The starting wizards from the altar fly,
And filent horror glares in every eye:

Pale ftands the monarch, loft in cold difmay,
And now impatient waits the lingering day.

With gloomy afpect rofe the lingering dawn, And dropping tears flow'd flowly o'er the lawn; The Moorish priest with fear and vengeance fraught, Soon as the light appear'd his kindred sought; Appall'd and trembling with ungenerous fear, In fecret council met, his tale they hear; As check'd by terror or impell'd by hate Of various means they ponder and debate, Against the Lufian train what arts employ, By force to flaughter, or by fraud destroy; Now black, now pale, their bearded cheeks appear, As boiling rage prevails or boding fear;

Beneath their fhady brows their eye-balls roll,

Nor one foft gleam befpeaks the generous foul:

Through quivering lips they draw their panting breath, While their dark fraud decrees the works of death:

Nor unrefolved the power of gold to try

Swift to the lordly CATUAL'S gate they hie

Ah, what the wifdom, what the sleepless care
Efficient to avoid the traitor's fnare!

What human power can give a king to know
The smiling aspect of the lurking foe!

S

So let the tyrant plead-the patriot king

Knows men, knows whence the patriot virtues spring;
From inward worth, from confcience firm and bold,

Not from the man whose honeft name is fold,
He hopes that virtue, whofe unalter'd weight
Stands fixt, unveering with the storms of state.

Lured was the regent with the Moorish gold, And now agreed their fraudful courfe to hold, Swift to the king the regent's fteps they tread; The king they found o'erwhelm'd in facred dread. The word they take, their ancient deeds relate, Their ever faithful service of the state;

t

For

So let the tyrant plead.-In this fhort declamation, a feeming excrefcence, the business of the poem in reality is carried on. The Zamorim, and his prime minifter, the Catual, are artfully characterifed in it; and the affertion Lured was the regent with the Moorish gold,

is happily introduced by the manly declamatory reflections which immediately precede it.

An explanation of the word Moor is here neceffary. When the Eaft afforded no more field for the fword of the conqueror, the Saracens, affifted by the Moors, who had embraced their religion, laid the finest countries in Europe in blood and defolation. As their various embarkations were from the empire of Morocco, the Europeans gave the name of Moors to all the profeffors of the Mohammedan religion. In the fame manner the eastern nations blended all the armies of the Crusaders under one appellation, and the Franks, of whom the army of Godfrey was mostly composed, became their common name for all the inhabitants of the Weft. The appellation even reached China. When the Portuguese first arrived in that empire, the Chinese foftening the r into 1, called both them and their cannon, by the name of Falanks, a name which is ftill retained at Canton, and other parts of

the

For ages long, from shore to distant shore
For thee our ready keels the traffic bore:

For thee we dared each horror of the wave;

Whate'er thy treasures boast our labours gave.
And wilt thou now confer our long-earn'd due,
Confer thy favour on a lawless crew?
The race they boaft, as tygers of the wold
Bear their proud fway by juftice uncontroul'd.
Yet for their crimes, expell'd that bloody home,
Thefe, o'er the deep, rapacious plunderers roam.
Their deeds we know; round Afric's fhores they came,
And fpread, where'er they paft, devouring flame;

Mozambic's

the Chinese dominions. Before the arrival of Gama, as already obferved, all the traffic of the Eaft, from the Ethiopian fide of Africa to China, was in the hands of Arabian Mohammedans, who, without incorporating with the pagan natives, had their colonies established in every country commodious for commerce. These the Portuguese called Moors; and at present the Mohammedans of India are called the Moors of Hindoftan by the latest of our English writers. The intelligence which these Moors gave to one another, relative to the actions of Gama; the general terror with which they beheld the appearance of Europeans, whofe rival hip they dreaded as the deftruction of their power; the various frauds and arts they employed to prevent the return of one man of Gama's fleet to Europe; and their threat to withdraw from the dominions of the Zamorim; are all according to the truth of history. The speeches of the Zamorim and of Gama, which follow, are alfo founded in truth. They are only poetical paraphrafes of the speeches afcribed by Oforius, to the Indian sovereign and the Portuguese admiral. Where the subject was fo happily adapted to the epic mufe, to neglect it would have been reprehenfible: and Camoëns, not unjustly, thought, that the reality of his hero's adventures gave a dignity to his poem. When Gama, in his difcourfe with the king of Melinda, finishes the description of his voyage, he makes a spirited apostrophe to Homer and Virgil; and afferts, that the adventures which he had actually experienced, greatly exceeded all the wonders of their fables. Camoëns also, in other parts of the poem, avails himself of the fame affertion.

Mozambic's towers, enroll'd in fheets of fire,
Blazed to the fky, her own funereal pyre.

Imperial Calicut fhall feel the fame,

And thefe proud ftate-rooms feed the funeral flame;
While many a league far round, their joyful eyes
Shall mark old ocean reddening to the skies.
Such dreadful fates, o'er thee, O king, depend,
Yet with thy fall our fate shall never blend :
Ere o'er the east arife the second dawn
Our fleets, our nation from thy land withdrawn,
In other climes, beneath a kinder reign
Shall fix their port: yet may the threat be vain!
If wifer thou with us thy powers employ
Soon fhall our powers the robber-crew destroy,
By their own arts and fecret deeds o'ercome
Here fhall they meet the fate escaped at home.

While thus the priest detain'd the monarch's ear,
His cheeks confeft the quivering pulse of fear.
Unconscious of the worth that fires the brave,
In ftate a monarch, but in heart a flave,

He view'd brave VASCO and his generous train,
As his own paffions stamp'd the conscious stain :
Nor lefs his rage the fraudful regent fired;
And valiant GAMA's fate was now confpired.

Ambaffadors from India GAMA fought,

And oaths of peace, for oaths of friendship brought;

The

The glorious tale, 'twas all he wish'd, to tell;
So Ilion's fate was feal'd when Hector fell.

Again convoked before the Indian throne, The monarch meets him with a rageful frown; And own, he cries, the naked truth reveal,

Then fhall my bounteous grace thy pardon feal.
Feign'd is the treaty thou pretend'st to bring,
No country owns thee, and thou own'st no king.
Thy life, long roving o'er the deep, I know,
A lawless robber, every man thy foe.

And think'st thou credit to thy tale to gain?

Mad were the fovereign, and the hope were vain,
Through ways unknown, from utmost western shore,
To bid his fleets the utmost east explore.

Great is thy monarch, fo thy words declare;
But fumptuous gifts the proof of greatness bear:
Kings thus to kings their empire's grandeur fhew;
Thus prove thy truth, thus we thy truth allow.
If not, what credence will the wife afford?

What monarch trust the wandering feaman's word?

No fumptuous gift thou " bring'ft-Yet, though fome crime Has thrown thee banifh'd from thy native clime,

(Such

No fumptuous gift thou bring'fl.—“ As the Portuguese did not expect to "find any people, but favages beyond the Cape of Good Hope, they only "brought with them fome preferves and confections, with trinkets of coral,

of glass, and other trifles. This opinion however deceived them. In

"Melinda