h voured by Jupiter, and furthered by the assistance of Venus, is represented to be the propagation of the Gospel. Gama, and his followers, are true and pious Christians: at the commencement of the voyage they are described as addressing their prayers to the Almighty, imploring his assistance in their undertaking, and joining in the rites and ceremonies of the Christian worship. Amid their distress in the dreadful tempest off Melinda, Gama again addresses the Supreme Being, seeking his aid who led his chosen race in safety through the Red Sea, and preserved his servant Paul from shipwreck.' It is to be observed, that in answer to these supplications Venus almost immediately appears. Even the personages of the heathen agency are at times made to refer to the characters and customs of both the Christian and Mahometan worship. Jupiter and Bacchus often mention the Mahometans, their prophet, and their Koran:' and Thetis the k * See particularly Camoens' Apostrophe to the Europeans. Cant. VII. est. 14 & 15. and Cant. X. est. 119. h Cant. IV. est. 86 & 87. i Cant. VI. est. 81 & 82. k Cant. VI. est. 85. Jupiter, in his speech to Venus, Canto II, alludes to the sub jection of "the stern-browed Turk." OS TURCOS bellacissimos, e duros. goddess of the sea, in describing the country of the east to Gama, introduces the adven And again, Do MOURO alli veraò, que á luz extrema Est. 50. There shall the Moors, blaspheming, sink in death, MICKLE. We even find Bacchus assuming the appearance of a Christian priest, in order to deceive the Lusians. Mas àquelle que sempre, &c. Estava em huma casa da Cidade Com rosto humano, e hábito fingido, Alli tinha em retrato affigurada Como os que, só das linguas que cahíram De fogo, varias linguas referiram. But he, whose, &c. Cant. II. est 10 & 11. Now in the town his guileful rage employed, A Christian priest he seemed; a sumptuous shrine He rear'd, and tended with the rites divine; tures and death of St. Thomas, in his mission among its natives." She particularizes the preaching of the Gospel, and the fixing of the cross in India." It is not to be supposed that faults so conspicuous should have escaped condemnation. They have in fact experienced all the severity of criticism, and seem, until lately, when they found an advocate in the ingenious and elegant Mr. Mickle, to have sunk under the weight of universal censure. As the popularity of this apologist has thrown a temporary veil over these irregularities, and as the inquiry may lead to an elucidation of the general maxims laid down on this subject, it may not be considered remote from our purpose to examine his defence: though I think he has exhibited less judgment in the grounds he has chosen to extenuate his authour's errours, than he has displayed taste in bringing to light his various beauties. The substance of his defence of Camoens' The dove-like pictured wings so pure, so white, The tongues of hallowed fire. in Cant. X. est. 108. & 5-119. n See Cant. X. est. 119. & est. 140. MICKLE. pagan machinery may be reduced to the three following heads:-That it is allegorical; that the introduction of pagan deities has been general; and that some of the supernatural characters in "The Lusiad" were believed to exist by the popular credulity of the sixteenth century. In his endeavours to maintain the first point, and prove the allegorical significance of the several characters in the machinery, the apologist seems to have laboured with little effect. The latent meaning into which he wishes to explain away some of these agents, even were it admitted, would not substanstiate his assertion of their being allegorical. Thus, when he describes the Jupiter of "The Lusiads," as "The Lord of Fate ;" when he makes Bacchus "the evil dæmon or genius of Mohammedism, who was worshipped in the east," and Mercury "the messenger of heaven," he still retains to these beings a personal existence, and converts their nature merely by endowing them with characters and attributes equally as substantial as those for which he has exchanged them. Those fictions only can be called allegorical which comprehend under their open and typified meaning, things essen tially different in their nature; as for instance, when they represent abstract ideas by actual agents. Thus the actions of Talus, in the 66 Fairy Queen," are figurative of the general idea of Justice; in like manner the departure of the people of Israel from Egypt, the subsequent protection granted them by the Deity, and his final desertion of them, is shadowed under the image of a vine, and the description forms a perfect allegory. But this is not the case where one deity is substituted for another. Allegory, as far at least as it is employed in poetical purposes, only aims at giving an apparent existence to what possesses no existence in reality; but does not extend to the implied representation of one being by another, whose existence is on the same footing, in respect to its certainty. In this view, therefore, the censure that has fallen on these supernatural agents in "The Lusiads" has not been removed by the explanation of the apologist: were his attempt established, he would only do away the imputation of the poet's having introduced such agents as were contradictory to the opinions of his age, by converting them into existences equally actual, and equally unaccredited by the same belief. |