INTRODUCTION. THE grand Portuguese Epic Poem of Luiz de Camoens—'Os Lusíadas, or the Lusiads'-which Hallam describes as 'the first successful attempt in modern Europe to construct an epic poem on the ancient model' has for its hero (as may be more or less known) the celebrated Portuguese navigator, Vasco da Gama; and for its leading subject, the famous voyage, accomplished by that great man, which, by general consent, is ranked as having been by far the most inportant in its consequences, of the three great voyages of the world. Sailing from Lisbon on the 8th of July, 1497, during the reign of our Henry VII., under the auspices of his monarch, King Emmanuel the Fortunate,' with three sloops-of-war, a storeship, and a crew of 160 men, he, on the 20th of November following, doubled the Cape of Good Hope (formerly called by Bartolomeo Dias, who discovered it in 1487, the Cape of Storms '), and first established the momentous fact of the existence of an ocean passage between Europe and India, where he arrived in the month of May 1498, at Calecut, upon the coast of Malabar. With such mad seas the daring Gama fought, The poem, however, is by no means confined to this leading subject. Indeed, it may almost be said that the Portuguese nation is the real hero of the piece; for Camoens artistically interweaves in it their whole early history-a proud and noble one, both in defensive warfare and in that maritime and commercial greatness, which was founded by their illustrious navigator and discoverer, the Infante D. Henrique, Duke of Viseu. Hence, indeed, the title 'Os Lusíadas,' or 'The Feats of the Lusians, or Lusitanians;' for this classical name of the Portuguese was derived from the ancient province of Lusitania (more or less the Portugal of to-day), which legends state to have been founded by Lusus, or Lysas, the supposed bosom-companion of the famous god Bacchus, who forms a leading figure in the poem. The name of the present kingdom, Portugal, it may be here observed, is said to be derived from that of Porto Calle, by which the city of Porto, or O Porto, was originally known. Gama, then, set out upon his voyage, as stated; and on his return to Lisbon, bringing with him only 55 men of the 160 who had accompanied him, and having lost his brother Paul at Terceira in the Açores, where he had put in, as the map shows, in hopes of securing his brother's recovery, he was received by his king and country with all the honours to which his daring and successful enterprise entitled him. This event took place in 1499, about two years and nearly two months after his departure, and it naturally furnishes the last incident in the 'Lusiads.' Gama found the Moslems masters of the Eastern seas, and Calecut, the emporium of India. At this city he was well received at first, through the friendship of one Monçaide, a Moor of Tunis, who spoke the Spanish language; but the people, through their leaders, soon began to manifest much treachery and hostility towards him and his companions, as being strangers and Christians; and not only so, but as the dangerous intruders they so eminently turned out to be. King Emmanuel, however, was resolved to pursue the course he had begun, and to reap the full benefit of a direct intercourse with India, the immense value of whose trade with Europe to the ancient and the modern world, as carried on through Egypt and Persia, was a subject familiar to all. He therefore caused to be fitted out a fleet of fourteen sail and 1,500 men for the East, in order to establish a position there, in spite of the Moslems, who had done their best to prevent Gama's return to Europe. The command of this fleet was given to Pedro Alvares Cabral, who sailed in the year 1500; and in 1 See Canto iii. st. xxi. But Camoens uses these names in the plural. this voyage it so happened that Cabral, being accidentally driven. far to the west by a tempest, became the discoverer of Brazil, the present remarkable empire of South America. With this expedition began that astonishing chapter of Portuguese history-the establishment of an extensive commercial empire in the East, and the first commercial empire in the world; 'to which ' (writes Dr. Robertson in his 'Historical Disquisition concerning Ancient India'), 'whether we consider its extent, its opulence, the slender power by which it was formed, or the splendour with which the government of it was conducted, there has hitherto been nothing comparable in the history of nations.' 1 'Emmanuel,' he continues, who laid the foundation of this stupendous fabric, had the satisfaction to see it almost completed. Every part of Europe was supplied by the Portuguese with the productions of the East; and, if we except some inconsiderable quantity of them, which the Venetians still continued to receive by the ancient channels of conveyance, our quarter of the globe had no longer any commercial intercourse with India and the regions of Asia beyond it, but by the Cape of Good Hope.' Gama's great discovery, besides being important in itself, happened at a most critical period of history: for, only a few years afterwards, in 1517, Selim I., the Ferocious, took Cairo by storm, and the Mameluke dominions in Egypt, Syria, etc., were annexed to the Ottoman Empire; and as Mohamed II., styled the conqueror of two empires, twelve kingdoms and 300 cities, had already, in 1453, destroyed the Greek empire, captured Constantinople, and established the seat of the Turkish government in that city, the Sultans would, in point of fact, have become possessed of the absolute command of the trade between India and Europe had it continued to be carried on in its ancient channels, by the Red Sea to Alexandria, or from the Persian Gulf to Constantinople and the Ports of the Mediterranean. By this line of communication it was that Genoa and Venice had alternately enriched themselves so greatly, according to It is asserted that the Portuguese language is still distinguished by the natives of India as ‘the language of the white man'—'lingoa do branco.' 2 The Turks, under Amurath, took Adrianople in 1361. the power or protection which they were able to secure in Egypt, or at Constantinople. On this subject Dr. Robertson further remarks (following M. L'Abbé Raynal): It is to the discovery of the passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope, and to the vigour and success with which the Portuguese prosecuted their conquests and established their dominions there, that Europe has been indebted for its preservation from the most illiberal and humiliating servitude that ever oppressed polished nations.' It was in combating this power, combined with the Moslem influence in the East, that the valour and the constancy of the Portuguese was tried and proved; sustaining, for so many years, their splendid successes and extending their astonishing discoveries and conquests in that hemisphere. In the course of this glorious epoch--for a detailed account of which I may refer to the copious 'Disquisition concerning Ancient India,' by which Julius Mickle introduces his translation of the 'Lusiads,' and the moving heroes and incidents in which are, of course, duly celebrated by Camoens-Gama twice returned to India: the second time with twenty ships, on board the 'Conquest' in 1502, returning in 1503; and the third time, in 1524, as Viceroy of the Indies, dying in Cochin in 1525. But all things must have an end! Over the Moorish-Turkish power the Portuguese always prevailed. The extension of their dominion in the East, which was so large and rapid, continued to about 1548, when, during the reign of John III., the prosperity of Portugal and the extent of her Indian empire attained their greatest eminence, and Lisbon was considered as the market of the world. But the vast fabric of power which had been thus almost miraculously erected, and which has been aptly styled 'a superstructure much too large for the basis on which it had to rest,' was almost entirely overturned in as short a time, and with as much facility, as had served to raise it. The young King Sebastian, to whom the 'Lusiads' are addressed, succeeded to the throne at three years of age, in 1557, and while his grandmother, D. Catharina of Austria, and his great-uncle, |