Thy worth, great chief, the pale-lipt régent cries,
Thy worth we own; Oh, may thefe woes fuffice!
To thee each proof of India's wealth we fend;
Ambaffadors, of nobleft race, attend
Slow as he faulter'd, GAMA catch'd the word,
On terms I talk not, and no truce afford:
Captives enough fhall reach the Lufian fhore:
Once you deceived me, and I treat no more.
Even now my faithful failors, pale with rage,
Gnaw their blue lips, impatient to engage;
Ranged by their brazen tubes, the thundering band
Watch the first movement of my
brother's hand;
E'en now, impatient, o'er the dreadful tire

They waive their eager canes betipt with fire;
Methinks my brother's anguifh'd look I fee,
The panting noftril and the trembling knee,
While keen he eyes the fun: On hafty ftrides,
Hurried along the deck, Coello chides
His cold flow lingering, and impatient cries,
Oh, give the fign, illume the facrifice,

A brother's vengeance for a brother's blood

He spake; and stern the dreadful warrior ftood;

So feem'd the terrors of his awful nod,

The monarch trembled as before a god;

The treacherous Moors funk down in faint difmay,
And fpeechlefs at his feet the council lay:

310

The Moor attends, Mozaide, whofe zealous care
To GAMA's eyes unveil'd each treach'rous fnare:
So burn'd his breast with heaven-illumined flame,
And holy reverence of Messiah's name.

Oh, favour'd African, by heaven's own light
Call'd from the dreary shades of error's night;
What man may dare his feeming ills arraign,
Or what the grace of heaven's defigns explain!
Far didst thou from thy friends a stranger roam,
There waft thou call'd to thy celeftial home.

With

Had this been mentioned fooner, the interest of the catastrophe of the poem must have languifhed. Though he is not a warrior, the unexpected friend of Gama bears a much more confiderable part in the action of the Lufiad, than the faithful Achates, the friend of the hero, bears in the business of the Eneid.

k There waft thou call'd to thy celeftial home. -This exclamatory address to the Moor Monzaida, however it may appear digreffive, has a double propriety. The conversion of the eastern world is the great purpose of the expedition of Gama, and Monzaida is the first fruits of that conversion. The good characters of the victorious heroes, however neglected by the great genius of Homer, have a fine effect in making an epic poem intereft us and please. It might have been said, that Monzaida was a traitor to his friends, and who crowned his villainy with apoftacy. Camoëns has therefore wifely drawn him with other features, worthy of the friendship of Gama. Had this been neglected, the hero of the Lufiad might have fhared the fate of the wife Ulyffes of the Iliad, against whom, as Voltaire justly obferves, every reader bears a fecret ill will. Nor is the poetical character of Monzaida unfupported by history. He was not an Arab Moor, fo he did not defert his countrymen. By force thefe Moors had determined on the deftruction of Gama: Monzaida admired and efteemed him, and therefore generously revealed to him his danger. By his attachment to Gama he loft all his effects in India, a circumstance which his prudence and knowledge of affairs must have certainly foreseen. By the known dangers he encountered, by the lofs he thus voluntarily fustained, and by his after conftancy, his fincerity is undoubtedly proved.

With rustling found now fwell'd the steady sail;
The lofty mafts reclining to the gale

On full spread wings the navy springs away,
And far behind them foams the ocean grey :
Afar the leffening hills of Gata fly,

And mix their dim blue fummits with the fky:
Beneath the wave low finks the spicy shore,
And roaring through the tide each nodding prore
Points to the Cape, great nature's fouthmost bound,
The Cape of Tempefts, now of Hope renown'd.
Their glorious tale on Lisboa's fhore to tell
Inspires each bofom with a rapt'rous fwell;
Now through their breafts the chilly tremors glide,
To dare once more the dangers dearly try'd-
Soon to the winds are thefe cold fears refign'd,
And all their country rushes on the mind;
How sweet to view their native land, how sweet
The father, brother, and the bride to greet!
While listening round the hoary parent's board
The wondering kindred glow at every word;

How fweet to tell what woes, what toils they bore,
The tribes and wonders of each various shore !
These thoughts, the traveller's loved reward, employ,
And fwell each bofom with unutter'd' joy.

The

1 The joy of the fleet on the homeward departure from India.—We are now come to that part of the Lufiad, which, in the conduct of the poem, is parallel to the great catastrophe of the Iliad, when on the death of Hector, Achilles thus addreffes the Grecian army,

The queen of love, by heaven's eternal

The guardian goddess of the Lufian race; of love, elate with joy, furveys

grace,

The queen
Her heroes, happy, plow the watery maze :
Their dreary toils revolving in her thought,
And all the woes by vengeful Bacchus wrought;
These toils, these woes her yearning cares employ,
To bathe and balfam in the streams of joy.
Amid the bofom of the watery waste,

Near where the bowers of Paradife were placed,
An ifle, array'd in all the pride of flowers,
Of fruits, of fountains, and of fragant bowers,
She means to offer to their homeward prows,
The place of glad repast and sweet repofe;

And

-Ye fons of Greece, in triumph bring
The corfe of Hector, and your Pæans fing:
Be this the fong, slow moving tow'rd the shore,
"Hector is dead, and Ilion is no more."

Our Portuguese poet, who in his machinery, and many other inftances, has followed the manner of Virgil, now forfakes him. In a very bold and masterly spirit he now models his poem by the fteps of Homer. What of the Lufiad yet remains, in poetical conduct, though not in an imitation of circumstances, exactly resembles the latter part of the Iliad. The games at the funeral of Patrocius, and the redemption of the body of Hector, are the completion of the rage of Achilles. In the fame manner, the reward of the heroes, and the confequences of their expedition, complete the unity of the Lufiad. I cannot fay it appears that Milton ever read our poet; (though Fanfhaw's tranflation was published in his time;) yet no inftance can be given of a more striking resemblance of plan and conduct, than may be produced in two principal parts of the poem of Camoëns, and of the Paradife Loft. Of this however hereafter in its proper place.

m Near where the bowers of Paradife were placed—According to the opinion of those who place the garden of Eden near the mountains of Imaus, from whence the Ganges and Indus derive their fource.

And there before their raptured view to raise

The heaven-topt column of their deathless praise.

The goddess now afcends her filver car, Bright was its hue as love's tranflucent star;

Beneath the reins the stately birds, that fing
Their fweet-ton'd death-fong, spread the fnowy wing;
The gentle winds beneath her chariot sigh,

And virgin blushes purple o'er the sky:

On milk-white pinions borne, her cooing doves
Form playful circles round her as she moves;
And now their beaks in fondling kiffes join,
In amorous nods their fondling necks entwine.
O'er fair Idalia's bowers the goddess rode,
And by her altars fought Idalia's god :

The youthful bowyer of the heart was there;
His falling kingdom claim'd his earnest " care.

n

His

n His falling kingdom claim'd his earnest care.—This fiction, in poetical conduct, bears a striking resemblance to the digreffive histories, with which Homer enriches and adorns his poems, particularly to the beautiful description of the feaft of the gods with the blameless Ethiopians. It also contains a masterly commentary on the machinery of the Lufiad. The divine love conducts Gama to India. The fame divine love is reprefented as preparing to reform the corrupted world, when its attention is particularly called to bestow a foretaste of immortality on the heroes of the expedition which dif covered the Eastern world. Nor do the wild phantaftic loves, mentioned in this little episode, afford any objection against this explanation, an explanation which is expressly given in the episode itself. These wild phantastic amours fignify, in the allegory, the wild fects of different enthusiasts, which fpring up under the wings of the best and most rational institutions; and which, however contrary to each other, all agree in deriving their authority from the fame fource.