of its glowing passages, and the whole Portuguese people feel identified with the actors in the great deeds it describes. But Camoens is not only a national poet; he is a hero telling of an heroic deed done by an heroic people, and this secures for him the interest of readers of all nations, who can appreciate true heroism. Vasco da Gama was a Portuguese sailor, but the results of his enterprise and success were to the advantage of all Europe, and the poet who sings of him deserved to be heard by Europe. If, then, the subject was fitted for epic poetry, the style of Camoens was equal to it. He rises far above the purely classicist school in Portuguese literature; he uses the names of the Roman gods, and narrates their councils and their intervention in mundane affairs with the verisimilitude of Virgil, yet he never falls into a base or servile imitation of the great Latin poet, but preserves throughout the cast of thought of a Portuguese “conquistador.” To criticize the “Lusiads” further is without the purpose of this book, but in conclusion it must be pointed out that the great poem remains the strongest bond of union between the modern Portuguese people, whether in Portugal itself, or in Brazil, Goa, Macao, and Mozambique. It is impossible to meet an educated Portuguese, who does not know his Camoens; he is more to them than Dante to the Italians, Goethe to the Germans, or Shakespeare to the English; he sings of their nation’s glory, and in maintaining his fame, each one of them is interested. Never was this more manifest than in the Camoens Celebration of 1880, when Portuguese-speaking people of all climes, and of all varieties of political and religious opinion, gathered together in Lisbon to do honour to the memory of their great poet, whose glory they felt to be a connecting link between them all. [Illustration: JOÃO DE BARROS. (_From a Print in the British Museum._)]