and other animals; and women inow. In a word, the island of Venus is here sketched out, yet Chaucer was never translated into Latin or any language of the Continent, nor did Camoëns understand a line of English. The fubject was common, and the fame poetical feelings in Chaucer and Camoëns, pointed out to each what were the beauties of landscapes and of bowers de voted to pleasure. Yet, though the fiction of howers, of islands, and palaces, was no novelty in poetry, much however remains to be attributed to the poetical powers and invention of Camoëns. The ifland of Venus contains, of all others, by much the completest gradation, and fulleft affemblage of that fpecies of luxuriant painting. Nothing in the older writers is equal to it in fullness. Nor can the island of Armida in Taffo be compared to it, in poetical embroidery or paffionate expreffion; though Tafso as undoubtedly built upon the model of Camoëns, as Spenfer appropriated the imagery of Taffo, when he defcribed the bower of Acrafia, part of which he has literally tranflated from the Italian poet. The beautiful fictions of Armida and Acrasia however are much too long to be here inserted, and they are well known to every reader of taste. But the chief praise of our Poet is yet unmentioned. The introduction of so beautiful a fiction, as an effential part of the conduct and machinery of an Epic poem, does the greatest honour to the invention of Camoëns. The machinery of the former part of the poem not only acquires dignity, but is completed by it. And the conduct of Homer and Virgil, has in this not only received a fine imitation, but a masterly contraft. In the finest allegory the heroes of the Lufiad receive their reward; and by means of this allegory our poet gives a noble imitation of the nobleft part of the Æneid. In the tenth Lufiad, Gama and his heroes hear the nymphs in the divine palace of Thetis fing the triumphs of their countrymen in the conqueft of India: after this the Goddess gives Gama a view of the Eastern World, from the Cape of Good Hope to the fartheft islands of Japan. She poetically describes every region and the principal iflands, and concludes, All these are given to the Western World by You. It is impoffible any poem can be fummed up with greater fublimity. The fall of Troy is nothing to this. Nor is this all: the prophecy of Anchises, which forms the most masterly fiction, fineft compliment, and ultimate purpose of the Æneid, is not only nobly imitated; but the conduct of Homer, in concluding the Iliad, as already observed, is paralleled, without one circumftance being borrowed. Poetical conduct cannot poffibly bear á ftronger resemblance, than the reward of the heroes of the Lufiad, the prophetic fong, and the vifion fhewn to Gama, bear to the games at the funeral of Patroclus and the redemption of the body of Hector, confidered as the completion of the anger of Achilles, the fubject of the Iliad. Nor is it a greater honour to resemble a Homer and a Virgil, than it is to be resembled by a Milton. Though Milton perhaps never faw the Lufiad in the original tongue, he certainly heard of Fanfhaw's tranflation, which was published fourteen years before he gave his Paradife Loft to the world. But whatever he knew of it, had the last book of the Lufiad been two thousand years known to the learned, every one would have owned that the two laft books of the Paradise Loft were evidently formed upon it. But whether Milton borrowed any hint from Camoëns, is of little confequence. That the genius of the great Milton fuggefted the conclufion of his immortal poem in the manner and machinery of the Lufiad, is enough. It is enough that the part of Michael and Adam in the two last books of the Paradise Loft, are in point of conduct exactly the fame with the part of Thetis and Gama in the conclusion of the Lufiad. Yet this difference must be observed; in the narrative of his last book, Milton has flagged, as Addison calls it, and fallen infinitely short of the untired spirit of the Portuguese Poet. END OF THE NINTH BOOK. THE LUSIA D. BOOK X. FAR o'er the western ocean's distant bed Apollo now his fiery courfers fped, Far o'er the filver lake of Mexic a roll'd His rapid chariot wheels of burning gold : The a Far o'er the filver lake of Mexic.- -The city of Mexico is environed with an extenfive lake; or, according to Cortez, in his fecond narration to Charles V. with two lakes, one of fresh, the other of falt water, in circuit about fifty leagues. This fituation, faid the Mexicans, was appointed by their god Vitziliputzli, who, according to the explanation of their picturehiftories, led their forefathers a journey of fourfcore years, in search of the promised land; the apish devil, fay fome Spanish writers, in this imitating the journies of the Ifraelites. Four of the principal priests carried the idol in a coffer of reeds. Whenever they halted they built a tabernacle for their god in the midst of their camp, where they placed the coffer and the altar. They The eastern sky was left to dusky grey, And o'er the last hot breath of parting day, And opening jasmines o'er the arbours spread. Not yet full orb'd, in clouded splendour dreft, Each They then fowed the land, and their stay or departure, without regard to the harvest, was directed by the orders received from their idol, till at last by his command they fixed their abode on the fite of Mexico. The origin of the Mexicans is reprefented by men coming out of caves, and their different journies and encampments are pourtrayed in their picture-histories; one of which was fent to Charles V. and is faid to be ftill extant in the Efcurial. According to the reigns of their kings, their first emigration was about A. D. 720. Vide Boterus, Gomara, Acolta, and other Spanish writers. |