again assailed him, and on a charge of mal-versation in China, he was cast into prison. Having confounded his accusers with the proofs of his innocence, stern Poverty must needs lay its iron grasp upon him, and, for a trifling obligation he still remained a prisoner. At length, relieved from his embarrassment by the generosity of friends, he returned to Portugal. There in 1572, he published the Lusiad, that great Poem which had occupied his life and which has acquired for him an immortality of fame. But the envious were around him, and they were powerful. In his lifetime, Fame twined no laurel wreath about his brow; the great did not rise up to do him roverence; wealth did not fill his coffers. But the most cruel neglect and abject poverty oppressed him, and near the close of his life his faithful Indian servant was forced to beg by night the bread that kept his master from starving by day! He died in the Hospital of the poor in the year 1579, but in which month or day is unknown. His age was 55. Dying a bachelor, the family in this line failed "As stars that flit along the sky Shine brightest, as they fall from high." His was a life of trouble: his a death of cruel neglect: but the star of his fame shall burn forever! The personal appearance of Camoens has been carefully described and biographers have amused themselves in pointing out the resemblances between him and other poets. The similarity of his hair to that of Torquato Tasso has been remarked by Dr. Black, biographer of the latter bard. He is thus minutely described by Nicholas Antonio: "Mediocri statura fuit, et carne plena, capillis usque ad croci colorem flavescentibus, maxime in juventute. Eminebat ei frons, et medius nasus, cætera longus et in fine crassiusculus." His character as a man stands out clear and distinct in the actions of his life. Naturally proud; flattered and courted in his youth; conscious of his innate worth and genius; keenly sensitive to the neglect which he suffered; grieving, as a poet-lover grieves, for the death of his lady; no wonder his was a life of sorrow, yet of unbending pride and stern integrity! Vice he ever rebuked and satirized— Virtue he ever praised. We have nothing from which to learn his character as a brother and a son. He was ardent and confiding as a friend; and pure and upright himself, he was too generous to suspect others. But love of country seems to have been the ruling trait in his character, and even after he had received from it the most unjust treatment, he was led to exclaim: "Rude and ungrateful though my country be, To crown that worth some generous bard shall rise." As a writer of poetry he has had few equals, and perhaps no superiors. But two of his Letters are extant. He composed several Tragedies and Comedies, but they were mostly of a national character and the offspring of his youthful muse. It is worthy of notice that his master in the Drama was the illustrious Gil Vicente, whose works were so valued that the great Erasmus is said to have studied the Portugese language solely to read them in the Original. In his Sonnets, Cancons, and Odes, there is more of the beautifully touching than of the terribly thrilling. They bemoan his fate as a disappointed lover, and a neglected genius. Some of the former kind are exquisitely fine, and Southey has well remarked: "To most imaginations, Camoens will never appear so interesting, as when he is bewailing his first love. It is in these moments that he is most truly a poet." A lively truthfulness in description pervades all his pieces. One can hardly read them, even darkly through imperfect translations, without seeing and feeling all that the poet sings. But it is not as a sonnet writer that Camoens is greatest. He was "the first genuine and successful poet who wooed the Modern Epic Muse, and she gave him the wreath of a first love." The Lusiad is his immortal Poem. It is thus styled from the Latin name of Portugal, which was derived from Lusus or Lysus, the companion of Bacchus, who planted a colony in Lusitania. In distinction from the great poems of Homer and Virgil, the Paradise Lost has been called the Epic Poem of Religion: "In the same manner," says Mickle, “may the Lusiad be named the Epic Poem of Commerce." It celebrates the discovery and conquest of India by Velasco de Gama in 1497, under the patronage of king Emmanuel of Portugal. It would be pleasant, though beyond our present limits, to enter into a critical review of this famous Poem. Yet great and famous as it is, abounding in original thoughts and sublime conceptions, we can hardly call it anything more than a great Imitation of the Iliad and the Æneid. We have been surprised to find so many parallel passages-they pervade the whole Poem. And this is said, not to detract from the praise of Camoens; for to tread the paths which these mighty masters trod before him, and to rival and outshine them as he certainly does sometimes, is as much a mark of genius as ever they displayed: while the original conceptions of the Lusiad are as noble and truly poetic as any in its great models; but we say it to convey our own idea of the Lusiad-that it is the greatest, the noblest, and the most original Imitation the world has ever seen. An impassioned devotion to the fair sex was characteristic of our poet, and the Lusiad abounds with their encomiums. "The genius of Camoens seems never so pleased as when he is painting the variety of female charms; he feels all the magic of their allurements, and riots in his descriptions of the happiness and miseries attendant on the passion of love." He teems with metaphors-strong, forceful, and sublime. The novelty of fire-arms he has also introduced with much effect, and in his battle scenes "The bombs tremendous rise, And trail their blackening rainbows o'er the skies." Than Camoens, Portugal ne'er had a better poet-ne'er had a braver soldier-ne'er had a truer patriot, and it may be questioned if she ever treated with more cruel neglect one so well worthy of his country's gratitude! But the great in after days have owned his merit. The Italian Tasso composed a beautiful sonnet to his memory; Lope de Vega, an illustrious Spaniard, in his "Laurel de Apolo” has bestowed an elegant tribute upon him; and of the English, Mr. Hayley, in his Essay on Epic Poetry, thus writes: "Boast and lament, ungrateful land, a name, In life, in death, thy glory and thy shame." In his life we behold many striking coincidences with the other great of earth. Like Homer, he was blind, and poor, and of uncertain nativity. Like Petrarch, he was early an orphan. Like Ovid, banished for love, in many of his sonnets he has bitterly mourned his tedious exile. Like the elder Scipio, disgusted with his country, he deserted it, as he then thought, forever. Like Cæsar, he saved his manuscripts when shipwrecked. And like Dante, he was a wanderer and an outcast on the earth. Few have loved their country better than he, and few have had such cause to turn that love to bitter hate. To have done this would have been manlike, but to love her still-to serve her in life and immortalize her in death, as he did, is more than manlike-it is Godlike! RALPH. POLITICAL SONNETS. Lobdell. I. My Country! for thy fate I have some fears— The purposes, and means, and aims direct, It seldom highest duties can connect The mace of Liberty no man should wield, Who has not learned the worth of Freedom's dower! II. They should not be enrolled thy sons among, America! who, dead to Freedom's call, Tamely bend down their backs, and court the fall And stripe of Rome's ecclesiastic thong By despots braided first to lash with wrong The poor weak slaves of superstition's thrall- Of thoughtless man one glorious impulse more- III. Priests of the Living God! forsake the shrines Of Delphic origin-for it will tend, Which way soever read, those words to blend With lofty thoughts no earthly power confines! Priests of the Living God, be true to Man, Enroll your naines upon your country's page, Armed for the right, and foremost in the van, A mental warfare with old Error wage, Calm mid the thunders of the Vatican, To crown with glory both yourselves and age. IV. Ye who would swell the ranks of Papacy, Are truly foes unto your country's peace- Unless they all, unlike to you, increase And feel Restraint your very hearts devour? V. One man our country has already had, Forbidding hope an equal one can bless, While Folly's mantle, woven by success, Marks of the Nation both the good and bad The present to the Poet seems but sad, Hope droops within the shadow of DistressDespair, stark blind, would weep lost happiness, And Joy with Power no longer can be glad. Our common trust must be ourselves within, Each man must feel he is his country's son, No longer, in the whirl of party, sin But each united form in All a One, The patriot's work in earnest to begin- VI. Crush Party with the iron heel of Will- |