TRANSLATIONS.
In the first half of the last thirty years of the eighteenth century, the desire to cultivate a correct style in Portuguese poetry was fostered by new translations of some of the latin classics. The Odes of Horace were translated into Portuguese by Joaquim José da Costa e Sa;[366] the Satyres of Sulpitia by Antonio Luis de Azavedo;[367] Ovid’s Heroides by Miguel de Couto Guerreiro;[368] and the comedies of Terence by Leonel da Costa.[369] But it would appear that the Portuguese did not in their wish to become more intimately acquainted with genuine poetry, so happily commence the translation of the Greek poets. On the other hand, several French and English works obtained a suitable Portuguese dress. Telemachus appeared in the year 1770; and Young’s tragedies in 1788. A circumstance which cannot fail to excite surprize, at least in Germany, is that in the year 1791 there appeared a Portuguese translation of the Herman of Baron Shönaich, the most indifferent of all German epic compositions;[370] but Gessner’s Death of Abel also appeared in the Portuguese language in the year 1785.