What boundless joys are thine, O just renown,
Thou hope of virtue, and her noblest crown;
By thee the feeds of conscious worth are fired,
Hero by hero, fame by fame inspired :

Without thine aid how foon the hero dies!
By thee upborne his name ascends the skies.
This Ammon knew, and own'd his Homer's lyre
The nobleft glory of Pelides' ire.

This knew Auguftus, and from Mantua's fhade

To courtly ease the Roman bard convey'd ;
And foon exulting flow'd the song divine,
The nobleft glory of the Roman line.
Dear was the muse to Julius: ever dear

To Scipio; though the ponderous conquering spear
Roughen'd his hand, th' immortal pen he knew,
And to the tented field the gentle mufes drew.
Each glorious chief of Greek or Latian line
Or barbarous race, adorn'd th' Aonian shrine;
Each glorious name, e'er to the muse endear'd,
Or wooed the muses, or the muse revered.
Alas, on Tago's hapless shores alone

The mufe is flighted, and her charms unknown;

For

Or barbarous race.-We have already obferved that Camoëns was not misled by the common declamations against the Gothic conquerors. "Theodoric the fecond king of the Oftrogoths, a pious and humane prince, "reftored in fome degree the study of letters.... He adopted into his "fervice Boethius, the most learned and almoft only Latin philosopher of "that period. Caffiodorus, another eminent Roman scholar, was his grand ❝fecretary. . . . Theodoric's patronage of learning is applauded by Clau"dian, &c. Many other Gothic kings were equally attached to the works "of peace." Warton, Hift. Eng. Poetry.

For this, no Virgil here attune's the lyre,

No Homer here awakes the hero's fire.

On Tago's fhores are Scipios, Cæfars born,
And Alexanders Lifboa's clime adorn.

But heaven has stampt them in a rougher mould,
Nor gave the polish to their genuine gold.
Careless and rude or to be known or know,
In vain to them the sweetest numbers flow;
Unheard, in vain their native poet fings,

And cold neglect weighs down the mufe's wings.
Even he whofe veins the blood of GAMA warms,
Walks by, unconscious of the muse's charms:
For him no muse shall leave her golden loom,

No palm shall bloffom, and no wreath shall bloom;

Yet fhall my labours and my cares be paid.

By fame immortal, and by GAMA's shade :

Him

Even be whofe veins-Don Fran. de Gama, grandfon of the hero of the Lufiad. For his infignificant and worthlefs character, fee the life of Camoëns.

s Yet fhall my labours. Ariftotle has pronounced, that the works of Homer contain the perfect model of the epic poem. Homer never gives us any digreffive declamation spoken in the perfon of the poet, or interruptive of the thread of his narration. For this reafon Milton's beautiful complaint of his blindness has been cenfured as a violation of the rules of the Epopoeia. But it may be prefumed there is an appeal beyond the writings of Homer, an appeal to the reason of these rules. When Homer laid the plan of his works, he felt that to write a poem like an history, whofe parts had no neceffary dependence and connection with each other, must be uninteresting and tiresome to the reader of real genius. The unity of one action adorned with proper collateral episodes therefore presented itself in its progressive dependencies of beginning, middle, and end; or in other words, a description of certain circumftances, the actions which these produce, and the catastrophe. This unity of conduct, as most interesting, is indispensably

neceffary

Him fhall the fong on every shore proclaim,
The first of heroes, first of naval fame.

Rude and ungrateful though my country be,
This proud example shall be taught by me,
"Where'er the hero's worth demands the skies,

"To crown that worth fome generous bard fhall rife!"

neceffary to the epic poem. But it does not follow, that a declamation in the perfon of the poet, at the beginning or end of a book, is properly a breach of the unity of the conduct of the action; the omiffion therefore of fuch declamations by Homer, as not founded on the nature of the epic poem, is no argument against the use of them. If this however will not be allowed by the critic, let the critic remember, that Homer has many digreffive histories, which have no dependence on, or connection with the action of the poem. If the declamation of Camoëns in praise of poetry must be condemned, what defence can be offered for the long ftory of Maron's wine in the ninth Odyffey, to which even the numbers of a Pope could give no dignity! Yet however a Boffu or a Rapin may condemn the digreffive exclamations of Camoëns, the reader of tafte, who judges from what he feels, would certainly be unwilling to have them expunged. The declamation with which he concludes the feventh Lufiad, muft please, must touch every breast. The feelings of a great spirit in the evening of an active and military life, finking under the preffure of neglect and dependence, yet the complaint expreffed with the most manly refentment, cannot fail to interest the generous, and, if adorned with the dress of poetry, to plead an excuse for its admiffion with the man of tafte. The declamation which concludes the prefent book, has alfo fome arguments to offer in its defence. As the fleet of Gama have now fafely conquered many difficulties, and are promised a pilot to conduct them to India, it is a proper contraft to the murmurings of the populace, expreffed by the old man, at the end of the fourth Lufiad, and is by no means an improper conclufion to the episode which so highly extols the military fame of the Lufian warriors.

END OF THE FIFTH BOOK.

THE

LUSIA D.

BOOK VI.

WITH heart fincere the royal Pagan joy'd,

And hofpitable rites each hour employ'd;

For much the king the Lufian band admired,
And much their friendship and their aid defired;
Each hour the gay feftivity prolongs,

Melindian dances, and Arabian fongs;

Each hour in mirthful transport steals away,
By night the banquet, and the chase by day:
And now the bofom of the deep invites,
And all the pride of Neptune's festive rites;
Their filken banners waving o'er the tide,
A jovial band, the painted galleys ride;

The

The net and angle various hands employ,

And Moorish timbrels found the notes of joy.

a

Such was the pomp, when Egypt's beauteous queen

Bade all the pride of naval fhew convene,

In pleasure's downy bofom to beguile

Her love-fick warrior: o'er the breast of Nile
Dazzling with gold the purple enfigns flow'd,
And to the lute the gilded barges row'd,
While from the wave, of many a shining hue,
The anglers' lines the panting fishes drew.

Now from the weft the founding breezes blow,
And far the hoary flood was yet to plow:
The fountain and the field beftow'd their store,
And friendly pilots from the friendly shore,
Train'd in the Indian deep, were now aboard,
When Gama, parting from Melinda's lord,
The holy vows of lasting peace renew'd,
For ftill the king for lasting friendship sued;

That

a Such was the pomp.· Every display of eastern luxury and magnificence was lavished in the fishing parties on the Nile, with which Cleopatra amused Mark Antony, when at any time he fhewed fymptoms of uneasiness, or feemed inclined to abandon the effeminate life which he led with his mistress. At one of thefe parties, Mark Antony having procured divers to put fishes upon his hooks while under the water, he very gallantly boasted to his mistrefs of his great dexterity in angling. Cleopatra perceived his art, and as gallantly outwitted him. Some other divers received her orders, and in a little while Mark Antony's line brought up a fried fish in place of a live one, to the vast entertainment of the queen and all the convivial company. Octavius was at this time on his march to decide who should be master of the world,