growth is mutual and dependent upon each other. They not only afft each other, but the fame enlargement of mind which is neceffary for perfection in the one, is alfo neceffary for perfection in the other; and the fame caufes impede, and are alike deftructive of both. The intercourfe of mankind is the parent of both. According to the confinement or extent of intercourfe barbarity or civilization proportionably prevail. In the dar monkish ages, the intercourfe of the learned was as much impeded and confined as that of the merchant. A few unweildy veffels coafted the fhores of Europe, and mendicant friars and ignorant pilgrims carried a miferable account of what was paffing in the world from monallery to monaftery. What doctor had laft difputed on the peripatetic philofophy at fome university, and what new herefy had last appeared, comprised the whole of their literary intelligence; and which was delivered with little accuracy, and received with as little attention. While this thick cloud of mental darkness overfpread the western world, was Don Henry prince of Portugal born, born to fet mankind free from the feodal fyftem, and to give to the whole world every advantage, every light that may poffibly be diffufed by the intercourfe of unlimited commerce :

For then from ancient gloom emerg'd
The rifing world of trade: the genius, then,
Of navigation, that in hopeless floth
Had flumber'd on the vaft Atlantic deep
For idle ages, ftarting heard at last

The Lufitanian prince, who, heaven-infpir'd,
To love of ufeful glory rous'd mankind,
And in unbounded commerce mixt the world.

THOM:

In contrast to the melancholy view of human nature, funk in barbarism and benighted with ignorance, let the present state of Europe be impartially eftimated. Yet though the great increase of opulence and learning cannot be denied, there are fome who affert, that virtue and happiness have as greatly declined. And the immenfe overflow of riches, from the Eaft in particular, has been pronounced big with deftruction to the British empire. Every thing human, it is true, has its dark as well as its bright fide; but let these popular complaints be examined, and it will be found, that modern Europe, and the British empire in a very particular manner, have received the greatest and moft folid advantages from the modern enlarged fyftem of commerce. magic of the old romances, which could make the most withered, deformed hag, appear as the most beautiful virgin, is every day verified in popular declamation. Ancient days are there painted in the most amiable fimplicity, and the modern in the most odious colours. Yet what man of fortune in England lives in that ftupendous grofs luxury, which every day was exhibited in the Gothic cales of the old chieftains! Four or five hundred knights and 'fquires in the domeftic retinue of a warlike earl was not unVol. XLI. Jan. 1776.

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common,

common, nor was the pomp of embroidery inferior to the profufe wafte of their tables; in both inftances unequalled by all the mad exceffes of the prefent age.

While the baron thus lived in all the wild glare of Gothic luxury, agriculture was almost totally neglected, and his meaner vaffals fared harder, infinitely lefs comfortably, than the meaneft induftrious labourers of England do now. Where the lands are uncultivated, the peasants, ill cloathed, ill-lodged, and poorly fed, pafs their miferable days in floth and filth, totally ignorant of every advantage, of every comfort which nature lays at their feet. He who paffes from the trading towns and cultured fields of England, to thofe remote villages of Scotland or Ireland, which claim this defcription, is aftonished at the comparative wretchedness of their deftitute inhabitants; but few confider, that thefe villages only exhibit a view of what Europe was, cre the fpirit of commerce diffufed the blefings which naturally flow from her improvements. In the Hebrides the failure of a harvest almoft depopulates an inland. Having little or no traffic to purchase grain, numbers of the young and hale betake themfelves to the continent in queft of employment and food, leaving a few, lefs adventurous, behind, to beget a new race, the heirs of the fame fortune. Yet, from the fame caufe, from the want of traffic, the kingdom of England has often felt more dreadful effects than thefe. Even in the days when her Henries and Edwards plumed themselves with the trophies of France, how often has famine fpread all her horrors over city and village ? Our modern hiftories neglect this characteristical feature of ancient days; but the rude chronicles of thefe ages inform us, that three or four times, in almost every reign of continuance, was England thus vifted. The failure of the crop was then feverely felt, and two bad harvefts together were almost infupportable. But commerce has now opened another scene, has armed government with the happieft power that can be exerted by the rulers of a nation; the power to prevent every extremity which may poffibly arife from bad harvefis; extremities, which, in former ages, were elteemed more dreadful vifitations of the wrath of heaven, than the peftilence itfelf. Yet modern London is not fo certainly defended again? the latter, its ancient vifitor in almost every reign, than the commonwealth by the means of commerce, under a just and humane government, is fecured against the ravages of the former.'

After difplaying the happiness enjoyed by a commercial over an uncommercial nation, Mr. Mickle exhibits a view of their fuperiority likewife in point of manners. He then pro'ceeds to relate the enterprizes of prince Henry of Portugal, premifing the anterior ftate and character of that kingdom, as being neceflary to clucidate the liftory of the revival of commerce, and the fubject of the Lufiad.

The

The next fubject that occurs in the Introduction is the Life of Camoëns, the original author of the poem. The birth of this great genius, like that of Homer, has been claimed by different cities, but, according to the moft credible accounts, he was born at Lisbon in 1517. His family is faid to have been of confiderable note, and originally Spanish. From his early youth, when he appeared with great advantage at the court of Portugal, his future life was a continued series of vexation, difappointment, and misfortune. In 1555, he failed for India, where he remained in a ftate of exile for fixteen years, but continued his poem of the Luliad, which he had begun before he left Portugal. One incident in his life particularly deferves to be mentioned. Having been appointed commiffary in the island of Macao, he acquired in the space of five years a fortune, which, though fmall, was equal to his wishes. Defirous to return to Goa, he refigned his charge; and in a fhip, freighted by himself, he fet fail for that purpofe, but was fhipwrecked in the gulph near the mouth of the river Mehon on the coaft of China. All he had acquired was loft in the waves; and his poems, which he held up in one hand, while he fwam with the other, was the only property he poffeffed when he landed on the shore. In 1569, he returned to his native country, and in three years after printed his Lufiad. It is faid, though upon doubtful authority, that he received from king Sebaftian a penfion of four thousand reals; but this bounty was withdrawn by cardinal Henry, who fucceeded to the crown. To the indelible infamy of that Gothic monarch, it is affirmed that Camoëns afterwards fubfifted by the gratitude and attachment of an old black fervant, who openly begged for his fupport in the ftreets of Lisbon, till death put a period to his unhappy fituation, in 1579, in the fixty-fecond year of his age.

From this mortifying narrative, the ingenious tranflator paffes to the confideration of the poem; but he first examines the criticifm of Voltaire, in which that celebrated author has highly praised, and feverely attacked the Lufiad. The criticism alluded to was first published in English, in an Effay on the Epic Poetry of the European nations. Mr. Mickle obferves, that Voltaire, in his French edition of this Effay, had made various alterations at different times in the article of Camoëns. Both thefe and the English are here occafionally cited, with the view of detecting fome extraordinary falfities, and refuting the mifreprefentations of the French critic. Mr. Mickle even produces the most convincing arguments to prove, that when Voltaire wrote his English Effay, his knowledge of the Lufiad was entirely borrowed from the harsh and unpoet

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ical verfion of Fanshaw. This is followed by a Differtation on the machinery of Taffo's Jerufalem, and Voltaire's Henriade. But we fhall quit thefe fubjects, to give our readers fome fpecimens of the tranflation. Let us firft, however, acknowledge, in juftice to Mr. Mickle, that he difplays a fund of judicious. and acute obfervation in his comment on Voltaire, and that he ably vindicates the character of his author as an epic poet, in the conduct of the Lufiad.

Having formerly given a fpecimen from the exordium of this tranflation, we fhall now prefent our readers with the opening of the third book, which contains a poetical and lively. furvey of the different nations of Europe.

Oh now, Calliope, thy potent aid!
What to the king th' illuftrious Gama faid
Cloath in immortal verfe. With facred fire
My breaft, if e'er it loved thy lore, infpire:
So
of the healing art,
the patron
may
The blooming god, to thee incline his heart;
From thee, the mother of his darling fon,
May never wandering thought to Daphne run:
May never Clytia, nor Leucothoe's pride
Henceforth with thee his changeful love divide.
Then aid, O fairest nymph, my fond defire,
And give my verfe the Lufian warlike fire:
Fired by the fong, the liftening world fhall know
That Aganippe's ftreams from Tagus flow.
Oh, let no more the flowers of Pindus fhine
On thy fair breaft, or round thy temples twine :
On Tago's banks a richer chaplet blows,
And with the tuneful God my bofom glows:
I feel, I feel the mighty power infufe,

And bathe my spirit in Aonian dews!

Now filence wooe'd th' illuftrious chief's reply,
And keen attention watch'd on every eye;
When flowly turning with a modeft grace,
The noble Vafco raised his manly face;
O mighty king, he cries, at thy command
The martial flory of my native land

I tell; but more my doubtful heart had joy'd
Had other wars my praifeful lips employ'd.
When men the honours of their race commend,
The doubts of ftrangers on the tale attend:
Yet though reluctance faulter on my tongue,
Though day would fail a narrative fo long,
Yet well affured no fiction's glare can raife,
Or give my country's fame a brighter praise:
Though lefs, far lefs, whate'er my lips can fay,
Than truth muft give it, I thy will obey.

Between

Between that zone, where endless winter reigns,
And that, where flaming heat confumes the plains;
Array'd in green, beneath indulgent fkies,
The queen of arts and arms fair Europe lies.
Around her northern and her weftern fhores,
Throng'd with the finny race old Ocean roars;
The midland fea, where tide ne'er swell'd the waves,
Her richest lawns, the fouthern border, laves.
Against the rifing morn, the north'most bound
The whirling Tanais parts from Asian ground,
As tumbling from the Scythian mountains cold
Their crooked way the rapid waters hold
To dull Mæotis' lake: her eastern line

More to the fouth, the Phrygian waves confine;
Those waves, which, black with many a navy, bore
The Grecian heroes to the Dardan fhore;
Where now the feaman rapt in mournful joy
Explores in vain the fad remains of Troy.
Wide to the north beneath the pole fhe spreads;
Here piles of mountains rear their rugged heads,
Here winds on winds in endless tempefts rowl,
The valleys figh, the lengthening ecchoes howl.
On the rude cliffs with frofty fpangles grey,
Weak as the twilight gleams the folar ray;
Each mountain's breaft with fnows eternal fhines,
The ftreams and feas eternal froft confines.
Here dwelt the numerous Scythian tribes of old,
A dreadful race! by victor ne'er controul'd,
Whose pride maintain'd that theirs the facred earth,
Not that of Nile, which firft gave man his birth.
Here difmal Lapland fpreads a dreary wild,
Here Norway's waftes where harvest never smil'd,
Whofe groves of fir in gloomy horror frown,
Nod o'er the rocks, and to the tempeft groan.
Here Scandia's clime her rugged fhores extends,
And far projected, through the ocean bends;
Whofe fons' dread footsteps yet Aufonia wears,
And yet proud Rome in mournful ruin bears.
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,
Chear'd by whole months of one continual day:
Between these fhores and Tanais' rufhing tide
Livonia's fons and Ruffia's hords refide.

Stern as their clime the tribes, whofe fires of yore
The name, far dreaded, of Sarmatians bore.
Where, famed of old, th' Hircinian foreft lour'd,
Oft feen in arms the Polish troops nre pour'd
Wide foraging the downs. The Saxon race,
The Hungar dextrous in the wild-boar chace,

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