No More Learning

[133] "That is Divine love, which always accompanies religion. Behold
how our author insinuates the excellence of his moral! "--CASTERA.

As the French translator has acknowledged, there is no doubt but several
readers will be apt to decry this allegorical interpretation of the
machinery of Camoens. Indeed there is nothing more easy than to discover
a system of allegory in the simplest narrative. The reign of Henry VIII.
is as susceptible of it as any fable in the heathen mythology. Nay,
perhaps, more so. Under the names of Henry, More, Wolsey, Cromwell,
Pole, Cranmer, etc. , all the war of the passions, with their different
catastrophes, might be delineated. Though it may be difficult to
determine how far, yet one may venture to affirm that Homer and Virgil
sometimes allegorised. The poets, however, who wrote on the revival of
letters have left us in no doubt; we have their own authority for it
that their machinery is allegorical. Not only the pagan deities, but the
more modern adventures of enchantment were used by them to delineate the
affections, and the trials and rewards of the virtues and vices. Tasso
published a treatise to prove that his _Gerusalemme Liberata_ is no
other than the Christian spiritual warfare. And Camoens, as observed in
the preface, has twice asserted that his machinery is allegorical.
The
poet's assertion, and the taste of the age in which he wrote,
sufficiently vindicate and explain the allegory of the Lusiad.

[134] The following speech of Venus and the reply of Jupiter, are a fine
imitation from the first AEneid, and do great honour to the classical
taste of the Portuguese poet.

[135] Imitated from Virg. AEn. i. --

_Olli subridens hominum sator atque Deorum,
Vultu, quo coelum tempestatesque serenat,
Oscula libavit natae_----


[136] Ulysses, king of Ithaka. --_Ed. _

[137] _i. e. _, the slave of Calypso, who offered Ulysses immortality on
condition that he would live with her.

[138] AEneas. --_Ed. _

[139]

"Far on the right her dogs foul Scylla hides,
Charybdis roaring on the left presides,
And in her greedy whirlpool sucks the tides. "

DRYDEN'S Virg. AEn. iii.