oblest part of the AEneid. In the tenth Lusiad, GAMA and his heroes hear
the nymphs in the divine palace of Thetis sing the triumphs of their
countrymen in the conquest of India: after this the goddess shows GAMA a
view of the eastern world, from the Cape of Good Hope to the furthest
islands of Japan. She poetically describes every region, and the
principal islands, and concludes, "All these are given to the western
world by you." It is impossible any poem can be summed up with greater
sublimity. The Fall of Troy is nothing to this. Nor is this all: the
most masterly fiction, finest compliment, and ultimate purpose of the
AEneid is not only nobly imitated, but the conduct of Homer, in
concluding the Iliad, as already observed, is paralleled, without one
circumstance being borrowed. Poetical conduct cannot possibly bear a
stronger resemblance, than the reward of the heroes of the Lusiad, the
prophetic song, and the vision shown to GAMA bear to the games at the
funeral of Patroclus and the redemption of the body of Hector,
considered as the completion of the anger of Achilles, the subject of
the Iliad. Nor is it a greater honour to resemble a Homer and a Virgil,
than it is to be resembled by a Milton. Milton certainly heard of
Fanshaw's translation of the Lusiad, though he might never have seen the
original, for it was published fourteen years before he gave his
Paradise Lost to the world. But, whatever he knew of it, had the last
book of the Lusiad been two thousand years known to the learned, every
one would have owned that the two last boots of the Paradise Lost were
evidently formed upon it. But whether Milton borrowed any hint from
Camoens is of little consequence. That the genius of the great Milton
suggested the conclusion of his immortal poem in the manner and with the
machinery of the Lusiad, is enough. It is enough that the part of
Michael and Adam in the two last books of the Paradise Lost are, in
point of conduct, exactly the same with the part of Thetis and GAMA in
the conclusion of the Lusiad. Yet, this difference must be observed; in
the narrative of his last book, Milton has flagged, as Addison calls it,
and fallen infinitely short of the untired spirit of the Portuguese
poet.

END OF THE NINTH BOOK.

BOOK X.

THE ARGUMENT.

In the opening of this, the last canto, the poet resumes the allegory of
the Isle of Joy, or of Venus: the fair nymphs conduct their lovers to
their radiant palaces, where