oriens famam,
Caieta, dedisti._ VIRG. AEn. vii.

[230] _i.e._ Tangiers, opposite to Gibraltar.--_Ed._

[231] This should be _Emir el Moumeneen_, _i.e._, Commander of the
Faithful.--_Ed._

[232] The Mondego is the largest river having its rise within the
kingdom of Portugal and entering no other state.--_Ed._

[233] _Miramolin._--Not the name of a person, but a title, _quasi
Sultan_; _the Emperor of the Faithful_.

[234] In this poetical exclamation, expressive of the sorrow of Portugal
on the death of Alonzo, Camoens has happily imitated some passages of
Virgil.

----_Ipsae te, Tityre, pinus,
Ipsi te fontes, ipsa haec arbusta vocabant._

ECL. i.

----_Eurydicen vox ipsa et frigida lingua,
Ah miseram Eurydicen, anima fugiente, vocabat:
Eurydicen toto referebant flumine ripae._

GEORG. iv.

----_littus, Hyla, Hyla, omne sonaret._

ECL. vi.

[235] The Guadalquiver, the largest river in Spain.--_Ed._

[236] The Portuguese, in their wars with the Moors, were several times
assisted by the English and German crusaders. In the present instance
the fleet was mostly English, the troops of which nation were, according
to agreement, rewarded with the plunder, which was exceeding rich, of
the city of Silves. _Nuniz de Leon as cronicas dos Reis de Port_, A.D.
1189.--_Ed._

[237] Barbarossa, A.D. 1189.--_Ed._

[238] _Unlike the Syrian_ (rather _Assyrian_).--Sardanapalus.

[239] _When Rome's proud tyrant far'd._--Heliogabalus, infamous for his
gluttony.

[240] Alluding to the history of Phalaris.

[241] Camoens, who was quite an enthusiast for the honour of his
country, has in this instance disguised the truth of history. Don Sancho
was by no means the weak prince here represented, nor did the miseries
of his reign proceed from himself. The clergy were the sole authors of
his, and the public, calamities. The Roman See was then in the height of
its power, which it exerted in the most tyrannical manner. The
ecclesiastical courts had long claimed the sole right to try an
ecclesiastic: and, to prohibit a priest to say mass for a twelve-month,
was by the brethren, his judges, esteemed a sufficient punishment for
murder, or any other capital crime. Alonzo II., the father of Don
Sancho, attempted to establish the authority of the king's courts of
justice over the offending clergy. For this the Archbishop of Braga
excommunicated Gonzalo Mendez, the chancellor; and Honorius