator as an "favour, the nourishers of the arts." impropriety, and contrary to the purpose of the whole speech of Paulus, which was to give the Catual a high idea of Portugal. In the fate of the imaginary painter, the Lufian poet gives us the picture of his own, and refentment wrung this impropriety from him. The spirit of the complaint however is preferved in the translation. The couplet,

Immortal fame his deathless labours gave;

Poor man, He funk neglected to the grave!

is not in the original. It is the figh of indignation over the unworthy fate of the unhappy Camoens.

O'er the tall mountain-forest's waiving boughs

Aflant the new moon's flender horns arofe ;

Near her pale chariot fhone a twinkling star,

And, fave the murmuring of the wave afar,
Deep-brooding filence reign'd; each labour closed,
In fleep's foft arms the fons of toil reposed.
And now no more the moon her glimpses shed,
A fudden black-wing'd cloud the sky o'erspread,
A fullen murmur through the woodland groan'd,
In woe-fwoln fighs the hollow winds bemoan'd;
Borne on the plaintive gale a pattering shower,
Increased the horrors of the evil hour.

Thus when the God of earthquakes rocks the ground,
He gives the prelude in a dreary found;

O'er nature's face a horrid gloom he throws,
With difmal note the cock unusual crows,

A fhrill-voiced howling trembles through the air
As paffing ghosts were weeping in despair;
In dismal yells the dogs confefs their fear,
And shivering own some dreadful prefence near.
So lower'd the night, the fullen howl the same,
And mid the black-wing'd gloom ftern Bacchus came;
The form and garb of Hagar's fon he took,

The ghoft-like afpect, and the threatening m look,

Then

m The ghoft-like aspect, and the threatening look.-Mohammed, by all historians, is described as of a pale livid complexion, and trux afpectus et vox terribilis, of a fierce threatening aspect, voice, and demeanour.

Then o'er the pillow of a furious priest,

Whose burning zeal the Koran's lore profeft,
Revealed he stood confpicuous in a dream,

His femblance fhining as the moon's pale gleam":
And guard, he cries, my fon, O timely guard,
Timely defeat the dreadful snare prepared:
And canft thou careless, unaffected fleep,
While these stern lawless rovers of the deep
Fix on thy native shore a foreign throne,
Before whose steps thy latest race shall groan!
He spoke; cold horror fhook the Moorish priest;
He wakes, but foon reclines in wonted reft:

An

n We have already feen the warm encomium paid by Taffo to his cotemporary, Camoëns. That great poet, the ornament of Italy, has also teftified his approbation by several imitations of the Lufiad. Virgil, in no instance, has more closely copied Homer, than Taffo has imitated the appearance of Bacchus, or the evil Dæmon, in the dream of the Moorish priest. Thẹ enchanter Ifmeno thus appears to the fleeping Solyman.

Soliman' Salimano, i tuoi filenti

Ripofi à miglior tempo homai riferva:
Che fotto il giogo de ftraniere genti
La patria, ove regnafti, ancor e ferva.
In questa terra dormi, e non rammenti,
Ch' infepolte de tuoi l'offa conferva?
Ove fi gran' veftigio e del tuo fcorno,
Tu neghittoso aspetti il novo giorno?

Thus elegantly tranflated by Mr. Hoole.

Oh! Solyman, regardless chief, awake ;
In happier hours thy grateful slumber take:
Beneath a foreign yoke thy fubjects bend,
And ftrangers o'er thy land their rule extend.
Here doft thou fleep? here close thy careless eyes,
While uninterr'd each lov'd affociate lies?
Here where thy fame has felt the hoftile scorn,

Canft thou, unthinking, wait the rising morn?

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