Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

Nor leave the youths their lovely brides behind,
In wedded bands, while time glides on, conjoin'd;
Fair as immortal fame in smiles array'd,

In bridal fmiles, attends each lovely maid.
O'er India's fea, wing'd on by balmy gales

That whisper'd peace, soft swell'd the steady sails:

Smooth

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 fulleft writers on the transactions of the Portuguese in the Eaft, are Manuel de Faria y Soufa, knight of the order of Chrift, and Hieronimus Oforius, bishop of Sylves. Faria, who wrote in Spanish, was a laborious enquirer, and is very full and circumstantial. With honeft indignation he reprehends the rapíne of commanders, and the errors and unworthy resentments of kings. But he is often fo drily particular, that he may rather be called a journalist than an historian. And by this uninteresting minuteness, his ftyle for the greatest part is rendered inelegant. The bishop of Sylves, however, claims a different character. His Latin is elegant, and his manly and fentimental manner entitles him to the name of historian, even where a Livy, or a Tacitus, are mentioned. But a fentence from himself, unexpected in a father of the communion of Rome, will characterife the liberality of his mind. Talking of the edict of king Emmanuel, which compelled the Jews to embrace Christianity, under fevere perfecution; Nec ex lege, nec ex religione factum . . . . . . . tibi affumas, (says he,), ut libertatem voluntatis impedias, et vincula mentibus effrenatis injicias? At id neque fieri poteft, neque Christi sanctiffimum numen approbat. Voluntarium enim facrificium non vi mala coactum ab hominibus expetit: neque vim mentibus inferri, fed voluntates ad ftudium veræ religionis allici & invitari jubet.

It is faid, in the Preface to Oforius, that his writings were highly efteemed 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 perfecution, made no impreffion on the mind of that bigotted princefs!

Smooth as on wing unmoved the eagle flies,
When to his eyrie cliff he fails the skies,
Swift o'er the gentle billows of the tide,
So fmooth, fo foft, the prows of GAMA glide;
And now their native fields, for ever dear,
In all their wild tranfporting charms appear;
And Tago's bofom, while his banks repeat
The founding peals of joy, receives the fleet.
With orient titles and immortal fame

The hero band adorn their monarch's name;
Sceptres and crowns beneath his feet they lay,
And the wide East is doom'd to Lufian P sway.

Enough, my mufe, thy wearied wing no more
Must to the feat of Jove triumphant foar.
Chill'd by my nation's cold neglect, thy fires
Glow bold no more, and all thy rage expires.
Yet thou, Sebaftian, thou, my king, attend;
Behold what glories on thy throne defcend!
Shall haughty Gaul or fterner Albion boast
That all the Lufian fame in thee is lost!

Oh,

P And the wide Eaft is doom'd to Lufian fway.-Thus in all the force of ancient fimplicity, and the true fublime, 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 propofition of the poem is artfully addreffed to king Sebaftian, and he is now called upon in an addrefs, which is an artful fecond part to the former, to behold and preserve the glories of his throne.

Oh, be it thine thefe glories to renew,

And John's bold path and Pedro's course a pursue:
Snatch from the tyrant noble's hand the fword,
And be the rights of human-kind restored.

The statesman prelate, to his vows confine,
Alone aufpicious at the holy fhrine;

The priest, in whose meek heart heaven pours its fires
Alone to heaven, not earth's vain pomp, aspires.
Nor let the mufe, great king, on Tago's fhore,

In dying notes the barbarous age deplore.
The king or hero to the muse unjust

Sinks as the nameless flave, extinct in duft.
But fuch the deeds thy radiant morn portends,
Aw'd by thy frown ev'n now old Atlas bends
His hoary head, and Ampeluza's fields
Expect thy founding fteeds and rattling fhields.
And shall these deeds unfung, unknown, expire!
Oh, would thy fmiles relume my fainting ire!
I, then infpired, the wondering world should fee
Great Ammon's warlike fon revived in thee;

r

Revived,

¶ And John's bold path and Pedro's course pursue― John I. and Pedro the Juft, two of the greatest of the Portuguese monarchs.

Great Ammon's warlike fon revived in thee.

tranflated into Italian by Guarini.

Con fi fublime ftil' forfe cantato

-Thus imitated, or rather

Havrei del mio Signor l'armi e l'honori,
Ch' or non havria de la Meonia tromba
Da invidiar Achille.

Similarity

Revived, unenvied of the mufe's flame

That o'er the world refounds Pelides' name.

Similarity of condition, we have already obferved, produced similarity of complaint and fentiment in Spenfer and Camoëns. Each was unworthily neglected by the Gothic grandees of his age, yet both their names will live, when the remembrance of the courtiers who fpurned them shall fink beneath their mountain tombs. Three beautiful ftanzas from Phinehas Fletcher's Purple Island, on the memory of Spenfer, 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 Spenfer. And every reader of taste, who has perufed the Lufiad, will think of the Cardinal Henrico, and feel the indignation of these manly lines

Witneffe our Colin *, whom tho' all the Graces
And all the Mufes nurft; whose well-taught fong
Parnaffus felf and Glorian † embraces,

And all the learn'd and all the shepherds throng;
Yet all his hopes were croft, all fuits deni'd;
Difcourag'd, fcorn'd, his writings vilifi'd:

Poorly (poor man) he liv'd; poorly (poor man) he died.
And had not that great hart (whose honour'd † head

Ah lies full low) piti'd thy woful plight,
There hadft thou lien unwept, unburied,

Unbleft, nor grac'd with any common rite:

Yet fhalt thou live, when thy great foe § fhall fink
Beneath his mountain tombe, whofe fame shall stink;
And time his blacker name shall blurre with blackeft ink.

O let th' Iambic Muse revenge that wrong

Which cannot flumber in thy sheets of lead;

*Colin Clout, Spenfer.

+ Glorian, Elizabeth in the Faerie Queen.

The Earl of Effex.

§ Lord Burleigh.

Let

Let thy abused honour crie as long

As there be quills to write, or eyes to read;

On his rank name let thine own votes be turn'd,

Ob may that man that bath the Mufes fcorn'd,
Alive, nor dead, be ever of a Muse adorn'd.

THE END.

« AnteriorContinua »