Of Lisboa's monarchs: He who first shall crown
Thy labours, GAMA, here fhall boast his own.
The lengthening sea that washes India's strand
And laves the cape that points to Ceylon's land,
(The Taprobanian ifle, renown'd of yore,)
Shall fee his enfigns blaze from shore to shore.
Behold how many a realm array'd in green
The Ganges' fhore and Indus' bank between!
Here tribes unnumber'd and of various lore

With woeful penance fiend-like shapes adore;

i

Some Macon's orgies, all confess the sway

Of rites that shun, like trembling ghofts, the day.
Narfinga's fair domain behold; of yore
Here fhone the gilded towers of Meliapore,
Here India's angels weeping o'er the tomb
Where Thomas fleeps, implore the day to come,

The

He who firft fball crown thy labours, Gama Pedro de Cabral, of whom fee the Preface.

i Some Macon's orgies- -Macon, a name of Mecca, the birth place of

Mohammed.

k

the tomb where Thomas fleeps.

There are, to talk in the Indian ftyle, a cast of gentlemen, whofe hearts are all impartiality and candour to every religion except one, the most moral one which ever the world knew. A tale of a Bramin or a prieft of Jupiter would to them appear worthy of poetry. But to introduce an apostlee-common sense, however, will prevail; and the epifode of St. Thomas will appear to the true critic equal in dignity and propriety. In propriety, for

To renew and complete the labours of the apostle, the messenger of heaven, is the great defign of the hero of the poem, and of the future miffions in confequence of the discoveries which are the subject of it.

The day foretold when India's utmost shore
Again fhall hear Meffiah's blissful lore.

By

The Chriftians of St. Thomas, found in Malabar on the arrival of Gama, we have already mentioned in the Preface: but fome farther account of that fubject will certainly be agreeable to the curious. The jefuit miffionaries have given most pompous accounts of the Christian antiquities of India and China. When the Portuguese arrived in India, the head of the Malabar Christians, named Jacob, ftiled himself Metropolitan of India and China. And a Chaldaic breviary of the India Christians offers praife to God for fending St. Thomas to India and China. In 1625, in digging for a foundation near Siganfu, metropolis of the province of Xenfi, was found a stone with a cross on it, full of Chinese, and fome Syriac characters, containing the names of bishops, and an account of the Chriftian religion, "that it was "brought from Judea; that having been weakened, it was renewed under "the reign of the great Tam," (cir. A. D. 630.) But the Chriftians, fay the Jefuits, fiding with the Tartars, cir. A. D. 1200, were extirpated by the Chinese. In 1543, Fernand Pinto, obferving fome ruins near Peking, was told by the people, that 200 years before, a holy man, who worshipped Jesus Christ, born of a virgin, lived there; and being murdered, was thrown into a river, but his body would not fink; and foon after the city was deftroyed by an earthquake. The fame Jefuit found people at Caminam who knew the doctrines of Chriftianity, which they said were preached to their fathers by John the difciple of Thomas. In 1635, fome heathens by night paffing through a village in the province of Fokien, saw some stones which emitted light, under which were found the figure of croffes. From China St. Thomas returned to Meliapore in Malabar, at a time when a prodigious beam of timber floated on the fea near the coaft. The king endeavoured to bring it afhore, but all the force of men and elephants was in vain. St. Thomas defired leave to build a church with it, and immediately dragged it to fhore with a fingle thread. A church was built, and the king baptized. This enraged the Bramins, the chief of whom killed his own fon, and accufed Thomas of the murder. But the faint, by restoring the youth to life, difcovered the wickedness of his enemies. He was afterwards killed by a lance while kneeling at the altar; after, according to tradition, he had built 3300 ftately churches, many of which were rebuilt, cir. 800, by an Armenian, named Thomas Cananeus. In 1523, the body of the apostle, with the head of the lance befide him, was found in his church by D. Duarte de

*The existence of this breviary is a certain fact. These Christians had the Scripture alfo in the Chaldaic language.

By Indus' banks the holy prophet trod,

And Ganges heard him preach the Saviour-God;
Where pale disease erewhile the cheek consumed,
Health at his word in ruddy fragrance bloom'd;

The grave's dark womb his awful voice obey'd,
And to the cheerful day reftored the dead:

By

de Menefes; and in 1558 was by D. Conftantine de Braganza removed to Goa. To thefe accounts, fele&ted from Faria y Soufa, let two from Oforius be added. When Martin Alonzo de Souza was viceroy, fome brazen tables were brought to him, infcribed with unufual characters, which were explained by a learned Jew, and imported that St. Thomas had built a church in Meliapore. And by an account sent to Cardinal Henrico, by the bishop of Cochin, in 1562, when the Portuguese repaired the ancient chapel of St. Thomas*, there was found a stone cross with several characters on it, which the best antiquarians could not interpret, till at laft a Bramin tranflated it, "That in the reign of Sagam, Thomas was fent by the Son of God, whofe difciple he was, to teach the law of heaven in India; that he built a church, and was killed by a Bramin at the altar."

A view of Portuguese Afia, which must include the labours of the Jefuits, forms a neceffary part in the comment on the Lufiad: this note, therefore, and fome obvious reflections upon it, are in place. It is as eafy to bury an inscription and find it again, as it is to invent a filly tale; but though suspicion of fraud on the one hand, and filly abfurdity on the other, lead us to defpife the authority of the Jefuits, yet one fact remains indifputable. Christianity has been much better known in the Eaft, feveral centuries before, than it was at the arrival of Gama. Where the name was unknown, and where the Jefuits were unconcerned, croffes were found. The long existence of the Chriftians of St. Thomas in the midst of a vast pagan empire, proves that the learned of that empire must have some knowledge of their doctrines. And thefe facts give countenance to fome material conje&ures concerning the religion of the Bramins. For thefe we fhall give fcope immediately.

This was a very ancient building, in the very firft ftyle of Chriftian churches. The Portuguese have now disfigured it with their repairs and new buildings.

By heavenly power he rear'd the facred shrine,
And gain'd the nations by his life divine.
The priests of Brahma's hidden rites beheld,,
And envy's bittereft gall their bofoms swell'd.
A thousand deathful fnares in vain they spread;
When now the chief that wore the triple thread,

1

Fired

Of this, thus Oforius;

When now the chief who wore the triple thread. «Terna fila ab humero dextero in latus finiftrum gerunt, ut defignent trinam in "natura divina rationem." They (the Bramins) wear three threads, which reach from the right shoulder to the left fide, as fignificant of the trinal diftinction in the divine nature." That fome fects of the Bramins wear a fymbolical teffera of three threads, is acknowledged on all hands; but from whatever the custom arofe, it is not to be supposed that the Bramins, who have thousands of ridiculous contradictory legends, fhould agree in their accounts or explanations of it. Faria fays, that according to the facred books of the Malabrians, the religion of the Bramins proceeded from fishermen, who left the charge of the temples to their fucceffors, on condition they thould wear fome threads of their nets, in remembrance of their original. Their accounts of a divine perfon having affumed human nature are innumerable. And the god Brahma, as obferved by Cudworth, is generally mentioned as united in the government of the universe with two others, fometimes of different names. They have alfo images with three heads rifing out of one body, which they say represent the divine nature. The Platonic idea of a trinity of divine attributes was well known to the ancients, before the various imitations of chriftian mythology exifted; and every nation has a trinity of fuperior deities. Even the wild Americans had their Otcon, Mefou, and Atabauta; yet perhaps the Athanafian controverfy offers a fairer field to the conjecturift. That controverfy for several ages engroffed the converfation of the Eaft. All the fubtilty of the Greeks was called forth, and no fpeculative conteft was ever more univerfally or warmly difputed; fo warmly, that it is a certain fact that Mohammed, by inserting into his Koran fome declarations in favour of the Arians, gained innumerable profelytes to his new religion. Abyffinia, Egypt, Syria, Perfia, and Armenia, were perplexed with this unhappy difpute, and from the earliest times thefe countries have had a commercial intercourfe with India. And certain it is, the Brahmin theology has underwent confiderable alterations, of much later date than the Chriftian æra. See the Enquiry, &c. end of

Lufiad VII.

Fired by
the rage that gnaws the conscious breast
Of holy fraud, when worth fhines forth confeft,
Hell he invokes, nor hell in vain he fues;

His fon's life-gore his wither'd hands imbrews;
Then bold affuming the vindictive ire,

And all the paffions of the woeful fire,
Weeping he bends before the Indian throne,
Arraigns the holy man, and wails his fon :
A band of hoary priefts atteft the deed,
And India's king condemns the feer to bleed.
Inspired by heaven the holy victim ftands,

And o'er the murder'd corfe extends his hands,

In God's dread power, thou flaughter'd youth, arife, And name thy murderer; aloud he cries.

When, dread to view, the deep wounds instant close,
And fresh in life the flaughter'd youth arofe,

And named his treacherous fire: The confcious air
Quiver'd, and awful horror raised the hair

On

every head. From Thomas India's king The holy sprinkling of the living fpring Receives, and wide o'er all his regal bounds The God of Thomas every tongue resounds. Long taught the holy feer the words of life: The priests of Brahma still to deeds of strife, So boiled their ire, the blinded herd impell'd, And high to deathful rage their rancour swell'd. 'Twas on a day, when melting on his tongue Heaven's offer'd mercies glow'd, the impious throng