[11] The first essay towards a history of the Portuguese language, and an introduction to Portuguese orthography, were published in Lisbon at the time when Portugal was a Spanish province.—Duarte Nunez de Liaõ, the author of both works, was a statesman and magistrate. (Desembargador da Camara da Supplicaçaõ.) The former is entitled Origem da Lingoa Portugueza, Lisb. 1606, in 8vo. It is dedicated to Philip III. king of Spain, who is, however, on this occasion merely addressed as Dom Phelipe II. de Portugal. In the preface the author states his other, but older work, (Orthographia da Lingoa Portugueza, Lisb. 1576, in 8vo.) to be the first of the kind. The Portuguese have, however, for two centuries laboured with as little success as the Germans, to introduce uniformity of orthography into their language. The convertible M and AÕ appear to have been so early selected to denote the French nasal tone which occurs in numerous final syllables, that Nunez de Liaõ found it necessary to acquiesce in the custom, according to which the same word might be very differently written, as naçaõ or naçam, naõ or nam, pronounced nearly as nassaong and naong, with the French sound of on, bon. But it surely could not have been very difficult to dispossess the totally unnecessary and barbarous H in hum and huma (from the latin unus and una) of the place it had assumed, as it is now banished from elegant Portuguese orthography. Trifles of this kind present more materials for reflection than a first view gives reason to expect. When the orthography of a country continues to be an object of reform, that nation is deficient in a certain degree of refinement, the attainment of which has either been missed, or the right pursuit of which is but just commenced. Indeed what necessity is there for the French, Italians, Spaniards and Portuguese, writing the same sound, occurring in the same word, in four different ways, as for example, bataille, battaglia, batalla, batalha?
[12] Nothing could be more improper than to follow Du Cange, (Glossar. praef. § 34, sq.) in dividing the vulgare idioma of the present inhabitants of the Pyrenean Peninsula into the Castellanum, Limosinum, and Vasconicum.
[13] A particular account of the Limosin poetry, even in its last period, which is late enough to come into the division of time called the latter ages, does not belong to the history of modern poetry. It ought to be treated as the last part of the chivalrous poetry of the middle ages.—See the notices in Velasquez and Dieze, p. 45, and the still more instructive sketch of the history of Limosin poetry, in Eichhorn’s Gesch. der Cult. u. Litt. vol. i. p. 123.
[14] That the Portuguese and the Galician were originally not to be distinguished from each other, is expressly stated by that attentive observer of the forms of his native language, Nunez de Liaõ, who says, As quaes ambas, (namely, the Portuguese and the Galician tongues) eraõ antigamente quasi huma mesma nas palavras, e diphthongos, e pronunciação, que as outras partes de Hespanha naõ tem. Origem da Lingoa Portugueza, cap. VI.
[15] Velasquez, who felt this, thought fit when he read the Lusiade de Camões, to pay a particular compliment to the author, at the expense of the Portuguese language; for, after delivering the same opinion on that language, which is entertained by most Spaniards, he very elegantly adds: “the muses thought otherwise when they spoke through the mouth of Camoens.”
[16] Cada fuente de Portugal y cada monte son Hippocrenes y Parnassos, says Manuel de Faria y Sousa, in his Epitome de las Historias Portugueses. Father Sarmiento, a Spanish author, whom national prejudice does not prevent from doing justice to the Portuguese, mentions this observation in his instructive Memorias para la Poesia Española.
[17] The word is used in this extensive sense by Sarmiento in his Memorias, or as the book is sometimes called, Obras posthumas, parte i. p. 168. Authors are far from being agreed respecting the origin of the term redondillas, (according to the Portuguese orthography redondilhas.) But is not the word more naturally derived from redondo (round), than from a small town called Redondo? Instead of redondillas, these compositions are sometimes named redondillos, the word versos being understood. In German they might be called ringelverse (circular verses.)
[18] Shall it be said that there is, in the German language, no kind of verse which unites to so much grace, a character so truly popular! Let Burger’s Nachtfeier der Venus be considered, before this be determined. Even the Esthonian Serfs, on the coast of the Baltic, chaunt their simple ballads in the same measure. Proof of this may be seen on reference to Petri’s Nachrichten von den Esthen, vol. ii. p. 69.
[19] Among others, Sarmiento, who in support of this opinion, quotes some verses from Virgil, for example: Inter viburna cupressi—Tondenti barba cadebat, &c. These verses have, it is true, eight syllables, but not four trochaic feet.
[20] How does it happen that none of the Spanish authors have taken notice of the ancient songs sung by the Roman soldiers, though they are evidently redondillas? Suetonius has preserved some remarkable examples of these songs; and the same measure occurs after the decline of latin poetry, particularly in some pious verses of Prudentius, which are quoted by Sarmiento.