While proudly mingling with the tempeft's found, The howling blaft, ye flumbering ftorms, prepare, Through the torn hulk the dashing waves fhall roar, Thus wandering wide, a thousand ills o'erpast, Some y And the last figh shall wail cach other's woe.This poetical description of the miserable catastrophe of Don Emmanuel de Souza, and his beautiful spouse Leonora de Sà, is by no means exaggerated. He was feveral years governor of Diu in India, where he amaffed immenfe wealth. On his return to his native country, the ship in which were his lady, all his riches, and five hundred men, his failors and domeftics, was dashed to pieces on the rocks at the Cape of Good Hope. Don Emmanuel, his lady, and three children, with four hundred of the crew, efcaped, having only faved a few arms and provifions. As they marched through the rude uncultivated deferts, fome died of famine, of thirst, and fatigue; others, who wandered from the main body in fearch of water, were murdered by the favages, or The horror of this miferable fituation was destroyed by the wild beasts. moft dreadfully aggravated to Donna Leonora: her husband began to difcover starts of infanity. They are arrived at last at a village inhabited by Ethiopian banditti. At first they were courteously received, and Souza, partly ftupified with grief, at the defire of the barbarians, yielded up to them the arms of his company. No fooner was this done, than the savages stripped the whole company naked, and left them deftitute to the mercy of the defert. The wretchedness of the delicate and expofed Leonora was increased by the brutal infults of the negroes. Her husband, unable to relieve, beheld her miferies. After having travelled about 300 leagues, her legs fwelled, her feet bleeding at every step, and her strength exhausted, she funk down, and with the fand covered herself to the neck, to conceal her nakedness. In this dreadful fituation, she beheld two of her children expire. Her own death foon followed. Her husband, who had been long enamoured of her beauty, received her last breath in a distracted embrace. Immediately he fnatched his third child in his arms, and uttering the moft lamentable cries, he ran into the thickeft of the wood, where the wild beafts were foon heard to growl over their prey. Of the whole four hundred who escaped the waves, only fix and twenty arrived at another Ethiopian village, whose inhabitants were more civilized, and traded with the merchants of the Red Sea : from hence they found a passage to Europe, and brought the tidings of the unhappy fate of their companions. Jerome de Cortereal, a Portuguese poet, has written an affecting poem on the shipwreck and deplorable catastrophe of Don Emmanuel and his beloved spouse. Vid. Faria, Barros, &c. Some few, the fad companions of their fate, He paus'd, in act ftill farther to disclose When springing onward, loud my voice refounds, That rock by you the Cape of Tempests named, You, you alone have dared to plough my main, And with the human voice disturb my lonesome reign. He spoke, and deep a lengthen'd sigh he drew, High z He spoke.—The circumstances of the disappearance of the spectre are in the fame poetical spirit of the introduction. To suppose this spectre the fpirit of that huge promontory the Cape of Tempests, which by night makes it awful appearance to the fleet of Gama, while wandering in an unknown ocean, is a noble flight of imagination. As already obferved in the Preface, the machinery of Camoëns is allegorical. To establish Christianity in the east, is exprefsly faid in the Lufiad to be the great purpose of the hero. By Bacchus, the demon who opposes the expedition, the genius of Mohammedism muft of confequence be understood and accordingly, in the eighth book, the Evil Spirit and Bacchus are mentioned as the same perfonage; where, in the figure of Mohammed, he appears in a dream to a Mohammedan priest. In like manner, by Adamastor, the genius of Mohammedism must be supposed to be meant. The Moors, who profeffed that religion, werc, till the arrival of Gama, the fole navigators of the eastern seas, and by every exertion of force and fraud, they endeavoured to prevent the fettlements of the Chriftians. In the figure of the fpectre, the French tranflator finds an exact description of the person of Mohammed, his fierce demeanour and pale complexion; but he certainly carries his unravelment too far in feveral instances: to mention only two; "Mohammed (fays "he) was a false prophet, fo is Adamastor, who says Emmanuel de Souza "and his spouse shall die in one another's arms, whereas the husband was "devoured by wild beasts in the wood. . . By the metamorphofis of Ada"maftor into an huge mafs of earth and rock, laved by the waves, is meant "the death and tomb of Mohammed. He died of a dropfy, behold the wa"ters which furround him; voilą les eaux qui l'éntourent.-His tomb was "exceeding high, behold the height of the promontory." By fuch latitude of intrepretation, the allegory which was really intended by an author, becomes fufpected by the reader. As Camoëns, however, has affured us that he did allegorife, one need not hesitate to affirm, that the amour of Adamastor is an inftance of it. By Thetis is figured Renown, or true Glory, by the fierce paffion of the giant, the fierce rage of ambition, and by the rugged mountain that filled his deluded arms, the infamy acquired by the brutal conqueror Mohammed. The hint of this laft circumstance is adopted from Caftera. High to the angel hoft, whose guardian care Had ever round us watch'd, my hands I rear, And heaven's dread King implore, As o'er our head With facred horror thrill'd, Melinda's lord What time from heaven the rebel band were thrown: And oft the wandering fwain has heard his moan. Stern groans he heard; by ghostly spells controul'd, By forceful Titan's warm embrace comprest The rock-ribb'd mother Earth his love confeft; The hundred-handed giant at a birth And me the bore: nor flept my hopes on earth: Great Adamastor then my dreaded name. |