On Europe's strand, more grateful to the skies,
He bade th' eternal walls of Lisbon rise.—
For some account of this tradition, see the note on Lusiad, bk. iii. p. 76. Ancient traditions, however fabulous, have a good effect in poetry. Virgil has not scrupled to insert one, which required an apology:—
Prisca fides facto, sed fama perennis.
Spenser has given us the history of Brute and his descendants at full length in the Faerie Queene; and Milton, it is known, was so fond of that absurd legend, that he intended to write a poem on the subject; and by this fondness was induced to mention it as a truth in the introduction to his History of England.
[504] The brother chief.—Paulus de Gama.
[505] That gen'rous pride which Rome to Pyrrhus bore.—When Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, was at war with the Romans, his physician offered to poison him. The senate rejected the proposal, and acquainted Pyrrhus of the designed treason. Florus remarks on the infamous assassination of Viriatus, that the Roman senate did him great honour; ut videretur aliter vinci non potuisse; it was a confession that they could not otherwise conquer him,—Vid. Flor. l. 17. For a fuller account of this great man, see the note on Lusiad, bk. i. p. 9.
[506] Some deem the warrior of Hungarian race.—See the note on the Lusiad, bk. iii p. 67.
[507] Jerusalem.
[508] The first Alonzo.—King of Portugal.
[509] On his young pupil's flight.—"Some, indeed most, writers say, that the queen advancing with her army towards Guimaraez, the king, without waiting till his governor joined him, engaged them and was routed: but that afterwards the remains of his army, being joined by the troops under the command of Egaz Munitz, engaged the army of the queen a second time, and gained a complete victory."—Univ. Hist.