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LUIS DE

CAMOENS

Published June 1.1819 by Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme &Co London.

"what I have laid out to stimulate the printer that "I employed, and in the engravings which adorn "it." He continues stating, that for a man of his, not very flourishing circumstances, he had done more for Camoens than princes, or the rich and powerful; and he strongly denounces the apparently little interest felt for the poet.

In the preceding number we have an account of the decorations of the work. The portrait of Ca. moens,* he says, "was copied from one which was "an original, and which had been ordered to be "made by his friend, the licentiate Manoel Correa, "after his arrival from India. Those of Vasco de "Gama, and of the viceroys, were taken from "faithful copies curiously made in India from the "originals, which were in the (Sala) Hall at Goa." Besides these, there are vignettes, descriptive of the occurrences in the poem. The portrait of Gama is the same as in Fanshaw's translation of the Lusiad; and the printing is continued on the back: it is placed opposite column 531, and has no engraver's name. The others give only the heads of the Viceroys, except that of Affonso de Albuquerque. The portraits are cut in wood, and the fac-similes of

* I have noticed in the preface, that the poet appears blind of the wrong eye.

those of Dom Francisco d'Almeida, and Dom Garcia de Noronha, which are here given, will afford an idea of their execution. There are also woodcuts of the Earth, shewing the disposition of the Planets, and of the Moon, and a Map of the Globe.

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The "advertencias" are followed by the "Elogio "al Commentador," written by Lope Felix de Vega Carpio. It occupies ten pages, and is divided into twenty-six heads, or chapters. In the first of these Lope says, that if Camoens is the prince of the Poets, who have written in the "Idioma Vulgar," Faria e Sousa is the prince of all Commentators,

for commentaries on so great a poet never appeared so complete before from one hand. In the fourth division are enumerated the various works of Faria e Sousa, which consist of twenty-four articles. In the fifth, these various works are compared with similar productions of the ancients, and he is said to excel many, and to be equal to them all. Lope writes, "the consideration of this obliges me to "dedicate to him, for my own credit, the comedy "del Marido mas firme ;" and to thus speak of "him in my Laurel de Apolo :

Entre muchos cientificos supuestos

eligen a Faria,

que en Historia, i Poesia,

saben que no pudiera

darle mayor la Lusitana Esfera.

(Aunque de tantos con razon se precia,
que pueden embidiar Italia, i Grecia)
como lo muestran oy tantos escritos
vestidos de conceptos inauditos,
elocuciones, frasis, i colores,

frutos de letras, i de versos flores.

From the sixth to the twelfth chapter are various passages, wherein Faria e Sousa is praised. The twelfth commences with an account of his Life, towards the end of which the author draws several

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