and as amongst us, even in a period when the nation was engaged in an extensive warfare, it is fair to infer from the ascending series of increase, which must be its natural consequence, that if the annual increase of our population be not already half a million, it will very soon reach that number, and will again speedily surpass it. Not to branch out too extensively upon this copious subject, if we were briefly to suppose as an hypothetical case, that this natural increase only of inhabitants, were to settle here and colonize these parts, without being aided by "all the unsettled humours of the land," who feeling themselves uneasy in their present situations from a variety of causes, would wish to better themselves in life if they knew how, by establishing themselves elsewhere with more favorable prospects of promoting their welfare, it would require no great sketch of arithmetic to shew, that in the short space of three years only, this new colonization alone, without taking the old inhabitants of these parts into account, would exceed the present existing population of the metropolis, vast as this is now deemed: such, a double number of mouths are to be provided with their daily fare, houses built, and furniture made accordingly, for the new settlers, besides. The very prospect then of promoting their professional welfare, or making the most of a confined income, which might induce a numerous population to settle on these lines of communication with a great and rich metropolis, will in effect answer the same purpose as if it were actually a reality; for as the sons of industry live by one another, so as a numerous community be but collected together, it matters little as to what cause it was owing that they congregated there. But as increased numbers in society must settle somewhere, upon a natural principle, we may conclude, that where the flowerets are most plentifully to be found, thither are the bees most likely to assemble.When the principle of this doctrine is established, the degree whether this event will take 3, 13, or 30 years, to accomplish, is but of secondary consequence; though still important as buildings and fruit-tree plantations in anticipation of it are concerned. But it will be easy to shew that the prospect of individual professional welfare, both in agricultural and commercial pursuits, being here promoted, is of the most rational and substantial kind; for here will be radical advantages, surpassed by no situations, and equalled by few, if any; cheapness, compactness, combination and division of labour, compose the elements of successful competition in commercial concerns, and particularly in the manufacturing department of them. No where can provision be consumed upon such cheap terms as where they were grown: nor is land to be had any where upon more advantageous terms, according to its intrinsic value, than in a thinly inhabited district: but granting that when the supply of London with provisions by water carriage is perfected, that the difference between town and country prices will be little more than the additional expences of their carriage to town and of their subsequent sale by the various dealers in them; still the inhabitant of London can never disengage himself of the millstones of high rent and parochial taxes which hang about his neck, so as to place himself in a situation of tolerable comparison with the countryman, where in the first instance building ground is often twenty times more reasonable in the terms of its purchase; and in the last, where all his assessments to the poorrates fall almost entirely upon household property, for want of that quantity of landed property to bear the brunt of them which it is the characteristic of country situations to possess. In the same way will all the advantages of compactuess, and combination and division of labour, be had in an eminent degree, in all the varied articles which are made of leather, felt, and feather, where the animals which produced the materials were killed upon the spot; and where also all the different departments are equally ready at hand to go through with their business, without any intermediate land carriage: as well as when all the branches of the provision trade in millers, malsters, brewers, distillers, cooks, picklers, confectioners, and poultry dealers, are likewise upon the spot: all of which are additional considerations to the agricultural part of the concern, in which so large a scope of employment will be furnished by the land itself, when it is cultivated solely by human labour, advantageously exerted through the newly invented mechanical means, in the manner proposed. The balance of trade must ever be in their favour as to the pecuniary part of the subject, without the Londoners having it in their power to help themselves in this particular. A new system of inland navigation will also be speedily submitted to public attention. ON THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF LUIS DE CAMOENS. BY MADAME LA BARONNE DE STAEL HOLSTEIN. [We have been favoured by an esteemed friend at Paris, with the following hitherto unpublished essay of the celebrated Madame de Stael, and we feel considerable pleasure in being enabled to announce, for the future numbers of our Magazine, several productions of no less interest from the same distinguished pen.-ED.] LUIS DE CAMOENS, the most celebrated of the Portuguese Poets, was born at Lisbon in 1517.* His father was descended from a noble family, and his mother was connected with the illustrious house of Sà. He pursued his studies at Coimbra. The directors of education in that City thought nothing worthy of estimation in literature except the imitation of the ancient writers. The genius of Camoens was inspired by the history of his native country, and the manners of his age his lyric poems, in particular, like the works of Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, and Tasso, belong to that description of literature which was revived by Christianity, and to the spirit of chivalry rather than a purely classic taste. For this reason, the partizans of the latter, who were extremely numerous in the time of Camoens, bestowed but little approbation on his early productions. Having finished his studies, he returned to Lisbon, where he conceived a violent attachment for Donna Catarina de Attaide, one of the ladies of the Palace.† Ardent *The place of his nativity has been ascertained by his frequent application of the epithet paternal to the Tagus; but the precise time of his birth is involved in considerable obscurity. By an entry in the register of the Portuguese India House, it would appear to have taken place in 1525, as he is there stated to have been twentyfive years old in 1550. The same document mentions him as one of his son's sureties, and consequently living in 1550.-Ed. + Camoens was introduced to the knowledge of his mistress Catarina de Attaide in the church of "Christ's Wounds" at Lisbon, on Holy Thursday, 1542; and the far famed Petrarch first beheld Laurette de Sade, whom he has immortalized under the name of Laura, in the church of the monastery of St. Claire, at Avignon, on Good Friday, 1347. It is a coincidence worthy of notice, that these two celebrated poets should have received the impetus of their genius-and love has ever been considered as the inspirer of poetry-under circum passions are frequently allied to great natural talents, and the life of Camoens was alternately a prey to his sentiments and his genius. He was banished to Santarem, owing to some disputes in which he was engaged through his attachment to Donna Catarina. There, in his exile, he composed several detached poems expressive of the state of his feelings, and it is easy to trace the history of his life in the various impressions which appear in his works.* Reduced to despair, he enlisted as a soldier, and served in the fleet which the Portuguese sent to attack Morocco. He wrote verses even amidst the fury of battles, and, by turns the perils of war animated his poetic genius, and exalted his military ardour. He lost his right eye by a musket ball before Ceuta. On his return to Lisbon he hoped at least that his wounds would obtain for him some reward, though his talent might remain unnoticed; but notwithstanding his two-fold claims to the favour of the government of his country, inconceivable obstacles awaited him. The envious frequently possess the art of destroying one merit by another, instead of exalting both, and making them reflect mutual lustre on each other. Camoens, justly indignant at the neglect he experienced, embarked for India, in 1553, and like Scipio, bade adieu to his stances so directly similar; both having encountered the arbitresses of their fate at the same period of the year, in places of religious worship; and it is no less remarkable, that the principal feature in the subsequent event of their lives should also have been alike; we allude to the death of the objects of their affection. They both endeavoured to heal their lacerated bosoms with the balm of fancy, and each has lett imperishable records of the sincerity of his love, and the depth and purity of his regret.-ED. It is stated that having returned to Lisbon before the period of his banishment was completed, he basked, for a time, once more in the sunny smiles of his fair mistress; but his happiness was doomed to be of short duration; he was detected, driven back to Santarem, and the term of his exile prolonged. Faria y Sousa V del P. §xiv.-ED. In addition to his misfortunes he found upon his return, that his mistress was no more, she died at the age of twenty, and thus escaped the miseries to which she must have been exposed, had she lived to share the lot of her neglected and hapless lover. Her name, however, will always be preserved by the wild flowers with which he has so gracefully and tenderly entwined it.—ED. country, protesting that not even his ashes should find a grave in it.* On his arrival at Goa, in India, one of the most celebrated Portuguese settlements, his imagination was struck by the achievements of his countrymen in that ancient quarter of the world, and though he had so much reason to complain of them, yet he celebrated their glory in an epic poem. But that vivacity of imagination which creates great poets, is incompatible with the moderation necessary in a dependant situation. Camoens was disgusted at the abuses practised in the administration of the affairs of India, and he wrote a satire on the subject which gave such offence to the Viceroy of Goa, that he exiled him to Maçao. Here he lived for several years, having no society, save a sky, even more magnificent than that of Portugal, and the luxuriant scenery of those Eastern regions which are justly denominated the cradle of the world. At Maçao he wrote the Lusiad, and perhaps, considering the peculiar situation of the author, the poem might be expected to present more boldness of conception. The subject is the expedition of Vasco de Gama to India, an enterprise which had never before been attempted: the parts most generally known are, the episode of Ines de Castro and the appearance of Adamastor, the genius of storms, who endeavours to * How different is this exclamation to the following pathetic apostrophe of a self-exiled Bard of the present day: I was born where are proud to be, The inviolate island of the sage and free iv Canto. C. Harold. + Madame de Stael has omitted to men tion that Cameons engaged in, and materially contributed to the success of an expedition against the Pimenta Isles, carried on by the king of Cochin and his allies, the Portuguese; a modest recital of which is to be Inet with in one of his elegies. Shortly after, Manuel de Vasconcelos was appointed to conduct an armament to the Red Sea; he was accompanied by our poet, who with that intrepid thirst for information, which forms one of the characteristics of true genius, explored the wild regions of Africa, by which Mount Felix is surrounded, and thus fitted himself for entering into those delightful descriptions which so constantly occur in his Lusiad.-ED. stop Gama just as he is about to double stronger and more faithful historical colouring, yet the fictions of the Italian poet will always render his reputation most brilliant and popular. Camoens was at length recalled from exile. Whilst returning to Goa, he was shipwrecked at the mouth of the river Mecon in Cochin China; but he swam ashore, holding in one hand, above water, the manuscript of the Lusiad, the only treasure he saved from the devouring waves, and which he valued higher than his own life. This consciousness of one's own talent is a commendable trait, when it is confirmed by posterity; for in proportion as unfounded vanity is contemptible, that sentiment is exalted which assures a man of what he really is, notwithstanding the efforts made to discourage him. On reaching the shore, Camoens commented, in one of his lyric poems, on the celebrated psalm of the daughters of Sion in exile, (super flumina Babilonis.t) When he set foot on the soil of India, where the Portuguese had settled, he fancied himself already returned to his native country; for the idea of country consists of fellow-citizens, language, and all that revives the recollections of our childhood. The inhabitants of the south are attached to external objects, those of the north to customs; but all mankind, and particularly poets, when exiled from the land which gave them birth, like the women of Sion, suspend their lyres on the weeping willows which border the foreign shore.t * Friendless and unknown, it was his good fortune to meet with a most humane reception from the natives, whom he has immortalized in that beautifully prophetic song in the tenth Lusiad.-Having named Mecon, he goes on: Este recebera placido, e brando, No seu regaço o Canto que molhado, &c. Literally thus: "On his gentle, hospitable bosom (sic brando poetice) shall he receive the song, wet from woeful unhappy shipwreck, escaped from destroying tempests, from ravenous dangers, the effect of the unjust sentence upon him whose lyre shall be more renowned than enriched."-ED. + Lord Byron has given a fine paraphrase of this Psalm in his Hebrew Melodies beginning We sat down and wept by the waters This, however, was not the case with Ovid; though after his banishment his muse was devoted to little better than the expression of pitiful lamentations; nor need we to look far among ourselves for another exception to the rule.-ED. Camoens, on his return to Goa was persecuted by a new Viceroy, and confined for debt. However, some friends offered to become his sureties, and he was permitted to embark. He returned to Lisbon in 1569, sixteen years from the period at which he had quitted Europe. King Sebastian, who had yet scarcely attained the age of manhood, felt interested in the fate of Camoens, and accepted the dedication of his epic poem. The King was about to commence an expedition against the Moors, and he discerned more acutely than another would probably have done, the genius of a poet, who, like himself, could brave every danger for the sake of glory. But one might almost say that the fatality which attended Camoens, brought about the overthrow of his country that he might perish beneath its vast ruins. King Sebastian was killed at the battle of Alcaçar before Morocco, in the year 1578. By his death the * Camoens according to Faria printed his Lusiad in 1572. first book he inscribed the volume, with In the opening of the an elegantly turned compliment, to King Sebastian, then in his eighteenth year. Mr. Mickle, however, upon apparently good grounds, seems to doubt the generosity of the King, and to consider the story of the pension granted to the poet, as related by the French translator, not only untrue but improbable; at all events Correa and others, cotemporary with Camoens, have omitted to dertook the Moorish expedition, he selectnotice it. Besides, when King Sebastian uned a person of paltry and despicable abilities named Diego Bernardes, and took him into Africa for the purpose of witnessing and celebrating his exploits. This does not tally with the discernment ascribed to him by Madame de Stael; had Camoens, indeed, been as highly favored as is represented, and in fact the protegé of the monarch, it is much more likely that he would have chosen him, who describes himself as alternately wielding the pen and the sword.-ED. + His successor Cardinal Henry was one to whose eyes "the cowl of monkhood seemed a more graceful ornament than the noblest laurels of the Muse." (Strangford's Camoens.) Against this contemptible being, Mr. Mickle has expressed himself in terms of strong but honest indignation; and in the edition of Camoens published at Lisbon in 1782, there is an attempt to vindicate his character from the charges brought against it by the ingenious translator of the Lusiad. But it only serves to attach fresh odium to a name already sufficiently despised. The favourite poet of this wretched bigot, and the only one he thought proper to patronize, was Francesco de Sa, a writer, as Sousa informs us of royal family became extinct, and Portugal was deprived of her independance. Then every resource and every hope was lost to Camoens. His poverty was so extreme, that during the night, a slave whom he had brought from India begged in the streets to procure his subsistence. In this state of wretchedness, he wrote several lyric poems, and the most beautiful of these detached pieces are filled with complaints on his misery. What an extraordinary genius must he have possessed who could thus draw fresh inspiration from sufferings calculated to banish all the enchantment of poetry! Finally, the hero of Portuguese literature, the only one whose glory is at once national and European expired in an Hospital, in the year 1579, in the 62nd year of his age. After a lapse of fifteen years a monument was erected to his memory. This short interval separated the most cruel neglect from testimonials of the most lively enthusiasm; but in these fifteen years, death had presented himself as a mediator between the envy and justice of contemporaries. The best edition of his orthodox sonnets to St. John, and pious little epigrams on Adam and Eve, &c. whilst the Bard whose genius gave him an imperious claim to protection, was suffered to languish in sickness and poverty, without the means of obtaining even the commonest necessaries of life. But the flagitious founder of the inquisition at Goa, the vile and malignant enemy of the elegant Buchanan, so far from possessing enthusiastic sympathy for suffering merit could not be supposed to be endued with even those every day feelings of humanity which are expected in the meanest peasant. He was in fine "a good Portuguese" according to the proverbial definition of the term, namely, "a bad Spaniard stripped of all his virtues, and retaining only his vices.-ED. * He was buried in the church of St. Anne of the Franciscans, and an inscription was placed over his tomb by Gonçalo Cautenho, which for comprehensive simplicity has not often been surpassed: HERE LIES LUIS DE CAMOENS: TIME; HE LIVED POOR AND MISERABLE, AND HE DIED SO. MDLXXIX. + In the Coimbra edition of Camoens, published in 1798, and dedicated by permission to his Royal Highness the Prince of Brazils, (now King of Portugal,) many poems occur, not translated either by Lord Strangford or Mickle. We apprehend his lordship used that of Antonio Josephus, published at Lisbon in 1783, a very im works appeared at Lisbon in 1779-80 moens. MEMOIRS OF THE LATE PETER GALE (Continued from page 129.) HE now studied stenography with great eagerness, was excellent company, and ate remarkable dinners. In a few days after his domestication, I procured a pass for Covent Garden, and sent him to the play-an amusement he had never before witnessed. turned quite delighted, and I asked him his opinion of Miss O Neill. Why,' said he, if she always produces the effect which she has done to-night, one may make several very serious calcula He re perfect one, though in general use; those which are considered genuine, cannot be purchased even at Lisbon for less than three pounds British currency. We by no means consider Lord Strangford's translations entitled to praise on the score of fidelity; he has taken the most unpardonable liberties with his author, and it it is perhaps no where more obvious than in the pathetic "Lamentation for past errors," as Camoens calls it; but which is headed differently by his lordship: I saw the virtuous man contend With life's unnumbered woes, &c. is beautiful and correct; there is however, one verse omitted entirely, and the last two are awkwardly blended into one. The verse omitted comes in after the first stanza of Lord Strangford's translation. We should render it thus: I watched his combat with a world We can discover no reason for his leaving out a verse which would not only have been an addition, but an improvement to his elegant translation of one of the most affecting little poems in the whole volume. The talents of Lord Strangford for the task he has undertaken, are unquestionable; but it is probable that the multiplicity of important business in which he must have, necessarily, been engaged, occasiond him to be negligent; in truth, his volume appears to have been composed more for recreation during his few leisure hours than to meet the public eye.-ED. |