No More Learning

On every bough the birdis herd I syng
With voice of angell, in ther harmonie
That busied 'hem, ther birdis forthe to bryng,
And little pretie conies to ther plaie gan hie;
And furthir all about I gan espie
The dredful roe, the buck, the hart and hind,
Squirils, and bestis smal of gentle kind.
Of instrumentes of stringis, in accorde
Herd I so plaie a ravishyng swetnesse,
That God, that makir is of all and Lorde,
Ne herd nevir a better, as I gesse,
There with a winde, unneth it might be lesse,
Made in the levis grene a noise soft
Accordant to the foulis song en loft.

The aire of the place so attempre was,
That ner was there grevaunce of hot ne cold--

* * *

Under a tre beside a well I seye
Cupid our lorde his arrowes forge and file,
And at his fete his bowe all redie laye,
And well his doughtir temprid all the while
The heddis in the well, and with her wile
She couchid 'hem aftir as thei should serve,
Some for to flea, and some to wound and carve.

* * *

And upon pillirs grete of Jaspir long
I saw a temple of Brasse ifoundid strong.

And about the temple dauncid alwaie
Women inow, of which some there ywere
Faire of 'hemself, and some of 'hem were gaie,
In kirtils all disheveled went thei there,
That was ther office or from yere to yere,
And on the temple sawe I white and faire
Of dovis sittyng many a thousande paire. "

Here we have Cupid forging his arrows, the woodland, the streams, the
music of instruments and birds, the frolics of deer and other animals;
and _women enow_. In a word, the island of Venus is here sketched out,
yet Chaucer was never translated into Latin or any language of the
continent, nor did Camoens understand a line of English. The subject was
common, and the same poetical feelings in Chaucer and Camoens pointed
out to each what were the beauties of landscapes and of bowers devoted
to pleasure.

Yet, though the fiction of bowers, of islands, and palaces, was no
novelty in poetry, much, however, remains to be attributed to the
poetical powers and invention of Camoens. The island of Venus contains,
of all others, by much the completest gradation, and fullest assemblage
of that species of luxuriant painting. Nothing in the older writers is
equal to it in fulness. Nor can the island of Armida, in Tasso, be
compared to it, in poetical embroidery or passionate expression; though
Tasso as undoubtedly built upon the model of Camoens, as Spenser
appropriated the imagery of Tasso when he described the bower of
Acrasia, part of which he has literally translated from the Italian
poet. The beautiful fictions of Armida and Acrasia, however, are much
too long to be here inserted, and they are well known to every reader of
taste.

But the chief praise of our poet is yet unmentioned. The introduction of
so beautiful a fiction as an essential part of the conduct and machinery
of an epic poem, does the greatest honour to the invention of Camoens.
The machinery of the former part of the poem not only acquires dignity,
but is completed by it. And the conduct of Homer and Virgil has, in
this, not only received a fine imitation, but a masterly contrast. In
the finest allegory the heroes of the Lusiad receive their reward: and,
by means of this allegory, our poet gives a noble imitation of the
noblest part of the AEneid. In the tenth Lusiad, GAMA and his heroes hear
the nymphs in the divine palace of Thetis sing the triumphs of their
countrymen in the conquest of India: after this the goddess shows GAMA a
view of the eastern world, from the Cape of Good Hope to the furthest
islands of Japan. She poetically describes every region, and the
principal islands, and concludes, "All these are given to the western
world by you. " It is impossible any poem can be summed up with greater
sublimity. The Fall of Troy is nothing to this. Nor is this all: the
most masterly fiction, finest compliment, and ultimate purpose of the
AEneid is not only nobly imitated, but the conduct of Homer, in
concluding the Iliad, as already observed, is paralleled, without one
circumstance being borrowed. Poetical conduct cannot possibly bear a
stronger resemblance, than the reward of the heroes of the Lusiad, the
prophetic song, and the vision shown to GAMA bear to the games at the
funeral of Patroclus and the redemption of the body of Hector,
considered as the completion of the anger of Achilles, the subject of
the Iliad. Nor is it a greater honour to resemble a Homer and a Virgil,
than it is to be resembled by a Milton. Milton certainly heard of
Fanshaw's translation of the Lusiad, though he might never have seen the
original, for it was published fourteen years before he gave his
Paradise Lost to the world. But, whatever he knew of it, had the last
book of the Lusiad been two thousand years known to the learned, every
one would have owned that the two last boots of the Paradise Lost were
evidently formed upon it. But whether Milton borrowed any hint from
Camoens is of little consequence. That the genius of the great Milton
suggested the conclusion of his immortal poem in the manner and with the
machinery of the Lusiad, is enough. It is enough that the part of
Michael and Adam in the two last books of the Paradise Lost are, in
point of conduct, exactly the same with the part of Thetis and GAMA in
the conclusion of the Lusiad. Yet, this difference must be observed; in
the narrative of his last book, Milton has flagged, as Addison calls it,
and fallen infinitely short of the untired spirit of the Portuguese
poet.