Page:The Lusiad; Or, The Discovery of India.djvu/20



F a concatenation of events centered in one great action, events which gave birth to the present Commercial System of the World, if these be of the first importance in the civil history of mankind, then the Lusiad, of all other poems, challenges the attention of the Philosopher, the Politician, and the Gentleman.

In contradistinction to the Iliad and the Æneid, the Paradise Lost has been called the Epic Poem of Religion. In the same manner may the Lusiad be named the Epic Poem of Commerce. The happy completion of the most important designs of Henry, Duke of Viseo, Prince of Portugal, to whom Europe owes both Gama and Columbus, both the Eastern and the Western Worlds, constitutes the subject of this celebrated Epic Poem, (known hitherto in England almost only by name) which is now offered to the English Reader. But before we proceed to the historical introduction necessary to elucidate a poem founded on such an important period of history, some attention is due to the opinion of those Theorists in political philosophy who lament that either India was ever discovered, and who assert that the increase of Trade is only the parent of degeneracy, and the nurse of every vice.

Much indeed may be urged on this side of the question, but much also may be urged against every institution relative to man. Imperfection, if not necessary to humanity, is at least the certain attendant on every thing human. Though some part of the traffic with many countries resemble Solomon's importation of apes and peacocks; though the superfluities of life, the baubles of the opulent, and even the luxuries which enervate