Talk of the Western Empire having "declined and fallen," as Messrs. Gibbon and Wegg put it! Why, here it was again, and with the worst of its ancient crimes inscribed upon its code of law. Emphyteusis was reintroduced into Portugal by King Diniz (Dennis) in the year 1279, and was followed by its usual effects--ruin and depopulation. In 1394 was born Prince Henry. He was the son of John I. and Philippa, daughter of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, and was therefore the nephew of Henry IV. of England. Perceiving and commiserating the wretchedness of the people, and casting about him for a remedy, Henry saw but one: that was departure from the land, emigration, colonization, escape from the tyranny of the soil, of nobles and of ecclesiastics--a tyranny which both his illustrious rank and his piety forbade him to oppose. Hence his intense devotion to the discovery and colonization of strange lands, which is in vain to be accounted for on the ground of a mere passion, the only one usually advanced by unthinking historians. The results of this mania, as it was then considered, of Prince Henry are well known--the discovery of Madeira, the Azores, Senegambia, Angola, Benguela, etc., and, after Prince Henry's death, the Cape of Good Hope, Goa, Macao, the islands, etc.; all of which were colonized by Portuguese. These colonies, and the commerce which sprang up with them, afforded outlets for the downtrodden serfs of Portugal. Such was the beneficial result of this partial measure of freedom that in the course of the following two centuries Portugal became one of the leading nations of the world, with a population of 5,000,000 and a flag respected in every clime.