[575] _In friendly pity of Latona's woes._--Latona, pregnant by Jupiter,
was persecuted by Juno, who sent the serpent Python in pursuit of her.
Neptune, in pity of her distress, raised the island of Delos for her
refuge, where she was delivered of Apollo and Diana.--OVID, Met.

[576] _Form'd in a crystal lake the waters blend._--Castera also
attributes this to history. "The Portuguese actually found in this
island," says he, "a fine piece of water ornamented with hewn stones and
magnificent aqueducts; an ancient and superb work, of which nobody knew
the author."

In 1505 Don Francisco Almeyda built a fort in this island. In digging
among some ancient ruins he found many crucifixes of black and red
colour, from whence the Portuguese conjectured, says Osorius, that the
Anchedivian islands had in former ages been inhabited by
Christians.--Vid. Osor. 1. iv.

[577]

    _The orange here perfumes the buxom air.
    And boasts the golden hue of Daphne's hair.--_

Frequent allusions to the fables of the ancients form a characteristic
feature of the poetry of the 16th and 17th centuries. A profusion of it
is pedantry; a moderate use of it, however, in a poem of those times
pleases, because it discovers the stages of composition, and has in
itself a fine effect, as it illustrates its subject by presenting the
classical reader with some little landscapes of that country through
which he has travelled. The description of forests is a favourite topic
in poetry. Chaucer, Tasso, and Spenser, have been happy in it, but both
have copied an admired passage in Statius:--

                     "Cadit ardua fagus,
    Chaoniumque nemus, brumæque illæsa cupressus;
    Procumbunt piceæ, flammis alimenta supremis,
    Ornique, iliceæque trabes, metuandaque sulco
    Taxus, et infandos belli potura cruores
    Fraxinus, atque situ non expugnabile robur:
    Hinc audax abies, et odoro vulnere pinus
    Scinditur, acclinant intonsa cacumina terræ
    Alnus amica fretis, nec inhospita vitibus ulmus."

In rural descriptions three things are necessary to render them
poetical: the happiness of epithet, of picturesque arrangement, and of
little landscape views. Without these, all the names of trees and
flowers, though strung together in tolerable numbers, contain no more
poetry than a nurseryman or a florist's catalogue. In Statius, in Tasso
and Spenser's admired forests (Ger. Liber. c. 3. st. 75, 76, and F.
Queen, b. 1 c. 1. st. 8, 9), the poetry consists entirely in the
happiness of the epithets. In Camoëns, all the three requisites are
admirably attained and blended together.

[578] _And stain'd with lover's blood._--Pyramus and Thisbe:--

    "Arborei fœtus aspergine cædis in atram
    Vertuntur faciem: madefactaque sanguine radix
    Puniceo tingit pendentia mora colore.....
    At tu quo ramis arbor miserabile corpus
    Nunc tegis unius, mox es tectura duorum;
    Signa tene cædis: pullosque et lectibus aptos
    Semper habe fœtus gemini monumenta cruoris."

    OVID, Met.

[579] _The shadowy vale._--Literal from the original,--_O sombrio
valle_--which Fanshaw, however, has translated, "the gloomy valley," and
thus has given us a funereal, where the author intended a festive,
landscape. It must be confessed, however, that the description of the
island of Venus, is infinitely the best part of all of Fanshaw's
translation. And indeed the dullest prose translation might obscure, but
could not possibly throw a total eclipse over, so admirable an original.

[580] _The woe-mark'd flower of slain Adonis--water'd by the tears of
love._--The Anemone. "This," says Castera, "is applicable to the
celestial Venus, for, according to my theology, her amour with Adonis
had nothing in it impure, but was only the love which nature bears to
the sun." The fables of antiquity have generally a threefold
interpretation, an historical allusion, a physical and a metaphysical
allegory. In the latter view, the fable of Adonis is only applicable to
the celestial Venus. A divine youth is outrageously slain, but shall
revive again at the restoration of the golden age. Several nations, it
is well known, under different names, celebrated the Mysteries, or the
death and resurrection of Adonis; among whom were the British Druids, as
we are told by Dr. Stukely. In the same manner Cupid, in the fable of
Psyche, is interpreted by mythologists, to signify the Divine Love
weeping over the degeneracy of human nature.

[581]

    _At strife appear the lawns and purpled skies,
    Who from each other stole the beauteous dyes.--_

On this passage Castera has the following sensible, though turgid, note:
"This thought," says he, "is taken from the idyllium of Ausonius on the
rose:--

    'Ambigeres raperetne rosis Aurora ruborem,
     An daret, et flores tingere torta dies.'

Camoëns who had a genius rich of itself, still further enriched it at
the expense of the ancients. Behold what makes great authors! Those who
pretend to give us nothing but the fruits of their own growth, soon
fail, like the little rivulets which dry up in the summer, very
different from the floods, who receive in their course the tribute of a
hundred and a hundred rivers, and which even in the dog-days carry their
waves triumphant to the ocean."

[582] _The hyacinth bewrays the doleful_ Ai.--Hyacinthus, a youth
beloved of Apollo, by whom he was accidentally slain, and afterwards
turned into a flower:--

                  "Tyrioque nitentior ostro
    Flos oritur, formamque capit, quam lilia: si non,
    Purpureus color huic, argenteus esset in illis.
    Non satis hoc Phæbo est: is enim fuit auctor honoris.
    Ipse suos gemitus foliis inscribit; et Ai, Ai,
    Flos habet inscriptum: funestaque littera ducta est."

    OVID, Met.

[583] _The second Argonauts._--The expedition of the Golden Fleece was
esteemed, in ancient poetry, one of the most daring adventures, the
success of which was accounted miraculous. The allusions of Camoëns to
this voyage, though in the spirit of his age, are by no means improper.

[584] _Wide o'er the beauteous isle the lovely fair._--We now come to
the passage condemned by Voltaire as so lascivious, that no nation in
Europe, except the Portuguese and Italians, could bear it. The fate of
Camoëns has hitherto been very peculiar. The mixture of Pagan and
Christian mythology in his machinery has been anathematized, and his
island of love represented as a brothel. Yet both accusations are the
arrogant assertions of the most superficial acquaintance with his works.
His poem itself, and a comparison of its parts with the similar conduct
of the greatest modern poets, will clearly evince, that in both
instances no modern epic writer of note has given less offence to true
criticism.

Not to mention Ariosto, whose descriptions will often admit of no
palliation, Tasso, Spenser, and Milton, have always been esteemed among
the chastest of poets, yet in that delicacy of warm description, which
Milton has so finely exemplified in the nuptials of our first parents,
none of them can boast the continued uniformity of the Portuguese poet.
Though there is a warmth in the colouring of Camoëns which even the
genius of Tasso has not reached: and though the island of Armida is
evidently copied from the Lusiad, yet those who are possessed of the
finer feelings, will easily discover an essential difference between the
love-scenes of the two poets, a difference greatly in favour of the
delicacy of the former. Though the nymphs in Camoëns are detected naked
in the woods, and in the stream, and though desirous to captivate, still
their behaviour is that of the virgin who hopes to be the spouse. They
act the part of offended modesty; even when they yield they are silent,
and behave in every respect like Milton's Eve in the state of innocence,
who--

    "What was honour knew,"

And who displayed--

    "Her virtue, and the conscience of her worth,
    That would be wooed, and not unsought be won."

To sum up all, the nuptial sanctity draws its hallowed curtains, and a
masterly allegory shuts up the love-scenes of Camoëns.

How different from all this is the island of Armida in Tasso, and its
translation, the bower of Acrasia in Spenser! In these virtue is
seduced; the scene therefore is less delicate. The nymphs, while they
are bathing, in place of the modesty of the bride as in Camoëns, employ
all the arts of the lascivious wanton. They stay not to be wooed; but,
as Spenser gives it--

    _The amorous sweet spoils to greedy eyes reveal._

One stanza from our English poet, which, however, is rather fuller than
the original, shall here suffice:--

    "Withal she laughed and she blush'd withal,
    That blushing to her laughter gave more grace,
    And laughter to her blushing, as did fall.
    Now when they spy'd the knight to slack his pace,
    Them to behold, and _in his sparkling face
    The secret signs of kindled lust appear_,
    Their wanton merriments they did increase,
    And to him beckon'd to approach more near,
    _And show'd him many sights, that courage cold could rear_.

This and other descriptions--

    "Upon a bed of roses she was laid
     As faint through heat, or dight to pleasant sin"--

present every idea of lascivious voluptuousness. The allurements of
speech are also added. Songs, which breathe every persuasive, are heard;
and the nymphs boldly call to the beholder:--

    _E' dolce campo di battaglia il letto
    Fiavi, e l'herbetta morbida de' prati._--TASSO.

    "Our field of battle is the downy bed,
    Or flow'ry turf amid the smiling mead."--HOOLE.

These, and the whole scenes in the domains of Armida and Acrasia, are in
a turn of manner the reverse of the island of Venus. In these the
expression and idea are meretricious. In Camoëns, though the colouring
is even warmer, yet the modesty of the Venus de Medicis is still
preserved. In everything he describes there is still something strongly
similar to the modest attitude of the arms of that celebrated statue.
Though prudery, that usual mask of the impurest minds, may condemn him,
yet those of the most chaste, though less gloomy turn, will allow, that
in comparison with others, he might say,--_Virginibus puerisque canto_.

Spenser also, where he does not follow Tasso, is often gross; and even
in some instances, where the expression is most delicate, the picture is
nevertheless indecently lascivious.

[585] _The hunter._--Acteon.

[586] _Madd'ning as he said._--At the end of his Homer Mr. Pope has
given an index of the instances of imitative and sentimental harmony
contained in his translations. He has also often even in his notes
pointed out the adaptation of sound to sense. The translator of the
Lusiad hopes he may for once say, that he has not been inattentive to
this great essential of good versification: how he has succeeded the
judicious only must determine. The speech of Leonard to the cursory
reader may perhaps sometimes appear careless, and sometimes turgid and
stiff. That speech, however, is an attempt at the imitative and
sentimental harmony, and with the judicious he rests its fate. As the
translation in this instance exceeds the original in length, the
objection of a foreign critic requires attention. An old pursy Abbé,
(and critics are apt to judge by themselves) may indeed be surprised
that a man out of breath with running should be able to talk so long.
But, had he consulted the experiences of others, he would have found it
was no wonderful matter for a stout and young cavalier to talk twice as
much, though fatigued with the chase of a couple of miles, provided the
supposition be allowed, that he treads on the last steps of his flying
mistress.

[587] _Hence, ye profane._--We have already observed, that in every
other poet the love scenes are generally described as those of guilt and
remorse. The contrary character of those of Camoëns not only gives them
a delicacy unknown to other moderns, but, by the fiction of the spousal
rites, the allegory and machinery of the poem are most happily
conducted.

[588] _Spread o'er the eastern world the dread alarms._--This admonition
places the whole design of the poem before us. To extirpate
Mohammedanism, and propagate Christianity, were professed as the
principal purpose of the discoveries of Prince Henry and King Emmanuel.
In the beginning of the seventh Lusiad, the nations of Europe are
upbraided for permitting the Saracens to erect and possess an empire,
which alike threatened Europe and Christianity. The Portuguese, however,
the patriot poet concludes, will themselves overthrow their enormous
power: an event which is the proposed subject of the Lusiad, and which
is represented as, in effect, completed in the last book. On this
system, adopted by the poet, and which on every occasion was avowed by
their kings, the Portuguese made immense conquests in the East. Yet, let
it be remembered, to the honour of GAMA, and the first commanders who
followed his route, that the plots of the Moors, and their various
breaches of treaty, gave rise to the first wars which the Portuguese
waged in Asia. On finding that all the colonies of the Moors were
combined for their destruction, the Portuguese declared war against the
eastern Moors, and their allies, wherever they found them. The course of
human things, however, soon took place, and the sword of victory and
power soon became the sword of tyranny and rapine.

[589] _Far o'er the silver lake of Mexic._--The city of Mexico is
environed with an extensive lake; or, according to Cortez, in his second
narration to Charles V., with two lakes, one of fresh, the other of salt
water, in circuit about fifty leagues. This situation, said the
Mexicans, was appointed by their God Vitzliputzli, who, according to the
explanation of their picture-histories, led their forefathers a journey
of fourscore years, in search of the promised land. Four of the
principal priests carried the idol in a coffer of reeds. Whenever they
halted they built a tabernacle for their god in the midst of their camp,
where they placed the coffer and the altar. They then sowed the land,
and their stay or departure, without regard to the harvest, was directed
by the orders received from their idol, till at last, by his command,
they fixed their abode on the site of Mexico.

[590] _Before the love-sick Roman._--Mark Antony.

[591] _The beverage--the fountain's cooling aid confess'd._--It was a
custom of the ancients in warm climates to mix the coolest spring water
with their wine, immediately before drinking; not, we may suppose, to
render it less intoxicating, but on account of the cooling flavour it
thereby received. Homer tells us that the wine which Ulysses gave to
Polyphemus would bear twenty measures of water. Modern luxury has
substituted preserved ice, in place of the more ancient mixture.

[592] _Music, such as erst subdued the horrid frown of hell_,
etc.--Alluding to the fable of Orpheus. Fanshaw's translation, as
already observed, was published fourteen years before the Paradise Lost.
These lines of Milton--

    "What could it less, when spirits immortal sung?
    Their song was partial, but the harmony
    Suspended hell, and took with ravishment
    The thronging audience,"

bear a resemblance to these of Fanshaw--

    "Musical instruments not wanting, such
    As to the damn'd spirits once gave ease
    In the dark vaults of the infernal hall."

To _slumber_ amid their punishment, though omitted by Fanshaw, is
literal:--

    "Fizerao descançar da eterna pena."

[593] _No more the summer of my life remains._--It is not certain when
Camoëns wrote this. It seems, however, not long to have preceded the
publication of his poem, at which time he was in his fifty-fifth year.
This apostrophe to his muse may, perhaps, by some be blamed as another
digression; but, so little does it require defence, that one need not
hesitate to affirm that, had Homer, who often talks to his muse,
introduced, on these favourable opportunities, any little picture or
history of himself, these digressions would have been the most
interesting parts of his works. Had any history of Homer complained,
like this of Camoëns, it would have been bedewed with the tears of ages.

[594] _Thy faith repent not, nor lament thy wrong._--P. Alvarez Cabral,
the second Portuguese commander who sailed to India, entered into a
treaty of alliance with Trimumpara, king of Cochin, and high priest of
Malabar. The zamorim raised powerful armies to dethrone him. His
fidelity to the Portuguese was unalterable, though his affairs were
brought to the lowest ebb.--See the history in the Preface.

[595]

    _His ship's strong sides shall groan beneath his weight,
    And deeper waves receive the sacred freight.--_

Thus Virgil:--

                "Simul accipit alveo
    Ingentem Æneam. Gemuit sub pondere cymba
    Sutilis, et multam accepit rimosa paludem."--ÆN. vi. 412.

That the visionary boat of Charon groaned under the weight of Æneas is a
fine poetical stroke; but that the crazy rents let in the water is
certainly lowering the image. The thought, however, as managed in
Camoëns is much grander than in Virgil, and affords a happy instance
where the hyperbole is truly poetical.

The Lusiad affords many instances which must be highly pleasing to the
Portuguese, but dry to those who are unacquainted with their history.
Nor need one hesitate to assert that, were we not acquainted with the
Roman history from our childhood, a great part of the Æneid would appear
to us intolerably uninteresting. Sensible of this disadvantage which
every version of historical poetry must suffer, the translator has not
only in the notes added every incident which might elucidate the
subject, but has also, all along, in the episode in the third and fourth
books, in the description of the painted ensigns in the eighth, and in
the allusions in the present book, endeavoured to throw every historical
incident into that universal language, the picturesque of poetry. When
Hector storms the Grecian camp, when Achilles marches to battle, every
reader understands and is affected with the bold painting. But when
Nestor talks of his exploits at the funeral games of Amarynces (Iliad
xxiii.) the critics themselves cannot comprehend him, and have vied with
each other in inventing explanations.

[596] _Proas_, or paraos, Indian vessels which lie low on the water, are
worked with oars, and carry 100 men and upwards apiece.

[597]

                _His robes are sprinkled o'er,
    And his proud face dash'd, with his menials' gore.--_

See the history in the Preface.

[598] _Round Lusus' fleet to pour their sulph'rous entrails._--How
Pacheco avoided this formidable danger, see the history in the preface.

[599] _Nor Tiber's bridge._--When Porsenna besieged Rome, Horatius
Cocles defended the pass of a bridge till the Romans destroyed it behind
him. Having thus saved the pass, heavy armed as he was, he swam across
the Tiber to his companions. Roman history, however, at this period, is
often mixed with fable. Miltiades obtained a great victory over Darius
at Marathon. The stand made by Leonidas at Thermopylæ is well known. The
battles of Pacheco were in defence of the fords by which alone the city
of Cochin could be entered. The numbers he withstood by land and sea,
and the victories he obtained, are much more astonishing than the
defence of Thermopylæ.

[600] _Bound to the mast the godlike hero stands._--English history
affords an instance of similar resolution in Admiral Bembo, who was
supported in a wooden frame, and continued the engagement after his legs
and thighs were shivered in splinters. Contrary to the advice of his
officers, the young Almeyda refused to bear off, though almost certain
to be overpowered, and though both wind and tide were against him. His
father had sharply upbraided him for a former retreat, where victory was
thought impossible. He now fell the victim of his father's ideas of
military glory.

[601] _The fleets of India fly._--After having cleared the Indian seas,
the viceroy, Almeyda, attacked the combined fleets of Egypt, Cambaya,
and the zamorim, in the entrance and harbour of Diu, or Dio. The fleet
of the zamorim almost immediately fled. That of Melique Yaz, Lord of
Diu, suffered much; but the greatest slaughter fell upon the Egyptians
and Turks, commanded by Mir-Hocem, who had defeated and killed the young
Almeyda. Of 800 Mamelukes, or Turks, who fought under Mir-Hocem, only
22, says Osorius, survived this engagement. Melique Yaz, says Faria y
Sousa, was born in slavery, and descended of the Christians of Roxia.
The road to preferment is often a dirty one; but Melique's was much less
so than that of many. As the King of Cambaya was one day riding in
state, an unlucky kite dunged upon his royal head. His majesty in great
wrath swore he would give all he was worth to have the offender killed.
Melique, who was an expert archer, immediately despatched an arrow,
which brought the audacious hawk to the ground. For the merit of this
eminent service he was made Lord of Diu, or Dio, a considerable city,
the strongest and the most important fortress at that time in all
India.--See Faria, 1. 2, c. 2.

[602] _Great Cunia._--Tristan da Cunha, or d'Acugna.

[603] _Heav'n indignant showers their arrows backward._--Some writers
related that, when Albuquerque besieged Ormuz, a violent wind drove the
arrows of the enemy backward upon their own ranks. Osorius says, that
many of the dead Persians and Moors were found to have died by arrows.
But as that weapon was not used by the Portuguese he conjectures that,
in their despair of victory, many of the enemy had thus killed
themselves, rather than survive the defeat.

[604] _Muscat._

[605] Bahrein, in the Persian Gulf.

[606] _What glorious palms on Goa's isle I see._--This important place
was made an archbishopric, the capital of the Portuguese empire in the
east, and the seat of their viceroys; for which purposes it is
advantageously situated on the coast of Dekhan. It still remains in the
possession of the Portuguese.

[607] _Malacca._--The conquest of this place was one of the greatest
actions of Albuquerque. It became the chief port of the eastern part of
Portuguese India, and second only to Goa. Besides a great many pieces of
ordnance which were carried away by the Moors who escaped, 3000 large
cannon remained the prize of the victors. When Albuquerque was on the
way to Malacca, he attacked a large ship; but, just as his men were
going to board her, she suddenly appeared all in flames, which obliged
the Portuguese to bear off. Three days afterwards the same vessel sent a
boat to Albuquerque, offering an alliance, which was accepted. The
flames, says Osorius, were only artificial, and did not the least
damage. Another wonderful adventure immediately happened. The admiral
soon after sent his long-boats to attack a ship commanded by one Nehoada
Beeguea. The enemy made an obstinate resistance. Nehoada himself was
pierced with several mortal wounds, but lost not one drop of blood till
a bracelet was taken off his arm, when immediately the blood gushed out.
According to Osorius, this was said to be occasioned by the virtue of a
stone in the bracelet, taken out of an animal called Cabrisia, which,
when worn on the body, could prevent the effusion of blood from the most
grievous wounds.

[608] _Yet art thou stain'd._--A detail of all the grant actions of
Albuquerque would have been tedious and unpoetical. Camoëns has chosen
the most brilliant, and has happily suppressed the rest by a display of
indignation. The French translator has the following note on this
passage: "Behold another instance of our author's prejudice! The action
which he condemns had nothing in it blameable: but, as he was of a most
amorous constitution, he thought every fault which could plead an amour
in its excuse ought to be pardoned; but true heroes, such as
Albuquerque, follow other maxims. This great man had in his palace a
beautiful Indian slave. He viewed her with the eyes of a father, and the
care of her education was his pleasure. A Portuguese soldier, named Ruy
Diaz, had the boldness to enter the general's apartment, where he
succeeded so well with the girl that he obtained his desire. When
Albuquerque heard of it, he immediately ordered him to the gallows."

Camoëns, however, was no such undistinguishing libertine as this would
represent him. In a few pages we find him praising the continence of Don
Henry de Meneses, whose victory over his passions he calls the highest
excellence of youth. Nor does it appear by what authority the Frenchman
assures us of the chaste 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 soldiers to
marry with the natives. The most sightly girls were selected, and
educated in the religion and household arts of Portugal, and portioned
at the expense of the general. These he called his daughters, and with
great pleasure he used to attend their weddings, several couples being
usually joined together at one time. At one of these nuptials, says
Faria, the festivity having continued late, and the brides being mixed
together, several of the bridegrooms committed a blunder. The mistakes
of the night, however, as they were all equal in 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
sons and daughters is as bad a commentary on the note of Castera as it
is on the severity which the commander showed to poor Diaz. Nor does
Camoëns stand alone in the condemnation of the general. The historian
agrees with the poet. Mentioning the death of D. Antonio Noronha, "This
gentleman," says Faria, "used to moderate the violent temper of his
uncle, Albuquerque, which soon after showed itself in rigid severity. He
ordered a soldier to be hanged for an amour with one of the slaves whom
he called daughters, and whom he used to give in marriage. When some of
his officers asked him what authority he had to take the poor man's
life, he drew his sword, told them that was his commission, and
instantly broke them." To marry his soldiers with the natives was the
plan of Albuquerque: his severity, therefore, seems unaccountable,
unless we admit the 'perhaps' of Camoëns, _ou de cioso_, perhaps it was
jealousy.--But, whatever incensed the general, the execution of the
soldier 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 instance of that manly freedom of sentiment which knows
no right by which king or peer may do injustice to the meanest subject.
Nor can we omit the observation, that the above note of Castera 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 blessed advice
given by Father Paul to the republic of Venice: "When a nobleman commits
an offence against a subject," says the Jesuit, "let every means be
tried to justify him. But, if a subject has offended a nobleman, let him
be punished with the utmost severity."

{*} Osorius relates the affair of Diaz with some other circumstances;
but with no difference that affects this assertion.

[609] _Not Ammon._--Campaspe, the most beautiful concubine of Alexander
the Great, was given by that monarch to Apelles, whom he perceived in
love with her. Araspas had strict charge of the fair captive, Panthea.
His attempt on her virtue was forgiven by Cyrus.

[610] _And Flandria's earldom on the knight bestow'd._--"Baldwin,
surnamed Iron-arm, Grand Forester of Flanders, being in love with
Judith, the daughter of Charles the Bald, and widow of Ethelwolf, king
of England, obtained his desire by force. Charles, though at first he
highly resented, afterwards pardoned his crime, and consented to his
marriage with the princess."--CASTERA.

This digression in the song of the nymph bears, in manner, a striking
resemblance to the histories which often, even in the heat of battle,
the heroes of Homer 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
verse. 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
consequence 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.

[611] _And midnight horror shakes Medina's shrine._--Medina, the city
where Mohammed is buried. About six years after GAMA'S discovery of
India, the Sultan of Egypt sent Maurus, the abbot of the monks at
Jerusalem, who inhabit Mount Sion, on an embassy to Pope Julius II. The
sultan, with severe threats to the Christians of the East in case of
refusal, entreated the Pope to desire Emmanuel, king of Portugal, to
send no more fleets to the Indian seas. The Pope sent Maurus to
Emmanuel, who returned a very spirited answer to his holiness, assuring
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
purpose of demolishing the sepulchre and erasing the memorials of
Mohammed from the earth. This, he says was the first purpose of sending
his fleets to India. It is with great art that Camoëns so often reminds
us of the grand design of the expedition of his heroes to subvert
Mohammedanism, and found a Christian empire in the East. But the dignity
which this gives to his poem has already been observed in the preface.

[612] _Where Sheba's sapient queen the sceptre bore._--The Abyssinians
contend that their country is the Sheba mentioned in the Scripture, and
that the queen who visited Solomon bore a son to that monarch, from whom
their royal family, to the present time, is descended.

[613] _Snatch'd from thy golden throne._--GAMA only reigned three months
viceroy of India. During his second voyage, the third which the
Portuguese made to India, he gave the zamorim some considerable defeats
by sea, besides his victories over the Moors. These, however, are
judiciously omitted by Camoëns, as the less striking part of his
character.

The French translator is highly pleased with the prediction of GAMA'S
death, delivered to himself at the feast. "The siren," says he,
"persuaded that GAMA is a hero exempt from weakness, does not hesitate
to mention the end of his life. GAMA listens without any mark of
emotion; the feast and the song continue. If I am not deceived, this is
truly great."

[614] _Victorious Henry._--Don Henry de Menezes. He was only
twenty-eight when appointed to the government of India. He died in his
thirtieth year, a noble example of the most disinterested heroism.

[615] _Great Mascarine._--Pedro de Mascarenhas. The injustice done to
this brave officer, and the usurpation of his government by Lopez Vaz de
Sampayo, afford one of the most interesting periods of the history of
the Portuguese in India.

[616] _Great Nunio._--Nunio de Cunha, one of the most worthy of the
Portuguese governors.

[617] _Awed by his fame._--That brave, generous spirit, which prompted
Camoëns to condemn the great Albuquerque for injustice to a common
soldier, has here deserted him. In place of poetical compliment, on the
terrors of his name, Noronha deserved infamy. The siege of Dio, it is
true, was raised on the report of his approach, but that report was the
stratagem of Coje Zofar, one of the general officers of the assailants.
The delays of Noronha were as highly blamable as his treatment of his
predecessor, the excellent Nunio, was unworthy of a gentleman.

[618] _A son of thine, O Gama._--Stephen de Gama.

[619] _A vet'ran, fam'd on Brazil's shore._--Martin Alonzo de Souza. He
was celebrated for clearing the coast of Brazil of several pirates, who
were formidable to that infant colony.

[620] _O'er blood-stain'd ground._--This is as near the original as
elegance will allow--_de sangue cheyo_--which Fanshaw has thus punned:--

                    "With no little loss,
    Sending him home again by _Weeping-Cross_"--

a place near Banbury in Oxfordshire.

[621] Cape Comorin, the southernmost point of India.--_Ed._

[622] _The Rumien fierce, who boasts the name of Rome._--When the
victories of the Portuguese began to overspread the East, several Indian
princes, by the counsels of the Moors, applied for assistance to the
Sultan of Egypt, and the Grand Signior. 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 history of ancient Rome
made the same figure among the easterns, as that of the fabulous, or
heroic, ages does with us, with this difference, it was better believed.
The Turks of Roumania pretended to be the descendants of the Roman
conquerors, and the Indians gave them and their auxiliaries the name of
Rumēs, or Romans. In the same manner, the fame of Godfrey in the East
conferred the name of Franks on all the western Christians, who, on
their part, gave the name of Moors to all the Mohammedans of the East.

[623] _No hope, bold Mascarene._--The commander of Diu, or Dio, during
this siege, one of the most memorable in the Portuguese history.

[624] _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
last finally subdued by Don John de Castro, the fourth viceroy of India,
with whose reign our poet judiciously ends the prophetic song.
Albuquerque laid the plan, and Castro completed the system of the
Portuguese empire in the East. It is with propriety, therefore, that the
prophecy given to GAMA is here summed up. Nor is the discretion 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 said of his contemporaries would have been liable to
misconstruction, and every sentence 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 silent contempt of
Camoëns does him true honour.

In this historical song, as already hinted, the translator has been
attentive, as much as he could, to throw it into these universal
languages, the picturesque and characteristic. To convey the sublimest
instruction 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 ingenious canon of the Stagyrite.

[625]

    _In whirling circles now they fell, now rose,
    Yet never rose nor fell.--_

The motions of the heavenly bodies, in every system, bear at all times
the same uniform relation to each other; these expressions, therefore,
are strictly just. The first relates to the appearance, the second to
the reality. Thus, while to us the sun appears to go down, to 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
expressions of our poet are equally applicable to the Ptolemaic and
Copernican systems. The ancient hypothesis which made our earth the
centre of the universe, is the system adopted by Camoëns, a happiness,
in the opinion of the translator, to the English Lusiad. The new system
is so 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 description is perhaps the finest and fullest that
ever was given of it in poetry, that of Lucretius, l. v. being chiefly
argumentative, and therefore less picturesque.

Our author studied at the university of Coimbra, where the ancient
system and other doctrines of the Aristotelians then, and long
afterward, prevailed.

[626] _He holds His loftiest state._--Called by the old philosophers and
school divines the sensorium of the Deity.

[627] _These spheres behold._--According to the Peripatetics, the
universe consisted of eleven spheres inclosed within each other; as
Fanshaw has familiarly expressed it by a simile which he has lent our
author. The first of these spheres, he says--

                  "Doth (_as in a nest
    Of boxes_) all the other orbs comprise."

In their accounts of this first-mentioned, but eleventh, sphere, which
they called the Empyrean, or heaven of the blest, the disciples of
Aristotle, and the Arab Moors, gave loose to all the warmth of
imagination. And several of the Christian fathers applied to it the
descriptions of heaven which are found in the Holy Scripture.

[628] _Hence motion darts its force._--This is the tenth sphere, the
_Primum Mobile_ of the ancient system. To account for the appearances of
the heavens, the Peripatetics ascribed a double motion to it. While its
influence drew the other orbs from east to west, they supposed it had a
motion of its own from west to east. To effect this, the ponderous
weight and interposition of the ninth sphere, or crystalline heaven, was
necessary. The ancient astronomers observed that the stars shifted their
places. This they called the motion of the crystalline heaven, expressed
by our poet at the rate of one pace during two hundred solar years. The
famous Arab astronomer, Abulhasan, in his Meadows of Gold, calculates
the revolution of this sphere to consist of 49,000 of our years. But
modern discoveries have not only corrected the calculation,{*} but have
also ascertained the reason of the apparent motion of the fixed stars.
The earth is not a perfect sphere; the quantity of matter is greater at
the equator; hence the earth turns on her axis in a rocking motion,
revolving round the axis of the ecliptic, which is called the procession
of the equinoxes, and makes the stars seem to shift their places at
about the rate of a degree in 72 years; according to which all the stars
seem to perform one revolution in the space of 25,920 years, after which
they return exactly to the same situation as at the beginning of this
period. However imperfect in their calculations, the Chaldean
astronomers perceived that the motions of the heavens composed one great
revolution. This they called the _annus magnus_, which those who did not
understand them mistook for a restoration of all things to their first
originals.

{*} However deficient the astronomy of Abulhasan may be, it is nothing
to the calculation of his prophet Mohammed, who tells his disciples,
that the stars were each about the bigness of a house, and hung from the
sky on chains of gold.

[629] _And binds the starry sphere._--This was called the firmament, or
eighth heaven. Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Apollo, Venus, Mercury, and Diana,
were the planets which gave name to, and whose orbits composed, the
other spheres or heavens.

[630] _In shining frost the Northern Chariot rides._--Commonly called
Charles' Wain. Andromeda was the daughter of Cepheus, king of Ethiopia,
and of Cassiope. Cassiope boasted that she and her daughter were more
beautiful than Juno and the Nereids. Andromeda, to appease the goddess,
was, at her father's command, chained to a rock to be devoured by a sea
monster, but was saved by Perseus, who obtained of Jupiter that all the
family should be placed among the stars. Orion was a hunter, who, for an
attempt on Diana, was stung to death by a serpent. The star of his name
portends tempests. The Dogs; fable gives this honour to those of
different hunters. The faithful dog of Erigone, however, that died mad
with grief for the death of his mistress, has the best title to preside
over the dog-days. The Swan; whose form Jupiter borrowed to enjoy Leda.
The Hare, when pursued by Orion, was saved by Mercury, and placed in
heaven, to signify that Mercury presides over melancholy dispositions.
The Lyre, with which Orpheus charmed Pluto. The Dragon which guarded the
golden apples of the Hesperides, and the ship Argo complete the number
of the constellations mentioned by Camoëns. If our author has blended
the appearances of heaven with those of the painted artificial sphere,
it is in the manner of the classics. Ovid, in particular, thus describes
the heavens, in the second book of his Metamorphoses.

[631] _Such are their laws impress'd by God's dread will._--Though a
modern narrative of gallant adventures by no means requires the
supposition of a particular Providence, that supposition, however, is
absolutely necessary to the grandeur of an epic poem. The great examples
of Homer and Virgil prove it; and Camoëns understood and felt its force.
While his fleet combat all the horrors of unploughed oceans, we do not
view his heroes as idle wanderers; the care of heaven gives their voyage
the greatest importance. When GAMA falls on his knees and spreads his
hands to heaven on the discovery of India, we are presented with a
figure infinitely more noble than that of the most successful conqueror
who is supposed to act under the influence of fatalism or chance. The
human mind is conscious of its own weakness. It expects an elevation in
poetry, and demands a degree of importance superior to the caprices of
unmeaning accident. The poetical reader cannot admire the hero who is
subject to such blind fortuity. He appears to us with an abject,
uninteresting littleness. Our poetical ideas of permanent greatness
demand a GAMA, a hero whose enterprises and whose person interest the
care of Heaven and the happiness of his people. Nor must this
supposition be confined merely to the machinery. The reason why it
pleases, also requires, that the supposition should be uniform
throughout the whole poem. Virgil, by dismissing Eneas through the ivory
gate of Elysium, has hinted that all his pictures of a future state were
merely dreams, and has thus destroyed the highest merit of the
compliment to his patron Augustus. But Camoëns has certainly been more
happy. A fair opportunity offered itself to indulge the opinions of
Lucretius and the Academic Grove; but Camoëns, in ascribing the
government of the universe to the will of God, has not only preserved
the philosophy of his poem perfectly uniform, but has also shown that
the Peripatetic system is, in this instance, exactly conformable to the
Newtonian.

Though the Author of nature has placed man in a state of moral agency,
and made his happiness and misery to depend upon it, and though every
page of human history is stained with the tears of injured innocence and
the triumphs of guilt, with miseries which must affect a moral, or
thinking being, yet we have been told, that God perceiveth it not, and
that what mortals call moral evil vanishes from before His more perfect
sight. Thus the appeal of injured innocence, and the tear of bleeding
virtue fall unregarded, unworthy of the attention of the Deity.{*} Yet,
with what raptures do these philosophers behold the infinite wisdom and
care of Beelzebub, their god of flies, in the admirable and various
provision he has made for the preservation of the eggs of vermin, and
the generation of maggots.{**}

Much more might be said in proof that our poet's philosophy does not
altogether deserve ridicule. And those who allow a general, but deny a
particular providence, will, it is hoped, excuse Camoëns, on the
consideration, that if we estimate a general moral providence by analogy
of that providence which presides over vegetable and animal nature, a
more particular one cannot possibly be wanted. If a particular
providence, however, is still denied, another consideration obtrudes
itself; if one pang of a moral agent is unregarded, one tear of injured
innocence left to fall unpitied by the Deity, if _Ludit in humanis
Divina potentia rebus_, the consequence is, that the human conception
can form an idea of a much better God. And it may modestly be presumed
we may hazard the laugh of the wisest philosopher, and without scruple
assert, that it is impossible that a created mind should conceive an
idea of perfection superior to that which is possessed by the Creator
and Author of existence.

{*} Perhaps, like Lucretius, some philosophers think this would be too
much trouble to the Deity. But the idea of trouble to the Divine Nature,
is much the same as another argument of the same philosopher, who having
asserted, that before the creation the gods could not know what seed
would produce, from thence wisely concludes that the world was made by
chance.

{**} Ray, in his Wisdom of God in the Creation (though he did not deny a
Providence), has carried this extravagance to the highest pitch. "To
give life," says he, "is the intention of the creation; and how
wonderful does the goodness of God appear in this, that the death and
putrefaction of one animal is the life of thousands." So, the misery of
a family on the death of a parent is nothing, for ten thousand maggots
are made happy by it.--O Philosophy, when wilt thou forget the dreams of
thy slumbers in Bedlam!

[632] _Here Christian Europe.--Vès Europa Christian._--As Europe is
already described in the third Lusiad, this short account of it has as
great propriety, as the manner of it contains dignity.

[633] _Afric behold._--This just and strongly picturesque description of
Africa is finely contrasted with the character of Europe. It contains
also a masterly compliment to the expedition of GAMA, which is all along
represented as the harbinger and diffuser of the blessings of
civilization.

[634] _Gonsalo's zeal shall glow._--Gonsalo de Sylveyra, a Portuguese
Jesuit, in 1555, sailed from Lisbon on a mission to Monomotapa. His
labours were at first successful; but ere he effected any regular
establishment he was murdered by the barbarians.--CASTERA.

[635] _Great Naya, too._--Don Pedro de Naya.... In 1505 he erected a
fort in the kingdom of Sofala, which is subject to Monomotapa. Six
thousand Moors and Caffres laid siege to this garrison, which he
defended with only thirty-five men. After having several times suffered
by unexpected sallies, the barbarians fled, exclaiming to their king
that he had led them to fight against God.--CASTERA.

[636] _In Abyssinia Heav'n's own altars blaze._--Christianity was
planted here in the first century, but mixed with many Jewish rites
unused by other Christians of the East. This appears to give some
countenance to the pretensions of their emperors, who claim their
descent from Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, and at least reminds us of
Acts viii. 27, where we are told, that the treasurer of the Queen of
Ethiopia came to worship at Jerusalem. Numerous monasteries, we are
told, are in this country. But the clergy are very ignorant, and the
laity gross barbarians. Much has been said of the hill Amara--

    "Where Abyssin kings their issue guard ...
    ... by some suppos'd,
    True Paradise, under the Ethiop line
    By Nilus head, inclos'd with shining rock,
    A whole day's journey high"--MILTON;

and where, according to Urreta (a Spanish Jesuit), is the library
founded by the Queen of Sheba, and enriched with all those writings of
which we have either possession or only the names. The works of Noah,
and the lectures on the mathematics which Abraham read in the plains of
Mamre, are here. And so many are the volumes, that 200 monks are
employed as librarians. It is needless to add, that Father Urreta is a
second Sir John Mandevylle.

[637] _Thy son, brave Gama._--When Don Stephen de Gama was governor of
India, the Christian Emperor and Empress-mother of Ethiopia solicited
the assistance of the Portuguese against the usurpations of the pagan
King of Zeyla. Don Stephen sent his brother, Don Christoval with 500
men. The prodigies of their valour astonished the Ethiopians. But after
having twice defeated the tyrant, and reduced his great army to the last
extremity, Don Christoval, urged too far by the impetuosity of his
youthful valour, was taken prisoner. He was brought before the usurper,
and put to death in the most cruel manner. Waxed threads were twisted
with his beard and afterwards set on fire. He was then dipped in boiling
wax, and at last beheaded by the hand of the tyrant. The Portuguese
esteem him a martyr, and say that his torments and death were inflicted
because he would not renounce the faith.--See Faria y Sousa.

[638] Infidel, pagan.

[639] _Before the virgin-martyr's tomb._--He must be a dull reader
indeed who cannot perceive and relish the amazing variety which prevails
in our poet. In the historical narrative of wars, where it is most
necessary, yet from the sameness of the subject, most difficult, to
attain, our author always attains it with the most graceful ease. In the
description of countries he not only follows the manner of Homer and
Virgil, not only distinguishes each region by its most striking
characteristic, but also diversifies his geography with other incidents
introduced by the mention of the place. St. Catherine, virgin and
martyr, according to Romish histories, was buried on Mount Sinai, and a
chapel was erected over her grave. It is now the Monastery of St.
Catherine.--_Ed._

[640] The crescent, the sign of Turkish supremacy.--_Ed._

[641] _De Branco's sword._--Don Pedro de Castel-Branco. He obtained a
great victory, near Ormuz, over the combined fleets of the Moors, Turks,
and Persians.

[642] _There Barem's isle._--The island of Bahrein is situated in the
Persian Gulf. It is celebrated for the plenty, variety, and fineness of
its diamonds.

[643] _Her warrior sons disdain the arms of fire._--This was the
character of the Persians when GAMA arrived in the East. Yet, though
they thought it dishonourable to use the musket, they esteemed it no
disgrace to rush from a thicket on an unarmed foe. This reminds one of
the spirit of the old romance. Orlando having taken the first invented
cannon from the King of Friza, throws it into the sea with the most
heroic execrations. Yet the heroes of chivalry think it no disgrace to
take every advantage afforded by invulnerable hides and enchanted
armour.

[644]

    _There Gerum's isle the hoary ruin wears
    Where Time has trod.--_

Presuming on the ruins which are found on this island, the natives
pretend that the Armuzia of Pliny and Strabo was here situated. But this
is a mistake, for that city stood on the continent. The Moors, however,
have built a city in this isle, which they call by the ancient name.

[645] _He who first shall crown thy labours, Gama._--Pedro de Cabral, of
whom see the preface.

[646] Ceylon.

[647] _Some Macon's orgies._--Macon, a name of Mecca, the birthplace of
Mohammed.

[648] _The tomb where Thomas sleeps._--There is (to talk in the Indian
style) _a caste_ of gentlemen, whose hearts are all impartiality and
candour to every religion, except one, the most moral which ever the
world heard of. A tale of a Brahmin, or a priest of Jupiter, would to
them appear worthy of poetry. But to introduce an apostle---- Common
sense, however, will prevail; and the episode of St. Thomas will appear
to the true critic equal in dignity and propriety.

To renew and complete the labours of the apostle, the messenger of
Heaven, is the great design of the hero of the poem, and of the future
missions, in consequence of the discoveries which are the subject of it.

The Christians of St. Thomas, found in Malabar on the arrival of GAMA,
we have already mentioned. The Jesuit missionaries 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, styled himself Metropolitan of India and China. And a
Syriac breviary{*} of the Indian Christians offers praise to God for
sending St. Thomas to India and China. In 1625, in digging for a
foundation near Sigansu, metropolis of the province of Xensi, was found
a stone with a cross on it, full of Chinese, and some Syriac characters,
containing the names of bishops, and an account of the Christian
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
Christians, say the Jesuits, siding with the Tartars, cir. A.D. 1200,
were extirpated by the Chinese. In 1543, Fernand Pinto, observing some
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 sink;
and soon after the city was destroyed by an earthquake. The same Jesuit
found people at Caminam who knew the doctrines of Christianity, which
they said were preached to their fathers, by John, the disciple of
Thomas. In 1635, some heathens, by night passing through a village in
the province of Fokien, saw some stones which emitted light, under which
were found the figure of crosses. From China, St. Thomas returned to
Meliapore in Malabar, at a time when a prodigious beam of timber floated
on the sea near the coast. The king endeavoured to bring it ashore, but
all the force of men and elephants was in vain. St. Thomas desired leave
to build a church with it, and immediately dragged it to shore with a
single thread. A church was built, and the king baptized. This enraged
the Brahmins, the chief of whom killed his own son, and accused Thomas
of the murder. But the saint, by restoring the youth to life, discovered
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
stately churches, many of which were rebuilt, cir. 800, by an Armenian
named Thomas Cananeus. In 1533, the body of the apostle, with the head
of the lance beside him, was found in his church by D. Duarte de
Meneses; and in 1558 was, by D. Constantine de Braganza, removed to Goa.
To these accounts, selected from Faria y Sousa, let two from Osorius be
added. When Martin Alonzo de Souza was viceroy, some brazen tables were
brought to him, inscribed with unusual characters, which were explained
by a learned Jew, and imported that St. Thomas had built a church at
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 last a Brahmin
translated it, "That in the reign of Sagam, Thomas was sent by the Son
of God, whose disciple he was, to teach the law of heaven in India; that
he built a church, and was killed by a Brahmin at the altar."

{*} The existence of this breviary is a certain fact. These Christians
had the Scripture also in the Syriac language.

{**} This was a very ancient building, in the very first style of
Christian churches. The Portuguese have now disfigured it with their
repairs and new buildings.

A view of Portuguese Asia, which must include the labours of the
Jesuits, forms a necessary part in the comment on the Lusiad: this note,
therefore, and some obvious reflections upon it, are in place. It is as
easy to bury an inscription and find it again, as it is to invent a
silly tale; but, though suspicion of fraud on the one hand, and silly
absurdity on the other, lead us to despise the authority of the Jesuits,
yet one fact remains indisputable. Christianity had been much better
known in the East, several centuries before, than it was at the arrival
of GAMA. Where the name was unknown, and where the Jesuits were
unconcerned, crosses were found. The long existence of the Christians of
St. Thomas in the midst of a vast pagan empire, proves that the learned
of that kingdom must have some knowledge of their doctrines. And these
facts give countenance to some material conjectures concerning the
religion of the Brahmins.

[649] _When now the chief who wore the triple thread._--Of this, thus
Osorius: "_Terna fila ab humero dextero in latus finistrum gerunt, ut
designent trinam in natura divina rationem._--They (the Brahmins) wear
three threads, which reach from the right shoulder to the left side, as
significant of the trinal distinction in the Divine Nature." That some
sects of the Brahmins wear a symbolical tessera of three threads is
acknowledged on all hands; but, from whatever the custom arose, it is
not to be supposed that the Brahmins, who have thousands of ridiculous
contradictory legends, should agree in their accounts or explanations of
it. They have various accounts of a Divine Person having assumed human
nature. And the god Brahma, as observed by Cudworth, is generally
mentioned as united in the government of the universe with two others,
sometimes of different names. They have also images with three heads
rising out of one body, which they say represent the Divine Nature.{*}
But are there any traces of these opinions in the accounts which the
Greek and Roman writers have given us of the Brahmins? And will the wise
pay any credit to the authority of those books which the public never
saw, and which, by the obligation of their keepers, they are never to
see; and some of which, by the confession of their keepers, since the
appearance of Mohammed, have been rejected? The Platonic idea of a
trinity of divine attributes was well known to the ancients, yet perhaps
the Athanasian controversy offers a fairer field to the conjecturist.
That controversy for several ages engrossed the conversation of the
East. All the subtilty of the Greeks was called forth, and no
speculative contest was ever more universally or warmly disputed; so
warmly, that it is a certain fact that Mohammed, by inserting into his
Koran some declarations in favour of the Arians, gained innumerable
proselytes to his new religion. Abyssinia, Egypt, Syria, Persia, and
Armenia were perplexed with this unhappy dispute, and from the earliest
times these countries have had a commercial intercourse with India. The
number, blasphemy, and absurdity of the Jewish legends of the Talmud and
Targums, bear a striking resemblance to the holy legends of the
Brahmins. The Jews also assert the great antiquity of their Talmudical
legends. Adam, Enoch, and Noah are named among their authors; but we
know their date; Jerusalem, ere their birth, was destroyed by Titus. We
also know, that the accounts which the Greek writers give of the
Brahmins fall infinitely short of those extravagances which are
confessed even by their modern admirers. And Mohammedanism does not
differ from Christianity, more than the account which even these
gentlemen give, does from that of Porphyry. That laborious philosopher,
though possessed of all the knowledge of his age, though he mentions
their metempsychosis and penances, has not a word of any of their idols,
or the legends of Brahma or his brothers. On the contrary, he represents
their worship as extremely pure and simple. Strabo's account of them is
similar. And Eusebius has assured us they worshipped no images.{**} Yet,
on the arrival of the modern Europeans in India, innumerable were their
idols; and all the superstition of ancient Egypt, in the adoration of
animals and vegetables, seemed more than revived by the Brahmins. Who
that considers this striking alteration in their features, can withhold
his contempt when he is told of the religious care with which these
philosophers have these four thousand years preserved their sacred
rites.

{*} To these undoubted facts the author will not add the authority of a
Xavier, who tells us, that he prevailed upon a Brahmin to explain to him
some part of their hidden religion; when to his surprise, the Indian, in
a low voice, repeated the Ten Commandments.

{**} ... χιλιάδες πολλὰι τῶν λεγομένων Βραχμάνων, ὅιτινες κατὰ παραδισόν
τῶν προγόνων καὶ νόμων, οὐτε φονεύουσιν, ΟΥΤΕ ΞΟΑΝΑ ΣΕΒΟΝΤΑΙ.--EUSEB.
Prep. Evan. lib. 6, c. 10, p. 275. Ed. Paris, 1628.

[650] _Thee, Thomas, thee, the plaintive Ganges mourn'd._--The
versification of the original is here exceedingly fine. Even those who
are unacquainted with the Portuguese may perceive it.

    "Choraraóte Thomé, o Gange, o Indo,
    Choroute toda a terra, que pizaste;
    Mas mais te choráo as almas, que vestindo
    Se hiáo dà Santa Fê, que lhe ensinaste;
    Mas os anjos do ceo cantando, & rindo,
    Te recebem na gloria que ganhaste."

[651] _Like him, ye Lusians, simplest Truth pursue._--It is now time to
sum up what has been said of the labours of the Jesuits. Diametrically
opposite to this advice was their conduct in every Asiatic country where
they pretended to propagate the gospel. Sometimes we find an individual
sincere and pious, but the great principle which always actuated them as
a united body was the lust of power and secular emolument, the
possession of which they thought could not be better secured than by
rendering themselves of the utmost importance to the see of Rome. In
consequence of these principles, wherever they came their first care was
to find what were the great objects of the fear and adoration of the
people. If the sun was esteemed the giver of life, Jesus Christ was the
Son of that luminary, and they were his younger brethren, sent to
instruct the ignorant. If the barbarians were in dread of evil spirits,
Jesus Christ came on purpose to banish them from the world, had driven
them from Europe,{*} and the Jesuits were sent to the East to complete
his unfinished mission. If the Indian converts still retained a
veneration for the powder of burned cow-dung, the Jesuits made the sign
of the cross over it, and the Indian besmeared himself with it as usual.
Heaven, or universal matter, they told the Chinese, was the God of the
Christians, and the sacrifices of Confucius were solemnized in the
churches of the Jesuits. This worship of Confucius, Voltaire, with his
wonted accuracy, denies. But he ought to have known that this, with the
worship of _tien_, or heaven, had been long complained of at the court
of Rome (see Dupin), and that after the strictest scrutiny the charge
was fully proved, and Clement XI., in 1703, sent Cardinal Tournon to the
small remains of the Jesuits in the East with a papal decree to reform
these abuses. But the cardinal, soon after his arrival, was poisoned in
Siam by the holy fathers. Xavier, and the other Jesuits who succeeded
him, by the dexterous use of the great maxims of their master Loyola,
_Omnibus omnia, et omnia munda mundis_, gained innumerable proselytes.
They contradicted none of the favourite opinions of their converts, they
only baptized, and gave them crucifixes to worship, and all was well.
But their zeal in uniting to the see of Rome the Christians found in the
East descended to the minutest particulars. And the native Christians of
Malabar were so violently persecuted as heretics that the heathen
princes took arms in their defence in 1570 (see Geddes, Hist. Malabar),
and the Portuguese were almost driven from India. Abyssinia, by the same
arts, was steeped in blood, and two or three Abyssinian emperors lost
their lives in endeavouring to establish the pope's supremacy. An order
at last was given from the throne to hang every missionary, without
trial, wherever apprehended, the emperor himself complaining that he
could not enjoy a day in quiet for the intrigues of the Romish friars.
In China, also, they soon rendered themselves insufferable. Their skill
in mathematics and the arts introduced them to great favour at court,
but all their cunning could not conceal their villainy. Their
unwillingness to ordain the natives raised suspicions against a
profession thus monopolized by strangers; their earnest zeal in amassing
riches, and their interference with, and deep designs on, secular power
(the fatal rock on which they have so often been shipwrecked), appeared,
and their churches were levelled with the ground. About 90,000 of the
new converts, together with their teachers, were massacred, and their
religion was prohibited. In Japan the rage of government even exceeded
that of China, and in allusion to their chief object of adoration, the
cross, several of the Jesuit fathers were crucified by the Japanese, and
the revival of the Christian name was interdicted by the severest laws.
Thus, in a great measure, ended in the East the labours of the society
of Ignatius Loyola, a society which might have diffused the greatest
blessings to mankind, could honesty have been added to their great
learning and abilities. Had that indefatigable zeal which laboured to
promote the interests of their own brotherhood and the Roman see been
employed in the real interests of humanity and civilization, the great
design of diffusing the law of Heaven, challenged by its author as the
purpose of the Lusiad, would have been amply completed, and the remotest
hordes of Tartary and Africa ere now had been happily civilized. But
though the Jesuits have failed, they have afforded a noble lesson to
mankind.

    "Though fortified with all the brazen mounds
    That art can rear, and watch'd by eagle eyes,
    Still will some rotten part betray the structure
    That is not bas'd on simple honesty."

{*} This trick, it is said, has been played in America within these
twenty years, where the notion of evil spirits gives the poor Indians
their greatest misery. The French Jesuits told the Six Nations, that
Jesus Christ was a Frenchman, and had driven all evil demons from
France; that he had a great love for the Indians, whom he intended also
to deliver, but taking England in his way, he was crucified by the
wicked Londoners.

[652] _The dying._--The innumerable superstitions performed on the banks
of the river Ganges, afford a pitiable picture of the weakness of
humanity. The circumstances here mentioned are literally true. It is no
uncommon scene for the English ships to be surrounded with the corpses
which come floating down this hallowed stream.

[653]

    _Pegu, whose sons (so held old faith) confess'd
    A dog their sire.--_

The tradition of this country boasted this infamous and impossible
original. While other nations pretend to be descended of demi-gods, the
Peguans were contented to trace their pedigree from a Chinese woman and
a dog; the only living creatures which survived a shipwreck on their
coast.--See Faria.

[654] _A pious queen their horrid rage restrain'd._--Thus in the
original:

    "Aqui soante arame no instrumento
    Da géraçáo costumáo, o que usaráo
    Por manha da Raynha, que inventando
    Tal uso, deitou fóra o error nefando."

[655] _And 'mid white whirlpools down the ocean driven._--See the same
account of Sicily, Virg. Æn. iii.

[656] _Ophir its Tyrian name._--Sumatra has been by some esteemed the
Ophir of the Holy Scriptures; but the superior fineness of the gold of
Sofala, and its situation, favour the claim of that Ethiopian isle.--See
Bochart. Geog. Sacr.

[657] _And thousands more._--The extensive countries between India and
China, where Ptolemy places his man-eaters, and where Mandevylle found
"men without heads, who saw and spoke through holes in their breasts,"
continues still very imperfectly known. The Jesuits have told many
extravagant lies of the wealth of these provinces. By the most authentic
accounts they seem to have been peopled by colonies from China. The
religion and manufactures of the Siamese, in particular, confess the
resemblance. In some districts, however, they have greatly degenerated
from the civilization of the mother country.

[658] _And gnaw the reeking limbs._--Much has been said on this subject,
some denying and others asserting the existence of anthropophagi or
man-eaters. Porphyry (de Abstin. i. 4 § 21{*}) says that the Massagetæ
and Derbices (people of north-eastern Asia), esteeming those most
miserable who died of sickness, when their parents and relations grew
old, killed and ate them, holding it more honourable thus to consume
them than that they should be destroyed by vermin. St. Jerome has
adopted this word for word, and has added to it an authority of his own:
"Quid loquar," says he, (Adv. Jov. l. 2, c. 6), "de cæteris nationibus;
cum ipse adolescentulus in Gallia viderim Scotos, gentem Britannicam,
humanis vesci carnibus, et cum per sylvas porcorum greges et armentorum,
pecudumque reperiant, pastorum nates, et fæminarum papillas solere
abscindere, et has solas ciborum delicias arbitrari?" Mandevylle ought
next to be cited. "Aftirwarde men gon be many yles be see unto a yle
that men clepen Milhe: there is a full cursed peple: thei delyten in ne
thing more than to fighten and to fie men, and to drynken gladlyest
mannes blood, which they clepen Dieu."--P. 235. Yet, whatever absurdity
may appear on the face of these tales; and what can be more absurd than
to suppose that a few wild Scots or Irish (for the name was then proper
to Ireland), should so lord it in Gaul, as to eat the breasts of the
women and the hips of the shepherds? Yet, whatever absurdities our
Mandevylles may have obtruded on the public, the evidence of the fact is
not thereby wholly destroyed. Though Dampier and other visitors of
barbarous nations have assured us that they never met with any
man-eaters, and though Voltaire has ridiculed the opinion, yet one may
venture the assertion of their existence, without partaking of a
credulity similar to that of those foreigners, who believed that the men
of Kent were born with tails like sheep (see Lambert's Peramb.), the
punishment inflicted upon them for the murder of Thomas à Becket. Many
are the credible accounts, that different barbarous nations used to eat
their prisoners of war. According to the authentic testimony of the best
Portuguese writers, the natives of Brazil, on their high festivals,
brought forth their captives, and after many barbarous ceremonies, at
last roasted and greedily devoured their mangled limbs. During his
torture the unhappy victim prided himself in his manly courage,
upbraiding their want of skill in the art of tormenting, and telling his
murderers that his belly had been the grave of many of their relations.
Thus the fact was certain long before a late voyage discovered the
horrid practice in New Zealand. To drink human blood has been more
common. The Gauls and other ancient nations practised it. When
Magalhaens proposed Christianity to the King of Subo, a north-eastern
Asiatic island, and when Francis de Castro discovered Santigana and
other islands, a hundred leagues north of the Moluccas, the conversion
of their kings was confirmed by each party drinking of the blood of the
other. Our poet Spenser tells us, in his View of the State of Ireland,
that he has seen the Irish drink human blood, particularly, he adds, "at
the execution of a notable traitor at Limerick, called Murrogh O'Brien,
I saw an old woman, who was his foster-mother, take up his head whilst
he was quartering and suck up all the blood that run thereout, saying,
that the earth was not worthy to drink it, and therewith also steeped
her face and breast and tore her hair, crying out and shrieking most
terribly." It is worthy of regard that the custom of marking themselves
with hot irons, and tattooing, is characteristic both of the Guios of
Camoëns and of the present inhabitants of New Zealand. And if, as its
animals indicate, the island of Otaheite was first peopled by a
shipwreck, the friendship existing in a small society might easily
obliterate the memory of one custom, while the less unfriendly one of
tattooing was handed down, a memorial that they owed their origin to the
north-eastern parts of Asia, where that custom particularly prevails.

{*} Ιστοροῦνται γοῦν Μασσαγέται καὶ Δέρβυκες ἁθλιωτάτους ἡγεῖσθαι τῶν
οἱκείων τοὺς ἀυτομάτους τελευτήσαντας· διὸ καὶ φθάσαντες καταθύουσιν καὶ
ἐστιῶνται τῶν φιλτάτων τοὺς γεγηρακότας.

[659] _Other worlds the souls of beasts receive._--That Queen Elizabeth
reigned in England, is not more certain than that the most ignorant
nations in all ages have had the idea of a state after death. The same
faculty which is conscious of existence whispers the wish for it; and,
so little acquainted with the deductions of reasoning have some tribes
been, that not only their animals, but even the ghosts of their domestic
utensils have been believed to accompany them to the islands of the
blessed. Long ere the voice of philosophy was heard, the opinion of an
after state was popular in Greece. The works of Homer bear incontestable
evidence of this. And there is not a feature in the history of the human
mind better ascertained, than that no sooner did speculation seize upon
the topic, than belief declined, and, as the great Bacon observes, the
most learned, became the most atheistical ages. The reason of this is
obvious. While the human mind is all simplicity, popular opinion is
cordially received; but, when reasoning begins, proof is expected, and
deficiency of demonstration being perceived, doubt and disbelief
naturally follow. Yet, strange as it may appear, if the writer's memory
does not greatly deceive him, these certain facts were denied by Hobbes.
If he is not greatly mistaken, that gentleman, who gave a wretched, a
most unpoetical translation of Homer, has so grossly misunderstood his
author, as to assert that his mention of a future state was not in
conformity to the popular opinion of his age, but only his own poetical
fiction. He might as well have assured us, that the sacrifices of Homer
had never any existence in Greece. But, as no absurdity is too gross for
some geniuses, our murderer of Homer, our Hobbes, has likewise asserted,
that the belief of the immortality of the human soul was the child of
pride and speculation, unknown in Greece till long after the appearance
of the Iliad.

[660] _Oh gentle Mecon._--It was on the coast of Cochin-China, at the
mouth of this river, the Maekhaun, or Camboja of modern writers, that
Camoëns suffered the unhappy shipwreck which rendered him the sport of
fortune during the remainder of his life. The literal rendering of the
Portuguese, which Mickle claims the liberty of improving, is, "On his
gentle, hospitable bosom shall he receive the song, wet from woful,
unhappy shipwreck, escaped from destroying tempests, from ravenous
dangers, the effect of the unjust sentence upon him whose lyre shall be
more renowned than enriched."--_Ed._

[661] _Here ere the cannon's rage in Europe roar'd._--According to Le
Comte's memoirs of China, and those of other travellers, the mariner's
compass, fire-arms, and printing were known in that empire, long ere the
invention of these arts in Europe. But the accounts of Du Halde, Le
Comte, and the other Jesuits, are by no means to be depended on. It was
their interest (in order to gain credit in Europe and at the court of
Rome) to magnify the splendour of the empire where their mission lay,
and they have magnified it into romance itself. It is pretended, that
the Chinese used fire-arms in their wars with Zenghis Khan, and
Tamerlane; but it is also said that the Sogdians used cannon against
Alexander. The mention of any sulphurous composition in an old writer
is, with some, immediately converted into a regular tire of artillery.
The Chinese, indeed, on the first arrival of Europeans, had a kind of
mortars, which they called fire-pans, but they were utter strangers to
the smaller fire-arms. Verbiest, a Jesuit, was the first who taught them
to make brass cannon, set upon wheels. And, even so late as the hostile
menace which Anson gave them, they knew not how to level, or manage,
their ordnance to any advantage. Their printing is, indeed, much more
ancient than that of Europe, but it does not deserve the same name, the
blocks of wood with which they stamp their sheets being as inferior to
as they are different from the movable types of Europe. The Chinese have
no idea of the graces of fine writing; here, most probably, the fault
exists in their language; but the total want of nature in their
painting, and of symmetry in their architecture, in both of which they
have so long been experienced, afford a heavy accusation against their
genius. But, in planning gardens, and in the art of beautifying the face
of their country, they are unequalled. Yet, even in their boasted
gardening their genius stands accused. The art of ingrafting, so long
known to Europe, is still unknown to them. And hence their fruits are
vastly inferior in flavour to those of the western world. The amazing
wall of defence against the Tartars, though 1500 miles in extent, is a
labour inferior to the canals, lined on the sides with hewn stone, which
everywhere enrich, and adorn their country; some of which reach 1000
miles, and are of depth to carry vessels of burthen. These grand remains
of antiquity prove that there was a time when the Chinese were a much
more accomplished people than at present. Though their princes for many
centuries have discovered no such efforts of genius as these, the
industry of the people still remains, in which they rival, and resemble,
the Dutch. In every other respect they are the most unamiable of
mankind. Amazingly uninventive, for, though possessed of them, the arts
have made no progress among the Chinese these many centuries: even what
they were taught by the Jesuits is almost lost. So false in their
dealings, they boast that none but a Chinese can cheat a Chinese. The
crime which disgraces human nature, is in this nation of atheists, and
most stupid of all idolaters, common as _that charter'd libertine, the
air_. Destitute, even in idea, of that elevation of soul which is
expressed by the best sense of the word piety, in the time of calamity
whole provinces are desolated by self-murder; an end, as Hume says, of
some of the admired names of antiquity, not unworthy of so detestable a
character. And, as it is always found congenial to baseness of heart,
the most dastardly cowardice completes the description of that of the
Chinese.

Unimproved as their arts is their learning. Though their language
consists of few words, it is almost impossible for a stranger to attain
the art of speaking it. And what a European learns ere he is seven years
old, to read, is the labour of the life of a Chinese. In place of our 24
letters, they have more than 60,000 marks, which compose their writings:
and their paucity of words, all of which may be attained in a few hours,
requires such an infinite variety of tone and action, that the slightest
mistake in modulation renders the speaker unintelligible. And in
addressing a great man, in place of "my Lord," you may call him a
_beast_, the word being the some, all the difference consisting in the
tone of it. A language like this must ever be a bar to the progress and
accomplishments of literature. Of medicine they are very ignorant. The
ginseng, which they pretended was a universal remedy, is found to be a
root of no singular virtue. Their books consist of odes without poetry,
and of moral maxims, excellent in themselves, but without investigation
or reasoning. For, to philosophical discussion and metaphysics they seem
utterly strangers; and, when taught mathematics by the Jesuits, their
greatest men were lost in astonishment. Whatever their political wisdom
has been, at present it is narrow and barbarous. Jealous lest strangers
should steal their arts--arts which are excelled at Dresden, and other
parts of Europe--they preclude themselves from the great advantages
which arise from an intercourse with civilized nations. Yet, in the laws
which they impose on every foreign ship which enters their ports for
traffic, they even exceed the cunning and avarice of the Dutch. In their
internal policy the military government of Rome under the emperors is
revived, with accumulated barbarism. In every city and province the
military are the constables and peace officers. What a picture is this!
Nothing but Chinese or Dutch industry could preserve the traffic and
population of a country under the control of armed ruffians. But, hence
the emperor has leisure to cultivate his gardens, and to write
despicable odes to his concubines.

Whatever was their most ancient doctrine, certain it is that the
legislators who formed the present system of China presented to their
people no other object of worship than _Tien Kamti_, the material
heavens and their influencing power; by which an intelligent principle
is excluded. Yet, finding that the human mind in the rudest breasts is
conscious of its weakness, and prone to believe the occurrences of life
under the power of lucky or unlucky observances, they permitted their
people the use of sacrifices to those Lucretian gods of superstitious
fear. Nor was the principle of devotion, imprinted by Heaven in the
human heart, alone perverted; another unextinguishable passion was also
misled. On tablets, in every family, are written the names of the last
three of their ancestors, added to each, "Here rests his soul:" and
before these tablets they burn incense, and pay adoration. Confucius,
who, according to their histories, had been in the West about 500 years
before the Christian era, appears to be only the confirmer of their old
opinions; but the accounts of him and his doctrine are involved in
uncertainty. In their places of worship, however, boards are act up,
inscribed, "This is the seat of the soul of Confucius," and to these,
and their ancestors, they celebrate solemn sacrifices, without seeming
to possess any idea of the intellectual existence of the departed soul.
The Jesuit Ricci, and his brethren of the Chinese mission, _very
honestly_ told their converts, that _Tien_ was the God of the
Christians, and that the label of Confucius was the term by which they
expressed His divine majesty. But, after a long and severe scrutiny at
the court of Rome, Tien was found to signify nothing more than
_heavenly_ or _universal matter_, and the Jesuits of China were ordered
to renounce this heresy. Among all the sects who worship different idols
in China, there is only one which has any tolerable idea of the
immortality of the soul; and among these, says Leland, Christianity at
present obtains some footing. But the most interesting particular of
China yet remains to be mentioned. Conscious of the obvious tendency,
Voltaire and others have triumphed in the great antiquity of the
Chinese, and in the distant period they ascribe to the creation. But the
bubble cannot bear the touch. If some Chinese accounts fix the era of
creation 40000 years ago, others are contented with no less than 884953.
But who knows not that every nation has its Geoffry of Monmouth? And we
have already observed the legends which took their rise from the Annus
Magnus of the Chaldean and Egyptian astronomers, an apparent revolution
of the stars, which in reality has no existence. To the fanciful who
held this Annus Magnus, it seemed hard to suppose that our world was in
its first revolution of the great year, and to suppose that many were
past was easy. And, that this was the case, we have absolute proof in
the doctrines of the Brahmins, who, though they talk of hundreds of
thousands of years which are past, yet confess, that this, the fourth
world, has not yet attained its 6000th year. And much within this
compass are all the credible proofs of Chinese antiquity comprehended.
To three heads all three proofs are reduceable--their form of
government, which, till the conquest of the Tartars in 1644, bore the
marks of the highest antiquity; their astronomical observations; and
their history.

Simply and purely patriarchal, every father was the magistrate in his
own family; and the emperor, who acted by his substitutes, the
Mandarins, was venerated and obeyed as the father of all. The most
passive submission to authority thus branched out was inculcated by
Confucius, and their other philosophers, as the greatest duty of
morality. But, if there is an age in sacred or profane history where the
manners of mankind are thus delineated, no superior antiquity is proved
by the form of Chinese government. Their ignorance of the very ancient
art of ingrafting fruit-trees, and the state of their language (like the
Hebrew in its paucity of words), a paucity characteristic of the ages
when the ideas of men required few syllables to clothe them, prove
nothing farther than the early separation of the Chinese colony{*} from
the rest of mankind; nothing farther, except that they have continued
till very lately without any material intercourse with the other nations
of the world.

{*} The Chinese colony! Yes, let philosophy smile; let her talk of the
different species of men which are found in every country; let her brand
as absurd the opinion of Montesquieu, which derives all the human race
from one family. Let her enjoy her triumph. Peace to her insolence,
peace to her dreams and her reveries. But let common sense be contented
with the demonstration (See Whiston, Bentley, etc.) that a creation in
every country is not wanted, and that one family is sufficient in every
respect for the purpose. If philosophy will talk of black and white men
as different in species, let common sense ask her for a demonstration,
that climate and manner of life cannot produce this difference; and let
her add, that there is the strongest presumptive experimental proof that
the difference thus happens. If philosophy draw her inferences from the
different passions of different tribes; let common sense reply, that
stripped of every accident of brutalization and urbanity, the human mind
in all its faculties, all its motives, hopes and fears, is most
wonderfully the same in every age and country. If philosophy talk of the
impossibility of peopling distant islands and continents from one
family, let common sense tell her to read Bryant's Mythology. If
philosophy asserts that the Kelts wherever they came found aborigines,
let common sense reply, there were tyrants enough almost 2000 years
before their emigrations, to drive the wretched survivors of slaughtered
hosts to the remotest wilds. She may also add, that many islands have
been found which bore not one trace of mankind, and that even Otaheite
bears the evident marks of receiving its inhabitants from a shipwreck,
its only animals being the hog, the dog, and the rat. In a word, let
common sense say to philosophy, "I open my egg with a pen-knife, but you
open yours with the blow of a sledge hammer."

A continued succession of astronomical observations, for 4000 years, was
claimed by the Chinese, when they were first visited by the Europeans.
Voltaire, that _son of truth_, has often with great triumph mentioned
the indubitable proofs of Chinese antiquity; but at these times he must
have received his information from the same dream which told him that
Camoëns accompanied his friend GAMA in the voyage which discovered the
East Indies. If Voltaire and his disciples will talk of Chinese
astronomy, and the 4000 years antiquity of its perfection, let them
enjoy every consequence which may possibly result from it. But let them
allow the same liberty to others. Let them allow others to draw _their_
inferences from a few stubborn facts, facts which demonstrate the
ignorance of the Chinese in astronomy. The earth, they imagined, was a
great plain, of which their country was the midst; and so ignorant were
they of the cause of eclipses, that they believed the sun and moon were
assaulted, and in danger of being devoured by a huge dragon. The stars
were considered as the directors of human affairs, and thus their
boasted astronomy ends in that silly imposition, judicial astrology.
Though they had made some observations on the revolutions of the
planets, and though in the emperor's palace there was an observatory,
the first apparatus of proper instruments ever known in China was
introduced by Father Verbiest. After this it need scarcely be added,
that their astronomical observations which pretend an antiquity of 4000
years, are as false as a Welch genealogy, and that the Chinese
themselves, when instructed by the Jesuits, were obliged to own that
their calculations were erroneous and impossible. The great credit and
admiration which their astronomical and mathematical knowledge procured
to the Jesuits, afford an indubitable confirmation of these facts.

Ridiculous as their astronomical, are their historical antiquities.
After all Voltaire has said of it, the oldest date to which their
history pretends is not much above 4000 years. During this period 236
kings have reigned, of 22 different families. The first king reigned 100
years, then we have the names of some others, but without any detail of
actions, or that concatenation of events which distinguishes authentic
history. That mark of truth does not begin to appear for upwards of 2000
years of the Chinese legends. Little more than the names of kings, and
these often interrupted with wide chasms, compose all the annals of
China, till about the period of the Christian era. Something like a
history then commences, but that is again interrupted by a wide chasm,
which the Chinese know not how to fill up otherwise, than by asserting
that a century or two elapsed in the time, and that at such a period a
new family mounted the throne. Such is the history of China, full
brother in every family feature to those Monkish tales, which sent a
daughter of Pharoah to be queen of Scotland, which sent Brutus to
England, and a grandson of Noah to teach school among the mountains in
Wales.

[662] _Immense the northern wastes their horrors spread._--Tartary,
Siberia, Samoyada, Kamtchatka, etc. A short account of the Grand Lama of
Thibet Tartary shall complete our view of the superstitions of the East.
While the other pagans of Asia worship the most ugly monstrous idols,
the Tartars of Thibet adore a real living god. He sits cross-legged on
his throne, in the great temple, adorned with gold and diamonds. He
never speaks, but sometimes elevates his hand in token that he approves
of the prayers of his worshippers. He is a ruddy well-looking young man,
about 25 or 27, and is the most miserable wretch on earth, being the
mere puppet of his priests, who dispatch him whenever age or sickness
make any alteration in his features; and another, instructed to act his
part, is put in his place. Princes of very distant provinces send
tribute to this deity and implore his blessing, and, as Voltaire has
merrily told us, think themselves secure of benediction if favoured with
something from his godship, esteemed more sacred than the hallowed
cow-dung of the Brahmins.

[663] _How bright a silver mine._--By this beautiful metaphor (omitted
by Castera) Camoëns alludes to the great success, which in his time
attended the Jesuit missionaries in Japan. James I. sent an embassy to
the sovereign, and opened a trade with this country, but it was soon
suffered to decline. The Dutch are the only Europeans who now traffic
with the Japanese, which it is said they obtain by trampling on the
cross and by abjuring the Christian name. In religion the Japanese are
much the same as their neighbours of China. And in the frequency of
self-murder, says Voltaire, they vie with their brother islanders of
England.

[664] _The ground they touch not._--These are commonly called the birds
of Paradise. It was the old erroneous opinion that they always soared in
the air, and that the female hatched her young on the back of the male.
Their feathers bear a mixture of the most beautiful azure, purple, and
golden colours, which have a fine effect in the rays of the sun.

[665] _From hence the pilgrim brings the wondrous tale._--Streams of
this kind are common in many countries. Castera attributes this quality
to the excessive coldness of the waters, but this is a mistake. The
waters of some springs are impregnated with sparry particles, which
adhering to the herbage, or the clay, on the banks of their channel,
harden into stone, and incrust the original retainers.

[666] _Here from the trees the gum._--Benzoin, a species of
frankincense. The oil mentioned in the next line, is that called the
rock oil, petroleum, a black fetid mineral oil, good for bruises and
sprains.

[667] _Wide forests there beneath Maldivia's tide._--A sea plant,
resembling the palm, grows in great abundance in the bays about the
Maldivian islands. The boughs rise to the top of the water, and bear a
kind of apple, called the coco of Maldivia, which is esteemed an
antidote against poison.

[668] _The tread of sainted footstep._--The imprint of a human foot is
found on the high mountain, called the Pic of Adam. Legendary tradition
says, that Adam, after he was expelled from Paradise, did penance 300
years on this hill, on which he left the print of his footstep. This
tale seems to be Jewish, or Mohammedan; for the natives, according to
Captain Knox (who was twenty years a captive in Ceylon), pretend the
impression was made by the god Budha, when he ascended to heaven, after
having, for the salvation of mankind, appeared on the earth. His priests
beg charity for the sake of Budha, whose worship they perform among
groves of the Bogahah-tree, under which, when on earth, they say he
usually sat and taught.

[669] _And lo, the Island of the Moon._--Madagascar is thus named by the
natives.

[670] The kingfishers.

[671] _Now to the West, by thee, great chief, is given._--The sublimity
of this eulogy on the expedition of the Lusiad has been already
observed. What follows is a natural completion of the whole; and, the
digressive exclamation at the end excepted, is exactly similar to the
manner in which Homer has concluded the Iliad.

[672] _Near either pole._--We are now presented with a beautiful view of
the American world. Columbus discovered the West Indies before, but not
the continent till 1498--the year after GAMA sailed from Lisbon.

[673] _The first bold hero._--Cabral, the first after GAMA who sailed to
India, was driven by tempest to the Brazils, a proof that more ancient
voyagers might have met with the same fate. He named the country Santa
Cruz, or Holy Cross; it was afterwards named Brazil, from the colour of
the wood with which it abounds. It is one of the finest countries in the
new world.

[674] _To match thy deeds shall Magalhaens aspire._--Camoëns, though he
boasts of the actions of Magalhaens as an honour to Portugal, yet
condemns his defection to the King of Spain, and calls him--

    _O Magalhaens, no feito com verdade
    Portuguez, porèm naó na lealdade._

"In deeds truly a Portuguese, but not in loyalty." And others have
bestowed upon him the name of traitor, but perhaps undeservedly. Justice
to the name of this great man requires an examination of the charge. Ere
he entered into the service of the King of Spain by a solemn act, he
unnaturalized himself. Osorius is very severe against this unavailing
rite, and argues that no injury which a prince may possibly give, can
authorize a subject to act the part of a traitor against his native
country. This is certainly true, but it is not strictly applicable to
the case of Magalhaens. Many eminent services performed in Africa and
India entitled him to a certain allowance, which, though inconsiderable
in itself, was esteemed as the reward of distinguished merit, and
therefore highly valued. For this Magalhaens petitioned in vain. He
found, says Faria, that the malicious accusations of some men had more
weight with his sovereign than all his services. After this unworthy
repulse, what patronage at the Court of Lisbon could he hope? And though
no injury can vindicate the man who draws his sword against his native
country, yet no moral duty requires that he who has some important
discovery in meditation should stifle his design, if uncountenanced by
his native prince. It has been alleged, that he embroiled his country in
disputes with Spain. But neither is this strictly applicable to the
neglected Magalhaens. The courts of Spain and Portugal had solemnly
settled the limits within which they were to make discoveries and
settlements, and within these did Magalhaens and the court of Spain
propose that his discoveries should terminate. And allowing that his
calculations might mislead him beyond the bounds prescribed to the
Spaniards, still his apology is clear, for it would have been injurious
to each court, had he supposed that the faith of the boundary treaty
would be trampled upon by either power. If it is said that he
aggrandized the enemies of his country, the Spaniards, and introduced
them to a dangerous rivalship with the Portuguese settlements; let the
sentence of Faria on this subject be remembered: "Let princes beware,"
says he, "how by neglect or injustice they force into desperate actions
the men who have merited rewards."

In the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th centuries, the spirit
of discovery broke forth in its greatest vigour. The East and the West
had been visited by GAMA and Columbus; and the bold idea of sailing to
the East by the West was revived by Magalhaens. Revived, for misled by
Strabo and Pliny, who place India near to the west of Spain, Columbus
expecting to find the India of the ancients when he landed on
Hispaniola, thought he had discovered the Ophir of Solomon. And hence
the name of Indies was given to that and the neighbouring islands.
Though America and the Moluccas were now found to be at a great
distance, the genius of Magalhaens still suggested the possibility of a
western passage. And accordingly, possessed of his great design, and
neglected with contempt at home, he offered his service to the court of
Spain, and was accepted. With five ships and 250 men he sailed from
Spain in September, 1519, and after many difficulties, occasioned by
mutiny and the extreme cold, he entered the great Pacific Ocean or South
Seas by those straits which bear his Spanish name Magellan. From these
straits, in the 52-1/2 degree of southern latitude, he traversed that
great ocean, till in the 10th degree of north latitude he landed on the
island of Subo or Marten. The king of this country was then at war with
a neighbouring prince, and Magalhaens, on condition of his conversion to
Christianity, became his auxiliary. In two battles the Spaniards were
victorious, but in the third, Magalhaens, together with one Martinho, a
judicial astrologer, whom he usually consulted, was unfortunately
killed. Chagrined with the disappointment of promised victory, the new
baptised king of Subo made peace with his enemies, and having invited to
an entertainment the Spaniards on shore, he treacherously poisoned them
all. The wretched remains of the fleet arrived at the Portuguese
settlements in the isles of Banda and Ternate, where they were received,
says Faria, as friends, and not as intruding strangers; a proof that the
boundary treaty was esteemed sufficiently sacred. Several of the
adventurers were sent to India, and from thence to Spain, in Portuguese
ships, one ship only being in a condition to return to Europe by the
Cape of Good Hope. This vessel, named the _Victoria_, however, had the
honour to be the first which ever surrounded the globe; an honour by
some ignorantly attributed to the ship of Sir Francis Drake. Thus
unhappily ended, says Osorius, the expedition of Magalhaens. But the
good bishop was mistaken, for a few years after he wrote, and somewhat
upwards of fifty after the return of the _Victoria_, Philip II. of Spain
availed himself of the discoveries of Magalhaens. And the navigation of
the South Seas between Spanish America and the Asian Archipelago, at
this day forms the basis of the power of Spain: a basis, however, which
is at the mercy of Great Britain, while her ministers are wise enough to
preserve her great naval superiority. A Gibraltar in the South Seas is
only wanting. But when this is mentioned, who can withhold his eyes from
the isthmus of Darien--the rendezvous appointed by nature for the fleets
which may one day give law to the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans: a
settlement which to-day might have owned subjection to Great Britain, if
justice and honour had always presided in the cabinet of William the
Third?

[675] _A land of giants._--The Patagonians. Various are the fables of
navigators concerning these people. The Spaniards who went with
Magalhaens affirmed they were about ten feet in height, since which
voyage they have risen and fallen in their stature, according to the
different humours of our sea wits.

[676] _The goddess spake._--We are now come to the conclusion of the
fiction of the island of Venus, a fiction which is divided into three
principal parts. In each of these the poetical merit is obvious, nor
need we fear to assert, that the happiness of our author, in uniting all
these parts together in one great episode, would have excited the
admiration of Longinus. The heroes of the Lusiad receive their reward in
the Island of Love. They are led to the palace of Thetis, where, during
a divine feast, they hear the glorious victories and conquests of the
heroes who are to succeed them in their Indian expedition, sung by a
siren; and the face of the globe itself, described by the goddess,
discovers the universe, and particularly the extent of the eastern
world, now given to Europe by the success of GAMA. Neither in grandeur,
nor in happiness of completion, may the Æneid or Odyssey be mentioned in
comparison. The Iliad alone, in epic conduet (as already observed) bears
a strong resemblance. But however great in other views of poetical
merit, the games at the funeral of Patroclus, and the redemption of the
body of Hector, considered as the interesting conclusion of a great
whole, can never in propriety and grandeur be brought into competition
with the admirable episode which concludes the poem on the discovery of
India.

Soon after the appearance of the Lusiad, the language of Spain was also
enriched with an heroic poem, the author of which has often imitated the
Portuguese poet, particularly in the fiction of the globe of the world,
which is shown to GAMA. In the _Araucana_, a globe, surrounded with a
radiant sphere, is also miraculously supported in the air; and on this
an enchanter shows to the Spaniards the extent of their dominions in the
new world. But Don Alonzo d'Arcilla is in this, as in every other part
of his poem, greatly inferior to the poetical spirit of Camoëns. Milton,
whose poetical conduct in concluding the action of his Paradise Lost, as
already pointed out, seems formed upon the Lusiad, appears to have had
this passage particularly in his eye. For, though the machinery of a
visionary sphere was rather improper for the situation of his
personages, he has, nevertheless, though at the expense of an impossible
supposition, given Adam a view of the terrestrial globe. Michael sets
the father of mankind on a mountain--

                            "From whose top
    The hemisphere of earth in clearest ken
    Stretch'd out to th' amplest reach of prospect lay....
    His eye might there command wherever stood
    City of old or modern fame, the seat
    Of mightiest empire, from the destin'd walls
    Of Cambalu ...
    On Europe thence and where Rome was to sway
    The world."

And even the mention of America seems copied by Milton:--

              "In spirit perhaps he also saw
    Rich Mexico, the seat of Montezume,
    And Cusco in Peru, the richer seat
    Of Atabalipa, and yet unspoil'd
    Guiana, whose great city Geryon's sons
    Call El Dorado."

It must also be owned by the warmest admirer of the Paradise Lost, that
the description of America in Camoëns--

    "Vedes a grande terra, que contina
     Vai de Calisto ao sen contrario polo--

     To farthest north that world enormous bends,
     And cold beneath the southern pole-star ends,"

conveys a bolder and a grander idea than all the names enumerated by
Milton.

Some short account of the writers whose authorities have been adduced in
the course of these notes may not now be improper. Fernando Lopez de
Castagneda went to India on purpose to do honour to his countrymen, by
enabling himself to record their actions and conquests in the East. As
he was one of the first writers on that subject, his geography is often
imperfect. This defect is remedied in the writings of John de Barros,
who was particularly attentive to this head. But the two most eminent,
as well as fullest, writers on the transaction of the Portuguese in the
East, are Manuel de Faria y Sousa, knight of the Order of Christ, and
Hieronimus Osorius, bishop of Sylves. Faria, who wrote in Spanish, was a
laborious inquirer, and is very full and circumstantial. With honest
indignation he rebukes the rapine of commanders and the errors and
unworthy resentments of kings. But he is often so drily particular, that
he may rather be called a journalist than an historian. And by this
uninteresting minuteness, his style, for the greatest part, is rendered
inelegant. The Bishop of Sylves, however, claims a different character.
His Latin is elegant, and his manly and sentimental manner entitles him
to the name of historian, even where a Livy or a Tacitus are mentioned.
But a sentence from himself, unexpected in a father of the communion of
Rome, will characterize the liberality of his mind. Talking of the edict
of King Emmanuel, which compelled the Jews to embrace Christianity under
severe persecution: "Nec ex lege, nec ex religione factum ... tibi
assumas," says he, "ut libertatem voluntatis impedias, et vincula
mentibus effrenatis injicias? At id neque fleri potest, neque Christi
sanctissimum numen approbat. Voluntarium enim sacrificium non vi malo
coactum ab hominibus expetit: neque vim mentibus inferri, sed voluntates
ad studium veræ religionis allici et invitari jubet."

It is said, in the preface to Osorius, that his writings were highly
esteemed by Queen Mary of England, wife of Philip II. What a pity is it,
that this manly indignation of the good bishop against the impiety of
religious persecution, made no impression on the mind of that bigoted
princess!

[677] _And the wide East is doom'd to Lusian sway._--Thus, in all the
force of ancient simplicity, and the true sublime, ends the poem of
Camoëns. What follows is one of those exuberances we have already
endeavoured to defend in our author, nor in the strictest sense is this
concluding one without propriety. A part of the proposition of the poem
is artfully addressed to King Sebastian, and he is now called upon in an
address (which is an artful second part to the former), to behold and
preserve the glories of his throne.

[678] _And John's bold path and Pedro's course pursue._--John I. and
Pedro the Just, two of the greatest of the Portuguese monarchs.

[679] _Reviv'd, unenvied._--Thus imitated, or rather translated into
Italian by Guarini:--

    "Con si sublime stil' forse cantato
    Havrei del mio Signor l'armi e l'honori,
    Ch' or non havria de la Meonia tromba
    Da invidiar Achille."

Similarity of condition, we have already observed, produced similarity
of complaint and sentiment in Spenser and Camoëns. Each was unworthily
neglected by the grandees of his age, yet both their names will live,
when the remembrance of the courtiers who spurned them shall _sink
beneath their mountain tombs_. These beautiful stanzas from Phinehas
Fletcher on the memory of Spenser, may also serve as an epitaph for
Camoëns. The unworthy neglect, which was the lot of the Portuguese bard,
but too well appropriates to him the elegy of Spenser. And every reader
of taste, who has perused the Lusiad, will think of the Cardinal
Henrico, and feel the indignation of these manly lines:--

      "Witness our Colin{*}, whom tho' all the Graces
    And all the Muses nurst; whose well-taught song
    Parnassus' self and Glorian{**} embraces,
    And all the learn'd and all the shepherds throng;
    Yet all his hopes were crost, all suits denied;
    Discouraged, scorn'd, his writings vilified:
    Poorly (poor man) he liv'd; poorly (poor man) he died.

    "And had not that great hart (whose honoured head{***}
    All lies full low) pitied thy woful plight,
    There hadst thou lien unwept, unburied,
    Unblest, nor graced with any common rite;
    Yet shalt thou live, when thy great foe{****} shall sink
    Beneath his mountain tombe, whose fame shall stink;
    And time his blacker name shall blurre with blackest ink."

{*} Colin Clout, Spenser.

{**} Glorian, Elizabeth in the Faerie Queen.

{***} The Earl of Essex.

{****} Lord Burleigh.

[680] Achilles, son of Peleus.