Page:AlmadaHill.djvu/7



HOUGH no subjects are more proper for poetry than those which are founded upon historical retrospect, the author of such a poem lies under very particular disadvantages: every one can understand and relish a work merely fictitious, descriptive, or sentimental; but a previous acquaintance, and even intimacy, with the history and characters upon which the other poem is founded, is absolutely necessary to do justice to its author. Without such previous knowledge, the ideas which he would convey pass unobserved, as in an unknown tongue; and the happiest allusion, if he is fortunate enough to attain any thing worthy of that name, is unfelt and unseen. Under these disadvantages, the following epistle is presented to the public, whose indulgence and candour the author has already amply experienced.

In the Twelfth Century, Lisbon, and great part of Portugal and Spain, were in possession of the Moors. Alphonso, the first King of Portugal, having gained several victories