No More Learning

Soon after the appearance of the Lusiad, the language of Spain was also
enriched with an heroic poem, the author of which has often imitated the
Portuguese poet, particularly in the fiction of the globe of the world,
which is shown to GAMA. In the _Araucana_, a globe, surrounded with a
radiant sphere, is also miraculously supported in the air; and on this
an enchanter shows to the Spaniards the extent of their dominions in the
new world. But Don Alonzo d'Arcilla is in this, as in every other part
of his poem, greatly inferior to the poetical spirit of Camoens. Milton,
whose poetical conduct in concluding the action of his Paradise Lost, as
already pointed out, seems formed upon the Lusiad, appears to have had
this passage particularly in his eye. For, though the machinery of a
visionary sphere was rather improper for the situation of his
personages, he has, nevertheless, though at the expense of an impossible
supposition, given Adam a view of the terrestrial globe. Michael sets
the father of mankind on a mountain--

"From whose top
The hemisphere of earth in clearest ken
Stretch'd out to th' amplest reach of prospect lay. . . .
His eye might there command wherever stood
City of old or modern fame, the seat
Of mightiest empire, from the destin'd walls
Of Cambalu . . .
On Europe thence and where Rome was to sway
The world. "

And even the mention of America seems copied by Milton:--

"In spirit perhaps he also saw
Rich Mexico, the seat of Montezume,
And Cusco in Peru, the richer seat
Of Atabalipa, and yet unspoil'd
Guiana, whose great city Geryon's sons
Call El Dorado. "

It must also be owned by the warmest admirer of the Paradise Lost, that
the description of America in Camoens--

"Vedes a grande terra, que contina
Vai de Calisto ao sen contrario polo--

To farthest north that world enormous bends,
And cold beneath the southern pole-star ends,"

conveys a bolder and a grander idea than all the names enumerated by
Milton.
Some short account of the writers whose authorities have been adduced in
the course of these notes may not now be improper. Fernando Lopez de
Castagneda went to India on purpose to do honour to his countrymen, by
enabling himself to record their actions and conquests in the East. As
he was one of the first writers on that subject, his geography is often
imperfect. This defect is remedied in the writings of John de Barros,
who was particularly attentive to this head. But the two most eminent,
as well as fullest, writers on the transaction of the Portuguese in the
East, are Manuel de Faria y Sousa, knight of the Order of Christ, and
Hieronimus Osorius, bishop of Sylves. Faria, who wrote in Spanish, was a
laborious inquirer, and is very full and circumstantial. With honest
indignation he rebukes the rapine of commanders and the errors and
unworthy resentments of kings. But he is often so drily particular, that
he may rather be called a journalist than an historian. And by this
uninteresting minuteness, his style, for the greatest part, is rendered
inelegant. The Bishop of Sylves, however, claims a different character.
His Latin is elegant, and his manly and sentimental manner entitles him
to the name of historian, even where a Livy or a Tacitus are mentioned.
But a sentence from himself, unexpected in a father of the communion of
Rome, will characterize the liberality of his mind. Talking of the edict
of King Emmanuel, which compelled the Jews to embrace Christianity under
severe persecution: "Nec ex lege, nec ex religione factum . . . tibi
assumas," says he, "ut libertatem voluntatis impedias, et vincula
mentibus effrenatis injicias?