The Lusiad Part 52

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 Camoens and of the present inhabitants of New Zealand. And if, as its animals indicate, the island of Otaheite was first peopled by a s.h.i.+pwreck, the friends.h.i.+p 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.

{*} ?st?????ta? ???? ?a.s.sa??ta? ?a? ?????e? ?????t?t??? ??e?s?a? t??

???e??? t??? ??t??t??? te?e?t?sa?ta?? d?? ?a? f??sa?te? ?ata????s?? ?a?

?st???ta? t?? f??t?t?? t??? ?e???a??ta?.

[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 a.s.sert 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 a.s.sured 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 a.s.serted, 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 Camoens suffered the unhappy s.h.i.+pwreck 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 s.h.i.+pwreck, 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 compa.s.s, 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 bra.s.s 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 ca.n.a.ls, 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_. Dest.i.tute, 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 s.h.i.+p 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 acc.u.mulated 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 wors.h.i.+p 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s is conscious of its weakness, and p.r.o.ne 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 G.o.ds of superst.i.tious fear. Nor was the principle of devotion, imprinted by Heaven in the human heart, alone perverted; another unextinguishable pa.s.sion 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 wors.h.i.+p, 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 G.o.d 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 wors.h.i.+p 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 compa.s.s 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 subst.i.tutes, the Mandarins, was venerated and obeyed as the father of all. The most pa.s.sive 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 pa.s.sions 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 a.s.serts 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 s.h.i.+pwreck, 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 Camoens 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 a.s.saulted, 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 a.s.serting 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 superst.i.tions of the East.

While the other pagans of Asia wors.h.i.+p the most ugly monstrous idols, the Tartars of Thibet adore a real living G.o.d. 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 wors.h.i.+ppers. 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 G.o.ds.h.i.+p, esteemed more sacred than the hallowed cow-dung of the Brahmins.

[663] _How bright a silver mine._--By this beautiful metaphor (omitted by Castera) Camoens alludes to the great success, which in his time attended the Jesuit missionaries in j.a.pan. James I. sent an emba.s.sy 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 j.a.panese, which it is said they obtain by trampling on the cross and by abjuring the Christian name. In religion the j.a.panese 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 G.o.d 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 wors.h.i.+p 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._--Camoens, 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, porem nao 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 ent.i.tled 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 pet.i.tioned 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 rivals.h.i.+p 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 pa.s.sage. 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 s.h.i.+ps 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 lat.i.tude, he traversed that great ocean, till in the 10th degree of north lat.i.tude 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 s.h.i.+ps, one s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p 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 G.o.ddess spake._--We are now come to the conclusion of the fiction of the island of Venus, a fiction which is divided into three princ.i.p.al parts. In each of these the poetical merit is obvious, nor need we fear to a.s.sert, 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 G.o.ddess, 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 aeneid 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 compet.i.tion 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 Camoens. 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 pa.s.sage 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 Camoens--

"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 circ.u.mstantial. 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 ent.i.tles 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 a.s.sumas," 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 expet.i.t: neque vim mentibus inferri, sed voluntates ad studium verae 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 Camoens. 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.