A few works of research which were written during the first half of the eighteenth century, are, with the exception of books of devotion, almost the only compositions which still preserved a kind of national prose style in Portuguese literature. Barbosa Machado’s great national Dictionary of Learned Men, is not written without rhetorical care. The author wished to express himself with correctness and elegance, particularly where he uses the language of panegyric, but even then he could not avoid frigid and pompous phraseology; and some phrases, which he seems to have admired, are constantly recurring in the work; as for example when he calls a poet “one of the most melodious swans of the Portuguese Parnassus,” without considering that Parnassus is neither a river nor a pond. A few affected metaphors were the only recognized beauties of prose composition at this period in Portugal. Didactic prose could no longer exist when the philosophic and scientific cultivation of the Portuguese became daily more abridged, and was almost limited to the small remnant which was taught in the cloisters and the colleges of the Jesuits. The lectures which under these circumstances were delivered in the academies, were considered to have sufficiently fulfilled their objects if they did not lull the auditors to sleep. The art of historical composition was now completely extinguished in Portugal.
NEW CULTIVATION OF ELOQUENCE—CLASSICAL PROSE AUTHORS STILL WANTING IN MODERN PORTUGUESE LITERATURE.
In the second half, and more especially during the last thirty years of the eighteenth century, the spirit of improvement was awakened, and began to diffuse itself into every department of Portuguese eloquence. The admirable clearness, precision and facility of the French prose, has at length exercised an advantageous influence on the Portuguese. Without enforcing with pedantic rigour the restoration of all the old forms of the sixteenth century, the best Portuguese authors now endeavour to write their mother tongue with purity, and at the same time to satisfy the new wants created by the progress of time and the spirit of the age. The praiseworthy diligence which the Portuguese now manifest in collecting scientific knowledge of every kind, and in republishing the works of their early authors, appears, however, to have operated indirectly to the prejudice of eloquence, for among the men of talent, to whom Portugal is indebted for her regeneration, none have yet distinguished themselves in prose composition. But the Portuguese have had so many things to retrieve, that they have scarcely had time to devote particular attention to the rhetorical form of didactic works. An effort to avoid the bad taste of the preceding age, and upon the whole to cultivate a clear and dignified form of expression, is perceptible in most of the modern treatises of the Portuguese. Empty bombast has given place to the language of reason. The Portuguese nation have now to wish for a modern historian qualified to tread in the footsteps of Barros, Brito and Andrada. Such a writer might succeed in still more firmly rivetting the connecting link between the promising present and glorious past in the hearts of Portuguese patriots.
ROMANTIC PROSE—TRANSLATIONS.
A new era of romantic prose might also have been commenced in Portugal, had the poetic spirit of the old Portuguese pastoral romances been modified, instead of being enfeebled by the introduction of the cultivated forms of modern prose. Translations of foreign novels seem to have too readily satisfied that portion of the Portuguese public, whose cultivation was, through this species of reading, gradually approximating to the taste of the other nations of Europe. A translation from the French of Le Sage’s popular Gil Blas was supplied by the poet Barbosa Du Boccage, who is probably descended from a French family. This was soon followed by translations of the Moral Tales of D’Arnaud, and of various works of a similar description.
PORTUGUESE CRITICISM OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
The progress of genuine prose in Portuguese literature during the eighteenth century, may, upon the whole, be estimated by the style of Portuguese criticism in the same period. It may be presumed that the authors of critical treatises on literary subjects, endeavoured by their own prose to shew the relationship, which, according to their opinion, ought to exist between poetry and eloquence; and it is certain that the principles on which they wrote precisely corresponded with the rhetorical cultivation of the age, within the boundaries of Portuguese taste. These theoretical labours, in their relation to Portuguese poetry and eloquence, deserve to be particularly noticed.
ERICEYRA’S INTRODUCTION TO HIS HENRIQUEIDA.
A new epoch in Portuguese criticism seems to commence with the critical treatises of the Count da Ericeyra; for this writer studiously availed himself of the principles of French criticism, and his authority gave full effect to the example he set. But there was more of semblance than reality in Ericeyra’s appropriation of French criticism. He had too little feeling for the essence of poetry to be able to modify the idea of beauty according to French principles of correctness, without losing sight of the true foundation of that idea. With all his critical rules, therefore, he never rose above what may be termed the external apparatus of poetry. Within that apparatus his taste was altogether circumscribed. His general opinions on poetry are developed with sufficient clearness in the copious introduction to his Henriqueida,[399] and in the explanatory notes which he has attached to that epic composition. The introductory dissertation is written in good prose; but the observations which the author makes on the subject of epic poetry, partake more of prosaic than of poetic views. The subject with which the Count da Ericeyra’s critical essay commences is imitation; but, composing in the spirit of his own system, he first speaks of the celebrated poets whose works he had imitated, and afterwards of the imitation of nature. He speaks of Homer with emphasis; and yet at the same time acknowledges that he was acquainted with that poet only through Madame Dacier’s prose translation. Under these circumstances he reasonably enough speaks with still greater emphasis of Virgil, whose works he could read in the original. Of all human works, Virgil’s Æneid, in the opinion of Ericeyra, approaches nearest to perfection.[400] On the other hand, he says, that Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, belongs more properly to the class of romantic tales of chivalry, than to epic poetry; but that it is nevertheless worthy of imitation on account of its pleasing narrative style and the “fertility of poetic genius,” which the Count acknowledges Ariosto to possess. Voltaire’s Henriade, however, which was then the newest epic production, is pronounced to be particularly distinguished for its “elevated and natural poetry.” Ericeyra takes this opportunity of more accurately defining his theory of perfection in epic poetry. It belongs, in his opinion, to a perfect epic action, that the hero of the poem should as much as possible be kept present in the scene of action. On epic machinery Ericeyra pronounces nearly the same judgment as Boileau, namely, that when a modern introduces into his poetry the Christian system of the ancient mythology, the pleasure to be derived from epic composition is destroyed. Even the Jerusalem Delivered, would be a tedious work, had not Tasso enlivened the “pious melancholy of the subject” by the introduction of magic and by other means. The example set by Camoens, who introduced into modern poetry all the mythological deities as allegorical characters, is recommended as highly worthy of imitation; but nevertheless Tasso’s plan is not to be altogether condemned. Ericeyra makes some very judicious observations on the epic treatment of real history. Lucan, he says, was the first who disfigured epic poetry by writing merely as a poetic historian; and he attributes the ill success of the Spaniards in epic poetry to their having always preferred Lucan to every other model. His remarks on the epic character are no less correct; and his opinions on language and style are such as might be expected from a man of sound and cultivated understanding. He praises the dramatic style of Corneille, Racine and Moliere. From these authors, he observes, a writer may learn how to express naturally the heroic and tender passions in their full force, and without the false glare which disfigures the works of many modern and also some ancient poets. Thus the Count da Ericeyra endeavoured to vindicate his own poem before the tribunal of the public. The most remarkable circumstance with respect to the whole treatise is the little value which the author attaches to poetic allegory. When it is recollected in what esteem allegory was held by the early Portuguese critics, Ericeyra’s treatise, though in other respects unimportant, and only interesting in its connection with the whole of Portuguese literature, will be recognised as at least a step gained in literary criticism.