FERREIRA.
Antonio Ferreira, surnamed the Portuguese Horace, was born at Lisbon in the year 1528. His parents, who belonged to the first class of nobility, destined him for a statesman or public functionary. He obtained the degree of Doctor at the University of Coimbra, where he studied the civil law. He took however less interest in his jurisprudential studies than in the lectures of a professor of ancient literature, named Diogo de Tieve, who at that time possessed great celebrity, and for whom after quitting the university he continued to entertain a strong affection and regard. While Ferreira was pursuing his studies at Coimbra, the works of Horace, and other poets of antiquity, produced on him an impression totally different from that which was experienced by the other students, who directed their attention to ancient literature. Among the latter it was a fashion to write verses in latin, and to look with disdain on the Portuguese language; but Ferreira, while yet a youth, proved himself an enthusiastic lover of his mother tongue. He resolved not to write a line in any foreign language, not even in Spanish; and he faithfully kept his determination. In his beautiful introductory or dedicatory stanza, to readers after his own taste (a os bons engenhos) he intimates that his poems shall belong “to those readers to whose pure bosoms he may commit them. For himself he will be content with the glory of having it said that he loved his native land and his countrymen.”[104] But the patriotic spirit which thus glowed in the soul of Ferreira was combined, in a manner then altogether uncommon, with a similar enthusiasm for the ancient classics, and particularly for the poetry of Horace. The example of Saa de Miranda had also its influence in forming his taste; and he closely studied the Italian poets from whom he learned to combine classic correctness of ideas and language, on the model of the ancients, with a natural poetic style, suited to the age in which he lived. The beautiful structure of Italian verse so charmed him, that he thought no other metres possessed sufficient dignity to entitle them to be introduced into Portuguese poetry. He accordingly never composed in redondilhas, and, generally speaking, in no verse in the old national style. The whole object of his ambition was to be a classical poet, and in that character to give to Portuguese poetry a new, and according to his taste, a more noble diction. Inspired with the hope of accomplishing this purpose, he laboured with so much assiduity, that before he left the university he had composed the greater portion of the hundred and thirteen sonnets which are contained in the collection of his poems. Whether the “Lady of his Thoughts,” who supplies in these sonnets the place of Petrarch’s Laura, was no imaginary character, is uncertain. It cannot, however, be doubted, that in his fifth elegy the poet alludes to a real and beloved Manila, who had been snatched from him by death. Ferreira was twenty-nine years of age when he published the first collection of his poetic works. He had previously been engaged in delivering academic lectures, probably on jurisprudence, in the university of Coimbra. In his poetic pursuits, he was joined by several young men of similar talent, particularly Andrade Caminha, Jeronymo Cortereal, and Diogo Bernardes, who, together with other poets of that age, formed a circle of disciples and admirers of Saa de Miranda. But he grew tired of his university studies, and visited the court where he soon acquired distinction. He obtained the high office of desembargador de camara de supplicaçaõ (judge of the council of grace), and he was likewise appointed a fidalgo da casa real (gentleman of the royal household). For the young poets of Portugal he now became an oracle of criticism; and a most brilliant prospect had opened itself to him, when in the year 1569, and at the age of forty-one, he died of the plague which was supposed to be brought to Lisbon from the Levant. A monument was erected to his memory in the church where he was buried; but the stone is now much defaced.[105]
Though not a poet of the first rank, Ferreira has, as a classical poet, been surpassed by no other in Portuguese literature, and has in that respect also had but few equals in the literature of Spain. His fancy was circumscribed, and to originality he seems to have put forth no pretension; but the sound taste which he manifested from the commencement of his poetic cultivation, was a thing totally new in Portugal at that period. Ferreira was by no means a blind or pedantic imitator of the ancients and the Italians. He was, however, animated by an enthusiastic feeling for every thing truly exemplary in the writings of the foreign poets whom he chose for prototypes; his vigorous understanding, cherished with particular predilection the idea of reforming the national Portuguese poetry after such models; and patriotic zeal prompted him to complete what poetic feeling and sound judgment had combined to suggest. Correctness of ideas as well as of language was to him the first requisite of all poetic beauty. He wished to banish from the poetry of his native land those traces of orientalism which it still retained. It was not less his study to avoid the eccentric than the common. He attached more importance to noble than to extraordinary ideas. But to poetic energy, precision and plenitude of picturesque expression, or what may be termed the poetry of language, his attention was chiefly directed. This quality he cultivated with a degree of talent and judgment, which would have imparted to his style Horatian perfection, were it not for the philosophic laconism peculiar to the diction of Horace, and which no modern poet, Klopstock alone excepted, has been able to approach. Ferreira was the first Portuguese writer who manifested a particular interest in the poetic dignity of his native tongue. He was the first who practically proved that the soft toned accentuation and simple popular idiom of that language were not inconsistent either with the energetic expression of didactic poetry, or the sonorous rhythm of the loftier styles. In this respect he essentially departed from the manner of Saa de Miranda; and thus his poetry lost the national colouring by which that of his predecessor is peculiarly distinguished. The works of Ferreira belong indeed to that class of Portuguese poetry which is most easily intelligible to a foreigner possessing a knowledge of latin. Ferreira’s latinity of expression extends even to metrical scanning in which he assumed new freedoms;[106] and the title under which he published his poems, and which they still retain, has a sort of latin air.[107] Ferreira has therefore never been a favourite poet with the great mass of the Portuguese public. There was indeed a time during the seventeenth century in which he was despised even by the polite world as a learned pedant;[108] but a later posterity has rendered justice to his merits. Precisely such a poet as Ferreira was wanting to create among the Portuguese that taste for sound good sense in poetry, which they but too soon lost, and which, in these latter times, they have tardily endeavoured to recover. Ferreira himself takes various opportunities of explaining the principles by which he was guided in the composition of his works. In an epistle to Diogo Bernardes, he says—his first rule is to be as distrustful of himself as he is of superficial censurers; to follow his natural feelings, and to avoid a forced use of art; to respect only the judgment of those who are capable of judging; to follow the counsel of well informed and sincere friends; and to polish the rudeness of genius by industry and judicious imitation.[109]
Ferreira’s sonnets which amount to a considerable number, are divided into two books. They were all, as has already been remarked, written by the poet at an early period of life. The study of the Petrarchian sonnet is every where manifest in those attempts to emulate the pure Italian style, which, though imitations, are free of all traces of effort and affectation. In general, however, Ferreira’s tender complaints exhibit only feeble glimmerings of the intensity and grace of Petrarch; but on the other hand they are disfigured by fewer extravagancies than the similar effusions of passion by other Portuguese and Spanish poets; and the energy of the expression is usually ennobled by classic grace of diction. Some of these amatory sonnets may be regarded as models.[110] In others, however, the poet speaks of “burning snow and freezing fire.”[111] Among the best are some which occur in the second book, in which the poet laments the death of his mistress.[112] Ferreira seems to have felt no inclination to imitate Petrarch’s didactic sonnets probably, because he had at an early period given to his didactic poetry a different form, and one which bore a more decided resemblance to his favourite Horace.
In the composition of odes Ferreira unquestionably endeavoured to form his style on the model of Horace. But among the thirteen poems, which in the collection of Ferreira’s works are ranged under the title of Odas, and which notwithstanding their scanty number are divided into two books, there is not one which exhibits a truly lyric flight of fancy. In all the language is excellent; the sentiment noble; and the didactic tone and the dignity of the whole manner are in admirable unison with the sonorous melody of the metre; but no new and energetic ideas, no lyric boldness, which, at first sight, might seem irregularity, surprise and charm the reader. Ferreira indeed expressly proposed to himself to soar even as a writer of odes above “the ignorant multitude;”[113] but by his frequent repetition of certain pompous and sonorous phrases, he widely departs from the character of the Horatian style.[114] Even the moral energy of sentiment which appears in Ferreira’s odes, is not the energy of Horace.[115] It would appear that the Italian canzoni with their superfluity of beautiful words and phrases had influenced Ferreira to an extent of which he was unconscious. Some of his odes have precisely the metrical form of the canzone, with the exception of the concluding flourish or apostrophe of the poet to his poem. Others have shorter stanzas like those of the Spanish odes of Luis de Leon.[116] Is possible that Ferreira may have been acted upon by the example of Luis de Leon, as they were contemporaries and almost of equal age; or, perhaps, the Spaniard was influenced by the Portuguese poet. This, however, is a subject to which writers of neither country make allusion; but it is certain that the character of Ferreira had nothing in common with the tranquil yet captivating enthusiasm of Luis de Leon. Nevertheless in the composition of the ode he became a model for the poets of his own nation, as Luis de Leon was for those of Spain; and every poem to which the title of ode has subsequently been given in Portuguese literature, exhibits nearly the same character and metrical form of which he set the example. In Ferreira’s odes the descriptive passages are usually the best.[117]
The elegies of Ferreira, at the period at which they were written, had also the advantage of the charm of novelty in the literature of his country; for with the exception of the single elegy of Saa de Miranda no poem of that class existed in the Portuguese language. Ariosto seems to have been the model whom Ferreira particularly copied in elegiac composition. Like Ariosto, he very happily seized the idea of the pleasing voluptuous elegy of the ancients, which was soon after neglected and continued long lost to modern literature. His elegy on May is a classic masterpiece.[118] He was less successful in plaintive elegy. Among the elegies of this kind which he composed, several deserve only to be regarded as occasional poems on the death of distinguished persons. Others are properly epistles, abounding in moral reflexions and observations on the uncertainty of human affairs, but wanting in that tone of tender melancholy which is essential to the true plaintive elegy.[119] A few free translations from the Greek of Moschus and Anacreon are annexed to this collection of elegies.
Ferreira’s eclogues possess little poetic merit; and, excellent as is the diction, the style is not sufficiently bucolick. Ferreira was no less susceptible than Saa de Miranda of the philosophic enjoyment of a country life and the beauties of rural nature; but an ideal pastoral world was foreign to the scope of his genius, and bucolick simplicity was not at all reconcilable with his taste, which invariably inclined him to masculine reflexion, clothed in a tone of didactic seriousness. He would not, therefore, had he even possessed the natural requisites for pastoral poetry, have been disposed to prefer that style as the poetic form for occasional compositions, however agreeable it might be to the individuals of the royal family to have their festivals poetically illustrated by such contributions to the general gallantry of the court.
Ferreira’s epistles occupy the chief portion of the first volume of his poems; and they are, upon the whole, entitled to the first rank in the poet’s works. It is worthy of remark, that these epistles retain the old title of Cartas instead of that of Epistolas, notwithstanding Ferreira’s predilection for latinity in his choice of words. But they differ in so many various ways from the poetic Cartas of Saa de Miranda, that they may be regarded as the first productions of their kind in Portuguese literature. Their contents evidently shew that they were all written when the poet had attained the age of maturity. At that period he resided at court, and from his practical philosophy, for which he was partly indebted to his literary studies, he deduced the maxims which daily received confirmation from the events of real life. Yet the more he was tied to the great world, the more valuable did retirement appear to him. The natural nobleness of his turn of mind was constantly at variance with the manners and characters of the persons by whom he was surrounded. In this state of feeling he wrote his epistles. They are for the most part addressed to men of the first rank, with whom Ferreira was more or less intimate, and among whose names appear those of the most celebrated poets who laboured in common with him for the classic improvement of the national taste. The didactic poems addressed by Ferreira to these men are nearly all in the same strain. The delicacy of the didactic tone of Horace was not to be attained by a poet who had to open the first path for the restoration of classical style in a country in which the old romantic character in poetry, and the scholastic theological spirit in philosophy, were only beginning to yield to the influence of a more liberal cultivation. Neither was Ferreira, with all his elegance, sufficiently cultivated for that Horatian gaiety, which frequently rises to wanton sportiveness, and jests with the very precepts it inculcates. The characteristics of his philosophy are dignified gravity and sound judgment, unalloyed by any thing like pedantry or pretension. But the philosophic medium through which he viewed the vicissitudes of fortune and the follies of mankind, partook more of religious austerity than of epicurean pleasantry; and notwithstanding his general correctness in epistolary composition, even in that respect, he falls, like almost every other modern poet, far short of the energetic precision of the Horatian style. As an epistolary poet, therefore, Ferreira is no more a Portuguese Horace than the two Argensolas are Horaces in Spanish literature.[120] But the sound judgment and noble feeling, which may be said to form the moral soul of these poems, are expressed in that natural, unostentatious, pleasing and varied manner, which belongs to the true spirit of the didactic epistle; and the poet’s fancy has scattered as many flowers on the path of ornate wisdom, as are necessary to distinguish it from the high road of moralizing prose. Patriotism and zeal for the national greatness of Portugal give a peculiar colouring to these epistles. In the spirit of this feeling Ferreira extols the union of Portuguese military glory, with the improvement of manners and the cultivation of the understanding; and with regard to cultivation, according to models, he says—one should seek to “excel others in what is best, and only in other respects to imitate.”[121] He zealously exhorts his friend Andrade Caminha not to make the muses in Portugal speak any thing but Portuguese.[122] He expresses his dissatisfaction at the little encouragement which in his opinion was extended to genius at that period in Portugal. He also inveighs against the perverted appreciation of good and bad, right and wrong.[123] Within the limits of his faith, he himself discourses exquisitely on the beauty of reason.[124] But the soft language of feeling more particularly glows in those epistles in which he speaks of the joys of friendship and the pleasures of rural life.[125] Occasionally Ferreira’s didactic style takes an ironic jocular turn, and then only does it present true Horatian facility.[126] Upon the whole if the poetry of reason and sentiment be not more lightly esteemed than the poetry of luxuriant fancy, Ferreira’s epistles must be numbered among the best in modern literature.
Ferreira endeavoured to introduce epigrams, composed after the manner of the ancients, into the poetry of his native country. But he did not succeed in seizing the spirit of the ancient epigram. Ausonius was his model; and the epigrammas and epitaphios which appear among the works of Ferreira are not distinguished either by the tenderness or the energy of the esteemed Greek poems of the same class. Their chief merit is an elegant precision of language conveyed in the metrical form of the Italian octaves; but it is only in a few instances that this elegant precision is in any degree poignant and pleasing.[127] The epitaphs are in general dedicated to the memory of men distinguished in Portuguese history.
Ferreira is the author of a tale written in honour of a female national saint, named Colomba, or, according to the popular pronunciation, Comba. Beauty of language also constitutes the whole poetic merit of this piece; and even the introduction, which is long and tedious, sufficiently proves that when Ferreira undertook to celebrate the virtues of St. Colomba he stepped out of his sphere. The subject of the tale is a legend which might have formed the ground-work of a better production. The fair saint, a Portuguese shepherdess, tending her flocks and singing pious songs, becomes the object of the ardent passion of a Moorish king, who discovers her in one of his hunting excursions. The king pursues her until she has no longer any hope of saving herself by flight. In this extremity she implores a rock to open and receive her. The miracle takes place. The disappointed king strikes his lance against the rock, and a clear fountain gushes forth, the waters of which continue to possess miraculous properties. The narrative is, however, much too cold for such a subject; and the description given of the Moorish king is so extremely grotesque, that it is difficult to conceive how a man of Ferreira’s taste could have brought himself to sketch so rude a picture. He has represented the king as being covered with shag like a bear; and in addition to this ornament has given to one side of his head the ear of an ass, and to the other the ear of a dog.[128]
Ferreira likewise wished to introduce into the dramatic poetry of Portugal a classical style, approximating to that of the ancients as closely as the difference of times and manners would permit. Among his dramatic works there are a tragedy and two comedies. Ferreira’s patriotic feeling induced him to borrow the subject of his tragedy from the history of Portugal; and he selected the story of Inez de Castro, which has since been so frequently handled by Portuguese poets, though before Ferreira’s time it seems to have been untouched. When it is recollected that at the same period the Dominican Bermudez was engaged in writing a Spanish tragedy on the same story, and according to similar principles,[129] the conclusion that one of these tragedies in some measure owes its existence to the other is not easily avoided. Both present a striking similarity in invention and arrangement. But neither poet alludes in any way to his contemporary; and even the critics who notice the one work are silent with respect to the other. The prize of tragic art must, however, be awarded to the Inez de Castro of Bermudez. Ferreira’s Castro (for so the tragedy is briefly called by the Portuguese) contains many beautiful passages; but throughout the whole piece there is a deficiency of true pathos; the imitation of the Greek style in form and manner is painfully elaborate; the dramatic, interest of the composition is extremely feeble, and the dignity of tragic poetry is maintained in the language alone. Inez de Castro with her attendant or nurse (ama), the Infante Don Pedro with his secretary, King Alphonso with his three inhuman counsellors, and finally a messenger, are the acting or rather the speaking characters; and a chorus of Coimbrian women are brought into co-operation with these characters in the same manner as in the tragedy of Bermudez. Ferreira, like Bermudez, deviates from the strict laws of the Greek drama only in the neglect of the unities of time and place; and it is evident that this liberty is by both poets only taken from necessity, because they had not sufficient art otherwise to connect the requisite scenes. Both tragedies contain in appearance five acts; but Ferreira has also rendered his fifth act merely an historical appendage. In the opening of Ferreira’s tragedy Inez enters with her attendant, and after some preliminary complaints circumstantially relates the way in which she became connected with the Prince, and through him with the royal family; though it may be presumed that these particulars must have been sufficiently well known to her confidante long before. The scene changes, and the Infante appears accompanied by the female chorus, which Bermudez has more suitably introduced in connection with Inez. The Infante engages in a long discussion with his secretary on the situation of a Prince who has to maintain a conflict between love, and duty and policy. A hymn to love by the chorus closes the first act. The following acts are constructed in a similar manner. At the close of the fourth act the death of Inez is announced by the chorus; and in the fifth a messenger relates the event to the Prince. The lyric passages are the best in the whole tragedy, and among them the hymn to love is particularly beautiful.[130] The lines which Inez delivers on her first entrance indicate at once the lyric character of the piece. The dialogue is elegant throughout, but it frequently exhibits over-strained antitheses. The observations occasionally delivered by the chorus, in a metre formed on the model of the sapphic, are sufficiently moral, though they are in general of the commonest character. The decisive scene, in which Inez appears before the king, approaches nearest to true pathos, but never completely attains that height.[131] Upon the whole Ferreira was not a tragic poet. He totally failed in seizing the true idea of modern tragedy.
In spirit and in form Ferreira’s two comedies perfectly resemble those of Saa de Miranda. One which is called “Bristo,” (Comedia do Bristo) takes its name from the principal character in the piece. The other is entitled the “Jealous Man,” (Comedia do Cioso). The comedy of Bristo was the production of Ferreira’s early youth. In his dedication to the king, he says that he wrote it during the holidays, in the course of the few days which he was able to snatch from his more serious studies at the university of Coimbra. To this task he was in all probability incited by the example of Saa de Miranda. It may also be presumed that at a subsequent period, Ferreira gave a finer polish to this comedy, to which Portuguese writers usually refer, when they wish to prove how admirably their native language is adapted to light and elegant prose. But it is not merely in this philological point of view that the merits of this work ought to be estimated. In facility, precision and elegance of dialogue, it surpasses the comedies of Saa de Miranda, and many which in other respects are justly ranked among the best in modern literature. The delineation of character, so far as it goes, is natural and decided: indeed some of the characters, among which is a hectoring profligate knight of Rhodes, who resembles the ostentatious soldiers of Plautus, are particularly well sustained. In the Comedia do Cioso, the principal character, though somewhat overcharged, is strikingly sketched. Both dramas contain some comic scenes; but they are upon the whole as deficient in real comic force as they are overburthened with common place morality; and that morality too, as in the comedies of Saa de Miranda, is conveyed in tedious soliloquies.
But the public favour which the court conferred on the regular dramas of Ferreira, in common with those of Saa de Miranda, and the rude compositions of Gil Vicente, may be regarded as one of the circumstances which operated to prevent the formation of a national drama in Portugal. For the rise, as in Spain, of a national party, which might rouse and incite a poet to advance from the point at which Gil Vicente had stopped, became now much more difficult. Thus the art of dramatic invention and composition long wavered amidst heterogeneous forms, until the Portuguese poets who wished to write for the theatre, had no alternative but to become imitators of the Spanish authors who had preceded them, or entirely to renounce the formation of any thing like a national drama. No Portuguese Lope de Vega arose; and Ferreira’s name was only preserved in the recollection of the learned.
After having perused with critical reflection the history of Portuguese poetry and eloquence, from the introduction of the Italian style to the present point, the reader will be prepared to recognize the rank which Camoens holds among the poets of his country. Respecting this most celebrated of the Portuguese poets, indeed almost the only one among them who has obtained any celebrity beyond the limits of his native country, all the writers of the classic school of Saa de Miranda, Diogo Bernardes excepted, are silent, which is a sufficient proof that they did not include him in their party. But the public voice of Portuguese criticism, combined with the general national approbation, has long since elevated him above those who neglected to mention his name, though they were always ready to bestow praise on each other. Camoens, it is true, was a poor adventurer, wandering in India, at the period when Ferreira, Andrade Caminha, and other contemporary writers were setting the poetic fashion at the brilliant court of Lisbon. But the poems which he produced previously to his departure for India, approximate in a striking degree to the classic works of the school of Saa de Miranda; and hence it is probable that the influence of that school, and of the older Portuguese poetry, may have operated in an equal degree on his genius. This relationship of Camoens with all parties in the polite literature of his native country, will be placed in the clearest point of view by introducing him after Ferreira, and before the other poets, who hand in hand with the latter pursued the newly opened course. Thus the genius of Camoens, as the first of Portuguese poets, may be considered conjointly with his merits as a poet in the spirit of the age in which he lived.