ROMANCES AND NOVELS.
The novel style was at this period not more prejudicial to true eloquence in Portugal than in Spain. Every reader, however, unconscious of any theoretical reasoning on such subjects, regarded the romances and novels which were now profusely circulated as scions from the old stock of the national poetry. They were judged according to poetic laws; while fictitious events in forms wholly prosaic, would have been justly declared counterfeit. But the Portuguese attributed to themselves the peculiar merit of ingenious invention, and of an excellent, if not a perfect, style in the relation of romantic events. Palmerin de Oliva, which next to Amadis de Gaul, Cervantes spares in his judgment on romances of chivalry, was written by Francisco de Moràes, a Portuguese courtier and man of the world; and it has already been mentioned, that even Amadis, in its original form, is considered to have been the production of a Portuguese.[233] Francisco de Moràes lived in the reign of John III. and he visited the French court in the suite of the Portuguese ambassador. This visit may have contributed to nurture his taste for romances of chivalry, which were then greatly in favour with people of rank in France.