They must have shot or mash'd each other's brains Out-But that Milton's airy soldiers had none.

His martial men with fierce harangues he fir'd,
And his own ardour in their souls inspir❜d.
This done to give new terror to his foes,
The heads of Nisus and his friend he shows,
Rais'd high on pointed spears-a ghastly sight!
Loud peals of shouts ensue, and barbarous delight.
Meantime the Trojans run, where danger calls :
They line their trenches, and they man their walls.
In front extended to the left they stood:
Safe was the right, surrounded by the flood.
But, casting from their tow'rs a frightful view,
They saw the faces, which too well they knew,
Though then disguis❜d in death and smear'd all o'er
With filth obscene, and dropping putrid gore.
Soon hasty fame through the sad city bears
The mournful message to the mother's ears.
An icy cold benumbs her limbs: she shakes:
Her cheeks the blood, her hand the web forsakes.
She runs the rampires round amidst the war,
Nor fears the flying darts: she rends her hair,
And fills with loud laments the liquid air.
"Thus, then, my lov'd Euryalus appears!
Thus looks the prop of my declining years!
Was 't on this face my famish'd eyes I fed ?
Ah! how unlike the living is the dead!
And could'st thou leave me, cruel, thus alone!
Not one kind kiss from a departing son!
No look, no last adieu, before he went,
In an ill-boding hour to slaughter sent !
Cold on the ground, and pressing foreign clay,
To Latian dogs and fowls he lies a prey!
Nor was I near to close his dying eyes,
To wash his wounds, to weep his obsequies,
To call about his corpse his crying friends,
Or spread the mantle (made for other ends)
On his dear body, which I wove with care,
Nor did my daily pains nor nightly labour spare.

Whose deeds with such enchanting strains he sung, That had his music at their battles rung;

Michael's uplifted stroke might yet have hung,

Where shall I find his corpse? what earth sustains
His trunk dismember'd and his cold remains ?

For this, alas! I left my needful ease,
Expos'd my life to winds, and winter seas!
If any pity touch Rutulian hearts,

Here empty all your quivers, all your darts:
Or, if they fail, thou, Jove, conclude my wo,
And send me thunder-struck to shades below!"

Her shrieks and clamours pierce the Trojans' ears,
Unman their courage, and augment their fears:
Nor young Ascanius could the sight sustain,
Nor old Ilioneus his tears restrain,

But Actor and Idæus jointly sent,

To bear the madding mother to her tent.

And now the trumpets terribly, from far,

With rattling clangour, rouse the sleepy war,
The soldiers' shouts succeed the brazen sounds;
And heav'n, from pole to pole, the noise rebounds.
The Volscians bear their shields upon
their head,
And, rushing forward, form a moving shed.

[11] "Gama, the great and brave," &c.-See page 39.

Says Mr. Mickle, translator of the Luciad, (from which the reader is entertained with some extracts in the present, and more in the subsequent Notes)" If a concatenation of events, centered in one great action events which gave birth to the present commercial system of the world—This, of all other poems, challenges the attention of the philosopher, the politician, and the gentleman."

In contradistinction to the Iliad and Æneid, the Paradise Lost has been called the Epic Poem of Religion. In the same manner, may the Luciad be called the Epic Poem of Commerce. Gama the hero discovered the Eastern, as did Columbus the Western world.

And soothing rage an armistice have brought on;
Nor belching engines, nor uptorn hills thought on.

Description of the Isle of Love-Sacred to Venus, Flora, and Pomona-where Gama and his companions were entertained, on their returning from the Indies to their native shore,

"As when a traveller bates at noon-tho' bent
On speed."

Give way ye lofty billows, low subside,
Smooth as the level plain your swelling pride;
Lo, Venus comes! Oh, soft ye surges sleep,
Smooth be the bosom of the azure deep.
Lo! Venus comes, and in her virgin train,
She brings the healing balm of love-sick pain;
White as her swans, and stately, as they rear
Their snowy crest, when o'er the lake they steer.
Slow moving on, behold the fleet appears,
And o'er the distant billow onward steers,
The beauteous Nereids, flush'd in all their charms,
While Venus fills the heart with soft alarms.
Right to the Isle she led the willing train,
And all her arts her balmy lips explain;
The fearful langour of the asking eye,
The lovely blush of yielding modesty ;
The grieving look, the sigh, the favouring smile;
And all the endearments of the open will;

She taught the Nymph-in willing breast that heav'd,
To hear her love, her love her Nymphs receiv'd.
As now triumphant to their native shore,
Thro' the wide deep the joyful navy bore ;
Earnest the pilot's eye sought cape or bay,
For long was yet the various wat’ry way;

Sought cape or isle, from whence their boat might bring
The healthful bounty of the crystal spring.
When sudden all in native pride array'd,
The Isle of Love its glowing breast display'd,
O'er the green bosom of the dewy lawn,
Soft blazing flow'd the silver of the dawn;

Before man's foot hereon could claim a standing, There had a combat round this grain of sand been ;

The gentle waves the glowing lustre share,
Arabia's balm was sprinkled o'er the air.
Before the fleet, to catch the hero's view,
The floating isle fair Eidata drew;

Soon as the floating verdure caught their sight,
She fix'd unmov'd the island of delight.
So when in child-birth of her Jove-sprung load,
The Sylvan goddess and the bower god,
In friendly pity of Latona's woes,
Amid the waves the Delian Island rose.
And now led smoothly o'er the furrow'd tide,
Right to the Isle of Joy the vessels glide:
The bay they enter, where on every hand,
Around them clasps the flower-enamell❜d land.
A safe retreat, where not a blast may shake
Its fluttering pinions o'er the stilly lake;
With purple shells transfus'd as marble veins,
The yellow sands celestial Venus stains.
With graceful pride three hills of softest green,
Rear their fair bosoms o'er the sylvan scene;
Their sides embroider'd, boast the rich array
Of flow'ry shrubs, in all the pride of May.
The purple lotus and the showy thorn,
And yellow pod-flower every slope adorn,
From the green summits of the leafy hills,
Descend with murmuring leaps three limpid rills.
Beneath the rose-trees loitering slow they glide,
Now tumbles o'er some rock their crystal pride;
Sonorous now they roll adown the glade,
Now plaintive tinkle in the secret shade;
Now from the darkling grove beneath the beam
Of ruddy morn, like melted silver stream,
Edging the painted margins of the bowers,
And breathing liquid freshness on the flowers.
Here bright reflected in the pool below,
The vermil apples tremble on the bough;
Where o'er the yellow sands the waters sleep,
The primrose banks, inverted dew-drops weep.

It was a tough-tug-when no less than gods,
And earth-born giants having fell at odds,[14]

Where murmuring o'er the pebbles purls the stream, The silver trouts in playful curvings gleam. Long thus and varying every riv❜let strays, Till closing now their long meandering ways; Where in a smiling vale the mountains end, Form'd in a crystal stream the waters blend. Fring'd was the border with a wood-land shade, In every leaf of various green array'd; Each yellow ting'd, each yellow tint between, The dark ash verdure and the silvery green. The trees now bending forward, slowly shake Their lofty honours o'er the crystal lake; Now from the flood the graceful boughs retire, With coy reserve, and now again admire Their various liveries by the summer dress'd, Smooth, gloss'd, and soften'd in the mirror's breast; So by her glass the wishful virgin stays, And oft retiring, steals the lingering gaze. "A thousand boughs aloft to heaven display Their fragrant apples, shining to the day; The orange here perfumes the buxom air, And boasts the golden hue of Daphne's hair. Near to the ground each spreading bough descends, Beneath her yellow load the citron bends; The fragrant lemon scents the cooly grove, Fair as when ripening for the days of love. The virgin's breast the gentle swell avow, So the twin fruitage swell on every bough; Wild forest trees the mountain's sides array'd, With curling foliage and romantic shade. Here spreads the poplar, to Alcides dear, And dear to Phoebus, ever verdant, here The laurel joins the bowers for ever green, The myrtle bow'rs belov'd by beauty's Queen. To Jove the oak his wide-spread branches rears, And nigh to heaven the high-bred cedar bears; Where thro' the glade appears the cavern'd rocks, The lofty pine-tree waves her sable locks :