!

Emperor anfwered, My Dear, my Soul do not lie under any fear of being difcovered For not one living Soul can arrive at us, but through my Chamber; I took care to fhut the Door as I came hither, and I have the Key in my Pocket; I fuppofe too, you have the Key of the Back-door, which opens from your Apartment into mine, "for you never leave it open he faid, and hugged her. The tender Grafs c on which they dallied, rejoiced at their Pleafures, and fhot forth into tender "Flowers."

r

Thus what is beautiful and noble between Jove and Juno, becomes as low and as diftafteful between the old Juftinian and Theodora ; as when, among us, a Man and Wife carefs one another before Company.

Triffino hath efpecially endeavour'd to follow Homer in the Detail of the Defcriptions; but he is very accurate in defcribing the Furniture of the Houses of his Heroes: He does not omit a Button, or a Garter in their Dreffes; and does nor fay a Word of their Characters.

However, I do not mention him only to point out his Faults; but to give him the juft Praises he deferves, for having been the first in Europe, who attempted

an

an Epick Poem, in a vulgar Tongue, and in blank Verfe; for not having been guilty of a fingle Quibble in his Works, though he was an Italian; and for having introduc'd lefs Magicians, and fewer inchanted Heroes, than any Author of his Nation.

CAMOUENS.

WHILE Triffino was clearing away

the Rubbish in Italy, which Barba

rity and Ignorance had heap'd up for ten Centuries, in the Way of the Arts and. Sciences, Camouens in Portugal steer'd a new Courfe, and acquir'd a Reputation which lafts ftill among his Countrymen, who pay as much Refpect to his Memory, as the English to Milton.

He was a ftrong Inftance of the irrefiitible Impulfe of Nature, which determines a true Genius to follow the Bent of his Talents, in fpight of all the Obftacles, which could check his Courfe.

His Infancy loft amidst the Idlenefs and Ignorance of the Court of Lisbon ; his Youth spent in romantick Loves, or in the War against the Moors; his long Voyages at Sea, in his riper Years; his Misfortunes at Court, the Revolutions of his Country; none of all these could fupprefs his Genius.

Emanuel the Second, King of Portugal, having a mind to find a new Way to the E 4

Eaft

Eat-Indies by the Ocean, fent Velafco de Gama with a Feet in the Year 1497, to that Undertaking, which being new, was accounted rafh and impracticable, and which of courfe gain'd aim a great Repu

tation when it fucceeded.

Camouens fellow'd Velafco de Gama in that dangerous Voyage, led by his Friendship to him, and by a noble Curiofity, which feldom fails to be the Character of Men born with a great Imagi

nation.

He took his Voyage for the Subject of his Poem; he enjoy'd the fenfible Pleafure, which no body had known before him, to celebrate his Friend, and the Things which he was an Eye-Witness of. He wrote his Poem, Part on the Atlantic Sea, and Part on the Indian Shore; I ought not to omit, that in a Shipwreck on the Coafts of Malabar, he fam a-fhore, holding up his Poem in one Hand, which otherwife had been perhaps loft for ever.

Such a new Subject, manag'd by an uncommon Genius, could not but produce a Sort of Epick Poetry unheard of before.

There no bloody Wars are fought, no Heroes wounded in a thoufand different Ways; no Woman enticed away, and

the

;

the World over-turn'd for her Caufe no Empire founded; in fhort, nothing of what was deem'd before, the only Subject of Poetry.

The Poet conducts the Portuguese Fleet to the Mouth of the Ganges, round the Coafts of Africk. He takes notice in the Way, of many Nations who live upon the African Shore. He interweaves artfully the Hiftory of Portugal. The Simplicity of his Subject, is rais'd by fome Fictions of different Kinds, which I think not improper to acquaint the Reader with.

When the Fleet is failing in fight of the Cape of Good-Hope, call'd then the Cape of the Storms, a formidable Shape appears to them, walking in the Depth of the Sea; his Head reaches to the Clouds, the Storms, the Winds, the Thunders, and the Lightnings hang about him; his Arms are extended over the Waves. 'Tis the Guardian of that foreign Ocean unplough'd before by any Ship. He complains of his being oblig'd to fubmit to Fate, and to the audacious Undertaking of the Portuguese, and foretels them all the Misfortunes which they muft undergo in the Indies.

I believe, that fuch a Fiction would be thought noble and proper, in all Ages, and in all Nations.

There

There is another, which perhaps would have pleas'd the Italians as well as the Portuguese, but no other Nation befides: It is an inchanted Inland, call'd the Inland of Blifs, which the Fleet finds in her Way home, just rising from the Sea, for their Comfort and for their Reward: Camouens defcribes that Place, as Tafo did fome Years after, his Inland of Armida. There a fupernatural Power brings in all the Beauties, and prefents all the Pleafures which Nature can afford, and which the Heart may wifh for; a Goddess enamour'd with Valefco de Gama, carries him to the Top of an high Mountain, from whence the fhows him all the Kingdoms of the Earth, and foretels the Fate of Portugal.

After Camouens hath given a loose to his Fancy, in the lafcivious Defcription of the Pleafures which Gama and his Crew enjoy'd in the Inland, he takes care to inform the Reader, that he ought to underftand by this Fiction, nothing but the Satisfaction which the virtuous Man feels, and the Glory which accrues to him by the Practice of Virtue; but the beft Excufe for fuch an Invention, is, the charming Stile in which it is deliver'd, (if we believe the Portuguese ;) for the Beauty of the Elocution makes fometimes amends for the Faults of the Poet, as the Colouring

of