Camoens had not long enjoyed repose when a new viceroy, lending a ready ear to his enemies, who accused him of malversation in his office at Macao, threw him into prison. Although he cleared himself of the charges, and loaded his enemies with ignominy, he was still detained for debts which he was unable to satisfy ; but a poem, at once witty and affecting, which he addressed to the viceroy at length procured his liberation. Resuming the profession of arms, he accom panied Dom Pedro Barreto to the distant and barbarous settlement of Sofala. A ship bound homeward having touched at this place, his former resolution was ahaken, and he determined to return to Europe. Finally, after an absence of nearly sixteen years, Camoens arrived is 1569 at Lisbon, in the most abject poverty, his poems being the only treasure and last hope which he had brought from the rich shores of India. More ill.fated still at the end of his career, he found his native city ravaged by the plague, and during such a calamity poetry could avail him less than ever. King Dom Sebastian was then concerting the plan of his unfortunate expedition to Marocco, and this induced Camoens to dedicate his poem to the youthful monarch. Although the dedication was graciously received, it was only rewarded with a stretched pension, just sufficient to mark but not to relieve the misery of its author.
It appears that Cardinal Henry, who succeeded Sebastian, withdrew that small pension. He patronised only what was called learning by the monks and friars, whose pious forgeries and miracles be highly valued. Cardinal Henry was the persecutor of George Buchanan, and the patron of the inquisition, of which he extended the horrors even to Goa. Under his weak and bigotted hands the kingdom fell into utter ruin.
The fate of Camoens throws great light on the history of his country, and appears strictly connected with it. The same ignorance and the same degenerate spirit which would have suffered Camoens to starve, but for the sympathy of an aged Indian servant—who begged for him in the streets of Lisbou—and which left him at last to die most wretchedly in an hospital, sank Portugal into the most abject vassalage ever experienced by a conquered nation. While the grandees of Portugal were blind to the rein which impended over them, Camoens beheld it with a pungency of grief which appears to have hastened his end, In 1579, the year after the fatal issue of the African expedition under Kiug Sebastian, at the battle of Alcagar.
Camoens attempted every style of poetic composition of which he had formed a definite idea, but the Lusiad ' rises so far above his other works, that all his numerous but leaser compositions must be considered as inferior scions sprung from the same root. The Lusiad' is an heroic poem which differs from all others of the epic class. Camoens struck out a new path in the region of epic poetry.
His object was to recount in epic strains the achievements of the great men of Portugal in general, not of any individual in particular, and, consequently, not of Vasco de Gama alone, who is commonly considered the hero of the Lusiad.' The very title he gave it, Oa Luaiada.s ' (the Luaitanians), denotes at once the true nature of its subject. An epio grouping of all the great and most interesting events in the Portuguese annals forms the whole plan, and the discovery of the passage to India is the groundwork of the epic unity of the poem, but Vasco de Game is merely the spindle round which the thread of the narrative is wound. The Lusiad ' has no real episode except the short story of the giant Adamastor. Unless the idea of the plau of the Lusiad ' be rightly seized, the composition will appear in a false light on whichever side it is viewed. Designated as a whole, it may therefore be termed an epic) national picture of Portuguese glory, greater however than a mere gallery of poetic stories, but lees than perfect spits. The malty of interest Bud effect, and consequently of the poems, raw solely on the execution of the plan, out of which only a pore leke Gammas could hare created a 'Lusher lIss Wont In picturesque comparison was formed on the model of ARMS° mom than that of Mow. Ills description of Vanua, who was more isterardes with Jupiter, resembles Ariosto'a description of Aldan The fret idea of his bland of leave seems borrowed from the saw writer. There I. however little room to doubt that Two, when be trod in .Aricenie footsteps in order to describe the abode of Amid& amll.d himself of the description of Caznoens (the' was first primed In 1572, the 'Jerusalem Delivered did not appear till 15e0), as afterwards the garden of Armida furnished Spenser with Us • Bower of Illisa! C1011/0•11111 has kft, besides the 'Loafed; specimens of no common merit la seer. style of poetry written in Portugal in his time; 801 of Ids sonnets which bars been preserved, exhibit his prolific fancy, and soma of them all the tenderness and grace of Pc:rarch. Ills seventeen • G.sscdsn' (wigs) prove still more particularly how deeply he was penetrated with the spirit of Tetrarch's poetry. The twelve odes which fellow approximate more nearly to the deistical style, and the Ent, addremed to the moon, begins in the pure ode style. and is par ticularly dietiaguithed for its beauty. In his 'Sextinaa Camoens has not tolled in rendering their artificial ornaments pleasing. Bat his twenty-one elegies are more worthy of attention ; they are in general the lamest poems of the collection met to the ' Lusby' • and the