Note 10 — INTRODUCTION.

The subject of this poem is the establishment of the Portuguese empire in India; but whatever of chivalrous, great, beautiful, or noble, could be gathered from the traditions of his country, has been interwoven into the story. Among all the heroic poets, says Schlegel, either of ancient or modern times, there has never, since Homer, been any one so intensely national, or so loved or honoured by his countrymen, as Camoens. It seems as if the national feelings of the Portuguese had centred and reposed themselves in the person of this poet, whom they consider as worthy to supply the place of a whole host of poets, and as being in himself a complete literature to his country. Of Camoens they say,

Few modern poems in any language, have been so frequently translated as the ‘Lusiad.’ Mr. Adamson, whose ‘Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Camoens’ must be familiar to the reader, notices one Hebrew translation of it, five Latin, six Spanish, four Italian, three French, four German, and two English. Of the two English versions one is that of Sir R. Fanshawe, written during Cromwell’s usurpation, and distinguished for its fidelity to the original; the other is that of Mickle, who, unlike the former, took great liberties with the original, but whose additions and alterations have met with great approbation from all critics—except, as indeed was to be expected, from the Portuguese themselves.—Dr. Cauvin.—In the course of the present year (1854) another English version, from the pen of Sir Thomas Mitchell, Surveyor-General of New South Wales, and formerly on the staff in the Peninsula, has been issued by Messrs. Boone, of Bond-street, in one volume, with an engraving, said to be an excellent likeness, of the poet.