Note 137 — CHAP. II. HISTORY OF PORTUGUESE POETRY AND ELOQUENCE FROM THE EPOCH OF THE INTRODUCTION OF THE ITALIAN STYLE, TILL TOWARDS THE END OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. (continued 2)

Even the apology for Camoens which precedes Mickle’s version of the Lusiad, defeats itself, for the English translator makes the Homeric epic his standard, and in order to justify the Lusiad misconstrues the machinery of the Iliad. The remarks on the Lusiad by Voltaire, in his Discours sur le poème épique are beneath criticism; and the judgment pronounced on this poem by Von Junk in the introduction to his Portuguese grammar, evinces a total want of poetic taste. No one should attempt a translation of the Lusiad, who does not possess an intimate acquaintance with the Portuguese language and poetry, for it is otherwise impossible to seize the spirit of Camoens. The English translation by Mickle is hitherto the only one in which it can be said that at least the elegant dignity of Camoens’s style is represented.