full success. And, preferring to all softer lines the hard life of Discovery-travel:—
Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,
Where foot of mortal man hath never been;—
a career which combines cultivation and education with that resistless charm, that poetry-passion of the Unknown; whose joy of mere motion lightens all sorrows and disappointments; which aids, by commune with Nature, the proper study of Mankind which enlarges the mental view as the hill-head broadens the horizon; which made Julian a saint, Khizr a prophet, and Odin a god: this Reiselust, I say, being my ruling passion, compelled me to seek a talisman against homesickness and the nervous troubles which learned men call Phrenalgia and Autophobia.
I found this talisman in Camoens.
And, if it be true that by virtue of his perfect affection and veneration for Homer, whom he loved as a second self, Chapman was enabled to reflect a something of the old Greek's magic force and fire, I also may be permitted to hope that complete sympathy with my Poet will enable me to present the public with a copy not unworthy of Camoens' immortal work.
After all, to speak without undue modesty, my most