Note 131 — CABINET OF BIOGRAPHY. (continued 7)
Reading edition
It is curious to compare the smooth, even, and (so to speak) unindividualized verses of Mickle with the rugged and even uncouth stanza of Fanshaw. Both are unlike Camoens. He wrote with fire, and each word bore stamp of the man; but his style is elevated and truly poetic—different from the Pope—like flow of Mickle, and the almost vulgar idiom that Fanshaw too often adopts. This is the stanza in the original Portuguese:
Fez primeiro em Coimbra exercitarse O valeroso officio de Minerva; E de Helicona as Musas fez passar se, A pizar de Mondego a fertil herva. Quanto pode de Athenas desejarse Tudo o soberbo Apollo aqui reserva: Aqui as capellas dá tecidas de ouro, Do baccharo, e do sempre verde louro. Canto III. 97.
"He was the first that made Coimbra shine With liberal sciences, which Pallas taught; By him from Helicon the Muses nine, To bruise Mondego's grassy brink were brought: Hither transferr'd Apollo that rich mine, Which the old Greeks in learned Athens wrought: There ivy wreaths with gold he interweaves, And the coy Daphne's never fading leaves." Fanshaw's Translation.