H now, Calliope, thy potent-ard!
What to the king th' illustrious GAMA faid
Cloath in immortal verse. With facred fire
My breaft, if e'er it loved thy lore, infpire:
So may the patron of the healing art,
The god of day to thee confign his heart;
From thee, the mother of his darling a fon,
May never wandering thought to Daphne run:
Calliope.-The Muse of Epic Poefy, and mother of Orpheus. Daphne, daughter of the river Peneus, flying from Apollo, was turned into the laurel. Clytia was metamorphofed into the fun-flower, and Leucothoe, who was buried alive by her father for yielding to the folicitations of Apollo, was by her lover changed into an Incenfe tree. The phyfical meaning of thefe fables is obvious.
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 listening world shall know
That Aganippe's ftreams from Tagus flow.
Oh, let no more the flowers of Pindus fhine
On thy fair breast, 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 infuse,
And bathe my fpirit in Aonian dews!
Now filence wooed th' illuftrious chief's reply,
And keen attention watch'd on every eye;
When flowly turning with a modeft grace,
The noble VASCO raised his manly face:
O mighty king, he cries, at thy b command
The martial ftory 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 strangers on the tale attend:
↳ O mighty king, he cries-The preface to the speech of Gama, and the defcription of Europe which follows, are happy imitations of the manner of Homer. When Camöens defcribes countries, or musters an army, it is after the example of the great models of antiquity: by adding some characteiftical feature of the climate or people, he renders his narrative pleasing, picturefque, and poetical.
Yet though reluctance faulter on my tongue,
Though day would fail a narrative so 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 that zone, where endless winter reigns,
And that, where flaming heat confumes the plains;
Array'd in green, beneath indulgent skies,
The queen of arts and arms fair Europe lies:
Around her northern and her western fhores,
Throng'd with the finny race old ocean roars;
The midland fea, where tide ne'er fwell'd the waves,
Her richest lawns, the fouthern border, laves.
Against the rifing morn, the northmost 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 she spreads;
Here piles of mountains rear their rugged heads,
Here winds on winds in endless tempefts roll,
The valleys figh, the lengthening echoes howl.
On the rude cliffs with frosty spangles 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 controll❜d,
Whose pride maintain'd that theirs the facred earth,
Not that of Nile, which firft gave man his birth.
Here difmal Lapland spreads 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 c wears,
And yet proud Rome in mournful ruin bears.
Whofe fons dread footsteps yet Aufonia wears.—In the year 409, the city of Rome was facked, and Italy laid desolate by Alaric, king of the Scandian and other northern tribes. In mentioning this circumstance, Camöens has not fallen into the common error of little poets, who on every occafion bewail the outrage which the Goths and Vandals did to the arts and sciences. Those arts and sciences, however, which give vigour to the mind, long ere the irruption of the northern tribes, were in the most languid ftate. The fouthern nations of Europe were funk into the most contemptible degeneracy. The fciences, with every branch of manly literature, were almost unknown. For near two centuries no poet or writer of note had adorned the Roman empire. Thofe arts only, the abufe of which have a certain and fatal tendency to enervate the mind, the arts of music and cookery, were paffionately cultivated in all the refinements of effeminate abufe. The art of war was too laborious for their delicacy, and the generous warmth of heroifm and patriotifm was incompatible with their effeminacy. Whoever reads the hiftory of the later emperors of Rome will find it hard to explain how minds illuminated, as it is pretended, by letters and science, could at
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