Note 503 — BOOK VIII.
William Julius Mickle translation
On Europe's strand, more grateful to the skies, He bade th' eternal walls of Lisbon rise.—
For some account of this tradition, see the note on Lusiad, bk. iii. p. 76. Ancient traditions, however fabulous, have a good effect in poetry. Virgil has not scrupled to insert one, which required an apology:—
Prisca fides facto, sed fama perennis.
Spenser has given us the history of Brute and his descendants at full length in the Faerie Queene; and Milton, it is known, was so fond of that absurd legend, that he intended to write a poem on the subject; and by this fondness was induced to mention it as a truth in the introduction to his History of England.