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Oh then, propitious hear your son implore,
And guide my vessel to the happy shore.
Ah! see how long what perilous days, what woes
On many a foreign coast around me rose,
As, dragg'd by Fortune's chariot-wheels along,
I sooth'd my sorrows with the warlike song :
Wide ocean's horrors length'ning now around,
And, now my footsteps trod the hostile ground;
Yet, mid each danger of tumultuous war
Your Lusian heroes ever claim'd my care:
As Canace of old, ere self-destroy'd,

2

One hand the pen, and one the sword employ'd,
Degraded now, by poverty abhorr'd,

The guest dependent at the lordling's board:

Now blest with all the wealth fond hope could crave,
Soon I beheld that wealth beneath the wave
For ever lost; myself escap'd alone,

On the wild shore all friendless, hopeless, thrown;
My life, like Judah's heaven-doom'd king of yore,*
By miracle prolong'd; yet not the more
To end my sorrows: woes succeeding woes
Belied my earnest hopes of sweet repose:
In place of bays around my brows to shed
Their sacred honours, o'er my destin'd head
Foul Calumny proclaim'd the fraudful tale,
And left me mourning in a dreary jail."

1 The warlike song.-Though Camoëns began his Lusiad in Portugal, almost the whole of it was written while on the ocean, while in Africa, and in India.-See his Life.

2 As Canace.-Daughter of Eolus. Her father, having thrown her incestuous child to the dogs, sent her a sword, with which she slew herself. In Ovid she writes an epistle to her husband-brother, where she thus describes herself:

Dextra tenet calamum, strictum tenet altera ferrum.

3 Soon I beheld that wealth beneath the wave
For ever lost.-

See the Life of Camoens.

My life, like Judah's Heaven-doom'd king of yore.-Hezekiah.-See Isaiah xxxviii.

5 And left me mourning in a dreary jail.—This, and the whole paragraph from

Degraded now, by poverty abhorr'd,

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Such was the meed, alas! on me bestow'd,

Bestow'd by those for whom my numbers glow'd,
By those who to my toils their laurel honours ow'd.

Ye gentle nymphs of Tago's rosy bowers,
Ah, see what letter'd patron-lords are yours !
Dull as the herds that graze their flow'ry dales,
To them in vain the injur'd muse bewails:
No fost❜ring care their barb'rous hands bestow,
Though to the muse their fairest fame they owe.
Ah, cold may prove the future priest of fame
Taught by my fate: yet, will I not disclaim
Your smiles, ye muses of Mondego's shade;
Be still my dearest joy your happy aid!
And hear my vow: Nor king, nor loftiest peer
Shall e'er from me the song of flatt'ry hear;
Nor crafty tyrant, who in office reigns,
Smiles on his king, and binds the land in chains s;
His king's worst foe: nor he whose raging ire,
And raging wants, to shape his course, conspire;
True to the clamours of the blinded crowd,
Their changeful Proteus, insolent and loud :
Nor he whose honest mien secures applause,
Grave though he seem, and father of the laws,
Who, but half-patriot, niggardly denies
Each other's merit, and withholds the prize:

Who spurns the muse,1 nor feels the raptur'd strain,
Useless by him esteem'd, and idly vain:

alludes to his fortunes in India. The latter circumstance relates particularly to the base and inhuman treatment he received on his return to Goa, after his unhappy shipwreck.-See his Life.

1 Who spurns the muse. Similarity of condition_has produced similarity of sentiment in Camoëns and Spenser. Each was the ornament of his country and his age, and each was cruelly neglected by the men of power, who, in truth, were incapable to judge of their merit, or to relish their writings. We have seen several of the strictures of Camoëns on the barbarous nobility of Portugal. The similar complaints of Spenser will show, that neglect of genius, however, was not confined to the court of Lisbon:

"O grief of griefs! O gall of all good hearts!
To see that virtue should despised be

Of such as first were raised for virtue's parts,

For him, for these, no wreath my hand shall twine;
On other brows th' immortal rays shall shine :
He who the path of honour ever trod,
True to his king, his country, and his God,
On his blest head my hands shall fix the crown
Wove of the deathless laurels of renown.

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And now, broad spreading like an aged tree,
Let none shoot up that nigh them planted be.
O let not those of whom the muse is scorn'd,
Alive or dead be by the muse adorn'd."

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Real Heroes

RUINS OF TIME.

It is thought Lord Burleigh, who withheld the bounty intended by Queen Elizabeth, is here meant. But he is more clearly stigmatized in these remarkable lines, where the misery of dependence on court favour is painted in colours which must recal several strokes of the Lusiad to the mind of the reader :

"Full little knowest thou that hast not tried,
What hell it is, in suing long to bide;
To lose good days, that might be better spent,
To waste long nights in pensive discontent;
To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow,
To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow;
To have thy princess' grace, yet want her peers';
To have thy asking, yet wait many years.
To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares,
To eat thy heart thro' comfortless despairs;
To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run,
To spend, to give, to want, to be undone."

MOTHER HUBBERD'S TALE.

These lines exasperated still more the inelegant, illiberal Burleigh. So true is the observation of Mr. Hughes, that, "even the sighs of a miserable man are sometimes resented as an affront by him that is the occasion of them."

END OF THE SEVENTH BOOK.

BOOK VIII.

THE ARGUMENT.

Description of the pictures, given by Paulus. The heroes of Portugal, from Lusus, one of the companions of Bacchus (who gave his name to Portugal), and Ulysses, the founder of Lisbon, down to Don Pedro and Don Henrique (Henry), the conquerors of Ceuta, are all represented in the portraits of Gama, and are characterized by appropriate verses. Meanwhile the zamorim has recourse to the oracles of his false gods, who make him acquainted with the future dominion of the Portuguese over India, and the consequent ruin of his empire. The Mohammedan Arabs conspire against the Portuguese. The zamorim questions the truth of Gama's statement, and charges him with being captain of a band of pirates. Gama is obliged to give up to the Indians the whole of his merchandise as ransom, when he obtains permission to re-embark. He seizes several merchants of Calicut, whom he detains on board his ship as hostages for his two factors, who were on land to sell his merchandise. He afterwards liberates the natives, whom he exchanges for his two companions. In Mickle's translation this portion of the original is omitted, and the factors are released in consequence of a victory gained by Gama.

WITH eye unmov'd the silent CATUAL1 view'd

The pictur'd sire with seeming life endu'd;
A verdant vine-bough waving in his right,
Smooth flow'd his sweepy beard of glossy white,
When thus, as swift the Moor unfolds the word,
The valiant Paulus to the Indian lord :-
:-

"Bold though these figures frown, yet bolder far

These godlike heroes shin'd in ancient war.

1 Kotwal, a sort of superintendent or inspector of police.--FORBES' Hindustani Dictionary. 2 Lusus.

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In that hoar sire, of mien serene, august,
Lusus behold, no robber-chief unjust;

His cluster'd bough-the same which Bacchus bore1—
He waves, the emblem of his care of yore;
The friend of savage man, to Bacchus dear,
The son of Bacchus, or the bold compeer,

What time his yellow locks with vine-leaves curl'd,
The youthful god subdued the savage world,
Bade vineyards glisten o'er the dreary waste,
And humaniz'd the nations as he pass'd.
Lusus, the lov'd companion of the god,
In Spain's fair bosom fix'd his last abode,
Our kingdom founded, and illustrious reign'd
In those fair lawns, the bless'd Elysium feign'd,

1 His cluster'd bough, the same which Bacchus bore.-Camoëns immediately before, and in the former book, calls the ensign of Lusus a bough; here he calls it the green thyrsus of Bacchus :

O verde Tyrso foi de Bacco usado.

The thyrsus, however, was a javelin twisted with ivy-leaves, used in the sacrifices of Bacchus:

In those fair lawns the bless'd Elysium feign'd. In this assertion our author has the authority of Strabo, a foundation sufficient for a poet. Nor are there wanting several Spanish writers, particularly Barbosa, who seriously affirm that Homer drew the fine description of Elysium, in his fourth Odyssey, from the beautiful valleys of Spain, where, in one of his voyages, they say, he arrived. Egypt, however, seems to have a better title to this honour. The fable of Charon, and the judges of hell, are evidently borrowed from the Egyptian rites of burial, and are older than Homer. After a ferryman had conveyed the corpse over a lake, certain judges examined the life of the deceased, particularly his claim to the virtue of loyalty, and, according to the report, decreed or refused the honours of sepulture. The place of the catacombs, according to Diodorus Siculus, was surrounded with deep canals, beautiful meadows, and a wilderness of groves. It is universally known that the greatest part of the Grecian fables were fabricated from the customs and opinions of Egypt. Several other nations have also claimed the honour of affording the idea of the fields of the blessed. Even the Scotch challenge it. Many Grecian fables, says an author of that country, are evidently founded on the reports of the Phoenician sailors. That these navigators traded to the coasts of Britain is certain. In the middle of summer, the season when the ancients performed their voyages, for about six weeks there is no night over the Orkney Islands; the disk of the sun, during that time, scarcely sinking below the horizon. This appearance, together with the calm which usually prevails at that

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