No More Learning

These, and the whole scenes in the domains of Armida and Acrasia, are in
a turn of manner the reverse of the island of Venus. In these the
expression and idea are meretricious. In Camoens, though the colouring
is even warmer, yet the modesty of the Venus de Medicis is still
preserved. In everything he describes there is still something strongly
similar to the modest attitude of the arms of that celebrated statue.
Though prudery, that usual mask of the impurest minds, may condemn him,
yet those of the most chaste, though less gloomy turn, will allow, that
in comparison with others, he might say,--_Virginibus puerisque canto_.

Spenser also, where he does not follow Tasso, is often gross; and even
in some instances, where the expression is most delicate, the picture is
nevertheless indecently lascivious.

[585] _The hunter. _--Acteon.

[586] _Madd'ning as he said. _--At the end of his Homer Mr. Pope has
given an index of the instances of imitative and sentimental harmony
contained in his translations. He has also often even in his notes
pointed out the adaptation of sound to sense. The translator of the
Lusiad hopes he may for once say, that he has not been inattentive to
this great essential of good versification: how he has succeeded the
judicious only must determine. The speech of Leonard to the cursory
reader may perhaps sometimes appear careless, and sometimes turgid and
stiff. That speech, however, is an attempt at the imitative and
sentimental harmony, and with the judicious he rests its fate.
As the
translation in this instance exceeds the original in length, the
objection of a foreign critic requires attention. An old pursy Abbe,
(and critics are apt to judge by themselves) may indeed be surprised
that a man out of breath with running should be able to talk so long.
But, had he consulted the experiences of others, he would have found it
was no wonderful matter for a stout and young cavalier to talk twice as
much, though fatigued with the chase of a couple of miles, provided the
supposition be allowed, that he treads on the last steps of his flying
mistress.

[587] _Hence, ye profane. _--We have already observed, that in every
other poet the love scenes are generally described as those of guilt and
remorse. The contrary character of those of Camoens not only gives them
a delicacy unknown to other moderns, but, by the fiction of the spousal
rites, the allegory and machinery of the poem are most happily
conducted.

[588] _Spread o'er the eastern world the dread alarms. _--This admonition
places the whole design of the poem before us. To extirpate
Mohammedanism, and propagate Christianity, were professed as the
principal purpose of the discoveries of Prince Henry and King Emmanuel.
In the beginning of the seventh Lusiad, the nations of Europe are
upbraided for permitting the Saracens to erect and possess an empire,
which alike threatened Europe and Christianity. The Portuguese, however,
the patriot poet concludes, will themselves overthrow their enormous
power: an event which is the proposed subject of the Lusiad, and which
is represented as, in effect, completed in the last book. On this
system, adopted by the poet, and which on every occasion was avowed by
their kings, the Portuguese made immense conquests in the East. Yet, let
it be remembered, to the honour of GAMA, and the first commanders who
followed his route, that the plots of the Moors, and their various
breaches of treaty, gave rise to the first wars which the Portuguese
waged in Asia. On finding that all the colonies of the Moors were
combined for their destruction, the Portuguese declared war against the
eastern Moors, and their allies, wherever they found them. The course of
human things, however, soon took place, and the sword of victory and
power soon became the sword of tyranny and rapine.

[589] _Far o'er the silver lake of Mexic.