Lo, Venus comes! Oh, foft, ye furges, fleep,
Smooth be the bofom of the azure deep,

Lo, Venus comes! and in her vigorous train
She brings the healing balm of love-fick pain.
White as her fwans *, and stately as they rear
Their fnowy crefts when o'er the lake they steer,
Slow moving on, behold, the fleet appears,

And o'er the diftant billow onward steers.

The beauteous Nereids flufh'd in all their charms
Surround the goddess of the soft alarms:
Right to the ifle fhe leads the smiling train,
And all her arts her balmy lips explain;

The fearful languor of the asking eye,

The lovely blush of yielding modesty,

1

The grieving look, the figh, the favouring smile,

And all th' endearments of the open wile,

She taught the nymphs--in willing breasts that heaved

To hear her lore, her lore the nymphs received.

As now triumphant to their native shore Through the wide deep the joyful navy bore, Earneft the pilot's eyes fought cape or bay, For long was yet the various watery way;

Sought

* White as ber fwans-A diftant fleet compared to swans on a lake is certainly an happy thought. The allufion to the pomp of Venus, whose agency is immediately concerned, gives it befides a peculiar propriety. This fimile however is not in the original. It is adopted from an uncommon happiness of Fanshaw;

The pregnant fayles on Neptune's furface creep,
Like her own fans, in gate, out-cheft, and fether.

Sought cape or isle from whence their boats might bring

The healthful bounty of the crystal spring:
When fudden, all in nature's pride array'd,
The Isle of Love its glowing breast display'd.
O'er the green bofom of the dewy lawn
Soft blazing flow'd the filver of the dawn,
The gentle waves the glowing luftre share,
Arabia's balm was sprinkled o'er the air.
Before the fleet, to catch the heroes' view,
The floating ifle fair Acidalia drew ;
Soon as the floating verdure caught their fight,
She fixt, unmov'd, the ifland of delight.

y

So when in child-birth of her Jove-fprung load,

The fylvan goddess and the bowyer god,
In friendly pity of Latona's woes,
Amid the waves the Delian ifle arofe.

And

-As the departure of

y Soon as the floating verdure caught their fight.Gama from India was abrupt (fee the Preface) he put into one of the beautiful islands of Anchediva for fresh water. While he was here careening his fhips, fays Faria, a pirate named Timoja attacked him with eight small veffels, fo linked together and appearance of a floating island. the floating island of Venus. ❝ d'autant plus merveilleuses, qu'elles ont toutes leur fondement dans l'hiftoire, are "the more marvellous, because they are all founded in history. It is not dif"ficult to find why he makes his ifland of Achediva to wander on the “ waves; it is in allusion to a fingular event related by Barros." He then proceeds to the story of Timoja, as if the genius of Camoëns stood in need of fo weak an affiftance.

covered with boughs, that they formed the This, fays Caftera, afforded the fiction of "The fictions of Camoëns, fays he, font

z In friendly pity of Latona's woes.- -Latona, in pregnancy by Jupiter, was perfecuted by Juno, who fent the ferpent Python in pursuit of her. Neptune, in pity of her distress, raised the island of Delos for her refuge, where fhe was delivered of Apollo and Diana.-Ovid. Met.

And now led smoothly o'er the furrow'd tide,
Right to the isle of joy the veffels glide :
The bay they enter, where on every hand,
Around them clafps the flower-enamelled land;

A fafe retreat, where not a blast may shake
Its fluttering pinions o'er the ftilly lake.
With purple shells, transfus'd as marble veins,
The yellow fands celeftial Venus ftains.
With graceful pride three hills of softest green
Rear their fair bofoms o'er the sylvan scene;
Their fides embroider'd boast the rich array
Of flowery shrubs in all the pride of May;
The purple lotos and the fnowy thorn,
And yellow pod-flowers every flope adorn.
From the green fummits of the leafy hills
Defcend with murmuring lapse three limpid rills;
Beneath the rofe-trees loitering flow they glide,
Now tumbles o'er fome rock their crystal pride;
Sonorous now they roll adown the glade,
Now plaintive tinkle in the secret shade,
Now from the darkling grove, beneath the beam
Of ruddy morn, like melted filver stream,
Edging the painted margins of the bowers,
And breathing liquid freshness on the flowers.
Here bright reflected in the pool below
The vermil apples tremble on the bough;

Where o'er the yellow fands the waters fleep,

The primrosed banks, inverted, dew drops weep;

I

Where

Where murmuring o'er the pebbles purls the stream

The filver trouts in playful curvings gleam.
Long thus and various every riv❜let strays,
Till clofing now their long meandering maze,
Where in a smiling vale the mountains end,
Form'd in a crystal lake the waters a blend :
Fring'd was the border with a woodland fhade,
In every leaf of various green array'd,
Each yellow-ting'd, each mingling tint between
The dark afh-verdure and the filvery green.
The trees now bending forward slowly shake
Their lofty honours o'er the crystal lake;
Now from the flood the graceful boughs retire
With coy referve, and now again admire
Their various liveries by the fummer dreft,
Smooth-glofs'd and softened in the mirror's breast.
So by her glass the wishful virgin stays,
And oft retiring steals the lingering gaze.
A thousand boughs aloft to heaven display
Their fragrant apples shining to the day;

The

-Caftera alfo attributes this

a Form'd in a cryftal lake the waters blend.to history; "The Portuguese actually found in this island, says he, a fine "piece of water ornamented with hewn stones and magnificent aqueducts; an ancient and fuperb work, of which nobody knew the author."

In 1505 Don Francifco Almeyda built a fort in this island. In digging among some ancient ruins he found many crucifixes of black and red colour, from whence the Portuguese conjectured, says Oforius, that the Anchedivian islands had in former ages been inhabited by Christians. Vid. Ofer. L. iv.

b

The orange here perfumes the buxom Þ air,

And boasts the golden hue of Daphne's hair.

Near to the ground each spreading bough defcends,
Beneath her yellow load the citron bends;
The fragrant lemon fcents the cooly grove;
Fair as when ripening for the days of love
The virgin's breasts the gentle fwell avow,
So the twin fruitage fwell on every bough.

Wild

b The orange here perfumes the buxom air,

And boafts the golden hue of Daphne's hair.

Frequent allufions to the fables of the ancients form a characteristical feature of the poetry of the 16th and 17th centuries. A profufion of it is pedantry; a moderate ufe of it, however, in poem of these times pleafes, because it difcovers the stages of compofition, and has in itself a fine effect, as it illuftrates its fubject by presenting the claffical reader with fome little landfcapes of that country through which he has travelled. The defcription of forefts is a favourite topic in poetry. Chaucer, Taffo, and Spenser, have been happy in it, but both have copied an admired paffage in Statius;

Cadit ardua fagus,

Chaoniumque nemus, brumæque illæsa cupressus;
Procumbunt picere, flammis alimenta fupremis,

Ornique, iliceæque trabes, metuendaque fulco
Taxus, & infandos belli potura cruores
Fraxinus, atque fitu non expugnabile robur :
Hinc audax abies, & odoro vulnere pinus
Scinditur, acclinant intonfa cacumina terræ

Alnus amica fretis, nec inhofpita vitibus ulmus.

In rural defcriptions three things are neceffary to render them poetical; the happiness of epithet, of picturefque arrangement, and of little landscape views. Without thefe, all the names of trees and flowers, though strung together in tolerable numbers, contain no more poetry than a nurseryman or a ficrift's catalogue. In Statius, in Taffo and Spenfer's admired forefts, (Gier. Liber. C. 3. St. 75, 76, and F. Queen, B. 1. C. 1. St. 8, 9.) the poetry confifts entirely in the happiness of the epithets. In Camoëns, all the three requifites are admirably attained, and blended together.