h a wider stretch on the
North, and a narrower stretch on the East. So the Portuguese are
"Lusians," "Lusitanians," etc., in poetry. _Cf._ Camoens, _Lusiads_.]

[NOTE 2.--

What Diniz willed
He ever fulfilled

--said the popular rhyme.]

CHAPTER VII.

HENRY'S POSITION AND DESIGNS AT THE TIME OF THE FIRST VOYAGES, 1410-15.

Then from ancient gloom emerged
The rising world of trade: the genius then,
Of Navigation, held in hopeless sloth,
Had slumbered on the vast Atlantic deep
For idle ages, starting, heard at last
The Lusitanian Prince, who, Heaven-inspired,
To love of useful glory roused mankind,
And in unbounded commerce mixed the world.

THOMSON, _Seasons, Summer, 1005-1012_.

The third son of John the Great and of Philippa was the Infant Henry,
Duke of Viseu, Master of the Order of Christ, Governor of the Algarves,
born March 4, 1394, who might have travelled from Court to Court like
his brother Pedro, but who refused all offers from England, Italy, and
Germany, and chose the life of a student and a seaman,--retiring more
and more from the known world that he might open up the unknown.

After the capture of Ceuta, in 1415, he planted himself in his Naval
Arsenal at Sagres, close to Lagos town and Cape St. Vincent, and for
more than forty years, till his death in 1460, he kept his mind upon the
ocean that stretched out from that rocky headland to the unknown West
and South. Twice only for any length of time did he come back into
political life; for the rest, though respected as the referee of
national disputes and the leader and teacher of the people, his time was
mainly spent in thinking out his plans of discovery--drawing his maps,
adjusting his instruments, sending out his ships, receiving the reports
of his captains. His aims were three: to discover, to add to the
greatness and wealth of Portugal, and to spread the Christian Faith.

(1.) First of all, he was trying to find a way round Africa to India for
the sake of the new knowledge itself and for the power which that
knowledge would give. As his mind was above all things interested in the
scientific question, it was this side which was foremost in his plans.
He was really trying to find out the shape of the world, and to make men
feel more at home in it, that the dread of the great unknown round the
little island of civilised and habitable world might be lightened. He
was working in the mist that s