[19] Castera was every way unequal to his task. He did not perceive his author's beauties. He either suppresses or lowers the most poetical passages, and substitutes French tinsel and impertinence in their place.
[20] Pope, Odyss. XX.
[21] Richard Fanshaw, Esq., afterwards Sir Richard, was English Ambassador both at Madrid and Lisbon. He had a taste for literature, and translated from the Italian several pieces which were of service in the refinement of our poetry. Though his Lusiad, by the dedication of it to William, Earl of Strafford, dated May 1, 1655, seems as if published by himself, we are told by the editor of his Letters, that "during the unsettled times of our anarchy, some of his MSS., falling by misfortune into unskilful hands, were printed and published without his knowledge or consent, and before he could give them his last finishing strokes: such was his translation of the Lusiad." He can never have enough of conceits, low allusions, and expressions. When gathering of flowers is simply mentioned (C. 9, st. 24) he gives it, "gather'd flowers by pecks;" and the Indian Regent is avaricious (C. 8, st. 95)—
Meaning a better penny thence to get.
But enough of these have already appeared in the notes. It may be necessary to add, that the version of Fanshaw, though the Lusiad very particularly requires them, was given to the public without one note.
[22] Some liberties of a less poetical kind, however, require to be mentioned. In Homer and Virgil's lists of slain warriors, Dryden and Pope have omitted several names which would have rendered English versification dull and tiresome. Several allusions to ancient history and fable have for this reason been abridged; e.g. in the prayer of Gama (Book 6) the mention of Paul, "thou who deliveredst Paul and defendest him from quicksands and wild waves—
Das scyrtes arenosas e ondas feas—"
is omitted. However excellent in the original, the prayer in English would lose both its dignity and ardour. Nor let the critic, if he find the meaning of Camoëns in some instances altered, imagine that he has found a blunder in the translator. He who chooses to see a slight alteration of this kind will find an instance, which will give him an idea of others, in Canto 8, st. 48, and another in Canto 7, st. 41. It was not to gratify the dull few, whose greatest pleasure in reading a translation is to see what the author exactly says; it was to give a poem that might live in the English language, which was the ambition of the translator. And, for the same reason, he has not confined himself to the Portuguese or Spanish pronunciation of proper names. Regardless, therefore, of Spanish pronunciation, the translator has accented Granáda, Evóra, etc. in the manner which seemed to him to give most dignity to English versification. In the word Sofala he has even rejected the authority of Milton, and followed the more sonorous usage of Fanshaw. Thus Sir Richard: "Against Sofála's batter'd fort." Which is the more sonorous there can be no dispute.
[23] Judges xviii. 7, 9, 27, 28.
[24] This ferocity of savage manners affords a philosophical account how the most distant and inhospitable climes were first peopled. When a Romulus erects a monarchy and makes war on his neighbours, some naturally fly to the wilds. As their families increase, the stronger commit depredations on the weaker; and thus from generation to generation, they who either dread just punishment or unjust oppression, fly farther and farther in search of that protection which is only to be found in civilized society.