Still fiercer from each wound the tyrant burns, The Nor Tyber's bridge.- -When Porfenna befieged Rome, Horatius Cocles defended the pass of a bridge till the Romans destroyed it behind him. Having thus faved the pass, heavy armed as he was, he swimmed across the river to his companions. The Roman history, however, at this period, is often mixt with fable. Miltiades obtained a great victory over Darius at Marathon. The ftand of Leonidas is well known. The battles of Pacheco were in defence of the fords by which the city of Cochin could only be entered. The numbers he withstood by land and fea, and the victories he obtained, are indeed highly astonishing. See the Preface. Though with her amorous fons the valiant line Of Java's ifle in battle rank combine, Though poison'd shafts their ponderous quivers store; Great Albuquerk, thy dauntless toils fhall crown! Yet art thou" ftain'd--Here with a fighful frown The India, and fecond only to Goa. Befides a great many pieces of ordnance which were carried away by the Moors who efcaped, 3000 large cannon remained the prize of the victors. Yet art thou fain'd.- A detail of all the great actions of Albuquerque would have been tedious and unpoetical. Camoëns has chosen the most brilliant, and has happily fuppreffed the reft by a display of indignation. "Behold The French tranflator has the following note on this paffage. "another inftance of our author's prejudice! The action which he con"demns had nothing in it blameable: but as he was of a most amorous "conftitution, he thought every fault which could plead an amour in its "excufe ought to be pardoned; but true heroes, fuch as Albuquerque, "follow other maxims. This great man had in his palace a beautiful "Indian flave. He viewed her with the eyes of a father, and the care of "her education was his pleasure. A Portuguefe foldier, named Ruy Diaz, had the boldness to enter the general's apartment, where he fucceeded fo "well with the girl, that he obtained his defire. When Albuquerque heard. "of it, he immediately ordered him to the gallows." Camoëns, however, was no fuch undistinguishing libertine as this would reprefent him. In a few pages we find him praifing the continence of Don Henry de Menezes, whofe victory over his paffions he calls the highest excellence of youth. Nor does it appear by what authority the Frenchman affures us of the chafte paternal affection which Albuquerque bore to this Indian girl. It was the great aim of Albuquerque to establish colonies in India, and for that purpose he encouraged his foldiers to marry with the natives. The moft fightly girls were felected, and educated in the religion and household arts of Portugal, and portioned at the expence of the general. These he called his daughters, and with great pleasure he used to attend their weddings, feveral couples being ufually joined together at one time. At one of these nuptials, says Faria, the festivity having continued late, and the brides being mixed together, feveral of the bridegrooms committed a blunder. The mistakes of the night however, as they were all equal in The goddess paused, for much remain'd unfung, When point of honour, were mutually forgiven in the morning, and each man took his proper wife whom he had received at the altar. This delicate anecdote of Albuquerque's fons and daughters, is as bad a commentary on the note of Caftera, as it is on the feverity which the commander fhewed to poor Diaz. Nor does Camoëns ftand alone in the condemnation of the general. The hiftorian agrees with the poet. Mentioning the death of D. Antonio Noronha, "This gentleman," fays Faria," used to moderate the "violent temper of his uncle Albuquerque, which foon after fhewed itself ❝in rigid severity. He ordered a foldier to be hanged for an amour with "one of the flaves whom he called daughters, and whom he used to give in "marriage. When fome of his officers afked him what authority he had "to take the poor man's life, he drew his fword, told them that was his "commiffion, and instantly broke them." To marry his foldiers with the natives was the plan of Albuquerque, his severity therefore seems unaccountable, unless we admit the perhaps of Camoëns, ou de ciofo, perhaps it was jealousy. ---But whatever incenfed the general, the execution of the foldier was contrary to the laws of every nation *; and the honest indignation of Camoëns against one of the greatest of his countrymen, one who was the grand architect of the Portuguese empire in the East, affords a noble inftance of that manly freedom of fentiment which knows no right by which king or peer may do injustice to the meanest subject. Nor can we omit the obfervation, that the above note of Caftera is of a piece with the French devotion we have already seen him pay to the name of king; a devotion which breathes the true spirit of the bleffed advice given by Father Paul to the republic of Venice: "When a nobleman commits an offence against a subje&t,” fays that Jefuit, "let every means be tried to justify him. But if a subject has offended a nobleman, let him be punished with the utmost fe<< verity." *Oforius reprefents the crime of Diaz as mutiny, having been against the ftrict orders of Albuquerque. Diaz, however, was guilty of no breach of military duty, which alone constitutes the crime of mutiny. When patient under all the foldier stands, Configns the youthful foldier to the grave. X Not Ammon thus Apelles' love repaid, Great Ammon's bed refign'd the lovely maid: Nor haughtier Carlo thus affumed the fire, Again * Not Ammon.- -Campaspe, the most beautiful concubine of Alexander, was given by that monarch to Apelles, whom he perceived in love with her. Arafpas had strict charge of the fair captive Panthea. His attempt on her virtue was forgiven by Cyrus. "Baldwin, furnamed y And Flandria's earldom on the knight beftow'd."Ironarm, grand forefter of Flanders, being in love with Judith, the "daughter of Charles the Bald, and widow of Ethelwolfe, king of England, "obtained his defire by force. Charles, though at first he highly resented, "afterwards pardoned his crime, and confented to his marriage with the "princess." Caftera. This Again the nymph the song of fame refounds; Lo, fweeping wide o'er Ethiopia's bounds, Wide o'er Arabia's purple shore on high Ꮓ Th' unhallowed altar bodes th' approaching foe, Nor This digreffion in the fong of the nymph bears, in manner, a striking resemblance to the hiftories which the heroes of Homer often relate to each other. That these little episodes have their beauty and propriety in an epic poem, will strongly appear from a view of M. de la Motte's translation of the Iliad into French verfe. The four and twenty books of Homer he has contracted into twelve, and these contain no more lines than about four books of the original. A thousand embellishments which the warm poetical feelings of Homer suggested to him, are thus thrown out by the Frenchman. But what is the confequence of this improvement? The work of la Motte is unread, even by his own countrymen, and despised by every foreigner who has the least relish for poetry and Homer. z And midnight borror shakes Medina's shrine- Medina, the city where Mohammed is buried. About fix years after Gama's discovery of India, the fultan of Egypt fent Maurus, the abbot of the monks at Jerufalem, who inhabit Mount Sion, on an embaffy to pope Julius II. The fultan, with fevere threats to the Chriftians of the East in case of refufal, intreated the pope to defire Emmanuel king of Portugal to fend no more fleets to the Indian feas. The pope fent Maurus to Emmanuel, who returned a very fpirited answer to his holiness, affuring him that no threats, no dangers could make him alter his resolutions, and lamenting that it had not yet been in his power to fulfil his promife of demolishing the fepulchre and erazing the memorials of Mohammed from the earth. This, he fays, was the first purpose of sending his fleets to India. Nobis enim, cum iter in Indiam claffibus noftris aperire, & regiones majoribus noftris incognitas explorare decrevimus, boc propofitum fuit, ut ipsum Mahumetanæ fectæ caput extingueremus -It is with great art that Camoëns fo often reminds us of the grand design of the expedition of his heroes, to fubvert Mohammedism and found a Christian empire in the East. But the dignity which this gives his poem is already observed in the Preface. |