When fummer burfts ftern winter's icy chain,

Here the bold Swede, the Pruffian, and the Dane
Hoift the white fail, and plough the foamy way,
Cheer'd by whole months of one continual day.
Between these shores and Tanai's rushing tide
Livonia's fons and Ruffia's hords refide.

Stern as their clime the tribes, whose fires of yore
The name, far dreaded, of Sarmatians bore.

Where,

the fame time be fo broken as to suffer the basest subjection to such weak and wanton tyrants. That the general mind of the empire did fuffer, for feveral centuries, the weakest and most capricious tyranny is a fact beyond dispute, a fact, which most strongly marks their degenerated character. On these despicable Sybarites the north poured her brave and hardy fons, who, though ignorant of polite literature, were poffeffed of all the manly b virtues of the Scythians in a high degree. Under their conquefts Europe wore a new and a vigorous face; and which however rude, was infinitely preferable to that languid, and fickly female countenance, which it had lately worn. Even the ideas of civil liberty were loft. But the rights of mankind were claimed, however rude their laws, by the northern invaders. And however ignorance may talk of their barbarity, it is to them that England owes her constitution, which, as Montesquieu observes, they brought from the woods of Saxony. The spirit of gallantry and romantic attachment to the fair sex, which distinguished the northern heroes, will make their manners admired, while, confidered in the fame point, the polished ages of Greece and Rome excite our horror and deteftation. To add no more, it is to the irruption of these brave barbarians that modern Europe owes those remains of the spirit of liberty, and some other of the greatest advantages, which she may at present poffefs. They introduced a vigour of mind, which under the confequences of the crufades, and a variety of other causés, has not only been able to revive the arts, and improve every science, but has also investigated and ascertained the political interest and rights of mankind, in a manner unknown to the brightest ages of the ancient world.

a Sybaris, a city in Grecia Magna, whose inhabitants were fo effeminate, that they ordered all the cocks to be killed, that they might not be difturbed by their early crowing.

See Warton's Hift. Eng. Poetry. Differt. II. p. 3.

Where, famed of old, th' Hircinian forest lour'd,
Oft seen in arms the Polish troops are pour'd
Wide foraging the downs. The Saxon race,

The Hungar dextrous in the wild-boar chase,
The various nations whom the Rhine's cold wave
The Elbe, Amafis, and the Danube lave,

Of various tongues, for various princes known,
Their mighty lord the German emperor own.
Between the Danube and the lucid tide

Where hapless Helle left her name, and died,
The dreadful god of battles kindred race,
Degenerate now, poffefs the hills of Thrace.
Mount Hamus here, and Rhodope renown'd,
And proud Byzantium, long with empire crown'd;
Their ancient pride, their ancient virtue fled,
Low to the Turk now bend the fervile head.
Here spread the fields of warlike Macedon,
And here those happy lands where genius fhone

In all the arts, in all the muse's charms,

In all the pride of elegance and arms,

Which to the heavens refounded Grecia's name,

And left in every age a deathless fame.

The stern Dalmatians till the neighbouring ground;

And where Antenor anchor'd in the found,

Proud Venice as a queen majestic towers,

And o'er the trembling waves her thunder pours.

For learning glorious, glorious for the fword,

While Rome's proud monarch reign'd the world's dread lord,

Here

Here Italy her beauteous landscapes shews;
Around her fides his arms old ocean throws;
The dashing waves the ramparts aid supply;
The hoary Alps, high towering to the sky,
From shore to shore a rugged barrier spread,
And lour destruction on the hoftile tread.
But now no more her hoftile spirit burns;
There now the faint in humble vefpers mourns;
To heaven more grateful than the pride of war,
And all the triumphs of the victor's car.
Onward fair Gallia opens to the view

Her groves of olive, and her vineyards blue :
Wide spread her harvests o'er the scenes renown'd,
Where Julius proudly ftrode with laurel crown'd.
Here Seyn,-how fair when glistening to the moon!
Rolls his white wave; and here the cold Garoon;
Here the deep Rhine the flowery margin laves;
And here the rapid Rhone impervious raves.
Here the gruff mountains, faithless to the vows

Of loft Pyrene d rear their cloudy brows;

Whence, when of old the flames their woods devour'd, Streams of red gold and melted filver pour'd.

And

& Faithlefs to the vows of loft Pyrene, &c.—She was daughter to Bebryx, a king of Spain, and concubine to Hercules. Having one day wandered from her lover, she was destroyed by wild beasts, on one of the mountains which bear her name. Diodorus Siculus, and others, derive the name of the Pyreneans from up, fire. To fupport which etymology they relate, that by the negligence of fome shepherds, the ancient forests on these mountains were fet on fire, and burned with fuch vehemence, that the melted metals spouted out and ran down from the fides of the hills. The allufion to this old tradition is in the true fpirit of Homer and Virgil. C.

And now, as head of all the lordly train

Of e Europe's realms, appears illuftrious Spain.
Alas, what various fortunes has she known!
Yet ever did her fons her wrongs atone;
Short was the triumph of her haughty foes,
And still with fairer bloom her honours rofe.
Where, lock'd with land the ftruggling currents boil,
Fam'd for the godlike Theban's latest f toil.

Against one coaft the Punic ftrand extends,
And round her breast the midland ocean bends:
Around her fhores two various oceans fwell,
And various nations in her bofom dwell;
Such deeds of valour dignify their names,
Each the imperial right of honour claims.
Proud Arragon, who twice her standard reared
In conquered Naples; and for art revered,
Galicia's prudent fons; the fierce Navarre;
And he far dreaded in the Moorish war,
The bold Afturian; nor Sevilia's race,
Nor thine, Granada, claim the second place.

Here

*Of Europe's realms. It is remarkable, that in this description of Europe, England should be entirely omitted; of fo little confequence in the political scale did she then feem. The time when Camöens wrote this may be estimated from the beginning of the feventh book, which appears to have been written in the reign of Henry VIII. though the Lufiad was not published till the fourteenth of Elizabeth.

-The Theban's latest toil.-Hercules, fays the fable, to crown his labours, feparated the two mountains, Calpe and Abyla, the one now in Spain, the other in Africa, in order to open a canal for the benefit of commerce. Upon this opening, the ocean rushed in, and formed the Mediterranean the Egean, and Euxine feas.

Here too the heroes who command the plain
By Betis, water'd; here, the pride of Spain,
The brave Caftilian paufes o'er his fword,

His country's dread deliverer and lord.

Proud o'er the reft, with splendid wealth array'd,
As crown to this wide empire, Europe's head,
Fair Lufitania fmiles, the western bound,
Whose verdant breast the rolling waves surround,
Where gentle evening pours her lambent ray,
The laft pale gleaming of departing day :
This, this, O mighty king, the facred earth,
This the lov'd parent-foil that gave me birth.
And oh, would bounteous heaven my prayer regard,'
And fair fuccefs my perilous toils reward,
May that dear land my latest breath receive,
And give my weary bones a peaceful grave.

Sublime the honours of my native land,
And high in heaven's regard her heroes ftand;
By & heaven's decree 'twas theirs the firft to quell
The Moorish tyrants, and from Spain expel;
Nor could their burning wilds conceal their flight,
Their burning wilds confeft the Lufian might.
From Lufus famed, whose honour'd name we bear,
(The son of Bacchus or the bold compeer,)

• By heaven's decree-This boast is according to the truth of history. In the days of Portuguese heroism, this first expulfion of the Moors was ef teemed as a mark of the favour with which heaven had crowned their de fence of the Catholic faith. See the preface.