Baticala inflamed by treacherous hate, Provokes the horrors of Badala's fate : From Dio's ftrand fhall fway the glorious war. k A thou -When the victories of k The Rumien fierce, who boafts the name of Rome.the Portuguese began to overspread the East, several Indian princes, by the counfels of the Moors, applied for affistance to the sultan of Egypt and the grand fignior. The troops of these Mohammedan princes were in the highest reputation for bravery, and though composed of many different nations, were known among the Orientals by one common name. Ignorance delights in the marvellous. The hiftory of ancient Rome made the fame figure among the Eafterns, as that of the fabulous or heroic ages does with us, with this difference, it was better believed. The Turks of Romania and Egypt pretended to be the defcendants of the Roman conquerors, and the Indians gave them and their auxiliaries the name of Rumes, or Romans. It has been faid that the gypsies who are now scattered over Europe, were, about four or five centuries ago, driven by war from Egypt and Syria. The name by which, in their dialect, they call themselves, Rumetch, or Rumetchin, favours this opinion. A thousand barbarous nations join their powers To bathe with Lufian blood the Dion towers. Dark rolling sheets, forth belch'd from brazen wombs, When lo, his gallant fon brave Caftro fends Ah heaven, what fate the hapless youth attends! Through oceans howling with the wintery war, Wide sweeping o'er Cambaya's haughty king. In vain his thundering courfers shake the ground, Sinks ■ No hope, bold MascareneThe commander of Diu, or Dio, during this fiege, one of the most memorable in the Portuguese hiftory. Sinks pale in duft: Fierce Hydal-Kan m in vain Thefe warlike chiefs, the fons of thy renown, And thousands more, O VASCO, doom'd to crown Thy glorious toils, fhall through these feas unfold Their victor-standards blazed with Indian gold; f And m Fierce Hydal-Kan-The title of the Lords or Princes of Decan, who in their wars with the Portuguese have sometimes brought 400,000 men into the field. The prince here mentioned, after many revolts, was at laft finally fubdued by Don John de Caftro, the fourth viceroy of India, with whose reign our poet judiciously ends the prophetic fong. Albuquerque laid the plan, and Caftro completed the fyftem of the Portuguese empire in the Eaft. It is with propriety therefore that the prophecy given to Gama is here fummed up. Nor is the difcretion of Camoëns in this instance inferior to his judgment. He is now within a few years of his own times, when he himself was upon the scene in India. But whatever he had faid of his cotemporaries would have been liable to misconstruction, and every fentence would have been branded with the epithets of flattery or malice. A little poet would have been happy in such an opportunity to resent his wrongs. But the filent contempt of Camoëns does him true honour. In this hiftorical fong, as already hinted, the tranflator has been attentive, as much as he could, to throw it into thofe univerfal languages, the picturefque and characteristic. To convey the fublimeft inftruction to princes, is, according to Aristotle, the peculiar province of the epic muse. The striking points of view, in which the different characters of the governors of India are here placed, are in the most happy conformity to this in genious canon of the Stagyrite. And in the bofom of our flowery ifle, Embathed in joy shall o'er their labours fmile. Their nymphs like your's, their feast divine the fame, The raptured foretaste of immortal fame. So fung the goddefs, while the fifter train Which round immortals, when enamour'd, fhine, Firm be your steps, for arduous to the tread With splinter'd flint, winds the steep flippery road. She spake, and smiling caught the hero's hand, Great n In whirling circles now they fell, now rofe,-Yet never rose nor fell.—The motions of the heavenly bodies, in every fyftem, bear, at all times, the fame uniform relation to each other; thefe expreffions, therefore, are strictly just. The first relates to the appearance, the fecond to the reality. Thus while to us the fun appears to go down, to the more western inhabitants of the globe he appears to rise, and while he rises to us, he is going down to the more eastern; the difference being entirely relative to the various parts of the earth. And in this the expreffions of our poet are equally applicable to the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems. The ancient hypothefis which made our earth the centre of the univerfe, is the fyftem adopted by Camoëns, a happiness, in the opinion of the translator, to the English Lufiad. The new fyftem is fo well known, that a poetical description of it would have been no novelty to the English reader. The other has not only that advantage in its favour; but this defcription is perhaps the finest and fulleft that ever was given of it in poetry, that of Lucretius, 1. v. being chiefly argumentative, and therefore lefs picturesque. Our author ftudied at the university of Coimbra, where the ancient fyftem and other doctrines of the Ariftotelians then, and long afterwards, prevailed. |