HISTORY
OF
SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE
LITERATURE.

HISTORY
OF
SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE
LITERATURE.
BY
FREDERICK BOUTERWEK.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

Translated from the Original German,
BY THOMASINA ROSS.
VOL. II.
PORTUGUESE LITERATURE.
LONDON:
BOOSEY AND SONS, BROAD STREET.
1823.

E. Justins, Printer, 41, Brick Lane, Spitalfields.

PREFACE.

For much of the valuable information which the following History of Portuguese Literature contains, the author acknowledges himself to be indebted to the communications of a learned Portuguese, with whom he became acquainted after the materials he had previously collected were arranged for publication. M. Bouterwek originally intended to comprise what he had to say, on Portuguese literature, in a brief sketch, which was to form a supplement to the preceding volume; but the assistance of his literary friend enabled him to make the present volume a suitable companion to his history of the sister literature of the Peninsula. In England commercial interests may have induced many persons to make themselves acquainted with the language of Portugal, but the literature of that country has hitherto been studied by few. With the exception of Camoens, even the names of the principal Portuguese authors are scarcely known to us. The greater novelty of the subject is therefore an advantage which this second volume possesses over the first.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

VOL. II.

HISTORY
OF
PORTUGUESE LITERATURE.

BOOK I.
FROM THE END OF THE THIRTEENTH TO THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

RISE OF PORTUGUESE POETRY.

That songs in the Portuguese language were sung on the banks of the Tagus, before any kingdom of Portugal existed cannot be doubted. Indeed even Spanish writers, who have considered the question with impartiality, do not deny that Portuguese poetry flourished at an earlier period than the Castilian; and all accounts of the first dawnings of modern civilization in Portugal denote an original poetic tendency in the national genius. That destiny, however, by which Portugal has been from an early period politically severed from the other parts of the Peninsula could alone have prevented the Portuguese poetry from being like the Galician, completely absorbed and lost in the Castilian; for the Galician and Portuguese languages and poetry, were originally, and even after the separation of Portugal from the Castiles, scarcely distinguishable from each other.[1]

The foreigner, who is not prepossessed by any national partiality, in favour of either the Castilian or the Portuguese modifications of the Hispanic romance, might, perhaps, be induced to conclude that poetry would on the whole have sustained no essential loss, had the language of Portugal been rejected by literature, and reduced like the Galician dialect to the rank of a common popular idiom; for the Castilian poetry was from its origin, so closely allied to the Portuguese, that it is certain the former might easily have incorporated into itself the latter without producing the slightest inconsistency in any of its characteristic features. Still, however, to him who is capable of feeling the more delicate relations of the beautiful in nature and in art, it must be an increased pleasure to hear the same melody performed on two similar, yet differently constructed instruments. The historian of Portuguese literature ought, therefore, to direct his particular attention to those apparently unimportant, and yet in themselves very remarkable properties, whereby Portuguese poetry has in the varied progress of its cultivation more or less deviated from the Castilian, or, as it is now usually styled, the Spanish;[2] and also to the manner in which the differences not only of the two sister languages, but of the two nations, whose respective characters are impressed on those languages, have constantly preserved the boundary which divides the polite literature of Portugal and Spain, and which must otherwise have soon been obliterated.

The harmonious softness of the Portuguese language, probably contributed no less to its early cultivation in general than to its applicability to poetry in particular. Even the characteristic nasal sound, which the pronunciation of this language has in common with the French, is in no way detrimental to the rhythm of the Portuguese syllables; for that rhythm, as in the Spanish and Italian languages, depends on a certain accentuation, which is a valuable remnant of the latin syllabic forms, and which is not, as in the French, annihilated by a new rule of orthoepy. That this ancient accentuation, and with it the groundwork of metrical perfectibility, should be preserved in the Portuguese language, is a circumstance rendered the more remarkable by that of a French prince having been the founder of the first dynasty of the kings of Portugal; for from this incidental occurrence, some critics and philologists have endeavoured to explain the similarity between the Portuguese and French pronunciation. The prince to whose influence this effect has been attributed is Henry of Burgundy, who was, in the year 1094, appointed, by his father-in-law, Alphonso VI. of Castile, governor of the country situated at the mouth of the Tagus, and who afterwards held that territory in sovereignty with the title of Count; but however numerous might be the noble families, brought by this prince from France to Portugal, neither he nor they could be able to produce an essential change in the national language among all classes of the people.[3] Moreover the same dialect was and still is vernacular in Galicia, where no French prince ever ruled. It is however not a little extraordinary, that under the dominion and influence of French princes and nobles, Portuguese poetry should from its origin have preserved unimpaired those romantic national forms, in which it soon appeared perfectly to coincide with the Castilian poetry; for notwithstanding that most of the French nobles, who settled in Portugal, came from the south of France, whence they brought with them the genuine poetry of the Troubadours, still the introduction of that poetry did not impede the developement of those poetic forms, which constituted a common source of pleasure for the Portuguese, the Galician, and the Castilian.[4]

The favourable situation of Portugal could not fail to contribute in a considerable degree to the early developement of the Portuguese tongue. While the Castilians descending from their mountains, obtained no increase of wealth until they wrested it sword in hand from the Arabs, the Portuguese, particularly after they recovered possession of Lisbon, enriched themselves by the peaceful pursuits of trade and navigation. Lisbon soon became a flourishing commercial city; and the nation learned to unite civic industry with warlike achievements. The Portuguese, generally speaking, acquired a degree of practical dexterity which even to this day seems to distinguish them from the Spaniards, and which indeed is not sufficiently valued by the enemies of the Portuguese name, amongst whom must be more particularly included their Castilian neighbours. The benefits of civil industry, which were widely diffused from Lisbon, fortified in the Portuguese that feeling of self-esteem, which was necessary for the maintenance of their independence on so small a territory. In the reign of Alphonso I. the son of Henry of Burgundy, the Portuguese dominions acquired nearly their present extent by conquests made from the Moors, as far as the Algarvas. The romance dialect of Portugal now advanced southward into the conquered districts, and thus acquired the dignity of a prevailing national language, the formation of which proceeded from a great capital.

GONZALO HERMIGUEZ AND EGAZ MONIZ.

These circumstances may serve to explain how two Portuguese poets came to be celebrated at so early a period as the reign of Alphonso I. in the twelfth century. One of these poets is Gonzalo Hermiguez, and the other Egaz Moniz; two knights descended from the most distinguished families of the country. The verses of these ancient bards which have been preserved, are not wholly intelligible even to natives of Portugal.[5] But though their meaning can only be partially conjectured, they nevertheless merit attention; for no Spanish cancion of that age, by any known author, now exists; and in these oldest records of Portuguese poetry, the germ of the common character and metrical form of the national songs of Spain and Portugal is plainly discernible. Gonzalo Hermiguez and Egaz Moniz wrote no rhymed chronicles or legends. They did not even compose in the Provençal metres. Their lyric effusions, which are popular songs in the proper sense of the term, are composed in short trochaic verses, precisely in the style of the well-known Spanish and Portuguese ballads of the fifteenth centuries. In the verses of Hermiguez scarcely any regular measure is discernible.[6] But Egaz Moniz exhibits precisely that metrical form, for which, during some succeeding centuries the Portuguese and the Spaniards manifested a particular predilection.[7]

These oldest relics of lyric composition in the Portuguese language seem to confirm the opinion, that the prevailing tone of romantic love, which characterised the poetry of the Spaniards and Portuguese, until the imitation of the Italian style was generally adopted, originated in Portugal. To paint romantic despair, and all the storms of passion, combined with the deepest resignation, existing not only in fancy, but in real life, appears to have formed the poetic costume of chivalry in Portugal even earlier than in Spain. Thus, the susceptible Egaz Moniz is said to have survived only a short time the poetic expression of the anguish occasioned by the infidelity of his beloved Violante.

EARLY ESSAY IN EPIC POETRY.

In all literary probability, the Portuguese also preceded the Spaniards in essays in epic, or rather in historical poetry. An old Portuguese narrative in dactylic stanzas (versos de arte mayor), whose unknown author related, as well as he was able, the history of the conquest of Spain by the Moors, may not be so old as it is supposed to be by Manuel de Faria y Sousa, who would refer the origin of these verses to the very period of the Arabic invasion. They are, however, written in such antiquated language, that they may be regarded as of a date anterior to the Cantigas of Hermiguez and Moniz; and that they are the surreptitious fabrication of a later writer can scarcely be supposed, since no one could have hoped to acquire the least fame or reward by producing a counterfeit of so little value. No opinion could be formed of the merits of the whole narrative from the few stanzas, which are now extant, even though the language were more intelligible than it is.[8]

KING DINIZ.

In general all these remains of the most ancient Portuguese poetry must be considered only as first attempts. Throughout the whole of the thirteenth century, the poetic art in Portugal appears to have remained stationary in that degree of advancement to which it had arrived in the twelfth century. The language, however, became gradually more fixed and regular. In the latter half of the thirteenth century, king Diniz (Dionysius) of Portugal, promoted Portuguese literature in the same manner as his contemporary Alphonso the Wise, by his influence and example, improved the poetry of Castile. Diniz, like Alphonso, was himself a poet and a prose writer. His poetic compositions were, according to the fashion of the age, collected in Cancioneiros (song books), which bore the name of the author. But from the testimony of Portuguese writers, it appears that the poems of king Diniz are to be found only in old manuscripts. They cannot, however, be very few in number, for two Cancioneiros are named, one containing the spiritual, and the other the temporal works of the king. The first of these collections bears the singular title of Cancioneiro de Nossa Senhora (Our Lady’s Song book).[9] King Diniz, in whose reign trade, and with it the third estate particularly, flourished in Lisbon, founded in the year 1290 the national university. This institution was first established in the capital, but it was soon transferred to Coimbra, where it is still maintained, in a great measure, according to its original forms. It is one of the oldest universities in Europe. No accounts have been preserved of any other Portuguese writers, who, following the example of their king, may have more or less distinguished themselves in the cultivation of the national poetry; though at this period celebrated names might the more naturally be expected, as two poets had flourished in the twelfth century. But the Portuguese bards, who, in the thirteenth century delighted their contemporaries by their poetic compositions, shared no better fate than the writers of the oldest Spanish canciones and romances.

POETS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.

The fourteenth century is not much richer than the thirteenth in names, which shed a lustre on the history of Portuguese poetry. Scarcely any writers of verse are recorded, except those who were members of the royal family, as if they were considered the representatives of all the contemporary poets of their nation. Alphonso IV. who reigned from 1325 to 1357, pursued with regard to poetry the same course as his father, King Diniz. Affonso Sanchez, a natural son of Diniz, appears to have been gifted with a similar poetic talent.[10] But the writings of Affonso Sanchez are not now to be found even in manuscript; and those of King Alphonso IV. have never been printed. Pedro I., who was the son of this last mentioned sovereign, and whose unfortunate connection with the beautiful Inez de Castro, has given him a romantic celebrity, seems to have found the Castilian language, which then vied with the Portuguese in cultivation, as well adapted as his native tongue to the poetic expression of his feelings. A Castilian poem by Pedro I., which begins in short verses, like a cancion, and proceeds in the measure of the Italian canzone, has been preserved, in addition to some compositions in Portuguese, which are also attributed to that monarch.[11] If Dom[12] Pedro’s poem be authentic, it proves that the Italian poetry had an influence on the Portuguese, even at a period when the Castilian had not yet fully developed itself in the old national forms. But this early influence of Italian poetry is also proved by some Portuguese sonnets of the fourteenth or fifteenth century. An old sonnet, in praise of Vasco de Lobeira, the author of Amadis de Gaul,[13] is by some writers ascribed to Alphonso IV., King of Portugal, and by others to the Infante Dom Pedro, the son of John I., who was born in the year 1392.[14] It is scarcely worth while to enter into minute investigation merely for the purpose of settling this dispute. Admitting the problematic sonnet to be really the production of the Infante Dom Pedro, and therefore written, at the earliest in the commencement of the fifteenth century, it is certain that at that period no imitation of the Italian style was thought of in Castile. In Portugal, however, the metrical form of the sonnet was not only known, as it also was in Castile; but the Italian style was likewise imitated in sonnets. The Infante Dom Pedro translated some of Petrarch’s sonnets into Portuguese.[15] It may therefore without hesitation be inferred that Dom Pedro, who has never been mentioned as having struck out a new path on the Portuguese Parnassus, merely followed the example of some of his countrymen who lived before him. It is probable, that the mercantile intercourse between Lisbon and the ports of Italy, made the Portuguese early acquainted with Italian literature. But at the period now under consideration, the imitation of the Italian style appears to have been very limited in Portugal; for the old lyric poetry in the national style, began about this time more particularly to unfold its characteristic beauties. According to the testimony of a Spanish writer,[16] the Portuguese Cancioneiro Geral contains some poems of the fourteenth century, with the names of the authors affixed to them.

CHRONICLES IN PROSE.

In the fourteenth century too, Portuguese prose improved in precision, after a certain degree of literary consideration had been given to it, in consequence of chronicles being written in the national language. From this period the Portuguese vied with the Castilians in the patriotic task of recording the memorable events of their national history. The style of the Portuguese chronicles of the fourteenth century is, however, completely in the chronicle manner.[17] Indeed the Portuguese literature of the fourteenth century presents no prose work, which in point of style equals those written during that period, in the Castilian language, by the Infante Juan Manuel.

INTIMATE CONNECTION OF THE PORTUGUESE AND GALICIAN POETRY—THE GALICIAN POET MACIAS.

In Portugal as in Spain the fifteenth century was the period during which the old national songs and romances flourished in the greatest luxuriance. Since that time Portuguese and Spanish poetry have in general occupied the same degrees of cultivation, and have lent to each other a mutual support, though neither stood in need of the other’s aid. The correspondence between the Castilian and the Portuguese poetry, was at that time particularly promoted by the Galician poets, who though faithful subjects of the Castilian monarchy, still remained true to their mother tongue. Galicia seems to have been the land of romantic sentiment whence the poetry of love exhibited in the lyric compositions of Spain and Portugal was transplanted. No Portuguese or Spaniard is so celebrated in poetic literature, for the influence of love on his fate, as the Galician poet and knight Macias, who lived in the first half of the fifteenth century, and of whose remarkable history a brief sketch may properly be introduced here. Macias, who obtained the surnames of the enamoured and the great, distinguished himself as a brave warrior against the Moors of Granada, and as an accomplished writer in the literary retinue of the Marquess of Villena.[18] But though the marquess appreciated the merits and talents of Macias, he did not approve the romantic passion with which that enthusiast interwove his poetic fancies into the affairs of real life. The marquess strictly prohibited him from continuing a secret intrigue in which he had embarked with a lady, who, through the intervention of the marquess, had become the wife of another knight. But Macias conceived that he could not better prove his chivalrous constancy in love, than by boldly disobeying the commands of his patron. The marquess, however, availing himself of his power as grand master of the order of Calatrava, sent the refractory poet a prisoner to the kingdom of Jaen, on the frontiers of Granada. In his captivity Macias composed his songs of ill-fated love in the Galician language, which at the period of their production were highly esteemed, but which are now lost with the exception of a few trifles.[19] He contrived to forward copies of these songs to his mistress. On the discovery of the correspondence, the poetic boldness of Macias roused the husband of the lady to the most furious pitch of jealousy. Armed cap-a-pee, he set out with the intention of slaying the unfortunate poet. He proceeded to the town of Arjonilla, where Macias was confined, and espying the prisoner at a window, he threw a javelin at him, and killed him on the spot. Some idea of the sensation which this affair produced may be formed from the contents of the old Spanish Cancionero, in which it is frequently mentioned. But the story has more properly its place in the history of Portuguese poetry. The Spanish amatory poets, however extravagant might be their extacies in verse, confined themselves, in real life, within certain boundaries, which were consistent with the habits of society. The Portuguese, on the contrary, and as it would appear, the Galicians likewise, when they indulged in the poetic expression of violent and enthusiastic feelings of love, conceived that it was still necessary they should seek to impress the stamp of perfection on their songs, by exhibiting all kinds of sentimental excesses in their own personal conduct. The Spaniards seem always to have felt convinced that they could not attain the romantic tenderness of the Portuguese.[20] A certain simplicity and intensity in the expression of tender sentiments, to which the language of Portugal is particularly favourable, has always been one of the characteristic features of Portuguese poetry, from the fifteenth century down to the present times.

THE CANCIONEIROS GERAES.

But in order to pursue the comparison between the romance and lyric poetry of Portugal and of Spain, an intimate acquaintance with the old Portuguese Cancioneiros geraes (general song books), is indispensable. Collections of this kind seem to have appeared as early as the fifteenth century. Writers on literature, however, usually refer to the Cancioneiro, which was printed in the year 1516, by Garcia de Resende, a man of talent, who flourished at the courts of John II. and Emanuel the Great.[21] A later collection of the same kind, which was edited by Father Pedro Ribeyro, professor of poetry, in the second half of the sixteenth century, has never yet been printed. The manuscript is dated 1577.[22] According to the statements of writers who seem to have been acquainted with Garcia de Resende’s work, it would appear that this old Portuguese Cancioneiro contains many more poetic names than the better known Spanish collection of the same kind, and that among these names are several writers who lived in the fourteenth century.[23] Here the author of this history of Portuguese literature, who has vainly endeavoured to render himself acquainted with Garcia de Resende’s interesting collection, must deplore that he is now compelled to leave a chasm which cannot be easily filled up; for this certainly is the place in which it would be most proper to endeavour to discover, in those features, which were doubtless common to all, or at least to most of the Portuguese lyric bards of the fifteenth century, the nature of the original difference of Portuguese and Spanish genius. It may, however, be presumed that the Portuguese poets, who were at this period so much more numerous than the Spanish, had advanced no farther than the latter in poetic refinement, for even Bernardim Ribeyro, called the Portuguese Ennius,[24] who lived until the commencement of the sixteenth century, and who is more celebrated than any other poetic writer of the fifteenth century, does not surpass the authors of the old Spanish ballads, in any thing connected with the cultivation of genius and the improvement of poetic language. Thus in all literary probability the Portuguese Cancioneiro geral is merely a companion work to the Spanish collection. But the preponderating number of the poetic writers of Portugal, compared with those of Spain during the fifteenth century, is a circumstance particularly deserving of notice, since it proves that the soil of Portugal was then, as well as at an earlier period, even more fertile than Spain in poetic genius. Still, however, this indicates no peculiarly eminent talent. It is also but fair to observe, lest the superior number of the Portuguese poets, in proportion to the limited extent of their native land, should be too highly estimated, that in the fifteenth century, the Castilian monarchy was not what it now is; for it was bounded on the south by the Moorish kingdom of Granada, and on the east by the Arragonian dominions, where the Limosin language exclusively prevailed.

DEFICIENCY WITH REGARD TO HISTORICAL ROMANCES—LITTLE INFLUENCE OF THE CULTIVATION OF LATIN VERSE ON PORTUGUESE LYRIC POETRY.

Narrative and particularly historical romances seem never to have been so highly esteemed by the Portuguese as by the Spaniards. It is probable that in this class of composition the Portuguese merely imitated the Spaniards, whom they instructed, on the other hand, in bucolic poetry.[25]

The enthusiasm with which the Portuguese devoted themselves to the cultivation of lyric poetry in their native tongue, was not abated by the passion for latin poetry, which towards the close of the fifteenth century prevailed in Portugal as well as in Italy. This literary coincidence was probably occasioned by the commercial intercourse which then subsisted between Portugal and Italy. The fame of Angelo Poliziano attracted one of his most ardent admirers, the ingenious Henrique Cayado, better known by the name of Ermigius, from Portugal to Italy, where he entered the ranks of the revivers of latin poetry. Cayado was imitated by a considerable number of Portuguese writers who became celebrated for the composition of latin verse.[26] But it does not appear that the national poetry, in the vernacular language, was in any way neglected or despised by the Portuguese nobility; and the favour of the great exercised a more powerful influence over the poetic spirit of the nation, than the example of the learned. There is also very little ground for supposing that the Portuguese writers endeavoured to form the romantic poetry of their country on the model of the antique. A correct notion of the essential distinction between romantic and classic composition secured at this period the Portuguese as well as the Italians against the introduction of incongruous and spurious forms in their poetry; and taste was not yet sufficiently cultivated to admit of a judicious union of the classic and the romantic styles.

EARLY CULTIVATION OF HISTORICAL PROSE.

The general improvement of the language, and the renewed intimacy with ancient literature, had even as early as the first half of the fifteenth century an advantageous influence on the Portuguese chronicle writers. At this period a very copious chronicle of the reign of King John I. of Portugal, was written in the Portuguese language, by a knight and statesman, named Fernando Lopes. This writer distinguished himself as early as the reign of King Duarte, or Edward, whose successor, Alphonso V. in the year 1449, conferred on him the dignity of Cronista, or state-historiographer.[27] The narrative style of this diligent compiler is, indeed, quite as dull and monotonous as that of the older Portuguese chroniclers; but he obviously made efforts to express himself with a certain degree of dignity. He neglects no opportunity of making his historical characters deliver speeches, after the manner of the ancient writers; and a certain degree of energetic simplicity is to be found in some of those harangues.[28]

INCREASE OF PORTUGUESE POWER, FOLLOWED BY THE RAPID DEVELOPEMENT OF THE NATIONAL POETRY AT THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

Meanwhile the Portuguese monarchy approached the summit of its power and glory. While Spain, under the dominion of Ferdinand and Isabella, began to form itself internally into a single state, the government and people of Portugal directed their attention to discoveries and conquests in Africa and India. A peculiar union of the heroism of chivalry, and the industry of social life which prevailed in Portugal, under the auspices of her enterprising sovereigns, impressed on the nation a consciousness of power, in which the Portuguese were in no respect inferior to the Castilians. The flag of Portugal waved along the western coast of Africa, where Portuguese factories began to be converted into colonies, extending towards the Cape which Vasco de Gama doubled in the year 1498. In less than fifteen years after this memorable event, Portuguese valour, guided by the renowned leaders Francisco de Almeida and Alfonso de Albuquerque, succeeded in founding a kingdom in India, of which Goa was the capital. At this period, during the glorious reign of Emanuel, who in the series of Portuguese sovereigns is distinguished by the surname of the Great, no Spanish poet had attained so much celebrity as was enjoyed by the Portuguese Bernardim, or (according to the more ancient orthography of that name) Bernaldim Ribeyro. A comprehensive idea of the nature of that romantic spirit, which every Portuguese poet conceived himself bound to exhibit in the fulfilment of his poetic destination, may be gathered from an account of the life and writings of this extraordinary man.

BERNARDIM RIBEYRO.

This poet received such a literary education as was in those times required for the study of the law, and a subsequent residence at court. King Emanuel, conferred on him the appointment of moço fidalgo (gentleman of the chamber). Ribeyro found at the court of that sovereign an object capable of fixing his poetic fancy, but not his future happiness; for from that time forward the heart of this sentimental enthusiast appears to have been incessantly agitated by sad emotions. Portuguese writers insinuate that the Infanta Dona Beatrice, the king’s daughter, was the lady of whom the unfortunate Ribeyro was enamoured. It is evident from his writings, that he has studiously thrown a veil over the secret of his heart. We are not informed how he reconciled this passion with his domestic relations, or whether at the period of his marriage he had emancipated himself from those romantic illusions which at other times exercised so powerful a dominion over him. It is related that he frequently retired to the woods where he passed the night alone, singing to the murmuring brooks his songs of passion and despair. But it is also said that he tenderly loved his wife, and after her death showed no inclination to enter, a second time, into the married state. There is no possibility of reconciling these psychological inconsistencies, since it is not known at what period of his life Ribeyro retired from court. Neither is it recorded at what period or at what age he died. But that he cherished romantic fancies in real life, as well as in his poetry, is a fact which is sufficiently confirmed by the accounts which have been preserved of his conduct and by the general character of his writings.[29]

Among the poetic works of Ribeyro, so far as they are known, his eclogues are particularly distinguished. If not the very oldest, they are certainly among the most ancient compositions of the kind in Portuguese and Spanish literature; and when compared with those of Juan del Enzina, who flourished about the same time in Spain, they may, in every respect, claim the priority. Juan del Enzina ingeniously sported with simple ideas; but Ribeyro sang from his inmost soul. However, even Ribeyro is poor in ideas. His language and composition are very remote from classical correctness, and his prolixity is tedious. But amidst the monotony of Ribeyro’s homely verses, there appears a spirit of truth and poetic feeling, which no art or study could have produced. The eclogues, which are unquestionably the production of Ribeyro’s pen, are four in number; but a fifth in the same style is attributed to him. They are all composed in Redondilhas, arranged in stanzas of nine or ten lines each, called decimas. Like most compositions in the class to which they belong, these eclogues assume the form of tales; but the lyric garb in which the simple materials are clothed, is the most interesting circumstance of the whole. Ribeyro has described in his eclogues only the scenery of his native country. The Tagus, the Mondego, the sea on the coast of Portugal, and even sometimes the city of Coimbra, and other towns, are exhibited in a poetic point of view. The names usually given to the shepherds are, Fauno, Persio, Franco, Jano, Sylvestre; but among the shepherdesses we find, a Catharina and a Joana introduced. Certain peculiarities and mysterious allusions sufficiently betray the object of the poet, which was to represent the romantic situations and events of the fashionable circles in which he moved at the court of Lisbon, under the poetic disguise of situations and events of pastoral life. In conformity with the notions of the age, this kind of disguise was, from its affinity to allegory, highly valued; and it afforded the poet an opportunity of unfolding the sentiments of his heart, to the mistress whom he dared not name, without the fear of compromising either her or himself. Ribeyro’s fancy revelled in this union of truth and fact with truth of poetic feeling. The characters in all his eclogues are nearly the same under different names, and among them an unhappy lover is always the most conspicuous. The fervent expression of tenderness and despair on the part of the lover, forms the soul of these little pastoral pictures.

Ribeyro’s poetic style is in its principal features the old romance style, only here and there somewhat more luxuriant, and occasionally interspersed with antiquated conceits. The unaffected truth of some of the descriptions is heightened by a peculiar kind of rural grace,[30] and even the uniform repetitions and plays of words in the lyric passages are, in general, not destitute of poetic interest.[31] The enthusiast must be forgiven for the application, certainly not very ingenious, of his own name, which he has sometimes allegorically disguised by the word Ribeyra, (a river,) and sometimes introduced as the real name of a shepherd; but the shepherd is in the same way reminded of a beautiful river, which is intended as the allegorical representative of a lady, who under the name of Ribeyra, is the object of Ribeyro’s adoration.[32] Some of these antiquated conceits are, however, dignified by warmth of expression.[33] But upon the whole, Ribeyro’s eclogues are nothing more than the heartfelt effusions of a poet, who with all his tenderness and depth of sentiment had not sufficient energy to strike out a new course for himself.[34]

The Cantigas of Bernardim Ribeyro unquestionably bear the characteristic stamp of the fifteenth century. They may be ranked on an equality with the best pieces of the same kind in the old Spanish Cancionero. Like them they paraphrase an idea which is set down at the head of the poem, and thus appear in the form of glosses, without being confined within a certain number of lines. The idea is as in Spanish, called the mote (motto). That which the Spaniards term a glosa, is by the Portuguese denominated a volta (turn); and the title Cantiga, which the Portuguese give to a composition of this kind, seems, like the Spanish term Villancico, to have been borrowed from the ecclesiastical hymns.[35] One of Ribeyro’s Cantigas is remarkable for the boldness with which the poet, in his character of a married man, very unequivocally marks the distinction between his wife and the lady who is the object of his regard, and assures this lady that only his hand and not his heart is wedded.[36] If this Cantiga be really founded on truth, a question with which the critic has, generally speaking, little concern, it not only weakens the authenticity of the accounts respecting Ribeyro’s tender attachment to his wife, but also serves to explain the studied obscurity of the allusions which prevail throughout the whole of his writings; and in this last respect the question is of some interest to the critic. A sextina imitated from the Italian forms, but in trochaic verses, which are besides pure redondilhas, is likewise among the number of Ribeyro’s poems. In addition to these Cantigas, which are, however, but little known,[37] there has been preserved a narrative romance of the idyllic kind, which by some favourable accident has even found a place in one of the old Spanish Cancioneros, where it is also attributed to Ribeyro.[38] This romance, which is allegorical, contains plays on the name of Ribeyro, and veils the glowing anguish of the poet under a singular obscurity of ideas and images. The romantic mysticism and deep fervour of expression, which distinguish it, sufficiently attest its authenticity.[39]

But a work, by this author, which is of greater extent, and which exhibits the first remarkable attempt towards the improvement of romantic prose in the Portuguese language, remains to be noticed. This work is a kind of romance which Ribeyro appears to have written in his mature years, and which he did not complete. The name given to it Menina e Moça, (meaning “a young and innocent maiden,”) is a repetition of the three first words with which the story begins, and therefore is not susceptible of precise translation in the form of a title.[40] In point of intricacy this fragment has no parallel in the whole range of romantic literature. The mysterious Ribeyro has here employed all the powers of his inventive fancy, in giving utterance to his enthusiastic feelings, and in minutely expressing the sentiments of his heart; while at the same time he has confounded and changed characters and events so as to secure every circumstance and allusion against malicious interpretation. Thus a reader in the nineteenth century is at a loss to unravel the entangled composition, and it being merely a fragment, is a circumstance which increases the difficulty. No alchymist ever bestowed more pains on the enigmatical dressing of his doctrine of the philosopher’s stone, than Ribeyro has taken to envelope his romance in a veil of obscurity. It is asserted, nevertheless, that with all this caution he was afraid to lay it openly before the public; and in fact the book did not become known until after his death. It is impossible to form any probable conjecture as to the ultimate object of the author. The commencement of the tale, or if it must be so called, the preface, is put into the mouth of a sentimental female character who has withdrawn from the gay world to a wild solitary spot on the Portuguese coast. This lady, whose name is not mentioned, relates that while she was yet Menina e Moça, she was carried from her father’s house to foreign lands. From that period, doomed to lead a life of wretchedness, alone, among the rugged cliffs, she bewails her never-ending sorrows, beholding only on the one hand the unchangeable mountain tops, and on the other the ever restless waves of the sea.[41] In this manner the anonymous female continues her narrative, and describes her inconsolable condition. She states, that by way of amusement, though of a melancholy kind, she has devoted herself to the task of writing “this little book,” (este livrinho), which is intended to unfold her sufferings and her errors. From this introduction the reader impatiently expects the history of the nameless lady, who has now excited his interest. But here the confusion and intricacy commences. The supposed authoress states, that in her solitude she had discovered another lady no less unfortunate than herself. She introduces this lady, who in her turn begins to relate her history. This new character throws the first completely into the back ground. She expatiates on the virtues befitting knights and ladies, and sheds tears of regret for the departed days of chivalry. She states that the wild valleys to which she has retired, were once the scenes of memorable and brilliant events: and here the reader is again disappointed, for instead of relating her own adventures, as is naturally expected, she commences an intricate and romantic story of love and heroism, the period of which is laid in the ages of chivalry. This story is in fact the romance which Ribeyro wished to write. What the author intended by the two-fold frame-work of his romance, and the superfluous history related by the one lady to the other, is an enigma that cannot be solved without a knowledge of the private life of the poet, circumstances of which are supposed to be ingeniously concealed under these forms of art. Ribeyro very dextrously makes his fair narrator observe that, as a woman, she is not qualified to speak minutely, and at length concerning the achievements of knighthood; but that with respect to the affairs of the heart she is enabled to say all that is necessary. Thus he has spared himself the trouble of exercising his descriptive talent on a branch of the history, the details of which he was not inclined to follow.

It would be impossible to furnish an abstract of the tale of love and heroism which forms the subject of this romance. Even on a perusal of the whole, so great is the obscurity, that nothing can be comprehended of the circumstances, without the utmost effort of attention. That Ribeyro has clothed in the disguise of this story, the most interesting events of his own life, is a fact which admits of no doubt; for the contrivance which he adopted with the view of concealing his personal implication, by the intricate arrangement of his romance, is disclosed with the greatest simplicity. The really artless Ribeyro, having so far disguised himself, conceived that by transposing the letters of real names, he did all that was necessary to avoid compromising the individuals of his acquaintance, whom he introduced in his romance, arrayed in the garb of ancient chivalry. Thus Alvaro is converted into Avalor, Joana into Aonia, and Bernardim, the christian name of Ribeyro himself, is changed into Bimnarder and Narbindel. The unconscious simplicity of these transpositions corresponds with the whole tone and style of the romance. The monotony of incessant love complaints renders the prolixity of the narrative still more tedious; but even amidst that monotony and prolixity, it is easy to recognise a spirit truly poetic, more remarkable, however, for susceptibility than for energy. Some of the sentimental passages are distinguished by the charm of a most tender and pathetic sweetness. This characteristic appears even in the introduction, where a story is told of the death of a nightingale, which being perched on the branch of a tree overhanging a brook, dies while singing, and dropping into the brook is carried away by the current, along with the fallen leaves.[42] The reader is surprised by these delicate plays of feeling, no less than by many occasional reflexions, which though trivial in the present day, were at the commencement of the sixteenth century by no means common. Thus allusion is made to the absurd notion of women in imagining they can secure the heart of a lover by the same persevering service which pleases themselves in the other sex.[43] By traits of this kind, and by the simple truth of description, this old Portuguese romance is sufficiently distinguished from the common class of romances of chivalry, which during the sixteenth century, became in a great measure the fashionable reading of the Spaniards and Portuguese. Spanish literature at that period could not boast of any work written in so cultivated a style, and yet that style soon afterwards became somewhat antiquated. From some passages in which allusion is made to Galician phrases, it is evident that the Portuguese in the age of Ribeyro, carefully distinguished their native tongue as a cultivated language, from the Galician, which had now become a common popular idiom.

In the polite literature of Portugal, Bernardim Ribeyro stands on the boundary of the old national and the modern taste, which at the commencement of the sixteenth century, began to be developed in Portugal as well as in Spain, in consequence of the imitation of the Italian style. In spite of all their defects and deformities, Ribeyro’s verses as well as his prose romance, deserve to be honourably remembered, since they present remarkable monuments of the romantic character of the Portuguese at the period when the national greatness of that poetically organized people began suddenly to decline. A remnant of that character must, however, still be preserved, even by the Portuguese of the present day, otherwise a new edition of Ribeyro’s romance would not at the end of the eighteenth century, have been presented to the Portuguese public, as a proof of the excellence of a language in which such a work was written.[44]

CHRISTOVAÕ FALCAÕ.

Among the contemporaries of Ribeyro the most distinguished was Christovaõ Falcaõ, or Christovam Falcam. He was a knight of the order of Christ, an admiral, governor of Madeira, and a celebrated poet in the age in which he lived. A long eclogue by this writer, which forms an appendix to the works of Ribeyro,[45] so completely partakes of the character of the poems which it accompanies, that were it not for the separate title it might be mistaken for the production of Ribeyro himself. It therefore proves that Ribeyro’s poetic fancies, his romantic mysticism, not excepted, were by no means individual. The fashionable form of the poetry of melancholy love in Portugal, was to complain and yet ostensibly affect to conceal itself. Thus, Christovaõ Falcaõ, by a slight change of his own christian name, gives the name of Crisfal to the shepherd who poetically represents himself. The subject of the poem is the love of Crisfal and Maria, the shepherdess who is the heroine of the eclogue. This shepherdess is evidently a real personage, and it is mentioned by writers on literature that the poet’s mistress had the same Christian name; she was a Maria Brandam. The rural scenery described in this eclogue, like that in the poems of Ribeyro, is all national: the Tagus, the Mondego, and the rocks of Cintra, are introduced here as in Ribeyro’s romance. The story is simple. Two lovers are separated by the severity of their parents. The shepherd relates his sorrows, and calls to mind his past days of happiness. This reminiscence gives birth to a kind of tale which is interwoven with the complaints of the shepherd. The verses are redondilhas, and the eclogue consists of upwards of ninety of the ten line stanzas called decimas, exclusive of some cantigas in shorter stanzas, which are interspersed through the work. The language and style, particularly in the lyric complaints, are even more antiquated than Ribeyro’s. The most truly beautiful portion of the poem is the description of a brief interview and renewed farewell between Crisfal and Maria,[46] particularly towards the close.[47] The poet throws a veil of mystery over the subsequent fate of Crisfal, and does not choose to hint whether the hapless shepherd survives. A nymph who has heard his complaints inscribes them on a poplar, in order, as it is said, that they may grow with the tree to a height beyond the reach of vulgar ideas.[48] So delicate a winding up of the story would not have entered into the imagination of every amatory bard.

Portugal may therefore be regarded as the true native land of romantic pastoral poetry, which, however, about the same period flourished in Italy, where it assumed more cultivated forms, particularly after Sanazzaro had written; but in Portugal alone was it properly national. Two Portuguese writers, Saa de Miranda and Montemayor transferred this style of poetry to Spanish literature.[49]

Among the works of Falcam, there is a kind of poetic epistle, if it may be so called; but he wrote no didactic epistles. This poetic epistle is in fact merely a lyric romance, which the author has addressed to his mistress in the form of a letter, when, as the superscription expressly mentions, he had secretly married her contrary to the will of her parents; an act for which he incurred the penalty of five years imprisonment. From his prison he addressed verses to his lady.[50] Thus it also appears that this Portuguese poet, who afterwards discharged, probably with honour to himself, the duties of admiral and governor, wished to make the same romantic principles the basis of his conduct and his writings.

OTHER ANCIENT LYRIC POEMS.

It is probable that the lyric pieces which are annexed to the old edition of the works of Ribeyro, and which immediately follow the poems of Falcam, were written by the latter. They belong entirely to the class of Villancicos in the Spanish Cancioneros. They are, for the most part, cantigas or glossed mottos; but some are entitled Esparças, or overflowings of the heart.[51] In all these songs the plays of antiquated chivalrous wit are very affectedly blended with genuine effusions of the heart. They are, however, like the old Spanish canciones, throughout enlivened by a glimmering of poetic truth; and even the old fashioned conceits successfully contribute to express intensity of feeling. This is particularly the character of the mottos, which appear to be more remarkable for far-fetched quaintness, than the old Spanish compositions of a similar kind. The following may serve as examples:—“I saw the end at the beginning; I see the beginning at the end; so that I know not whether I am beginning or ending.”[52] “Since in beholding you, lady, I have lost the knowledge of myself, do not you do against me, that which for your sake I have done against myself.”[53] “At variance with myself, great is my danger, for I can neither live with myself nor fly from myself.”[54] Some mottos are, however, expressed in a more simple and popular form; but it is remarkable that those which are most inartificial, or destitute of point, are precisely those of which the glosses are more particularly distinguished by nature and grace.[55] The Portuguese of this age seem to have been much less disposed than the Spaniards to pourtray in their lyric poetry the continual conflict between passion and reason. Like the Italians the Portuguese gave free utterance to the emotions of the heart, and were only induced to seek after quaint ideas, by an eager desire that the vehemence and depth of their passionate feelings should be energetically and ingeniously expressed.

It would appear that at the commencement of the sixteenth century the romantic pastoral and lyric styles were the only species of poetic composition to the cultivation of which the Portuguese directed their attention. No evidence appears to exist of any remarkable essay in dramatic poetry, before the time of Gil Vicente, who will hereafter be noticed. It is probable that unimportant treatises on poetry and versification, in the style of that which Juan del Enzina wrote in Spanish, existed at the same period in the Portuguese language; and on a comprehensive view of the polite literature of Portugal, previous to the introduction of the Italian style, it will be found that like the true sister of Spanish literature, it was, in an equal degree, susceptible of the reform which presented itself to both.

BOOK II.
FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE SIXTEENTH UNTIL TOWARDS THE END OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

CHAP. I.
GENERAL VIEW OF THE POETIC AND RHETORICAL CULTIVATION OF THE PORTUGUESE DURING THE ABOVE PERIOD.

Relation of Portuguese to Spanish Poetry in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.

The original relationship between Portuguese and Spanish poetry paved the way for the adoption of the Italian style by the former; for when that style became, during the sixteenth century, naturalized in Spain, a similar change soon followed in the national taste and poetic forms of Portugal. The political conflicts of the two nations did not either then, or at any former period, disturb the harmony of their common poetic feeling. Though the distinctive features in the national character as well as in the language of the Portuguese and Spaniards, might be traced with more precision than heretofore, yet the general customs of both nations remained the same, and the demands of their respective tastes which had been awakened in nearly the same manner, required to be satisfied by similar means. Every species of poetry was not, however, received with equal favour in Spain and Portugal; nor did every style of poetic composition find in each country a poet whose genius was capable of elevating it to particular distinction. In those nations, as elsewhere, fate has, by incomprehensible laws, sometimes summoned the right spirit at the right hour, and has sometimes denied the art to the artist when all external circumstances appeared most favourable, and when the perseverance of emulative competitors was most conspicuous. Thus Portugal cannot boast of a Cervantes, and Spain has given birth to no Camoens.

The Portuguese had raised their country to the same height of political glory as Spain, when their poets began to vie with the Spanish in the ingenious imitation of the Italian forms. After Columbus had discovered America for Spain, as Vasco de Gama had the new way to the East Indies for his own countrymen, the Portuguese lost no time, at least on the eastern coast of the new world, in seizing a share of the rich booty claimed by the Spaniards. The Florentine Amerigo Vespucci in the service of King Emanuel of Portugal, explored a part of the new continent, the whole of which has since borne his name. The papal line of demarcation which divided the newly discovered heathen regions between Spain and Portugal, was equally flattering, though circumstances prevented it from being equally advantageous to both powers. The Portuguese was like the Spaniard, proud of his achievements; and before the mines of Peru had given the highest impulse to Spanish self-esteem, Portugal was already enriched by her Indian treasures. If during the thirty years reign of John III. (from 1521 to 1557) the Portuguese government shewed itself wanting in wisdom, it was not deficient in energy. Even the exertions made to maintain sword in hand, the Portuguese dominion in India, against the constant hostility of the natives, augmented the military strength of the nation, though they proved injurious to its commercial interests. Under these circumstances the bold spirit of commerce was in no danger of degenerating into a petty trading spirit; and the romantic character which Portuguese poetry had from its origin always displayed, could without difficulty develope itself under new features, particularly when the poet himself, like Camoens, was at once a hero and an adventurer.

After the period of the highest greatness of the little kingdom of Portugal had long passed away, its effects still operated powerfully on the spirit and the literature of the nation. To be obliged to become Spanish subjects, on the extinction of their old royal family, deeply mortified the Portuguese; but the shadow of ancient national independence which the cabinet of Madrid found it necessary to concede to Portugal, was sufficient during the whole period in which that country continued under Spanish domination, to maintain in full force the old national hatred between the two countries. This was carried to the highest pitch of exasperation in the hearts of the Portuguese, when they found that in spite of the seeming independence of the kingdom of Portugal, the foreign powers with whom Spain waged incessant war, paid no attention to the distinction between Spanish and Portuguese possessions; and that the Dutch in particular availed themselves of the favourable opportunity to treat the Portuguese as Spaniards, and to deprive them of those valuable possessions in India, for which they were indebted to the enterprising spirit and courage of their ancestors. It required no great political penetration to discover that the most productive source of Portuguese national prosperity had thus become obstructed, and that in all probability such a misfortune would not have occurred had Portugal preserved her independence. Even the nobility and the ecclesiastics, who, contrary to the express wish of the people, had favoured the claims by which Philip II. of Spain was declared Philip I. of Portugal, could not possibly be warm partisans of a government which oppressed the whole country by an absurd and despotic system of administration. During the sixty years therefore in which Portugal felt the weight of Spanish supremacy, every patriotic Portuguese regarded the three Philips, who ruled over his native country, merely as kings of Portugal, unfortunately residing in Madrid. Lisbon continued to be the real Portuguese capital. The ministerial departments of state were still concentrated there; and in conformity with the treaty by which the crown was ceded to Philip, all the public offices in Portugal were filled by native Portuguese. In Lisbon, too, the Portuguese language maintained its ancient consideration in the courts of law, in the polite world, and in literature, though it was not very readily adopted by Spaniards.

The national peculiarities which, even under the Spanish dominion, continued to distinguish the Portuguese from the Spaniards, were attended by consequences remarkably favourable to Portuguese literature, when at last, in the year 1640, the long prepared blow was struck, which rescued Portugal from the yoke of the Spanish sovereigns, and placed John of Braganza on the throne amidst the acclamations of the people. At this period, Spanish poetry had already declined, while on the contrary Portuguese poetry once more revived. The general re-action against every thing Spanish had an inspiring influence on the Portuguese poets, even though they took no part in political affairs. If no second Camoens arose in that age, it nevertheless gave birth to several poets, whose lyric compositions honourably maintained the reputation of their country; and they were eminently successful in gathering the last blossoms of the poetry of romantic love, which had taken the deepest root in Portugal.

CAUSES OF THE CONTINUED CULTIVATION OF THE SPANISH LANGUAGE IN PORTUGAL.

To causes of a totally different nature and in which political interests were but remotely concerned, must be attributed the zeal with which the Portuguese, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, cultivated the language and literature of Spain, along with their mother tongue and the learning of their own country; while the Spaniards of the same period regarded the Portuguese poetry as a mere scion of the Spanish, and besides, generally speaking, looked down with contempt on the language and literature of Portugal. That this unequal conduct of the two nations was not the effect of political causes, is evident from the favour which the Portuguese poets extended to the Castilian language, in the first half of the sixteenth century, when certainly no expectation was entertained of the union of the two kingdoms. Even at that period it was a custom, and indeed a high style of fashion in literature for Portuguese poets to write verses in Castilian as well as in their mother tongue. Saa de Miranda, the poet with whom the most brilliant period of Portuguese literature commences, also holds a place among Spanish poets. Compositions in the Castilian language are indeed interspersed through the works of all the Portuguese poets of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; but nothing could be more extraordinary than to find either verse or prose written in the Portuguese language by a Spaniard.

This phenomenon, which seems to be at variance with Portuguese patriotism, may, however, be explained by the peculiar relations which the Castilian and Portuguese languages bear to each other. The Castilian language has an imposing character which is wanting in the Portuguese; and though the stateliness of the Spanish diction might seem formal and affected to the Portuguese in general, it was likely to make a forcible impression on their poets. The pleasing fluency of the Portuguese tongue, could not, however, operate so favourably on the poets of Spain, for to a Spanish ear the most elegant Portuguese has merely the effect of broken Castilian.[56] The Portuguese were indemnified for the Castilian guttural, which so much displeased them, by the sonorous accentuation of the Castilian words; but the Spaniards found much of this accentuation lost in Portuguese by abbreviations of the very words in which it occurs in Spanish. The Castilian too was regarded as the more dignified tongue, because its unabbreviated words, for which it is indebted to the latin, excited more precise recollections of the language of ancient Rome.[57] It is probable also, that Castilian pride after the union of the Castilian and Arragonian provinces contributed its share in rendering the Spaniards insensible to the peculiar beauties of the Portuguese language. On the contrary, the flexibility of the Portuguese character more readily accommodated itself to foreign forms. Finally, the dependence of the whole government of Portugal on the court of Madrid, during the space of half a century, rendered the knowledge of the Castilian language indispensable to those Portuguese who were destined to fill the first ministerial departments in their native country; but the Spaniards had no such inducement to learn Portuguese, as they were not permitted to hold any public office in Portugal. Thus did the Spanish language during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, acquire that degree of consideration in Portuguese literature which it afterwards maintained. It should besides be recollected, that during the period in which Portugal continued under the dominion of Spain, a great portion of the bookselling trade had been transferred to Lisbon, the first commercial city in the two united kingdoms; and trifling as this circumstance may at first sight appear, it cannot be doubted that it co-operated to the diffusion of the Spanish language in Portuguese literature.

RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL CHARACTER OF THE PORTUGUESE DURING THIS PERIOD.

The polite literature of Portugal experienced no disadvantage from certain traits of difference in the Spanish and Portuguese character and manners. The Portuguese who were less addicted to pomp than the Spaniards, were also less inclined to religious fanaticism. The monarchs of Portugal, it is true, exerted their utmost endeavours to inflame the religious prejudices of their subjects, and to teach them to revel in the same delirium of barbarous orthodoxy as the Spaniards. John III. in whose reign Portugal attained the highest pinnacle of her power, did not neglect formally to introduce the Spanish inquisition into his dominions; and the jesuits, who had now begun to excite the alarm of every catholic monarchy, Spain excepted, were in the year 1540, received into Portugal by the same sovereign who proposed to avail himself of the aid of those enterprising defenders and propagators of the old catholic faith, for the conversion of the infidels in both Indies. He consigned to the jesuits the education of his grandson Sebastian, who was his successor on the throne; and the example of the monarch was doubtless imitated by many families of rank. Thus, literary education seems to have been still more jesuitical in Portugal than in Spain; and the dreadful pile, on which heretics were immolated, was lighted up often enough to blunt the moral feelings of the people. But these horrid festivals of superstition accorded less with the Portuguese than the Spanish character. Of the two nations the Portuguese were in disposition the more tolerant, and they continue so to be.[58] On this account the spiritual comedies, with which the Spanish public was never satiated, obtained only a transitory success in Portugal. If, then, the fetters imposed on conscience proved only slight restraints to poetic genius in Spain,[59] still less could any considerable injury arise from such influence on polite literature in Portugal.

At this period poetry and eloquence were not in Portugal much more than in Spain indebted to support from the throne. The poetic art was nevertheless held in esteem and honour at the court of John III. The time had, indeed, gone by in which the kings of Portugal competed for the laurels of Apollo, and shone conspicuous among the bards of their native land. From the reign of Emanuel the Great, to the period when the dynasty of that monarch became extinct, the kings of Portugal were more disposed to encourage adventurous enterprises in the two Indies than to devote themselves to the cultivation of poetry. John III. however, seems to have possessed a strong taste for dramatic amusements; at least it is related that he himself used to perform parts in the plays of Gil Vicente, which were represented at his court. Sebastian, the ardent disciple of the jesuits, was occupied in the fulfilment of his presumed destiny to extend the glory of his faith and his name by romantic achievements, until in the fatal conflict, by which he hoped to render himself master of Fez and Morocco, he was lost among the lifeless wreck of his defeated army: and Camoens, the no less ardent disciple of the muses, whose enthusiasm in his sovereign’s cause was both patriotic and poetic, was left by Sebastian to languish in bitter poverty. Old Cardinal Henry, though a lover of literature, found, on ascending the throne, sufficient occupation in providing for the political welfare of the country. That the Spanish kings who next governed Portugal bestowed little or no attention on Portuguese poetry and eloquence, is a fact to which it is scarcely necessary to advert. On the accession of John of Braganza, it is probable that the government would have done more for the national drama, which had hitherto been left to work its own way, had not the Portuguese, after the death of the inventive Gil Vicente, fallen further behind the Spaniards in dramatic composition than in any other class of poetry. The royal patronage now arrived too late. Portugal possessed no national drama like that of Spain; and for the non-existence of that branch of literature the people and not the government must be held responsible. The causes which prevented dramatic poetry in Portugal from attaining that degree of excellence to which it arrived in Spain, will be noticed in their proper place, in so far as they can be ascertained or conjectured. The distinguished favour, however, which the Italian opera at length obtained from the court of Lisbon was not only unprofitable to Portuguese national poetry, but contributed to banish it still further from the stage. There was of course now less reason than ever to hope for the establishment of a genuine and well cultivated national drama in Portugal.

To the Portuguese nation must be attributed the excellencies and the defects which Portuguese poetry and eloquence presented throughout the whole of this period. In Portugal, no poet, who wished to distinguish himself within the sphere of his art, presumed to dictate legislatorily to the national taste. No one, by striking out a new path, sought to explore the unbeaten regions of his native Parnassus. No sects, like those which occasionally arose in Spain, disturbed the poetic harmony of the Portuguese poets, whose various voices were always attuned in national concord. The influence which the Italian poetry gained over the Portuguese was recognised with equal willingness by the poets and the public. It cannot, however, be denied that this national harmony of the Portuguese poets during the most brilliant period of the polite literature of their nation, gave rise to a certain spirit of self-satisfaction, which though very favourable to subordinate talent, was by no means calculated to awaken genius. The higher beauties of the poetic art were not scrupulously demanded: to secure success it was sufficient that an author should elevate himself in a slight degree above the common makers of verse. Romantic ideas tolerably versified in pleasing language were all that a Portuguese poet found necessary in order to secure the esteem and the eulogy of that public on whose decision his reputation depended. Eminent poetic merit could be appreciated by very few, and it received no particular encouragement or uncommon reward. Thus it happened that the state of poetic public spirit among the Portuguese created no demand beyond an extensive improvement of the national poetry. The great mass of the people adhered to the old romance style; while the nobility, men of education, and finally, all who wished to mingle in fashionable society, preferred the Italian forms, on which, however, the Portuguese national impress was always discernible. But the majority of the poets whose names acquired celebrity, belonged to noble families;—for in Portugal, as in Italy and Spain, every one who wished to gain distinction at court, or in the army, or as a well educated man of the world, composed verses; and even ecclesiastics who were anxious to gain the good graces of the fair sex, found it necessary to lay claim to poetic cultivation. Among the princes of the royal house, the Infante Dom Manoel, who stands in a kind of poetic relationship with Saa de Miranda, seems to be the last who was distinguished for writing passable verse.

CHAP. II.
HISTORY OF PORTUGUESE POETRY AND ELOQUENCE FROM THE EPOCH OF THE INTRODUCTION OF THE ITALIAN STYLE, TILL TOWARDS THE END OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

Tranquil Adoption of the Italian Style.

The introduction of the Italian style into Portuguese poetry was unaccompanied by any remarkable struggle or sensation. No mention is made by writers on general literature, of the existence of a party strenuously opposed to that style in Portugal; and even the works of the Portuguese poets present few or no traces of any literary conflict on the subject. That a change which excited so violent a storm in Spain passed tranquilly in Portugal, was certainly not owing to indifference on the part of the Portuguese in matters of taste. But the Portuguese most distinguished for cultivation, were not attached to the old romance poetry by so decided a predilection as the Castilians. Besides, as has already been stated, that class had become, at an early period, acquainted with Italian poetry. Some of the Italian syllabic metres might already be regarded as vernacular in Portugal, and the spirit of Italian poetry was certainly not unknown to the Portuguese, since they had, from an early period possessed translations of some of Petrarch’s sonnets. Thus the way was already traced out for the thorough reform of the old taste, and the natural flexibility of the Portuguese character was more easily reconciled than Castilian stubbornness to that reform. When, therefore, even Spanish poets had set the judicious example of improving their national poetry, an opposition which would have appeared the mere imitation of an unreasonable party spirit was not to be expected in Portugal. Finally, the poet with whose works the new epoch in Portuguese poetry commences, so successfully seized the delicate tone by which the union of the Italian and the old Portuguese styles was to be accomplished, that the national taste found in him precisely what it required, and the innovation was accommodated to the Portuguese character under the most pleasing forms.

SAA DE MIRANDA.

The romantic Theocritus, Saa de Miranda, one of the most distinguished poets of the sixteenth century, has already been noticed in the History of Spanish Poetry.[60] He shines indeed more conspicuously among the Spanish than the Portuguese poets; but in his native country he stands at the head of a poetic school. The present is, therefore, the fit place to relate the necessary particulars of his biography.[61]

Saa de Miranda, the descendant of a noble family, was born at Coimbra, in the year 1495. His parents destined him for the study of the law, and wished, if possible, that he might become professor of jurisprudence in his native city. To occupy the chair of a teacher of law was at that period considered an object worthy of the ambition of persons of rank; and to take an interest in the prosperity of the university of Coimbra was found to be a strong recommendation to the favour of the sovereign. Saa de Miranda had but little taste for jurisprudence, yet, for the sake of pleasing his parents, he pursued his study of legal science until he obtained the degree of doctor. He was afterwards appointed to a professorship, and is said to have distinguished himself by his lectures. But on the death of his father, Saa de Miranda immediately bade farewell to jurisprudence, and resolved to live after his own taste. We are not informed what age he had attained at this period. That his character was, however, truly poetic, is sufficiently obvious, not only from his writings, but from several anecdotes which are related of him. In mixed companies he often sat in a state of silent abstraction, without observing or being aware that he was himself observed. Tears would sometimes flow from his eyes, without any apparent cause, and he himself was so little conscious of their presence, or cared so little to conceal them, that if any one happened to address him, he would, while he suffered himself to be quietly drawn into conversation, frequently forget to dry his moistened cheeks. He cherished a particular desire to travel; and this inclination he gratified when filial duty no longer bound him to the professor’s chair. He declined the offers of King John III. who, in order to detain him would have provided for him in another way, and proceeded to Spain, where he probably acquired a more intimate knowledge of the Castilian language than he had before possessed. He next travelled to Italy, and visited the cities of Venice, Rome, Florence, Naples, and Milan, where he found sufficient opportunities for rendering himself intimately acquainted with the Italian poetry. On his return to his native country he was appointed to a place at court, and enjoyed the favour of the king. He was now accounted one of the most accomplished courtiers in Lisbon, notwithstanding the cast of melancholy which still distinguished him. His pastoral poetry, however, peaceful as its character was, involved him in a dispute with a Portuguese nobleman, who discovered in an eclogue some allusions which he applied to himself. The quarrel having become warm, the poet found it necessary to quit the court. He retired to his estate of Tapada near Ponte de Lima, in the province of Entre Minho e Douro, where he devoted himself wholly to his literary studies, and to the cultivation of rural and domestic happiness. Next to poetry, he took most interest in practical philosophy. His acquaintance with ancient literature was sufficient to enable him to enrich his books with passages from Homer, in the form of marginal notes. He also understood music, and was a performer on the violin. Notwithstanding the gentleness of his temperament, he was fond of chivalrous exercises, and took particular delight in hunting the wolf. He lived happily with his wife, though she was not handsome nor even young at the period when he married her. During his life, his poetic fame was widely spread. Several poets, who reflect honour on their native country, particularly Antonio Ferreira and Andrade Caminha, formed themselves chiefly on the model of Saa de Miranda. His two comedies so highly pleased the Infante Cardinal Henry, that they were performed in the palace of that prince, before a company of prelates, and other persons of rank. After the poet’s decease these comedies were printed by order of the cardinal. Having reached the sixty-third year of his age, he died universally admired and beloved, at Tapada, in the year 1558.

No trace of resemblance to a style produced by imitation, distinguishes the works of Saa de Miranda from the more ancient Portuguese poetry. What he learnt from the Italians was a genuine though not perfect refinement of the old Portuguese style, under more beautiful forms. He was indeed, and ever continued to be, too true a Portuguese to aim at the highest degree of Italian correctness, though it appears, from what he has himself stated, that he was most industrious in the revisal of his works.[62] According to his own declaration, it also appears that he did not rely with much more confidence on systematic criticism, than on the fickle approbation of the public. That feeling under the dominion of which he always lived and moved, was, in the dernier resort, his critical rule and guide. The Italian models only directed him to the course which he himself would naturally have adopted. To use his own expression, he culled flowers with the muses, the loves, and the graces.[63]

Had Saa de Miranda been in a greater degree an imitator than a self-dependent poet, his sonnets would, doubtless, have been more numerous; for he was peculiarly fitted, from his knowledge of the delicacies of the Italian style, to shine in that form of composition. But his Portuguese as well as his Spanish sonnets are few in number; and those of the tender cast, like the sonnets of Boscan, and most of the Spanish writers, entirely harmonize with the old national tone. Besides indulging himself in the use of masculine rhymes, he represented the complaints of love in the old strain of despair, and contributed his share in pourtraying the endless conflict between passion and reason.[64] But he particularly excelled in painting the soft enthusiasm of love,[65] and his sonnets acquire a peculiar colouring from the mixture of pastoral simplicity, which he could never entirely exclude from his style of poetic representation. The reiterated allusion to the joys and sorrows of human existence, and the transitoriness of all things, is a grecian trait in the compositions of this poet.[66]

The romantic pastoral world was the native sphere of Saa de Miranda’s muse. The greater number and by far the most beautiful of his eight eclogues are, however, in the Spanish language, for he wrote only two in Portuguese. It can scarcely be doubted, therefore, that Saa de Miranda considered the Spanish language to be more expressive or more elegant than the Portuguese, or that for some other reason he preferred it to his mother tongue; and yet as far as a foreigner may presume to judge between the two languages, his choice ought to have been reversed, for the Portuguese seems expressly formed for romantic pastoral poetry. Perhaps Saa de Miranda thought, without being himself clearly conscious of entertaining such an idea, that it was more poetic to give dignity to the soft pastoral style, by the help of the sonorous Castilian tongue, than to suffer it to be altogether naturally expressed through the medium of the Portuguese idiom. For the character of his pastoral style was to be romantic and wholly national, to resemble the idyllic style of Theocritus only in the simplicity of rural expression, but by no means to be popular, in a prosaic sense. Whether Saa de Miranda’s shepherds and shepherdesses converse in Spanish or in Portuguese, the rural scene is always laid in Portugal. On this account the first of the two Portuguese eclogues of this modern Theocritus, is partly unintelligible to the foreigner, who possesses only a literary knowledge of the peculiarities of the rural idiom of Portugal. The poet himself observes, at the conclusion of his dedicatory stanzas to the Infante Dom Manoel, that he discourses in a new language.[67] The new language here alluded to is produced by a delicate blending of the turns most remarkable for graceful simplicity in the Portuguese vernacular dialect, with a set of dignified words and phrases approximating more nearly to the latin. But the effect of the union is very imperfectly appreciated by a foreigner; and the finest charm of the expression is lost in the labour of studying a poetic language of this kind. Besides the simplicity of the composition does not exclude from Saa de Miranda’s eclogues, those mysterious allusions to the romantic manners of the age, which are so common in the writings of the old Portuguese poets. The first eclogue which he wrote in his native language, abounds in such allusions, though it is in other respects one of the least artificial of the poet’s productions in the class to which it belongs. It is a pastoral dialogue in tercets concerning love and indifference, happiness and unhappiness. Three cantigas, the first in octaves, the second in redondillas and in the Spanish language, and the third in the syllabic measure of an Italian canzone, form the poetic essence of this, simple composition. The disposition to prefer the Spanish language for imagery, and the Portuguese for reasoning, which is a striking feature in Saa de Miranda’s poetry, plainly betrays itself in this eclogue. The romantic conversation which forms the frame work to the cantigas in this eclogue, consists chiefly of general observations, which in the simple pastoral language in which they are expressed, have a very piquant character, but which are rendered scarcely intelligible to a foreigner, by the occurrence of broken popular phrases in a half ironical, half serious tone.[68] To the philological obscurity of several passages is added the enigmatical expression of suppressed pain, which, however, is natural enough in the mouths of the persons to whom it is assigned. In a word this eclogue is entirely national. None but a Portuguese can justly estimate its poetic merits and demerits. To a foreigner the cantigas are decidedly the best portion.[69]

The second Portuguese eclogue, included in the works of Saa de Miranda, has essentially the same tone and character as the first; with this difference, that it is versified throughout in national stanzas of ten lines (decimas). Descriptions of the general instability and transitory nature of earthly things are particularly conspicuous in this as well as in several of Miranda’s other poems.[70] But it would be in vain to look in these Portuguese eclogues for passages of such exquisite beauty as those which occur in the Spanish eclogues of the same author. It was only on the Castilian Parnassus that Saa de Miranda established his fame as one of the most distinguished of bucolic poets. With the exception of elegant language and versification, his Portuguese eclogues are not much superior to the cordial effusions of Ribeyro.

Saa de Miranda seems to have wished to display his native language to advantage in another department of composition, in which, however, he did not shine with equal lustre. A series of poetic epistles which in the collection of his works follow the pastoral poems, are all, except one, written in Portuguese. At the time of their appearance, no similar productions existed in Portuguese literature: but they were speedily surpassed by other writers. Nevertheless it is not merely for the circumstance of their being first attempts that they claim attention. They are distinguished from other poems of this class by the delicate and characteristic union of that peculiar style of pastoral poetry which Miranda formed for his eclogues, with a didactic diction which indicates the disciple of Horace. At the same time Horatian ideas are but thinly scattered through these epistles, and Miranda’s elegance of language is far from reaching the force and precision of the latin model. The poetry in which he endeavoured to approach the style of Horace, is of the romantic didactic class—full of sound morality, conveyed in ingenious reflections and pleasing representations—full of truth and warmth of feeling—but like all romantic poetry, it is somewhat too prolix, and its learning like the most of that which has passed through the scholastic conduits of the cloister, is not drawn from a very profound source. To interest by new views and ideas in didactic poetry, was not a task suited to a catholic poet of the sixteenth century, and least of all to one who so piously adhered to the principles of his faith as Saa de Miranda. The most interesting ideas of this poet, in so far as the value of such ideas is to be considered, must be estimated by their truth and not by their novelty; and their natural application to manners and characters within the scope of the poet’s own observation, constitutes the basis of their poetic merit. The verse chiefly employed consists of light redondilhas, running in stanzas of five lines; and thus, even in metrical form, these epistles depart considerably from the style of Horace. The two last, which, together with those written in the Spanish language, are versified in tercets, must in other respects be ranked in the same class with the rest. Miranda, according to the old custom, styles the whole series of these compositions Cartas (letters), and not Epistolas, the term which at a somewhat later period was properly, though not generally employed by Portuguese writers, to designate poems of a didactic or amusing description under the form of individual correspondence. The first is addressed to the king. After a long series of introductory compliments, full of the accustomed phrases of servile devotion to the throne, the author enters into popular reflections on the art of government, and particularly on the risk of deception, to which sovereigns of the best intentions are constantly exposed. Some of these reflections resolve very happily into practical traits of didactic description.[71] Miranda must be forgiven for his useless display of erudition which was quite in the spirit of his age. In recompense, the legitimate character of the poet predominates throughout the whole composition. The succeeding epistles possess more of the light ironical tone of Horace. They are addressed to friends and acquaintances. They relate to the advantages of rural life;—the equivocal nature of city manners and amusements;—the mischievous effects of luxury in Portugal since the introduction of the treasures of India;—the value of literary occupation;—and similar subjects, which an author, who had lived in the gay world, and afterwards retired to solitude, might be expected to discuss in pleasing verse. Thus from the nature of their subjects Miranda’s epistles may also be ranked among the literary pictures of manners in the sixteenth century. The philanthropic and patriotic poet particularly laments the insatiable spirit of trade which prevailed in his native country. He declares his opinion that danger was not to be apprehended from the extended love of the arts and sciences, but from the “perfumes of the Indian spices,” which had the melancholy effect of enervating the old national character.[72]

Saa de Miranda also contributed to improve the sacred poetry of his native country. His two hymns to the Holy Virgin were the first compositions in Portuguese literature which were executed entirely in the style of the Italian canzone. They cannot, however, be regarded as lyric master pieces any more than the spiritual canzoni of the Italians. Had a catholic poet been able to guard himself against romantic prolixity in such hymns, still must his fancy, on any attempt to elevate it to the poetic spirit of the ode, have again been subdued by the humiliating idea of the guilt and unworthiness of man; and the more truly Christian the song of praise might be, the more would it partake of the litany character. Saa de Miranda cannot be regarded as a model for the composition of hymns. But in his two spiritual Canções he extended the sphere of Portuguese lyric poetry by the noble diction which he introduced into them.[73] In the second Cançaõ he has, among other faults, indulged in a play on words, than which no verbal conceit could be more antipoetic; for he finds a wonderful analogy of contradiction between the fall of womankind and the merits of the Holy Virgin, in the name Eve and the word Ave with which the angelical salutation commences.[74] But these remains of monkish quibbling are to be expected in spiritual, and particularly in catholic spiritual poems of the sixteenth century.

In the series of Saa de Miranda’s lyric poems, there are several popular songs written in some of the more ancient forms of Portuguese poetry, which are, however, dignified by purity of language and accuracy of expression and versification. These songs are chiefly of the style called cantigas, or poetic mottos, with variation (voltas) which are shorter than the Spanish glossas. They repeat the idea of the motto differently turned or applied, but its text is not literally interwoven with the variations; and this is precisely the difference of form which distinguishes the older Portuguese cantigas from the Spanish villancicos. To these lyric compositions is added a beautiful elegy in tercets, in which Miranda with manly dignity bewails the death of his beloved son who accompanied King Sebastian to Africa, and who fell in the same battle in which that monarch lost his life.[75]

With Saa de Miranda the literary history of the Portuguese drama likewise commences. Any attempts at dramatic composition which may have been previously made in the Portuguese language, obtained no literary celebrity, and are now forgotten. That in the time of Saa de Miranda, theatres existed in Lisbon, in which dramas, similar to those in the Spanish language were performed, is a fact sufficiently evident from several allusions in Miranda’s two comedies, as well as from the works of Gil Vicente, which will soon claim particular notice. But no national taste for any particular species of drama was then formed in Portugal. The Castilian style could not give the tone to the Portuguese; for at the period in question, which was half a century previous to the birth of Lope de Vega, the Spanish drama was still in its infancy and wavering amidst heterogeneous forms. Thus the Portuguese writers who turned their attention to dramatic poetry, were not, in their choice of styles and forms, restrained by any capricious conditions demanded by the public. These circumstances afforded an opportunity for commencing, without any literary warfare, the improvement of the Portuguese drama by the works of two poets, who like Saa de Miranda and Gil Vicente trod in very different paths. Miranda wrote two comedies in prose. They are dramas of character in the style of Plautus and Terence:—one is entitled Os Estrangeiros (the Foreigners); the other is called Os Vilhalpandos, from two Spanish soldiers, who had both adopted the name Vilhalpando, which, at that period, was probably celebrated in the military world. It has already been mentioned that the Infante Cardinal Henry was particularly pleased with these two dramas, that he permitted them to be performed at his court, and that he gave orders for having them printed. How they happened to obtain these honours is explained partly by their own intrinsic merits and partly by contingent and temporary circumstances. At the papal court, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, a favourable reception had been given to the early Italian comedies in prose, and in particular to Bibiena’s Calandra.[76] Miranda’s taste had been formed in Italy, and what pleased a pope might well afford entertainment to a cardinal. Miranda, as a dramatic poet, retraced the footsteps of Bibiena and Ariosto; and Cardinal Henry of Portugal followed the example of Leo X. It is, however, more than probable that the Portuguese public was not induced by such high patronage to manifest particular regard for this class of dramatic entertainments, any more than the Italian public had been, by the marks of distinction bestowed on the plays of Bibiena and Ariosto.

The two comedies of Miranda are, nevertheless, even at the present day, worthy the attention of the critic. They are the first compositions of their kind in Portuguese literature; and in none of the essentials of the dramatic art are they surpassed by the subsequent productions for which they have served as models. Both dramas exhibit highly natural, though not ingenious delineations of character, unaffected diction, and a pleasing and rapid flow of dialogue; and though in their composition they really possess but little dramatic merit, still it is evident that a dramatic spirit has governed their execution.[77] These comedies are indeed imbued throughout with the delicate and refined spirit of a poet, whose aversion from pedantry was equal to his feeling of delicacy and love of nature. Miranda, as a dramatist, endeavoured to draw common characters from the life, after the manner of Plautus and Terence, of whom he avowed himself an imitator,[78] but he felt the necessity of elevating, by some degree of refinement, the vulgar phraseology which the characters he chose to pourtray actually employed in common life. For this purpose he availed himself of the interesting popular style in which he acquired such extraordinary facility as an idyllic poet. Had the poetic spirit of this popular style shone as conspicuously in his comedies as in his pastoral poems, the former, like the latter, would have been novel and single in their kind. But Saa de Miranda was born a pastoral poet, and only made himself a dramatist by imitation. If he had been penetrated with the spirit of the comic dramatists of Rome, as he was with that of the father of the Greek bucolic, he would have endeavoured to become a Portuguese Plautus or Terence in the same manner as he became a Portuguese Theocritus. He would not then have transplanted foreign manners to the comic stage of his native land. Still less would he have imitated his models in the manner of Bibiena; a manner which even in Italy had been relinquished by Ariosto, who, as a dramatist, struck into the same bypath, and missed the goal. Miranda then did not, strictly speaking, follow Plautus and Terence; but Bibiena and Ariosto, in their character of imitators of those ancient poets, were his guides in the region of dramatic poetry, where the spirit of modern times demanded more than he was capable of supplying. Besides, why did this poet, who was a master in the art of versification, write his dramas in prose? Wishing to adhere throughout to the nature of prose, he makes the principal persons of his dramas explain, chiefly in soliloquies, their own characters, with a garrulity, which though certainly natural, is nevertheless low and tedious; and the popular morality which floats in this prolix stream of vulgar phraseology affords no pleasurable compensation to the auditor or reader.[79] Faithful to his models, Miranda has not, in either of his two comedies, laid the scene of action in his native country, where he might have dramatized national customs; the events which he describes are supposed to take place in Italy, and the manners, and in general the characters which he paints, are Italian. In the selection of those characters, he however follows Plautus and Terence, without paying any apparent regard to the distinction between different ages, by which the choice of the dramatic poet ought to be directed. Of the principal characters there is only one perfectly modern in the Estrangeiros, and in like manner only one of the same description appears in the Vilhalpandos. The first is a pedantic doctor named Juris; the second is a lady named Fausta, a hypocrite, surrounded by a group of pretended devotees. The other characters in Miranda’s two dramas, besides valets and waiting maids, are some old men, ostentatious soldiers, and enamoured youths, a grumbling tutor, (ayo,) two or three merchants, a parasite, (truhaõ,) a match-maker, (casamenteiro), and others of a still baser description, which the author seems to have thought could not be dispensed with in any imitation of the ancient drama. In the Vilhalpandos the author has also incidentally introduced the modern characters of a hermit and a French page. No remarkable intricacy of events is produced by these characters being brought in contact with each other; for Saa de Miranda was not formed to be a writer of dramas of intrigue. His scenes are strung together, rather than drawn out of each other. It is not worth while more minutely to analyze the composition of these two dramas. No highly comic scenes occur in either of them. But their general tone is spirited; and, if well performed, they doubtless would, in the age in which they were produced, interest an audience disposed to be pleased with the comic delineation of character; for most of the scenes are of a kind which might enable a player to supply by good acting that comic force in which they are deficient. Thus it happened that though the Portuguese public took no particular interest in dramas of this class, no party was formed, as in Italy, avowedly hostile to them. The bitterest portion of the satire with which Miranda invigorates, not the comic spirit, but the morality of his dramas, is directed against the Italian and particularly the Romish priesthood, to whose scandalous mode of life, the basest characters are made, as the most proper witnesses in such a case, to bear ample testimony. It appears, therefore, that at this time satire might be openly and fearlessly directed against the clergy, and that its application in that way was not displeasing to the heads of the Portuguese church; for had it been otherwise, so pious a writer as Saa de Miranda would scarcely have ventured to indulge in such representations even if he could have made them in secret.

Having taken a general view of the services which this memorable writer rendered to Portuguese poetry, it can scarcely be necessary to state that he was the first classic poet of his nation; but if it be wished to make a more rigid application of this title and to confer it only on writers, whose poetic cultivation, according to the classic models of the ancients, leaves nothing farther to be desired, it were better to abstain altogether from employing it in the history of modern poetry. Miranda presented to his countrymen the first example of the manner in which poetic genius aspiring to the highest pinnacle of art, ought to study the classic poets of antiquity, in order to acquire clearness of poetic perception, solid judgment in invention and precision, elegance and ingenious simplicity in composition and diction, without renouncing his individual character and the genius of his age and nation.[80]

The account of the classic school which Saa de Miranda founded in Portuguese poetry, must be deferred until historical justice be rendered to the genius of a less cultivated poet, who flourished at the same period with Saa de Miranda, but who chose for himself a totally different path on the Portuguese Parnassus.

GIL VICENTE.

Writers on literature have not recorded the date of the birth of Gil Vicente, who is styled the Portuguese Plautus.[81] There is reason to suppose that at the latest he was born within twenty years of the close of the fifteenth century. It is known that he belonged to a family of rank, and that he studied the law in compliance with the wish of his family. But it appears that he speedily relinquished his juridical studies and devoted himself wholly to the dramatic art. It is not recorded whether or not he was regularly pensioned as a writer to the court; but he was most indefatigable in furnishing the royal family and the public with dramatic entertainments suited to the taste of the age. He constantly resided at court, where his poetic talents were held in permanent requisition for the celebration of spiritual as well as temporal festivals; and no dramatic writer in Europe was more admired and esteemed than Gil Vicente. His first productions were performed with approbation at court in the reign of Emanuel the Great; but his reputation acquired additional brilliancy in the reign of John III. a monarch who, as has already been mentioned, did not scruple in his younger years to perform characters in the dramas of this favourite author. Vicente seems also to have possessed all the requisite qualifications for a theatrical manager. We are not informed whether he was himself an actor; but he was the tutor of the most distinguished actress of his age, namely, his daughter Paula, maid of honour to the Infanta Maria, a poetess, an amateur performer on several instruments, and, as it appears, celebrated for every thing except beauty. Erasmus is said to have learned Portuguese for the express purpose of reading the comedies of Vicente in the original. There are no notices extant by which farther insight into the personal character of this poet could be obtained. He died in the year 1557 at Evora, and, as there is reason to believe, at an advanced age. Five years after his death, his son Luis Vicente edited a complete collection of his works, or at least of all that had been preserved in manuscript.[82]

Gil Vicente would have been the Portuguese Lope de Vega, if not something even superior, had he been born half a century later, and had he been as much indebted to his age as the Spanish dramatist was to that in which he flourished. But no one was less calculated than Gil Vicente to become an improver of taste; and indeed he was far from being ambitious of earning that honourable title. Had not the favour of the public been continued to him and his dramas even after the middle of the sixteenth century, when the school of Saa de Miranda had risen and acquired the ascendancy in the polite world, he might with propriety be ranked as the last in the series of the Portuguese poets of the fifteenth century. His diction, as well as his whole poetic style, belongs to that age, and to the latest period of his life he continued faithful to the old national manner. In the conflict with the new style introduced by Saa de Miranda’s school, Gil Vicente appeared as the representative of the yet enduring national taste, which even at court, where the adherents of the new party were most honourably distinguished, preserved a co-equal authority with that party. That each party should under such circumstances maintain its credit is not a little remarkable. Perhaps they became accommodated to each other merely because the Portuguese had no relish for literary feuds. It may be presumed that each party therefore felt itself secure, and, content with its own security, took no notice of the other.

Here we again arrive at the point, at which the historian of the cultivation of the Portuguese and Spanish drama finds a stumbling-block in the way of his enquiries; for the materials necessary to the right prosecution of his labour are either entirely wanting or involved in contradiction. In the history of the Spanish theatre it has already been stated how little positive knowledge the Spaniards possessed even in the age of Cervantes and Lope de Vega, respecting the early formation of their national comedy.[83] To Torres Naharro, so strangely overlooked by Cervantes, the honour of being the real father of the Spanish comedy, must, on every just principle of historical criticism, be conceded. But Gil Vicente was a contemporary of Torres Naharro; and the dramatic compositions of the Portuguese poet, so far approximate to the ruder forms of the Spanish comedy, as to entitle Portuguese writers to claim for their own country the honour of the invention of that comedy. Spanish Autos either did not exist in the beginning of the sixteenth century, or if they did, they have disappeared from the domain of literature. A whole series of Autos by Gil Vicente are, however, extant; and several were written within the first ten years of the sixteenth century. Some are entirely in the Spanish language; others are half in Portuguese and half in Spanish, but all present, in their radical features, the form and character of the Spanish spiritual comedy. Was Gil Vicente then the first writer who exhibited a kind of poetic design in dramatic entertainments for the celebration of christian festivals, and thus raised to literary consideration a style of composition which had previously been degraded by monks and buffoons? Or are the corresponding works of contemporary Spanish writers lost in oblivion? Was Gil Vicente an imitator of Torres Naharro, or did the latter copy from the former?

The number of dramas which Gil Vicente has bequeathed to posterity is considerable, though compared with the fertility of some of the Spanish poets, by no means extraordinary. They are arranged in classes either by himself, or, as is more probable, by his son, by whom they were published; and in taking a critical view of them this classification is very convenient. At the commencement appear the Autos or spiritual dramas; next follow some anomalous works, which are oddly enough, in preference to all others, styled comedies; these are succeeded by the tragi-comedies; and last of all come the Farsas. Various small poems in the Spanish and Portuguese languages form an appendix to the collection. These works display a true poetic spirit, which, however, accommodated itself entirely to the age of the poet, and which disdained all cultivation. The dramatic genius of Gil Vicente is equally manifest from his power of invention, and from the natural turn and facility of his imitative talent. Even the rudest of these dramas is tinged with a certain degree of poetic feeling. Scenes in stanzas and redondilhas which, though harmonious, are of antiquated construction, succeed each other with wonderful truth and simplicity. But there appears in these compositions no perception of what may be properly called the perfection of dramatic poetry; and no trace of an endeavour to attain classic excellence, calls to mind the spirit of the sixteenth century. Gil Vicente’s language, too, is altogether in the old and uncultivated style.

The Autos, or spiritual dramas, contained in the collected works of this poet, are sixteen in number. They cannot properly be called Corpus Christi pieces, or Autos Sacramentales; for most of them were written to be performed on Christmas night, in celebration of that festival, either before the court at Lisbon, or at royal residences in the country, and they perfectly correspond with the object for which they were intended. Pastoral poetry forms the basis of the whole, even of those which, taking a totally different turn from the rest, become alternately didactic and allegoric. By this characteristic feature they are distinguished from most of the Autos of Spanish or posterior origin. Accident favoured the national poetic genius of the Portuguese in the creation of the spiritual pastoral drama. Gil Vicente while yet a youth and a tyro in the poetic art, surprised King Emanuel and the Queen on the birth of the Infante, afterwards King John III. by the production of a little pastoral drama, which appears better adapted for celebrating the festival of Christmas than the birth of a hereditary prince, but which was, perhaps, on that very account the more flattering to the royal family. This pastoral drama is, in consequence of the distinction it thus obtained, placed before Vicente’s Autos, and a notice by the son of the poet explains the reason why that precedence is assigned to it. The little piece is written in the Spanish language. Vicente’s son observes in his notice, that it was received with particular favour because it was something new in Portugal.[84] It is therefore probable that at this period Gil Vicente, as yet unconscious of his own talent, only followed in the footsteps of the venerable Juan del Enzina.[85] Having at the request of the royal family altered his piece in such a way as to render it more suitable to representation at Christmas, he was thus accidentally directed into the path which naturally led to the union of dramatic poetry with christian mysteries, and which he afterwards steadily explored. Year after year with increasing taste and fancy he continued to write Christmas pieces, which at last assumed a more enlarged form. Among the personages introduced in these dramas there are always some of the pastoral class, intended to represent directly, and also in a certain degree allegorically, the shepherds at the manger of Bethlehem. But the inventive poet soon advanced a step further. He composed dramas in the same style for the celebration of other religious festivals, without any admixture of pastoral poetry. Among his Autos, however, there is one in celebration of the festival of Corpus Christi, which was one of his earliest productions. The notice annexed to it states that it was performed in the year 1504. It is founded on a simple incident in the life of St. Martin, and possesses scarcely any thing of the character of the later spiritual dramas, or Autos Sacramentales, properly so called. But a far greater display of fancy and theatrical splendour, was the result of Gil Vicente’s subsequent endeavours to dramatize the mysteries of the catholic faith. It would appear that spiritual dramas of this class, in which so much was to be seen and admired, had never before been produced either on the Portuguese or the Spanish stage. It cannot, therefore, be doubted, that Gil Vicente’s Autos had their effect on the Spanish dramatists of the sixteenth century; and that if they were not imitated as models, they served at least as examples for emulation.

The invention and the execution of Gil Vicente’s Autos present an equal degree of rudeness. The least artificial are also those in which the most decided traits of national character appear. The shepherds and shepherdesses who are introduced into these Autos are Portuguese and Spanish both in their names and manners. Their simple phrases and turns of language are similar to those employed by the characters in Saa de Miranda’s eclogues, except that their discourse is more negligent and occasionally more coarse. In combining the appearance of angels, the devil, the holy virgin and allegorical characters, with popular scenes, an effect perfectly consistent with the ideas of the audience was produced; for, according to the catholic doctrine, the miracles with which Christianity commenced are continued without intermission; through the mysteries of faith, the connection between the terrestrial, celestial and infernal worlds is declared; and by allegory that connection is rendered perceptible. The critic would therefore judge very unfairly, were he to regard as proofs of bad taste the consequences which a poet naturally entails on himself in writing according to the spirit of his religion. Making allowance, however, for that spirit, the rudeness of Gil Vicente’s Autos must be acknowledged even by him who measuring them by the rule of critical judgment, is perfectly disposed to view every system of religion only on its poetic side. For instance in one of the simplest of these Autos some shepherds who discourse in Spanish, enter a chapel, which is decorated with all the apparatus necessary for the celebration of the festival of Christmas. The shepherds cannot sufficiently express their rustic admiration of the pomp exhibited in the chapel. Faith (La Fè) enters as an allegorical character. She speaks Portuguese, and after announcing herself to the shepherds as true Faith, she explains to them the nature of faith, and enters into an historical relation of the mysteries of the incarnation.[86] This is the whole subject of the piece. Another Auto in which the poet’s fancy has taken a wider range, presents scenes of a more varied nature. Mercury enters as an allegorical character, and as the representative of the planet which bears his name. He explains the theory of the planetary system and the Zodiac, and cites astronomical facts from Regiomontanus, in a long series of stanzas in the old national style. A Seraph then appears who is sent down from heaven by God in compliance with the prayers of Time. The Seraph, in the quality of a herald, proclaims a large yearly fair in honour of the Holy Virgin, and invites customers to it.[87] A Devil next makes his appearance with a little stall which he carries before him. He gets into a dispute with Time and the Seraph, and asserts that among men such as they are, he shall be sure to find purchasers for his wares.[88] He therefore leaves to every customer his free choice. Mercury then summons eternal Rome as the representative of the church. She appears, and offers for sale peace of mind, as the most precious of her merchandize. The Devil remonstrates; and Rome retires. Two Portuguese peasants now appear in the market. One is very anxious to sell his wife, and observes that if he cannot sell her, he will give her away for nothing, as she is a wicked spendthrift. Amidst this kind of conversation a party of peasant women enter, one of whom, with considerable comic warmth, vents bitter complaints against her husband.[89] The man who has already been inveighing against his wife immediately recognizes her, and says:—“that is my slippery helpmate.”[90] During this succession of comic scenes the action does not advance. The Devil at last opens his little stall and displays his stock of goods to the female peasants; but one of them who is the most pious of the party seems to suspect that all is not quite right with regard to the merchandize, and she exclaims: “Jesus! Jesus! True God and man!” The Devil immediately takes to flight, and does not re-appear; but the Seraph again comes forward and mingles with the rustic groupes. The throng continues to increase; other countrywomen with baskets on their heads arrive; and the market is stored with vegetables, poultry and other articles of rural produce. The Seraph offers virtues for sale; but they find no purchasers. The peasant girls observe that in their village money is more sought after than virtue, when a young man wants a wife. One of the party, however, says, that she wished to come to the market because it happened to fall on the festival of the mother of God; and because the Virgin does not sell her gifts of grace (as graças); but she distributes them gratis (de graça). This observation crowns the theological morality of the piece, which terminates with a hymn of praise, in the popular style, in honour of the Holy Virgin.

These specimens will afford an adequate idea of the spirit and style of Gil Vicente’s Autos. His largest work of this class may, however, be referred to, in proof of the little attention he bestowed on dramatic plan in the composition of his spiritual comedies. It purports to be “A Summary of the History of God.” After the prologue, which is spoken by an Angel, Sir Lucifer (Senhor Lucifer,) enters, attended by a numerous retinue of devils. Belial is president of his court of justice (meirinho de corte), and Satan gentleman of his privy council, (fidalgo do conselho). After this privy counsellor has performed his part in the temptation of Adam and Eve in Paradise, the whole details of which are represented on the stage, Lucifer confers on him the dignities of duke and captain of the kingdoms of the world.[91] Next succeeds a series of scenes which summarily represent the history of the christian redemption. The World accompanied by Time and angels enters as a king. The representation of the fall of man is followed by the history of Abel, by whom a beautiful and simple hymn is sung.[92] The next scenes exhibit the histories of Abraham, Job, and David; and thus the Auto proceeds through the incidents of the old and new testaments until the ascension of Christ, which is represented on the stage amidst an accompaniment of drums and trumpets.

On comparing the Autos of Gil Vicente with those of Calderon, the difference appears not much less considerable than that which exists between the works of Hans Sachs and Shakespeare. But the graceful simplicity with which many of the scenes of these spiritual dramas are executed, raises the Portuguese poet infinitely above the poetic shoe-maker of Nuremberg.

The most unimportant of the dramatic works of Gil Vicente are those which the poet and his son have called comedies. One is a dramatized novel, in which a young lady, whom her lover, a priest, has seduced, appears on the stage in child-bed, and after long lamentations and discussions is actually delivered of a daughter. In the second half of the piece the child whose birth is thus announced has attained the age of womanhood, and is in her turn introduced as a lady loving and beloved. The action, however, is not destitute of interest. In the first half of the drama, a Witch, who summons the Devil on the stage, assists the unfortunate lady in child-bed, and afterwards, five laundresses (lavandeiras) make their appearance. Nevertheless, amidst much extravagance and absurdity, the author has represented several scenes of domestic life, in a style equally pleasing and natural. No example of the intrigue of the Spanish theatre is to be found in this piece, but there is introduced a fool (parvo), or more properly a waggish clown, a character which appears to be the rude prototype of the Spanish gracioso. Pleasing songs in the Spanish language are interspersed through the dialogue. The young girl who was born at the commencement of the piece takes leave of the public in the character of a princess. Several of Gil Vicente’s other works, which are styled comedies, are dramatized novels, similar to that just described. One which is entitled, A Floresta de Enganos, (the Forest or Gardens of Deception),[93] is merely a dramatized garland of sprightly fancies enriched with allegorical and mythological ornaments. At the head of the dramatis personæ appears the burlesque character of a philosopher, who, because he has reproved some wicked men for their misconduct, is, by way of punishment, tied to a fool (parvo) with whom he is thus compelled to associate. He regards this punishment as the severest torture that could be inflicted on a philosopher. He speaks Spanish, and the replies of the fool are more remarkable for their rudeness than for their wit.[94]

Gil Vicente’s tragi-comedies may be regarded as rough outlines of that kind of drama which subsequently formed a variety of the heroic comedies[95] of the Spanish stage. They are not historical dramas, but festival pieces adorned with a certain pomp of allegory, mythology, magic, &c. and occasionally interspersed with pathetic scenes. They were performed before the court on festivals or particular occasions, which are specified. One of these dramas, entitled, Amadis de Gaula, and founded on some of the incidents in the celebrated romance of the same name, was, in spite of its inoffensive character, forbidden to be performed in Spain in the reign of Philip II. The cause of this prohibition probably was, that the disguise of Amadis, as a pilgrim, was deemed a profanation of the sacred habit. This piece which is written in the Spanish language, is destitute of all merit of invention. Others of these dramas exhibit more traces of the poet’s fancy; but in none is there the foundation of a genuine dramatic plot. One entitled, Exhortaçaõ de Guerra, (Exhortation to War), was doubtless a favourite with the court. A pious magician appears who has learned necromancy in a sybil’s cave. By powerful spells he summons to his presence some subject demons, whom he suffers to revile him in the coarsest language.[96] He however obliges them to conjure up the spirits of Polyxena, Penthesilea, Achilles, Scipio, and other celebrated characters of antiquity. These spirits appear in succession, and address fine compliments to the royal family. In another tragi-comedy Providence is introduced as a Princess. But the most varied of all is Triumpho do Invierno, (Winter’s Triumph), in two parts. Besides a multitude of characters, among which an allegorical personification of Winter is one of the most conspicuous, Gil Vicente exhibited to his audience a view of the open sea, agitated by a storm during the most inclement season of the year. The noise and confusion among the ships in distress, and the oaths and prayers of the Portuguese sailors expressed in rhymes and redondilhas, would naturally be gratifying to a public who at the period when the piece was written, took particular interest in maritime affairs.[97] Another of these tragi-comedies is also a satire.

Gil Vicente was destined by nature to be a comic poet. His farças (farces) are by far his best productions; and to them he was indebted for the chief portion of his fame, as well as for the honourable but ill-chosen surname which some critics have applied to him. If the literary relationship between two dramatic writers were to be decided by the comic strength of their works, then indeed Gil Vicente might be truly termed a second Plautus. But neither in respect to their form nor their spirit can Vicente’s farces be ranked in the same class with the regular comedies of Plautus. Nevertheless the name of farces, was not given to those comic dramas, on account of their irregularity or their burlesque style. At the rise of the modern theatre in Spain and Portugal all dramas were denominated farces,[98] and that the name has been continued to be applied to Vicente’s comedies, is an accident arising merely from the want of a better term of classification. It is in like manner the result of accident, that in France, England and Germany, the same term is still employed to distinguish precisely that species of drama to which Gil Vicente’s farces belong. These pieces are equally burlesque in their design and execution. They may, in a certain sense, be styled dramas of character; for Vicente attached great importance to the burlesque representation of some characters which he sketched from life. But he never thought of founding his comic interest on plot and intrigue; and in the degree of cultivation to which he had attained, and above which he never rose, he was incapable of designing and executing, on a comprehensive scale, a dramatic picture of character with true delicacy of outline, and still less with interesting truth of colouring. His farces, like his other dramas, have no regular plot for their ground-work. They are dramatic conceptions of scenes of real life, rapidly sketched by a glowing fancy, with genuine comic feeling, with a certain poetic keeping, even when derived from the commonest nature, and worked up by more or less of plastic talent, into some form, but without any regard to correctness, and altogether executed as a mere sportive task. In these farces the language and metrical form are the same as in Gil Vicente’s other dramas. The alternation of the Portuguese and Castilian idioms is seldom governed by any other rule than the caprice of the poet. Upon the whole Gil Vicente’s farces bear much resemblance to the Entremeses which subsequently became favourite entertainments on the Spanish stage; like them they are not divided either into acts or scenes.

Among the eleven dramas, which in the collected works of Gil Vicente are entitled farces, there are two festival pieces, in the popular style, which might with equal propriety have been ranged in one of the preceding classes. The first piece is truly a farce. Two miserable servants, the one a Portuguese, the other a Spaniard, who are almost starving in the service of two coxcombs, meet together in the street at midnight, and each in his respective language complains of his sad fate. The Portuguese describes his master as an enamoured enthusiast, who employs himself day and night in writing silly verses, and in singing them to his own wretched music, but who never appears to think of eating and drinking.[99] This romantic gentleman (escudeiro) soon makes his appearance with one of his own song books in his hand. Before he begins to sing a song, he reads aloud its title, and names himself as the author. When he has finished it he commences a new song, first pronouncing very formally the words, “Another by the same,” in the style of the old Cancioneiros. He proceeds to sing under the window of his mistress Isabella, a miller’s coquetish daughter, where his music is accompanied by the barking of dogs and the mewing of cats. The blending of these songs, which though insipid, possess something of the tender and melancholy character of the old cantigas, with the conversation of the lover and his servant,—with the whisperings of the serenaded Isabella from her lattice window,—and with the rage of the gallant at the dogs and cats, which mortify him by the interruption of his singing, was doubtless calculated to operate very powerfully on the risibility of the audience, though much of the ludicrous effect of the scene must now be supplied by the imagination of the reader.[100] The mother of Isabella at length appears, with a lantern in her hand, endeavouring to learn what is the cause of the uproar. Here a change of scene commences with the lamentations of the old woman in a burlesque caricature style.[101] She enters into a dispute first with her coquetish daughter, who has expressed herself pleased with the serenade, and then with the gallant, who at length sings a farewell stanza, and departs. But this collection of songs and dialogues is as far from having any real dramatic object as are the other farces of Vicente, in which he sometimes introduces Witches,—at that period objects of particular interest with the public,—performing incantations in concert with the Devil; sometimes Frenchmen and Italians who speak a kind of broken Portuguese, perhaps often enough heard on the quays of Lisbon. In another of these lively entertaining dramas, an enamoured old man is the principal character.

Of all these farces, however, that entitled Inez Pereira, is distinguished by the most remarkable plot and the greatest stretch of dramatic talent. The history of this piece serves to throw some light on the relation in which Gil Vicente stood with respect to the Portuguese public. Some persons, it appears, had expressed doubts of his title to the authorship of the admired farces attributed to him, and in order to maintain the reputation of his talent, he was desirous that a pointed theme should be prescribed to him as a ground-work for dramatic composition. It was accordingly suggested that he would find a fit subject in the Portuguese proverb: “I prefer an ass that carries me, to a horse that throws me.”[102] For the comic representation of this proverb, Vicente chose the prettily conceived story of a young girl, who rejects the matrimonial offer of a wealthy simpleton, because she is resolved to marry none but a man of superior understanding and talents. Inez at length finds a man after her own heart. She gives him her hand, but soon grows very unhappy, because she finds that with such a husband, his will must always be her law. She now sincerely repents the coyness with which she had listened to the proposals of her less gifted lover. Death soon interposes in her favour, and she becomes a widow. Her former suitor offers himself again, and Inez triumphs in the possession of a husband whom she finds it easy to manage. This happily chosen fable is worked up with more care than Vicente seems to have bestowed on his other farces. Had this poet been placed in circumstances similar to those which a hundred and fifty years later operated in favour of Moliere, Inez Pereira would in all probability have been made one of the best comic pieces of character in the dramatic literature of modern times. But in this drama Gil Vicente has contented himself with grouping his characters in a brilliant but confused throng, stringing his scenes together like a wreath of roses, exhibiting events, between which, days, weeks, and months intervene, in immediate succession, like pictures in a rareeshow; and thus upon the whole he has made little approximation towards the point of cultivated taste.[103] But this farce supplies illustrations of the manners of the age, which could not easily be obtained from any other source.—We learn from it that the jews in Lisbon were then particularly celebrated as marriage brokers (casamenteiros) and that they carried on this employment as an ordinary branch of traffic. One of the suitors is introduced by some jews of this profession to Inez Pereira.

On reverting from the dramas of Gil Vicente to the poetic works of the classic writers, at whose head Saa de Miranda stands, the reader will find himself transported to a totally different world. But this transition belongs to the chronological order of the subject.

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.

CAMOENS.

The biography of Luis de Camões, or Camoens, again brings to recollection that period in which the poets of Portugal considered their character very imperfectly maintained, if their real life did not prove a faithful mirror of the poetic joys and sorrows embodied in their works. Camoens was born at Lisbon, probably in the year 1524. His parents, as it appears, were not rich; but they belonged to the class of ancient nobility, and they were enabled to give their son an education which facilitated his entrance on the career of military and civic honor. From his father, who was captain of a vessel, and who lost his life in shipwreck on the coast of India, it is probable that Camoens heard many stories, which were calculated to inspire him with a taste for adventure and daring enterprize. Of the history of his early youth no remarkable particulars are recorded. He attended the university of Coimbra, where he acquired a fund of historical and mythological knowledge. Some of his elegies and sonnets which have descended to posterity, seem to have been written at this period, though it does not appear that those productions gained for him the friendship of Ferreira, and other contemporaries of eminent talent, who were about the same time studying at Coimbra. It is probable that these young men, who had joined in a mutual and earnest endeavour to attain classic correctness, anticipated nothing extraordinary from the ardent Camoens, who adopted the new style, but did not disdain the old, and whose fancy was too restless to submit to the didactic controul of the judgment. On quitting the university Camoens returned to Lisbon, but with what design is not mentioned by Portuguese authors, nor has any conjecture been formed respecting the views of success which he might have had in that city. He soon, however, became an object of public notoriety through his imprudent conduct in gallantry, which, next to poetry, at that time engrossed his thoughts. The particulars of a love affair, in which he became involved, are not accurately known; and, therefore, how far with respect to it, he was to blame, cannot now be ascertained. It however appears, that the object of his regard was named Catharina de Attayda, and that she was a dama do paço, (lady of honor) at the court. Either on account of this lady, or of some other circumstance which operated unfavourably for the romantic poet, he was banished from Lisbon; and with this event commences the second part of the life of this extraordinary man.

Thus cut off in the age of aspiring pretension and glowing enthusiasm, from the hope of advancing by the course usually open to youthful ambition, Camoens remained for some time tranquilly at Santarem, the place of his exile, in the neighbourhood of Lisbon. There instead of considering what was now necessary to be done with a view to his future welfare, he occupied himself in writing verses, which have been handed down to posterity, but which only served to fix more deeply a passion the object of which was still near him. With a caprice not uncommon in such a state of feeling, Camoens, who cherished at once romantic ideas of patriotism, and indignant emotions of disgust, suddenly changed the whole system of his life. He became a soldier, and served against the Moors as a volunteer on board the Portuguese fleet in the Mediterranean. To be at once a hero and a poet was now the object of his ambition. Whenever time and opportunity permitted, he composed verses, which often, particularly those of the lyric and elegiac class, had for their subject the recollection of his hopeless passion. Whether he had at this period clearly conceived the plan of his national heroic poem, or whether he was actually engaged in its execution, are questions which, like almost every other fact relative to the history of this poet’s talent, remain enveloped in doubt. It is known, however, that he combated the enemies of his country in a naval battle fought off Ceuta. During this action, in which he eminently distinguished himself, he received a gun-shot wound in consequence of which he lost the sight of his right eye. He now hoped to obtain, in the character of a hero, that reward which he had failed to acquire as a poet. He returned to Lisbon. But no individual at court took any active interest in his welfare. All his efforts to gain an honourable competence were unsuccessful; and he was now verging on the age of maturity. More dissatisfied, and yet more proud than ever, he loudly accused his country of ingratitude, while at the same time his poetic effusions prove that his heart overflowed with the warmest feelings of national attachment. At last, determined to leave for ever a land to which his heart was still bound by the ties of another passion besides patriotism, he embarked in the year 1553, at the age of twenty-nine, for India. That his thankless country should not have even his bones, was the sentiment which, on his departure, his indignant feelings prompted him to exclaim in the words of Scipio:—Ingrata patria, non possidebis ossa mea!

From this period the life of Camoens exhibits a chain of successive adventures and calamities; but fate watched over him with miraculous care, and seemed to rescue him from every danger in order that he might complete his poetic career. The squadron with which he sailed to India consisted of four ships. Three were lost in a storm, but Camoens arrived on board the fourth, in the port of Goa. From this circumstance he augured that fortune was now about to smile on him. He soon found, however, that employment was not to be obtained at Goa, and he entered as a volunteer in a military corps, forming part of an expedition which the Portuguese viceroy was fitting out for the aid of an Indian prince. On the arrival of the troops at the place of their destination, a great portion of the Portuguese fell a sacrifice to the insalubrity of the climate; but Camoens returned in safety to Goa after the object of the expedition had been attained. In the situation in which he then stood, there remained for him no other alternative than to embark in a new expedition which was about to sail for the Red Sea to attack the Arabian corsairs. At the island of Ormus, where he passed the winter, Camoens again found leisure to indulge in the workings of his imagination. His mind gave a poetic colouring to every thing which he saw or heard; and the ardour of his patriotism continued to increase in proportion as he became more intimately acquainted with the theatre of the Portuguese atchievements in India. But many circumstances which came within his observation induced him also to indulge in satirical sports of wit. The government of Goa had hitherto done nothing for him. He did not, however, try to promote his interest by flattery. On the contrary, he ridiculed the disparates na India, (follies in India) as he unceremoniously styled some portion of the proceedings of the government of Goa. The viceroy, who took particular umbrage at this satire, banished Camoens to the Chinese island of Macao. The fate of the unfortunate hero and poet was now more deplorable than ever. He however gained permission to quit Macao and visit the Molucca islands, where he collected fresh materials for pictorial poetry; but he could no longer, as the lines beneath his portrait express, “bear in one hand the sword, in the other the pen.[132]” He was glad to accept the very unpoetic and unheroic post of provedor mòr dos defuntos, (administrator of the effects of deceased persons) by the emoluments of which he was enabled to subsist. Whenever circumstances permitted he turned his attention to his heroic poem, and thus indemnified himself in the ideal world for the part which he was compelled to perform in real life. At length, on the arrival of a new viceroy at Goa, he obtained permission to return to that island, but in the passage thither was shipwrecked on the coast of Camboya. With difficulty he saved his life, and also his poem, the manuscript of which, soaked with sea-water, he brought to land. This circumstance is noticed in the work itself.[133] The story of his swimming ashore with his poem in one hand, while he supported himself by the action of the other, and thus saving his Lusiadas as Cæsar saved his commentaries, has obtained currency through the statement of a German writer, who seems to have misunderstood a very intelligible passage of a Portuguese author.[134] On his return to Goa, Camoens was well received; but he had not long enjoyed the smiles of fortune, when another change took place in the viceroyship. The new viceroy lent a ready ear to the enemies of the poet, who was now publicly accused of malversation in the discharge of the office which he had filled at Macao. Camoens was thrown into prison, and there left to work out his justification. It appears he fully cleared himself of the charges which had been brought against him; but he was still detained because he was unable to satisfy the demands of his creditors. A poem, which he addressed to the viceroy, at length procured his liberation. After experiencing many other disagreeable adventures he ardently wished to return to Europe, but it was not in his power to defray the expence of his passage. Even when prepared to embark he was stopped by a demand for the re-payment of a loan, and was nearly reduced to despair, but several liberal individuals stepped forward and provided the sum necessary for his relief. Finally, in the year 1569, Camoens, after an absence of nearly sixteen years, arrived at Lisbon, from the rich shores of India, well in health, but in a state of the most abject poverty.

The third part of the history of this ill-fated poet is the most melancholy. On his return he found Lisbon ravaged by the plague. During this calamity it was not to be expected that much regard should be paid to poetry, and the last hope of Camoens rested on his poem, the only treasure which he had brought with him from India. Considerable changes had likewise taken place at the court. King Sebastian was concerting the plan of his unfortunate expedition to Morocco. In so romantic an enterprise Camoens was predisposed to take an interest, and it served to stimulate his zeal in dedicating his poem to the youthful sovereign. The dedication was graciously received, but the poet obtained no other reward than a wretched pension, just sufficient to mark but not to relieve his misery. The honour was conceded to him of constantly accompanying the court, while he wanted means to procure the necessaries of life. It is said that a faithful slave who had accompanied him to Europe, begged in the streets of Lisbon at night, in order to enable the poet, whose name was now celebrated throughout Portugal and Spain, to appear decently in public during the day. The last blow which the patriotic heart of Camoens received, was the fatal issue of the African expedition. The poet’s hitherto robust constitution now sank under the pressure of sorrow and indigence. His last hope had vanished, and overwhelmed with affliction, he withdrew himself from the world. A few monks were the last individuals with whom he maintained any intercourse. Shortly before his death, he is said to have written a letter, which, if it be genuine, proves that he himself considered his misfortunes unparalleled. He styles it a sort of presumptuousness to attempt to oppose that fate, which had at length compressed all his sorrows within the narrow limits of a sick-bed. It appears that he ended his life in an hospital, in the year 1579, at the age of fifty-five. It was not until sixteen years after his decease that the spot where his ashes repose, was distinguished by a monument erected by one of his admirers. During the same year the learned Rodriguez Lobo Zurupita, who must not be confounded with the poet Rodriguez Lobo, published the first collection of the hitherto scattered poems of Camoens.[135]

The life of Camoens constitutes an essential part of the history of Portuguese poetry. With the exception of Dante no poet of the first rank has in his works so fully represented his own inward feelings combined with every extraordinary circumstance that came within his observation. His poems can only be perfectly intelligible to the reader who never loses sight of the poet; for his character is precisely theirs. But the poetry of Camoens must not on this account be confounded with the self-subjective effusions of certain enthusiasts who express their feelings clearly enough in verse, though not in poetry, except, perhaps, in their own opinion. Among the poets of all ages Camoens is one of the most eminent; and though to a foreigner it may at first sight seem strange that he has permanently obtained in the literature of his country the surname of O Grande (the Great), a title given in history only to a few distinguished sovereigns, yet in the unbounded homage which the Portuguese render to the name of the man, who during his life was suffered to languish in penury, the citizen of the world will readily recognize a general desire to compensate for the injustice with which he was treated by his contemporaries. On this side of the Pyrenees, indeed, however frequently the name of Camoens may be mentioned and written, as a poet he is still scarcely known except by name. But to form a just appreciation of his merit, he must, like Homer, be viewed in the spirit of his nation and his age. It was the ambition of Camoens to be to the Portuguese what Homer was to the Greeks, the first and at the same time the most national of poets; and if he did not entirely attain his end, he nevertheless so far approached it that no other modern poet has been able to combine all the national interests of his country, with the fulness of poetic spirit exhibited in the Lusiad. But it must be recollected that at the period when Camoens wrote, the more correct style, formed on the ancient and Italian models, had just penetrated into Portuguese literature, and that it had not yet taken deep root. Under these circumstances, Camoens, in sketching the plan of his national Epopœia, stood, as it were, severed from the age in which he lived. Modern literature contained no similar work, and, generally speaking, no epic poem worthy of perusal, except the chivalrous compositions of Bojardo and Ariosto. From Trissino Camoens could learn nothing; from Bojardo and Ariosto he might have learned much, but assuredly not the spirit and style of a serious national heroic poem; and Camoens was numbered with the dead before Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered appeared in print.[136] Camoens was the first modern who succeeded in the production of a serious heroic poem. But with all his endeavours to attain classic perfection, he was a Portuguese in the spirit of his age, and too good a patriot to wish to be any thing else. He rose to the height at which he aimed only by flights; having reached it he sank, rose to it again, and again fell from it. He was unable to produce a classically perfect whole of any extent. But the more beautiful passages of his poems, particularly of his Lusiad, will stand the test of the most rigid criticism according to the rules of pure poetry and classic excellence.

Every style of poetic composition of which he had formed a definite idea was attempted by Camoens. But the Lusiad rises so vastly above his other works, and bears such powerful and various traces of the peculiar character of his poetry, that all his lesser compositions must be considered merely as inferior scions sprung from the same root.

The Lusiad of Camoens is a heroic poem; but so essentially different in the unity of the epic plan from all other heroic poems, that to avoid falling into the unwarrantable misconception with which this noble work is every where judged except in Portugal and Spain, it is necessary in considering it, to drop the ordinary rules of comparison, and to proceed upon the general idea of epic poetry unmodified by any prepossession for known models.[137] Camoens struck out a totally new path in the region of epopœia. The style of his poem is indeed formed chiefly on the ancient models, and in his diction he has imitated the elegant stanzas of the Italians; but the epic idea of the work is entirely his own; and the kind of composition, which forms its groundwork, was something entirely new in poetic literature. The object of Camoens was to recount in epic strains, with pure poetic feeling, the atchievements of the heroes and great men of Portugal in general, not of any individual in particular, and consequently not of Vasco da Gama, who is commonly considered the hero of the Lusiad. He was not to be satisfied with drawing up a poetically adorned official report, like the Spanish Araucana, written at a later period by Ercilla.[138] The title which Camoens gave to his heroic poem sufficiently denotes the nature of its subject. He named it Os Lusiadas, that is to say, the Lusitanians, or Portuguese. This choice of a title was doubtless influenced by the prevailing taste of the Portuguese poets of that age, to whom the common name of their nation appeared unpoetic, and also by the popular notion that the favourite term Lusitania was derived from a certain mythological hero, named Lusus, who visited Portugal in company with Ulysses, and who conjointly with the Greek warrior, built the city of Lisbon (Ulyssipolis). Camoens is not to blame if the editors of his poem, wishing to reconcile its somewhat unusual title with the names of other epic compositions, have converted the Lusiadas into the Lusiada.[139] But the poem may be designated by its common title without offence to its spirit or its subject. At the same time it must not be forgotten that the Lusiad is a totally different kind of heroic poem from all those epopees, whether successful or unsuccessful, in which a single hero is the main spring of the whole epic action. According to the plan which Camoens sketched for his national poem, he was enabled to dispense with the choice of a hero whose atchievements should throw those of all others into the shade, and form the sole source of epic interest. To this plan, however, an essential beauty of epic poetry was necessarily sacrificed. The composition lost the advantage of those little groupes of characters which would otherwise have been assembled around the principal character. From its plan, therefore, the Lusiad cannot be accounted such a model of epic perfection as the Iliad, or even as the Æneid, in which that perfection more faintly presented is still to be found. But as a narrative poem, deriving a total effect from the union of its parts, the Lusiad may be considered an epic whole, and consequently, a poem entirely different in kind from the Metamorphoses of Ovid, or even the Divina Comedia of Dante. A poetic and epic grouping of all the great and most interesting events in the annals of his native country, was what Camoens wished to accomplish. He therefore very happily selected the event which constitutes the most brilliant epoch in Portuguese history, as a common keeping point for all the different parts of his epic picture. The discovery of the passage to India by Vasco da Gama was certainly not an heroic atchievement in the usual sense of the term, but in that age, when such adventures bordered on the incredible, it was a truly heroic enterprize. Camoens made this event the groundwork of the epic unity of his poem. But in that unity Vasco da Gama is merely the spindle round which the thread of the narrative is wound. His dignity, as the leader of his intrepid countrymen, renders him in some degree conspicuous; but in other respects he is not distinguished, and the interest of the whole poem depends no more on him than on his companions. The heroes who shine with the greatest lustre in the Lusiad, even the Constable, Nuno Alvarez Pereira, who is the most remarkable among them, are all introduced in what are styled the episodes. But the Lusiad has in reality no episode, except the short story of the giant Adamastor. Another portion of the work, which is commonly called an episode, is a poetic sketch from the ancient history of Portugal, and belongs as essentially to the whole as any of the other principal parts of the great picture. It even occupies nearly one half of the poem. It is precisely on these parts, called episodes, that the epic grandeur of the whole composition rests; and in them the finest passages of the poem occur. Unless the idea of the plan of the Lusiad be rightly seized, the composition will appear in a false light on whatever side it may be viewed.

The Lusiad, designated as a whole, may therefore be termed an epic national picture of Portuguese glory, something greater than a mere gallery of poetic stories, but less than a perfect epopee. The principles of the composition are exceedingly simple; but that they may not be misconceived, it is necessary to understand the epic machinery of the poem, as the poet himself would have it understood, and as it was understood in the spirit of the age by his contemporaries. Camoens was too truly a poet to exclude from his Lusiad the charm of the marvellous and the co-operation of supernatural beings. But he was either accidentally less happy than Tasso in the choice of epic machinery for a modern heroic poem, or he purposely preferred the Greek mythology as the most beautiful. Nothing prevented him from assigning the necessary parts in his machinery to the good and bad agents of popular christian belief; and the subject seems particularly calculated for such an application as the diffusion of christianity by the discoveries and conquests of the Portuguese is in the poem itself made the highest merit of the nation. Camoens, however, appears to have been of opinion that an epic poem, such as he had planned, should be adorned with learning, and particularly mythological learning; and besides, by the introduction of the Greek deities the whole composition seemed to be raised to the true poetic region of the ancient epopœia. Thus there remains the singular incongruity of the Greek mythology and the atchievements of the Portuguese christians, who, on no occasion neglect to act and discourse in the true spirit of their faith. But in the mind of Camoens this incongruity was removed by the opinion, which he shared in common with his contemporaries, that the machinery in epopœia was merely a poetic figure, and that all the heathen deities might be introduced as allegorical characters, in modern narrative poetry, by the same privilege which enables Cupid to retain his place in the lyric compositions of christian poets, without any theological or literary offence. Thus Camoens allegorically introduced Olympus into his poem. The erroneous opinion which misled the poet does not, it is true, redeem this defect in the poem, though it contributes to cast a veil over it. But if the reader admits this opinion, which he must do in order to understand the poet in his own sense, then will even the offence against taste be found to vanish imperceptibly. This compromise once made, the whole poem becomes not only singular, but even wonderful in its singularity, particularly where Vasco da Gama and his companions sport with Thetis and her nymphs allegorically, and yet in good earnest; and the historical material begins, as if suddenly ennobled by magic, to shine in the full light of poetry.

The Lusiad assumes a mythological character immediately after the introductory stanzas. Vasco da Gama with his squadron has already doubled the Cape of Good Hope; and steering along the eastern coast of Africa, he approaches the Indian seas. The gods are then assembled on Olympus, to deliberate on the fate of India. Venus and Bacchus form two parties, the former in favour of the Portuguese, and the latter against them. In this application of the allegory, the poet, doubtless, gratified his patriotic pride; for Portugal was, even by the Spaniards, styled the native land of love; and temperance in the use of wine, was a national virtue of the Portuguese. In order to give a still higher import to this allegory, Venus is made to consider the Portuguese as modern Romans, and to entertain for them the same regard which she formerly extended to the people of ancient Rome: but Bacchus recollects his expedition in India, and is indignant at the Portuguese, whose enterprize threatens to eclipse his glory. Among the gods who declare themselves friendly to the Portuguese, Mars is particularly conspicuous. Meanwhile Vasco da Gama’s fleet touches at several places on the coast of eastern Africa. Vasco endeavours to enter into amicable relations with the King of Mombaza; but Bacchus transforms himself into a Mahometan priest, and by treacherous tokens of friendship plans the destruction of the Portuguese in Mombaza. Venus, however, discovers the treachery in time to prevent it. She appeals to Jupiter. Her prayers for the Portuguese fleet are heard. Mercury warns Vasco da Gama in a dream, and Vasco escapes the danger that is prepared for him. He sails onward to the African kingdom of Melinda. The King of Melinda, though also a Mahometan, gives a hospitable reception to the Portuguese, whose courage and national glory excite his warmest admiration. Here the poet connects the thread of those narratives which have been erroneously regarded as the episodes of the Lusiad. At the request of the King of Melinda, Vasco da Gama relates the most interesting incidents of Portuguese history, and closes his patriotic narrative with a description of his own voyage up to the period of his arrival at Melinda. The King of Melinda now becomes the enthusiastic friend of the Portuguese; and here the second half of the poem commences. Vasco da Gama proceeds on his voyage with the pilots, who are to shew him the nearest course to India. Bacchus, however, descends to the bottom of the sea, and implores the gods and goddesses of Neptune’s kingdom, to assist him in destroying the Portuguese fleet before it shall reach India. A dreadful storm arises, and seems to promise the accomplishment of Bacchus’s wish: but at the critical moment Venus again rescues her favourites, and the Portuguese arrive in safety at the kingdom of Calicut, on the coast of Malabar. Vasco da Gama is at first very favourably received by the Zamorim, or Prince of Calicut. This opportunity is seized by Camoens to supply a sort of supplement to the poetic narrative of the events of Portuguese history; for he makes Paulo da Gama, the brother of the admiral, explain to the Catual, or Indian governor of Calicut, the historical tapestries and pictures on board the Portuguese ships. At length, Bacchus, who is not yet weary of playing the part of a Mussulman, for the annoyance of the Portuguese, stirs up such a misunderstanding between Vasco da Gama and the Zamorim of Calicut, that the projected commercial treaty between Calicut and Portugal is set aside, and the Portuguese fleet is once more exposed to the risk of destruction. But the grand object of the voyage is now attained, and Vasco da Gama weighs anchor, and directs his course back to Europe. During the homeward voyage Venus prepares for the enterprizing navigators a brilliant festival on an enchanted island in the great ocean, where goddesses and sea nymphs, wounded by Cupid’s darts, become enamoured of the Portuguese who land on the island. The voluptuous magic festival, at which the goddess Thetis, or Tethys, (for both names denote the same deity), becomes the bride of Vasco da Gama, affords the poet the last opportunity of completing his picture of Portuguese national glory; for a prophetic nymph relates the most conspicuous atchievements of the Portuguese commanders in India, and Thetis taking Vasco to the top of a high mountain, explains to him on a magic globe the geographical positions of the different countries.

All the objections which may be urged against an epic composition of this kind, are so very obvious, that from a mere sketch of the contents of the Lusiad, it is impossible to conceive how a poet, even of the most uncommon talents, could form a grand and beautiful whole on a plan at once so trivial and so irregular. But the plan of the composition of this poem resembles a scaffolding, which is surrounded and concealed by the beauty and grandeur of the building; and which serves to connect the parts in a singular kind of union, yet has no share in producing the unity of the effect. The unity of effect, and consequently of the poem, rests wholly and solely on the execution of the plan, out of which only a poet like Camoens could have created a Lusiad. But the historian of Portuguese poetry, who is not inclined to concede the just claims which this poem possesses on the admiration of all ages, must present to his readers another and a totally different analysis of the work from that which has just been given. A suitable opportunity will thus be afforded for more particularly noticing the beauties with which the Lusiad abounds, and the faults in which it is not deficient.

The introductory stanzas mark with sufficient precision the tone which the poem maintains to its close. “Arms and the renowned men, who from the western shore of Lusitania, penetrated beyond Taprobana by seas never before navigated; who amidst frightful dangers and warfare accomplished more than could be expected from human powers, and in a remote region of the world founded and raised a new kingdom: also the glorious atchievements of those kings, who extended their faith and their dominion, and spread terror through the wicked regions of Africa and Asia; and others whose glorious deeds have raised them above the laws of mortality;” are announced as the objects of the poet’s strains.[140] Then follows an effusion which has more of a patriotic than a poetic character, combined with a panegyrical dedication to King Sebastian, containing no less than sixteen stanzas. The narrative which commences with the nineteenth stanza opens amidst the course of the events, and in a truly epic strain.[141] The reader may now readily perceive that he must not expect to find in the Lusiad a work written in the spirit and the style of classic antiquity. It betrays indeed a certain degree of loquacity which seems to run counter to the effect of the lofty epic. But there is something captivating in the enthusiasm of the poet’s manner; his patriotism rouses sympathetic feelings; we expect to find his poem the offspring of an overflowing heart; we are charmed with the natural, elegant and noble language of the work; and as soon as the narrative begins, the poetic point of view seems likewise to be fixed. The mythological machinery which Camoens conceived to be indispensably necessary to epic dignity, forms a peculiar kind of ornament, for which indeed the reader is prepared from the commencement of the poem. The description of the council of the gods on Olympus, with which the narrative opens, though somewhat at variance with the ancient costume, is nevertheless pleasing and not devoid of dignity. Here the poetic spirit of Camoens is evinced in some picturesque comparisons in which he vies even with Homer. All these similies bear the impress of the poet’s powers of active perception and representation. They are neither far fetched nor common, and they abound in poetic truth and energy.[142] In the forty-fourth stanza, Vasco da Gama is for the first time mentioned, and in few words characterized as a man of “proud and lofty spirit, on whom fortune ever smiled.”[143] But there soon occur passages in which the poetic light of the representation is totally extinguished.[144] Passages of this kind are afterwards frequently repeated, and their prosaic dryness is the more displeasing when contrasted with the deep poetic spirit which pervades the more beautiful parts of the composition. The description of the first engagement between the Portuguese of Gama’s fleet and the treacherous Moors of Mosambique, affords the poet another opportunity of displaying his talent in picturesque comparison. But it becomes obvious that this talent must have been formed on the model of Ariosto rather than on that of Homer. There occur indeed in his representations of the tumult of the battle, some imitations of Ariostic exuberance, which do not strictly harmonize with the prevailing style of the Lusiad.[145]

In the second canto the singularity of the mythological machinery becomes still more remarkable, when at Mombassa, on the coast of Africa, Bacchus assumes the disguise of a Christian priest, and on an enchanted altar goes through the ceremony of the christian worship for the purpose of deceiving the Portuguese.[146] But the grotesque application of the machinery in this passage, prepares the mind for scenes of a similar character, and thus the comic effect of subsequent parts of the poem is in anticipation softened. The reader who enters into the spirit of the poet becomes unconsciously accustomed to this view of the ancient mythology; and he is even soon reconciled to the incongruity of Vasco da Gama offering up prayers as a christian to Providence, and those prayers being heard by Venus. The description of Venus, who once more intercedes with Jupiter in favour of the Portuguese, resembles Ariosto’s description of Alcina. Here the poet for the first time evinces his predilection for voluptuous pictures of beauty. This charming description may be said to possess a nationally classic character.[147] The speech by which Vasco da Gama’s ambassador gains the King of Melinda to the interests of the Portuguese is excellent, and the pompous meeting of the king with Vasco, on board the Portuguese admiral ship, is elegantly and picturesquely described.

At the commencement of the third canto, a new life is infused into the poem. But to try this poetic survey of Portuguese history, as it stands in connection with the whole, by any rule of prosaic verisimilitude, would be to depart from the poetic spirit of the Lusiad. In order to understand the narrative which Vasco da Gama relates to the King of Melinda, it is necessary to possess that knowledge of the events alluded to, which Camoens presumed every Portuguese to possess, but which in all probability could not have been possessed by a sovereign of Melinda. The reader who peruses this narrative without the necessary knowledge of the history of Portugal, will be incapable of appreciating many of the most essential beauties of the Lusiad. In so far as Camoens may be denominated the Portuguese Homer, he is indebted for that title to the poetic epitome he has given of the history of his country; and this epitome is a rapid succession of pictures, which flit away like shadows, before those who are unacquainted with their historical ground work, for the poet evidently expected readers who would be gratified to observe how art was capable of elevating the events of real life to the region of epic invention. This portion of the poem, which extends from the third to the end of the fifth canto, contains passages, which in point of classic elegance leave nothing more to be desired; but even here Camoens has in some instances made an unpoetic display of his erudition. Previously to the narrative of Vasco da Gama, the poet speaks in his own character, and patriotically elevates the Portuguese nation above every other. Vasco’s narrative commences with a cold geographical enumeration of the different countries of Europe, in which the Swedes, Danes, Prussians, Russians, and Livonians are styled estranha gente, (strange people) just as a modern traveller might speak of the Ostiaks and the Samoides. Spain is denominated the head of Europe, and Portugal the crown of that head.[148] Viewed in the light of probability, the invectives in which Vasco da Gama at every opportunity indulges against the Mahometans, must be supposed offensive to the King of Melinda; but Camoens, in his patriotic zeal, lost sight of many circumstances which would have claimed the consideration of any other poet. Among the most beautiful passages in these three cantos of the Lusiad, may be numbered the tribute to the memory of Egaz Moniz, the Portuguese Regulus, who, however, ended his career more happily than the Roman consul;[149] the description of the battle of Ourique which laid the foundation of the kingdom of Portugal;[150] the description of the visit of Queen Maria of Spain to her father the King of Portugal, to implore assistance for her husband in his contest with the Moors;[151] the relation of the tragical fate of Inez de Castro, which is the most celebrated of all the exquisitely beautiful passages in the Lusiad;[152] the description of the sanguinary battle of Aljuabarrota, the greatest victory the Portuguese ever gained over the Castilians:[153] and some others, of the like character, which might still be enumerated. The picture of the battle of Aljuabarrota excels all the similar descriptions which occur even in the Lusiad, remarkable as that poem is for such passages. The valiant Nuno Alvares, who by his eloquence and his personal authority, no less than by his courage, saved the political existence of Portugal, shines with such conspicuous lustre at the head of the Portuguese warriors, that he with far more propriety than Vasco da Grama might be denominated the hero of the Lusiad, were it a work which ought to be judged according to the rules usually applied to epic poetry.[154] Even in this great battle picture, the finest touches are unquestionably copied from nature, for the poet was no less in his place amidst the tumult of war than in the more tranquil region of the Muses.[155] In the continuation of the narrative of the first discoveries of the Portuguese in the east, the particular interest which the poet took in allegoric description is again displayed in a novel manner. The two principal rivers of India, the Indus and the Ganges, are made to appear to King Emmanuel in a dream under the personification of two old men. The representation is truly excellent.[156]

In Vasco da Gama’s narrative of his own voyage, the following passages must always be particularly distinguished: first, the description of the farewell to the Portuguese shore:[157] secondly, a sort of didactic episode, consisting of reflexions made by an old man on the vanity of human ambition, quite in the spirit of that true poetry which embraces the whole range of human existence;[158] and thirdly, another kind of episode which introduces the giant Adamastor, whom Camoens conjured up from the old world of fable to render him the spirit of the Cape of Good Hope.[159] In the description of this part of the voyage, Camoens for the first time uses the freedom of relieving the solemn seriousness of his narrative by some comic touches. Fernaõ Velloso is the humourist among the enterprising followers of Vasco da Gama.[160] Camoens also occasionally breaks the poetic tone of the whole description by a display of his mythological and historical pedantry, and by his endeavours to express in a poetic manner things which are totally unpoetic; as for example, in alluding to the day of the departure of the fleet, he says:—“When the eternal orb of light had entered the sign of the Nemæan monster, and when the decaying world in its sixth age, moved feebly and slowly after having observed the sun’s circuitous course repeated fourteen hundred and ninety-seven times.”[161] These deformities sometimes injure the beauty of the finest parts of the poem.

The chief portion of the second half of the poem, from the sixth to the tenth canto, is thrown into shade by the first half; and the essential want of a rising interest, weakens the epic character of the whole. But these last five cantos of the Lusiad abound in classically beautiful passages; and that kind of unity at which the poet aimed is on no occasion forgotten. The description of the palace of Neptune and the sea deities in the depths of the ocean is equally charming and novel; though it must be allowed that the portrait of Triton degenerates into the grotesque. In order to omit no opportunity of interweaving into the composition of the Lusiad whatever might shed a poetic lustre on the Portuguese name, Camoens makes Velloso, for the amusement of the ship’s crew, relate the history of the Lusitanian knights, who according to Portuguese tradition, are called Os doze de Inglaterra (the twelve of England.) In the description of the storm which follows, the powerful painting of the dreadful picture once more reveals the poet who had himself passed through like scenes of danger. The same stamp of truth is apparent in the succeeding descriptions of Indian objects, which no great poet, except Camoens, has sketched from nature. The poem is not injured by the long and energetic apostrophe to the European powers, with which the seventh canto commences. According to the view to be taken by a catholic christian, Camoens was justified in extolling the national glory of Portugal above that of other christian nations, on the ground that while the Portuguese by their valour, were extending the dominion of the catholic faith, and had not, for a considerable period waged war against any of the European states, those states were contending against each other, and even in a certain measure against the church of Rome. To strengthen in some degree the poetic probability by a matter of fact, Camoens has introduced, at the period when the intercourse between the Portuguese and the Indian Prince of Calecut commences, a Moor named Monzayde, whose destiny had actually conducted him over land to India. Through this mediator, who speaks Spanish, and who finally becomes a christian, the Indians are made acquainted with the power of the Portuguese and Spanish arms. This Moor is also the interpreter, who, in the eighth canto assists Paulo da Gama in explaining the historical pictures and embroideries to the Indian ambassador. In point of poetic merit, this supplement to the abstract of the history of Portugal is far inferior to the narrative in the third and fifth cantos:—but Camoens could find no other means of accomplishing his purpose; for he was equally reluctant to omit anything which he conceived to belong to his pictures of Portuguese national glory, or to crowd too many of the events of former times into one part of his poem. None of these historical descriptions, which occupy a large portion of the eighth canto, form finished pictures; they are mere sketches, and are, in general, deficient in poetic warmth; but the ninth canto makes ample amends for this fault. The magic festival, which Venus prepares to recreate her beloved navigators after the fatigues they have encountered, is boldly conceived and charmingly executed; and in this part of the composition the poet’s fancy has revelled with evident delight. Camoens, like all the Portuguese poets of his age, next to the indulgence of heroic feeling and all powerful patriotism, was fond of luxuriantly pourtraying the passion of love. Except the fate of Inez de Castro, and the atchievements of Nuno Alvarez Pereira at the battle of Aljubarota, the poet has executed no portion of his poem with such decided predilection as the visit of the navigators to the enchanted island; and to no other part of the poem is so much space allotted in proportion to the whole. The long description of the preparations for the luxuriant festival, and of the festival itself, which commences at the eighteenth stanza of the ninth, and extends into the tenth canto, is full of picturesque beauty. Its great prolixity however, must, even according to the incorrect plan which Camoens followed, be accounted a defect in the composition. But the reader, like the poet himself, soon forgets every thing except the seductive painting, which sometimes, it must be confessed, only just respects the boundaries of decorum, which yet upon the whole offends no elevated feeling, and which has not been surpassed by any later poet in the same style. The first idea of the island of love, on which Camoens makes Venus entertain the Portuguese navigators, seems borrowed from Ariosto, but Ariosto’s description of the magic gardens of Alcina scarcely affords a groundwork for the scenes and situations in the Lusiad. There is, however, little room to doubt that Tasso, when he trod in Ariosto’s footsteps in order to describe the abode of Armida, availed himself of the description of Camoens. In the tone of frank simplicity with which the festival is announced, the character of the poet is again manifested. It is described as merely “a refreshment for restoring the exhausted strength of the navigators; some interest for those fatigues which render short life still shorter.”[162] Venus, in her car drawn by doves, descends from Mount Ida in quest of Cupid. She finds him with a throng of loves employed in forging arrows. The fuel used in the process of forging is allegorically and whimsically described to be human hearts, and the red-hot arrows are cooled in tears. Cupid and his little deputies are directed to wound a number of goddesses and sea nymphs, so that every individual on board Vasco da Gama’s fleet, shall on landing on the magic island, find himself in the situation of a happy lover. Meanwhile Venus adorns the island with the loveliest charms of nature.[163] On first landing, the navigators know not where they are, but they are soon satisfied with the pleasing reality without concerning themselves about the nature of the miracle which has transported them to a terrestrial heaven.[164] When the festival is drawing to a close, the poet for the first time explains the object of the fiction, by stating it to be an allegorical representation of the happiness which is the reward of courage and virtue. After this cold manner of dissolving the enchantment, the unprejudiced reader feels little interest in the conclusion of the poem. The stanzas in which the prophetic nymph celebrates the future atchievements of the Portuguese are historical fragments, the connection of which must be studied in order to form a just estimate of their poetic merits and demerits. The geographic supplement which is put into the mouth of Thetis is still colder, notwithstanding the singular idea of the globe which hovers in the air, and which exalts the miracle of the geographic lecture. But thus is the sympathy of the reader the more powerfully excited by the passage towards the end of the Lusiad, where Camoens speaks of himself; which he had refrained from doing in the preceding part of the work. As he approached the close of his labour he was impressed with the conviction that no earthly happiness awaited him; and now saw “his years descending, and the transition from summer to autumn near at hand; his genius frozen by the coldness of fate, and he himself borne down by sorrow into the stream of black oblivion and eternal sleep.”[165] His heart then pours fourth the epiphonema of the poem, consisting of a didactic apostrophe to his sovereign, full of loyalty, but not less abounding in honest zeal for truth, justice and virtue.

An epic poem so powerfully imbued with intensity of feeling and character as the Lusiad, naturally calls to mind Dante’s Divina Comedia, and Klopstock’s Messiah. But the Lusiad bears in other respects no more resemblance to the Messiah, than to every other great poem in which the beauties make amends for the exercise of indulgence towards numerous faults. The Lusiad presents a greater similarity to the work of Dante. Both poems are epic, though neither are epopees in the strict sense of the term. Both are singular, but truly poetic in invention; and in both the full stream of purest poetry is incessantly broken by false learning and various unpoetic excrescences. But with respect to invention the Divina Comedia is, in its original plan, trivial, and only becomes grand by the poetic filling up of the vast divisions of hell, purgatory and heaven: the Lusiad is more poetic in its outline, but not so rich in its internal parts. Finally, the two poems are distinguished by the kind of feeling which prevails in each and by a total difference of style. Dante introduced all the variety of the terrestrial world, of which he had perfect command, into the mystic region of a celestial and subterraneous existence, in which he, as a Christian, placed faith; and the whole plan of his extraordinary poem has for its object the pious apotheosis of his beloved Beatrice. Camoens glowed with patriotism and heroism; and to avoid weakening the patriotic and nationally heroic character of his poem, by the force of religious interest, he preferred introducing into his terrestrial fiction the heaven of mythology, because he felt that it afforded him the finest imagery. Dante’s style is throughout energetic, frequently rude, and always characteristic of the spirit of the extraordinary writer, who stood alone, and who in a great measure himself created the language in which he expressed his feelings. Camoens, like Ariosto, was wholly the man of his age and his country; a fact which is sufficiently evident from the delicate and luxuriant style, which he partly borrowed from Ariosto, and which he only cultivated as far as was necessary for the expression of the serious epopæia.[166]

The other poetic works of Camoens, appeared even in the eyes of the poet himself, when compared with the Lusiad, merely secondary effusions of his feelings and his imagination. It appears, as far as the point can be ascertained, that he never collected them himself, and many may therefore be lost. Among those productions which were collected and published after the death of Camoens, by his admirer Lobo de Soropita, under the affected title of Rhythmas, there are several which were not printed from the best and latest copies. Some other poems which escaped the notice of the first collectors, and which have only been included by modern writers among the miscellaneous productions of Camoens, may be found in a somewhat different form among the poems of the pious Diogo Bernardes. This writer, who was a contemporary and admirer of Camoens, and who was the first among the celebrated Portuguese poets of that age, to render justice to the preponderating genius of the author of the Lusiad, is now, in spite of all his piety, accused of gross plagiarism on that author. The writer of a general history of modern poetry and eloquence has, however, no occasion to take part in the controversy respecting these problematic works; for none of the disputed poems are of a kind which was new in Portuguese literature; and among the miscellaneous remains of Camoens are many pieces of similar species, the authenticity of which is undisputed.[167]

But the miscellaneous poems of Camoens, are calculated to involve the literary historian in another kind of embarrassment. They are, if not extremely numerous, at least sufficiently various; and among the number are many so poetically conceived, and admirably executed, that to give merely to one of each class of these minor poems that kind of detailed consideration which it has been thought necessary to bestow on the Lusiad, would be to incur the risk of converting the history of Portuguese poetry into a compendium of the history of the poetic works of Camoens. In every species of poetic composition then practised in Portugal, Camoens has left specimens of no common merit; and in some of those species his example has formed and fixed the favourite style for his native country. Indeed a careful perusal of the various productions of the author of the Lusiad, is alone sufficient to afford a summary notion of the whole range of Portuguese poetry in the sixteenth century. This will account for the preponderating authority still conceded to the works of this poet in the polite literature of his country. To that authority Portuguese critics and writers are always disposed to defer in discussing the merits of any poem; and when they wish to select a model in any particular kind of poetic composition, they invariably turn first to the works of Camoens. The predilection of the Portuguese for the greatest of their poets, has rendered them unjust towards the merits of others who have not chosen to compose in his manner. But in the poetry of Camoens the national style is combined with correctness and elegance, precisely in the manner which suited the taste of his country: and Portuguese taste has never risen above the degree of cultivation to which Camoens attained.

In sonnets the fancy of Camoens was particularly prolific. Like Tasso, he seems throughout the whole of his life to have made it a rule to compose sonnets as long as he could compose verse. The number of his sonnets which have been preserved is three hundred and one. Some appear to be occasional sonnets; and of these several are written in fictitious names. It is known that, in India, Camoens was frequently applied to for poetic aid in affairs of the heart; for according to the spirit of the age a lover could not more elegantly recommend himself to the good graces of a fair lady than by the composition of a tender sonnet; and a poet, like Camoens, who was himself so often poetically occupied with his amatory feelings, would find but little difficulty in celebrating another lady besides his own mistress. Most of his sonnets have love for their theme, and they are of very unequal merit: some are full of Petrarchic tenderness and grace, and moulded with classic correctness; others are impetuous and romantic, or disfigured by false learning, or full of tedious pictures of the conflicts of passion with reason. Upon the whole, however, no Portuguese poet has so correctly seized the character of the sonnet as Camoens. Without apparent effort, merely by the ingenious contrast of the first eight with the six last fines, he knew how to make these little effusions convey a poetic unity of ideas and impressions, after the model of the best Italian sonnets, in so natural a manner, that the first lines or quartets of the sonnet excite a soft expectation, which is harmoniously fulfilled by the tercets or six last lines.[168] In this way he has occasionally imparted a romantically beautiful effect to well known stories in the sonnet form, by the introduction of a single tender idea at the close.[169] Among these sonnets there are likewise some of a moral and religious character.

In the series of the minor poems of Camoens, the sonnets are succeeded by seventeen Canções (songs) written on the model of Petrarch’s canzoni. These compositions more particularly prove how deeply Camoens was penetrated with the spirit of the Petrarchic poetry. They also display the utmost elegance of language, combined with the soft harmony of the Italian verse.[170] In these canções, as well as in the other poems of Camoens, the painting of natural scenery, wherever the lyric picture embraces it, presents a character of lively perception, which never could be imitated in the closet by any laboured exercise of the imagination.[171]

The canções are followed by twelve compositions styled odes. In their essential characteristics, these pieces are but little distinguished from the canções, though the object of the poet seems to have been that they should approximate more nearly to the ancient style. The structure of the verse corresponds with that which Ferreira and the Spanish poets, since the time of Luis de Leon, selected for this class of lyric composition. The bold fancy of Pindar, or the energy of Horace, is not to be expected in these any more than other Portuguese and Spanish odes. But Camoens never limited his poetry merely to sonorous language. The first ode is particularly distinguished for its beauty. It is addressed to the moon. The idea is mythological, like all the lofty ideas of Camoens. But in none of his other odes has the poet so well succeeded in combining the grace of antiquity with a romantic tenderness of feeling free from every trace of affectation. The commencement is in the pure ode style. The poet invokes his muse to stem “the current of lovers’ tears, and attired in a rich and gay robe to do homage to the goddess who converts night into day.” He then addresses the goddess of the moon herself, she “whose silver beam penetrates the thick clouds, and prevents night from obscuring the image which love traces and re-traces in his heart; she whose pure forehead is crowned and encircled with stars; she who strews the plains with roses and with flowers, created by spring through her heavenly influence.”[172] But a still finer passage occurs at the conclusion of the ode, where the poet bids farewell to night, “the silent friend whom he obeys; and, that she may listen to his complaints, presents to her roses and fresh amaranth still wet with the tears of the fair bride of the jealous Titan.”[173]

The odes are followed by some Sextinas, the artificial beauty of which Camoens has not failed to render pleasing. His one-and-twenty elegies are, however, more worthy of particular attention. Next to the Lusiad these compositions may in general be numbered among the longer poems of the author, and also among those in which the poet is most frequently represented in his real character as a man. Camoens had, however, no correct notion of the elegiac style. Like Ferreira, he blended it with the epistolary. But such a junction is no less detrimental to the tenderness than to the unity of the elegiac character, and in general deprives elegy of half its poetic interest. Were the language less copious and facund, this method of confounding the boundaries of the elegiac and the epistolary styles, would be still more striking. But the harmonious softness and rich flow of the expression, even where it approaches to prolixity, establish, at least, in a certain degree, a unity of character among the heterogeneous ingredients of which the elegy of Camoens is composed.[174] The feeble and tedious passages are readily overlooked, as they are amply counterbalanced by others possessing real elegiac beauty:[175] and the occasional deficiencies of these elegies in the poetry appropriate to their class, are compensated by the inappropriate, in which the poetic character of Camoens is every where prominent. The romantic soul of the unfortunate poet is completely unveiled in his elegiac compositions. His earliest productions in this class were written in his youth, when he was exiled to Belem; the others are expressive of the feelings which he experienced in his oriental voyages and adventures. There he fondly cherished recollections of the tranquil happiness which he persuaded himself he had enjoyed in his native country, though he had indignantly abandoned it as a place to existence in which he could not be reconciled. The common fate of humanity, which, independently of his personal circumstances, he always viewed profoundly and poetically, was in India more than ever present to his imagination; and in his elegies he has poured forth, without restraint, all the feelings of his heart. Thus is sympathy more powerfully excited by these compositions than by many of the same class, the beauties of which are of a less prosaic character. No other works of the poet so irresistibly command the reader’s regret for his misfortunes, and love for him as a man.

A few poems, widely differing from each other in character, are printed under the common title of estancias, (stanzas) because they are all composed in Italian octaves. Camoens seems to have felt that in Portuguese, as in Italian, this measure was, in universality of application, nearly equivalent to the Greek hexameter, because it was capable of being united and blended with most of the romantic poetic forms, in the same manner as that hexameter with the different styles of ancient poetry. The three first poems which occur under the title of estancias, are truly poetic epistles, and at the same time faithful mirrors of the character and principles of the poet. Through them Camoens, in a spirit of fervent loyalty, but with a no less honest zeal for truth and justice, addresses useful advice to his sovereign. The estancias which immediately succeed these epistles, are glosses in the Spanish manner on two of the author’s own sonnets. A tender epistle addressed to a lady, is the subject of the next: and the last estancias form an epic legend, which, with some alterations, also appears among the works of Bernardes. It is founded on the history of St. Ursula. Whether this epic legend be really the production of Camoens, or of his admirer Bernardes, it far excels Ferreira’s similar talc of St. Colomba, though the materials are less poetic.

Among the miscellaneous poems of Camoens, the eclogues occupy a considerable space, particularly if we include those of which Bernardes claimed to be the author. Much care appears to have been taken to give them an elegant polish. By the Portuguese they are regarded as models; and according to the received idea of the modern eclogue, particularly in Spain and Portugal, they certainly deserve that distinction. But with all their unquestionable merits, they do not reach the pure eclogue style of Saa de Miranda. The rural character which they ought to possess, is besides much impaired, in consequence of Camoens having, like Ferreira, employed the bucolic form merely to give a poetic interest to events borrowed from real life. This indeed was a custom which had been more or less followed in Portuguese poetry since the time of Ribeyro, and of which even Saa de Miranda did not disdain to avail himself. But those Portuguese poets who endeavoured to form their eclogue style after Saa de Miranda, were in general content with pastoral names and pastoral scenes, when they wished to throw a bucolic disguise over known characters and events; and thus the spirit of pastoral poetry often entirely vanished in those compositions in which its form was most ostentatiously displayed. The eclogues of Camoens partake of this essential fault. Still, however, they are sufficiently pleasing even without the aid of the historical key, with which the reader would doubtless willingly dispense. The descriptive passages are in general the best. In the expression of sentiment these eclogues perfectly resemble the sonnets, canções, and similar poems with which in reality they constitute one species. Passages in the Spanish language are occasionally interspersed.

In the collected works of Camoens, a separation is made of his poems in the Italian style and the Italian syllabic measure, from those which are composed in redondilhas, and which afford examples of an improved national style. In this style also he has enriched every species of poetic composition practised in Portugal and Spain. Much and justly celebrated are the redondilhas in which he poured forth the inmost feelings of his soul, on his return from Macao to Goa, after he had narrowly escaped death by shipwreck.[176] The number of his smaller poems, in all the possible forms of the old lyric style, proves how much, as a poet, he was attached to his native country. Romantic, gallant and comic plays of fancy and wit, glossed mottos in the Spanish style, voltas[177] in the genuine Portuguese manner, and other poetic trifles in the Portuguese and Spanish languages, appear to have been dealt out at every opportunity with a profuse hand by Camoens. In these compositions he paid no rigid attention to the correctness and elegance of the ideas, and indeed no mental sport of this kind seems to have been too homely for him. He even composed in honour of a lady, a romantic mythological a b c in redondilhas, in which, in correspondence with the initial letters, the names Artemisia, Cleopatra, Dido, Eurydice, Phædra, (spelt Fedra, according to the Italianized orthography of Camoens) Galatæa, &c. are played on in succession. But in some of these compositions, the simplicity and amenity of the old lyric style are combined with a peculiar grace, which alternately defies[178] and disarms[179] the severity of criticism.

The same national spirit which prevented the patriotic Camoens from rejecting the old lyric forms of the Portuguese poetry, induced him to write several dramas, and thus to leave no kind of poetic composition unattempted. It is not known at what period of his life these dramatic works were produced; but it is probable that they were written previously to his departure for India. They belong more completely to the age of Camoens than to the poet himself. They are, however, highly deserving of attention, though they should be merely considered as the last proofs of the poetic versatility and plastic genius of an author who comprised his whole age within himself, as far as a Portuguese national poet could accommodate himself to his age. Camoens was too much a poet to wish to supplant the national drama of his native country, however rude it then might be, by a prosaically modelled imitation of the ancient drama. He adhered to the party formed by the Spanish dramatist Naharro, and his ingenious countryman Gil Vicente. But his determination to dramatic poetry was not sufficiently decided to enable him to fix, by his productions, the taste of the Portuguese nation. Had the genius which animates the Lusiad, taken a dramatic direction, Camoens would have been the Calderon of Portugal, before a Lope de Vega had arisen in Spain. But Camoens in the composition of his dramas contented himself with slightly overstepping the bounds of Gil Vicente’s manner, and with refining, also, only in a slight degree, the construction of the plot and the language. The rudest of the three dramas, which are now attached as a supplement to the other works of the author, is, El Rey Seleuco, (King Seleucus) a singular production, founded on the well known anecdote of the history of that monarch, who resigned his wife Stratonice to his son Antiochus, lest the youth should fall a sacrifice to the passion of love. Camoens seems to have had no idea of treating this delicate subject in a sentimental way. The burlesque prelude or prologue, as it is called, in prose, is calculated to raise the expectation of a farce rather then of a serious drama. The theatrical manager, a lad who acts as his servant, a man of condition, who presents himself as a spectator, and his escudeiro, (attendant) are the characters in this prologue. The manager’s servant is the gracioso of the piece, and his jokes are at least so far useful that they afford an idea of the kind of wit which was at that time relished by the fashionable world in Lisbon. The drama itself, to which this prologue is the introduction, is entitled a comedy in the Spanish acceptation of the term, and is likewise denominated an auto, probably because royal personages are brought upon the scene, a circumstance which according to the Portuguese notions of poetry in that age elevated the piece above a mere comedy. The historical material is moulded according to the romantic forms; the composition is not only inartificial but trivial; and in the execution the ludicrous is quite as prevalent as the comic. The king and queen first enter, to converse on the melancholy state of the prince, and the king takes the opportunity of lamenting that he is no longer young enough for so fair a consort. The prince next appears attended by his pages, to whom he complains of his passion, but without naming the beloved object. The king and queen in vain endeavour to ascertain the cause of the prince’s grief, and orders are given to prepare a bed for him. A bed is introduced on the stage, and a chamber-maid who is engaged in making it, is surprised by her lover in disguise, who is a porteiro (usher) of the castle. This scene is altogether an interlude in the romantic style. The prince again enters, and after many tender complaints betakes himself to bed. A band of music arrives to sooth him while he reposes. One of the musicians named Alexander de Fonseca, enters into conversation with the usher and a page, concerning the melancholy of the prince. With the consent of the prince the usher sings a romance, and the queen again enters with an attendant. Various scenes thus succeed each other, until the physician by feeling the prince’s pulse, discovers the secret. The catastrophe is merely a representation of the dose of the anecdote, without any reference to the queen, who is resigned by the father to the son, like an article of household furniture. The physician in this comedy is a Spaniard. He is made a native of Castile in order that one of the characters might speak Spanish, and thus introduce a variety into the dialogue which it appears was agreeable to a Lisbon audience. The dialogue is in other respects natural, and the versification in redondilhas is pleasing and not devoid of elegance. But there is not a single excellent scene to compensate for the grotesque frivolity of the composition. It is impossible to consider this work as any thing else than a mere juvenile essay of such a poet as Camoens.

The second comedy of Camoens, Os Amphitryões, (the Amphitryons), was, however, a valuable contribution to the dramatic literature of Portugal. The merit of the invention of this purely comic piece, belongs indeed to Plautus, whose Amphitryon Camoens has freely imitated. But even the imitation must have marked an epoch in the history of the dramatic literature of Portugal, had the public been inclined to favour so happy a combination of the national and ancient forms. Any one unacquainted with the Amphitryon of Plautus would regard the Portuguese comedy as an original. The whole story of the piece is modernized without weakening the comic force of the situations. Jupiter indeed remains unchanged; but Mercury who attends him in his disguise, performs the servant in the true Portuguese style. Amphitryon is a sea captain, according to the Portuguese idea of that character. The servant of Amphitryon is converted into a perfect gracioso, who speaks Spanish, but still retains the name of Sosia. The humour of the burlesque scenes in which Sosia appears, is heightened by making Mercury, who converses with Jupiter in Portuguese, always speak Spanish, when he plays his part as the pseudo Sosia. It would be worth while to ascertain whether this pleasant comedy is ever performed in Lisbon.

Filodemo, the third comedy of Camoens, is one of those dramatized novels, of which the Spanish theatre afterwards afforded many examples. It is not a drama of intrigue, but a variegated collection of grave and half comic scenes, which are combined together as a whole by their common reference to the result of a singular event. That event is the saving of two twins, a boy and a girl, whose mother is a princess of Denmark. A shepherd finds the twins and brings them up. Shepherds and shepherdesses, gentlemen and ladies, a waiting woman, a hunter, and other characters of a similar kind, form the romantic groupe. The scene is sometimes in town in the open streets, or within a house; sometimes in the country, and among barren mountains. The denouement is the most trivial part of the whole composition. It is brought about by a shepherd initiated in the art of magic, who, by his necromantic skill, discovers the parentage of the twins, and by this discovery removes the obstacles which impede the happy issue of two parallel love stories. In this drama Camoens has interspersed, and evidently not without design, scenes in prose among scenes in verse. In conformity with his inclination to unite all manners, he was desirous of approximating to the party, which on the pretext of adhering strictly to nature endeavoured to banish verse from Portuguese comedy. He accordingly gives the dialogue in prose where the conversation is entirely of a popular character; and whenever the style becomes somewhat elevated, redondilhas are again introduced. Some of the shepherds speak Spanish, and among them a lad who is the bobo (buffoon) of the piece. Thus it would appear that Camoens in all his dramas, sought to exercise the right of retaliation upon the Spanish poets, who were fond of making their gracioso, or buffoon, express himself in Galician or Portuguese. The jokes in the Spanish language which Camoens has in this instance put into the mouth of his gracioso, would be sufficiently unpolished even if they were less broad and spiritless.[180]

MONTEMAYOR.

From Camoens, whose name now becomes a waymark for the whole domain of Portuguese poetry, the historian of that poetry cannot properly revert to the classic school of Ferreira, without previously reviving the recollection of Jorge de Montemayor, who was a contemporary of Camoens and Ferreira. The history of the life and writings of this excellent poet, belongs indeed rather to the literature of Spain than to that of Portugal.[181] But the spirit of the pastoral romance of Diana, by which Montemayor gained immortal fame, is in fact the spirit of Portuguese poetry transfused into the Spanish language. Without being an imitator of Ribeyro,[182] Montemayor followed in the same path with the same kind of susceptibility to impressions. But the cultivated delicacy of his feeling, and the romantic enthusiasm of his imagination, rendered him the first poet who enlarged and dignified the plain antiquated form of the Portuguese pastoral romance. He renewed and riveted the old link of connection between the Spanish and the Portuguese poetry. Had he confined himself to writing in his native tongue, he would probably have been succeeded by a Portuguese Gil Polo;[183] and the romantic pastoral poetry of the Portuguese would then have remained single in its kind. But Montemayor composed verses in the Portuguese language only for the sake of variety, and not with the view of extending the sphere of Portuguese poetry.[184]

CLASSICAL SCHOOL OF SAA DE MIRANDA AND ANTONIO FERREIRA.

The comparatively correct style of poetry introduced into Portuguese literature by Saa de Miranda, and the still more coldly correct style of Antonio de Ferreira, though favoured by that portion of the polite world which valued a reputation for learning, were but little esteemed by the great bulk of the public. The poets of this sect may fairly be said to constitute a classical school, without thereby admitting them to an equal rank with the incorrect men of genius whose irregular effusions could scarcely fail to possess more poetic character, than other works which are now to be noticed; such, for example, as the poems of Andrade Caminha, who formed himself entirely on the model of Ferreira. The efforts made by the poets of this classic school to attain the correctness of the ancients seem to have checked their powers of fancy, and it may be presumed that imaginations which were so easily repressed, could not be very creative and energetic. Those who, like some modern German writers would, in defiance of every rule of language, render genius the measure of classic excellence, must find a new term to designate that poetry, the greatest merit of which is the elegant perfection and pure rounding of poetic forms after the example of the ancients. This, which is in other respects an inferior style of poetry, is nevertheless held in consideration by all cultivated nations. To reject it as altogether worthless would indeed be very unjust, since it serves to shew how judgment, talent, and taste, can by the study of ancient models, produce, even without the aid of genius, a certain kind of poetic beauty, which is not unmeritorious, though it frequently presents scarcely a shadow of that pure and sublime beauty which is the offspring of real genius. Poetry of this kind is therefore styled classical, merely in reference to a certain degree of affinity which its forms bear to the classical forms of Greek and Roman art.

ANDRADE CAMINHA.

One of the warmest friends, admirers and imitators of Ferreira, was Pedro de Andrade Caminha, Camareiro (gentleman of the chamber) at the court of the Infante Dom Duarte, brother to King John III. He survived his friend Ferreira six-and-twenty years. During his life his poems seem rather to have been esteemed by a small circle of connoisseurs and dilettanti, than to have been favourites with the public. Thus it happened that at that period they were only circulated in manuscript, and that afterwards, with the exception of a few which had been admitted into spiritual collections, they totally disappeared; they have, however, been recently discovered, and have been printed at the expense of the Portuguese Royal Society.[185] Andrade Caminha seems to have had no notion of any thing more perfect in poetic composition than the works of his friend Ferreira, who, however, barely avoided the dangerous boundary where poetry ends and versified prose begins. Caminha’s compositions in elegant verse are, however, still more deficient in genuine poetry, than the works of Ferreira, and indeed they can scarcely be termed poems. His eclogues are cold, and their coldness is the more striking, as they are intended to express forcibly the language of romantic love. His epistles are better deserving of attention. They possess just about as much poetic warmth as is necessary to maintain the character of didactic poems. In these epistles Caminha, as a painter of manners and a moralist, alternately describes and reasons energetically and without pedantry in the style of Ferreira, and his unassuming manner gives more effect to the agreeable colouring of that style.[186] But Andrade Caminha is by no means so rich in ideas as Ferreira. He limits the circle of his free reflections, by constant reference to the relations in which he lived. In the epistles to his brother, and in those to Ferreira, he, however, indulges in a more unconstrained expression of feeling.[187] Of all these epistles, the seventeenth, in which he inveighs against impertinent critics, possesses most didactic merit.[188] Andrade Caminha seems to have supposed that he possessed a particular talent for elegiac poetry. Twenty of the elegies he composed are still preserved, exclusive of many songs of complaining love in redondilhas, to which the title of elegies is likewise given. But the sorrow for the death of the royal personages and ingenious friends, which is lavished in the first half of Caminha’s elegies, and the tender anguish occasioned by the inexorableness of his beloved Phyllis, which appears in the second half, seldom rouses any poetic sympathy in the reader, notwithstanding the beauty of language with which the sorrow and anguish are expressed. In some of the elegies to Phyllis, the descriptions of natural scenery possess considerable merit.[189]

But the most remarkable of all Caminha’s works are his epitaphs and epigrams, of which no Portuguese poet has bequeathed so many to posterity. His Epitafios which amount to eighty-one, and his Epigrammas which exceed two hundred and fifty in number, are almost all written in octave verse. In these little pictures of reflection and sentiment, which derive so much of their value from correctness and elegance, a limited fancy aided by solid taste is capable of rising above the level of prose. The labour which Andrade Caminha bestowed on the composition of his epitaphs and epigrams, sufficiently proves that he felt what was his proper vocation at the foot of Parnassus. But even there he could not travel without a guide, and the spirit of his age induced him to choose Ausonius for his conductor. He had, like Ausonius, sufficient talent for the proper keeping of the tenderness, precision and energy which distinguish the serious epigram of the Greeks; but in his imitation of the style of the Greek epigram, he missed the refined correctness of Ausonius by confounding poetic with prosaic simplicity. Of the eighty-one epitaphs which Caminha composed in honour of celebrated and exalted individuals, not one can claim an equal rank with the best ancient productions of the same kind. In most of them the reader finds only dry encomiums accompanied by trivial reflections.[190] In others the ideas rise but very little above the level of the commonest observation.[191] In Caminha’s epitaphs the result of the epigrammatic compound of the ideas, where he wishes to be uncommon, has sometimes a singularly frigid effect; as, for example, when speaking of the hero Affonso d’Albuquerque, he pompously says: “He sprang from kings, he honoured kings, and he subdued kings.”[192] Even the language of powerful feeling sinks, as in the epitaph on Ferreira, beneath the common place of the reflections.[193] The serious epigrams are more ingenious, though even they are, for the most part, merely agreeable plays of fancy.[194] In some the formality of the diction produces a very happy effect; in others the epigrammatic expression of feeling displays an astonishing degree of romantic intensity;[195] a few are truly excellent.[196] To this last class, however, the comic epigrams of Caminha do not belong. A truly comic turn of thought is scarcely ever to be found in them, and it is only occasionally that they betray a poignant conceit.[197] But it must be acknowledged that a poet of more fertile fancy would find it difficult to write nineteen strictly comic epigrams on an ugly face, (a uma feissima.)

BERNARDES.

Diogo Bernardes was the friend of Andrade Caminha, and like him an admirer and disciple of Ferreira. He was capable of receiving more lively impressions than Caminha, and he passed less tranquilly through life. At first he only endeavoured to distinguish himself as a poet, and he succeeded in gaining a degree of celebrity in his native town Ponte de Lima, whence he is called the poet of Lima. He then wished to become the historian of his native country, but in this undertaking he did not experience the support on which he had calculated. It is probable that he became intimately acquainted with Ferreira at the court of Lisbon. Desirous of entering upon a life of active occupation, he visited the court of Philip II. at Madrid, where he resided for some time in quality of secretary to the Portuguese embassy. Fate at length involved him in the unfortunate expedition of King Sebastian. After fighting valiantly in the battle of Alcacer Seguer in Africa, he was made prisoner by the victorious Moors. During his captivity he composed several elegies and spiritual songs. On recovering his freedom he returned to his native country where he lived until the year 1596. Since his death he has been the object of severe animadversion, owing particularly to the supposition, which has already been noticed, of his having appropriated to himself some poems of Camoens. But were there no reason to doubt the fact of this plagiarism, Bernardes has sufficiently suffered for it in the esteem of posterity, by the unjust depreciation of his poetic talent in the critical writings of some Portuguese authors of the seventeenth century, more particularly in those of Manoel de Faria e Sousa, with whom this tone of criticism originated. In the eighteenth century, however, justice was rendered both to him and to Ferreira.[198] Without striking out a new course in poetry, and indeed without paying any rigid regard to the distinction between poetry and prose, Bernardes evinces a far greater share of poetic feeling than Ferreira; and, as a poet, if not as an elegant versifier, he is far superior to Andrade Caminha. His spiritual poems are among the very best in the class to which they belong. The title which he gave them, namely:—“Miscellaneous poems to the good Jesus, and the glorious Virgin his mother, &c.”[199] is quite in the spirit of the poetry of the catholic religion. But Bernardes was not capable of viewing catholic Christianity on its only true poetic side, that is to say, the bold character of a miraculous working faith. He confined himself to the representation of the inconceivable grace of the Saviour, of the anguish of heart which the sinner should feel in the deep consciousness of his unworthiness, and of similar dogmata, which certainly may be expressed in poetic phrases, but which unavoidably fetter the imagination, and convert even hymns into litanies.[200] It is only through a pious childishness of feeling, to which catholic Christianity gives birth, that some portion of poetic life has been imparted to the spiritual songs, sonnets, and estancias of Bernardes. That feeling led him to introduce into his sonnets to the holy virgin, a mixture of romantic love; for example, when the poet complains to the virgin that he loves something beside herself;[201] or, when he admires her beauty in a picture, and reflects how beautiful she herself must be. The spiritual songs in the popular style, which are included among the works of Bernardes, are written in Spanish. The temporal songs, elegies, and sonnets of this poet, have the same soft and infantine character, and are therefore not inappropriately presented to the public as an appendix to his pictures of spiritual feeling.[202] A few elegies which he composed during his captivity among the Moors,[203] and some endechas in the old national style,[204] belong to this class. Bernardes has also left behind him eclogues, epistles, and numerous sonnets. His epistles shew the veneration he entertained for the critical judgment of Ferreira, whose cold style, however, certainly could not please him.[205] Many of his sonnets are expressive of the homage with which he submitted his poetry to the judgment of Ferreira, as he did his faith to the doctrines of the church. The elegy in which he laments the death of Ferreira may, therefore, be numbered among his sincerest effusions of the heart.[206]

CORTEREAL.

In the same school of correct poetry with Andrade Caminha and Bernardes, arose the ingenious Jeronymo Cortereal, another of those chivalrous spirits of the sixteenth century, for whom every ordinary sphere of life was too limited. Ambitious of doing honour to his country and his distinguished family, he served in the Portuguese army against the infidels in Asia and Africa. He afterwards settled on his estate near Evora. In his residence, which was situated on a hill, and surrounded by rude precipices, and which commanded an extensive view of the surrounding country, he devoted himself to poetic composition; and sometimes, for the sake of variety, turned his attention to music and painting. This romantic abode of the muses charmed even the cold-hearted Philip II. of Spain, when he visited his kingdom of Portugal. Cortereal, who on that occasion, rendered homage to the new sovereign in verse, had previously often been unfaithful to his native tongue. He is included in the number of those Spanish poets, who indefatigably but vainly vied with each other to convert historical art into epic art, and to produce a Spanish national epopee.[207]—He related in Spanish verse and in a poem of fifteen cantos, the history of the battle of Lepanto, which has given occasion to so much Spanish poetry of every description. In the Portuguese language, he wrote two poems of a similar kind, which, at the time of their production were very much esteemed. The subject of one is the siege of the Portuguese garrison of Diu in India, which was valiantly defended by the Governor, Mascarenhas. In the other of these works Cortereal relates in the same style, the hapless story of Manoel de Souza and his wife, who on their return from India were shipwrecked on the coast of Africa, and who after wandering about for a considerable time, perished among the savages. To impart poetic decoration to prosaic events of this kind, borrowed from the history of the period, was the prevailing fashion of the day in Spain and Portugal; and to banish such narrations from the region of poetry, was an idea that never suggested itself to any poet, still less to the public.[208]

OTHER PORTUGUESE POETS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY—FERREIRA DE VASCONCELLOS; RODRIGUEZ DE CASTRO; LOBO DE SOROPITA; &c.

Unconnected with this classical school, which became extinct about the close of the sixteenth century, several Portuguese poets pursued their own course, nearly in the same manner as Camoens, though not with the same success. Jorge Ferreira de Vasconcellos, for example, a man of considerable acquirements, who held a distinguished post in Lisbon, rendered himself celebrated as the writer of several comedies which were much esteemed. He was also the author of a new romance of the Round Table.[209]

At a somewhat later period lived Estevam Rodriguez de Castro, a poet, and at the same time a learned physician, who was invited to Italy by the grand duke of Tuscany. He is the author of various sonnets, odes and eclogues.

Fernando Rodriguez Lobo de Soropita, the publisher of the miscellaneous poems of Camoens, likewise belongs to this age. Besides his juridical works, he was the author of various pieces of humour in verse.

The present opportunity may be taken to mention the latin verses, which were at this period still current in Portugal, and by the composition of which, men of education, and even men in office of the first rank, endeavoured to obtain a place near the ancient classics, without interfering with the poets who adhered to their vernacular tongue. The learned statesman Miguel de Cabedo de Vasconcellos, who resided for several years in France, was particularly distinguished as a writer of latin verse. Ancient literature seems, at this time, to have had a powerful influence on the education of the Portuguese nobility; and as, at this period, all the most celebrated Portuguese poets belonged to noble families, it cannot be doubted that, the invisible link between the Portuguese and latin poetry, was then much stronger than the visible one, which never can be mistaken in the works of these poets.

To enumerate the remaining names of the Portuguese poets of the age of Camoens, is a task which must be resigned to the writer, whose object it may be to pursue more minutely the details of this particular department of literature. Another Portuguese classic of the sixteenth century, must, however, be included among the number of those poets, who, in a general history of modern poetry and eloquence, are the more worthy to be placed in a conspicuous light, in proportion as they are little celebrated beyond the confines of their native land.

RODRIGUEZ LOBO.

That Portuguese writers, who, in other instances have shewn themselves so careful in the collection of biographic details, should be almost silent respecting the life of such a poet as Francisco Rodriguez Lobo, is a circumstance only to be explained by one of those sports of fortune, through which in literature, as in life, honour is often withheld from the most deserving, and lavished on the worthless. Rodriguez Lobo was also a poet of noble extraction; but nothing is known respecting the history of his life, except that he was born in the town of Leiria, in Portuguese Estremadura, about the middle of the sixteenth century; that by talent and industry he distinguished himself at the university, and afterwards spent the chief portion of his life in the country; and finally, that, in the passage of the Tagus, he perished in that river which in his poetry he had often celebrated in terms of romantic admiration. His remains were interred in the chapel of a convent not far distant from the spot, where the current of the stream cast his body on shore.[210]

To no other poet, after Saa de Miranda, Ferreira and Camoens, are the language and literature of Portugal so much indebted as to Rodriguez Lobo, with whom, indeed, the history of Portuguese eloquence may be said to commence. He so highly improved romantic prose in the Portuguese language, and laid so excellent a foundation for a pure prose style, that in endeavouring to attain classic perfection in that department of composition, later writers have merely followed in the same course. His verse is no way inferior to his prose; and with all his classical refinement he was not, like Ferreira, a poet of limited imagination. Of all the Portuguese poets, Rodriguez Lobo is, in every respect, entitled to the place next in rank to Saa de Miranda and Camoens. His great erudition did not prevent him from being completely imbued with poetic natural feeling, and in pictures drawn from the romantic arcadian world his fancy was inexhaustible. It is indeed only where his descriptions have a pastoral colouring that he is perfectly in his poetic sphere. But within that sphere he occasionally draws resources from practical good sense with a degree of adroitness which is displayed by no previous Portuguese poet.

The writings of Rodriguez Lobo are susceptible of three divisions which approximate to each other. To the first belongs his prose work:—“the Court in the Country,” in which no verses are introduced. Three connected pastoral romances form the second and most considerable portion; here the prose is merely a beautiful combining link by which the work is made a whole. The third comprises the author’s miscellaneous poems.

The Corte na Aldea, e Noites de Inverno, (the Court in the Country, and Winter Nights,) is the title of a book, by which Rodriguez Lobo endeavoured to introduce a kind of Ciceronean style into Portuguese prose, and at the same time to furnish a useful guide to the formation of character for public life. The antiquated style of the title is in a certain degree at variance with the classic elegance of the book itself. It is probable that no more in this, than in his other works, would Rodriguez Lobo have avoided the gothic ornaments of which the romantic prose of the Spaniards and Portuguese was never entirely divested, had he not, as a prose writer, been here guided by his favourite Cicero, in whose footsteps he trod. Perhaps he was also acquainted with some Italian works of a similar kind; for at this period the Italian prose writers imitated Cicero; and Il Cortegiano of Castiglione, bears in its subject at least a resemblance to Lobo’s “Court in the Country.” But the direct imitation of Cicero’s style is unquestionably an essential feature in this work. Precisely with the same forms of friendly courtesy, as those which characterize Cicero’s Tusculan and Academic discourses, but with some romantic modifications, Rodriguez Lobo collects around him a party of friends in the country. These friends discourse together concerning the proper education of an elegant man of the world. As conversation occupies the chief portion of the work, the whole is not inappropriately divided into dialogues. Each dialogue has, however, an historical frame work. But even though copying after Cicero’s models, it appears, that Rodriguez Lobo could not, without difficulty, find the path of pure prose composition. The first dialogue opens precisely in the style of an old romance.[211] Nevertheless the long sentence with which it commences, bespeaks, by its facility and rhetorical harmony a cultivation of style, which is not discoverable in the works of any earlier Portuguese prose writer. At the same time the reader is still farther charmed by the delicate and sharp outline which is given of the characteristic features of the assembled interlocutors.[212] The conversation does not take the turn which might be expected; but the natural colouring of the representation is thus augmented. The degree of cultivation by which these gentlemen are distinguished from the ordinary portion of society, leads them, in the first place, to discourse of literature. One of the party very properly observes, that, the country library of a man of their class, should consist chiefly of works on history, poetry, and practical philosophy. This gives rise to an encomium on the Portuguese language, which at that period had to contend with enemies in its native land, and which was still more vehemently attacked by the Spaniards. Cultivation of language again becomes the subject of discussion in these dialogues; and the epistolary style being considered more important than any other to a gentleman who is to figure in the world, Rodriguez Lobo, through the medium of one of the party, gives a full, and for the age in which it was written, a new treatise of the art of correct letter-writing. Even the external elegance of the letter comes under consideration. The interlocutors then discuss appointments, messages and visits; ornamental hyperboles (encarecimentos); the difference between love and desire; selfishness; social decorum in manners and discourse; social eloquence generally; the art of social anecdote in particular; witty conversation in society; true gallantry (cortesia); education at court, in the army and in the schools. The reader who forms his judgment of this ingenious work, apart from the age in which, and for which, it was written, will probably depreciate its intrinsic merits. Now that the first principles of modern cultivation have become common, the precepts of Rodriguez Lobo will be scorned as trivial by the merest noviciates in politeness; and our students of psychology will feel more inclined to receive instructions from a French observer of mankind of the eighteenth century, than from this Portuguese writer. But in the sixteenth century such a work as the Corte na Aldea could only have been written by a man initiated in the refined manners of his age, and combining a delicate spirit of observation with an extraordinary store of literary knowledge. In Portuguese eloquence it had no prototype. In the descriptive passages only is the style somewhat overcharged with antiquated and pompous phrases. The turns of the dialogue are, like the similar passages in the writings of Cicero, natural and pleasing, though they do not possess the poignant spirit of more recent productions of this kind.[213] Where the exposition of the ideas assumes a totally didactic character, the expression is clear, decided and unostentatiously harmonious.[214] Upon the whole the prose of Rodriguez Lobo has more of an oratorical character than the modern style of conversation admits; but the romantic tone of chivalrous gallantry in the sixteenth century, produced, even in the conversational style, a certain formality and rounding of long periods, by an influence similar to that which the oratorical prose of the forum exercised at Rome in Cicero’s time, over every species of prosaic composition.

But Rodriguez Lobo’s Corte na Aldea is entitled to honourable distinction, for even something more than its general merits, as the first book in classical prose produced in Portugal. By the anecdotes and tales which are interwoven with the dialogue and didactic passages, it furnished the Portuguese with the first model of light narrative style in their native tongue.[215] The letters from the Ciceronean collections, and other ancient and modern works, which Rodriguez Lobo has translated, and introduced as illustrations of his theory of the epistolary style, are likewise very judiciously chosen. Finally, this copious theory of epistolary composition is the first successful attempt at any thing beyond a mere scholastic guide to eloquence in Portuguese literature. Previously to the production of this work, no rhetorical models were known in Portugal, save those of Aristotle, which were transmitted through the second and third hand in so barbarous a form, that a writer found it necessary to forget them in order to learn to express himself without pedantry.

Thus a Portuguese poet was the first who made his countrymen acquainted with the spirit of genuine and elegantly cultivated prose in their native tongue; and, therefore, of all the writings of that poet, the work by which he extended the boundary of the polite literature of his nation, deserves, in the history of that literature, to hold the most conspicuous place. But Rodriguez Lobo ranks still higher among poets than among prose writers, though he neither introduced a new style nor a new form of poetry into Portuguese literature. His three connected pastoral romances, are the most luxuriant blossoms of this old branch of Portuguese poetry. Such a treasure of romantic bucolics as the united works present, is no where else to be found. The prose with which Rodriguez Lobo has incorporated the pastoral poems, can only be regarded as a poetic groundwork. In the present age these romances would not easily find, except in Portugal, and perhaps not even there, a reader possessing sufficient patience to peruse them throughout with attention. Were they even two thirds shorter than they are, their monotony would still be intolerably tiresome except to persons accustomed,—like the polite world of Portugal and Spain, in the time of Rodriguez Lobo,—to pastoralize their joys and sorrows, and to be satisfied with the constant sameness of pastoral composition, if it in some degree flatter the heart and the senses. In describing the subject of this romance, nothing further can be said, than that this or that shepherd and shepherdess occasionally meet, and occasionally separate. The general story unfolds no action which excites particular interest; and as little do the individual descriptions exhibit any character properly fitted for originating action. It may with tolerable certainty be inferred, that the story is a disguised picture of the romantic events of real life, in which the author was engaged. But though the disguises be less mysterious and singular than those of Ribeyro’s old pastoral romance,[216] still they present not the slightest attraction for posterity. If Lobo’s pastoral romance be compared with Montemayor’s Diana, the monotony of its subject will be found to be still more striking. However, notwithstanding that monotony, and also some ornamental excrescences of the old romantic kind, this romance well merits literary distinction, on account of the narrative and descriptive parts, which combine the most pleasing polish of language with a poetic tenderness of style, in which Lobo is not surpassed by Montemayor himself. The descriptions of scenery which frequently occur, are in particular remarkable for exquisite touches of romantic simplicity. They are, doubtless, sketched from nature: the scene is invariably laid in Portugal, and the country is sometimes accurately traced out by the rivers.[217] But the parts in verse are by far the most beautiful of the whole; and the best of the cantigas and canções which occur in this delicate representation of romantic pastoral life, may be regarded as classic models in their kind.

Primavera (Spring) is the title of the first of Lobo’s pastoral romances. Pastoral images of spring are here exhibited in contrast with the complaints of unhappy love. The inexhaustible fertility which Rodriguez Lobo has evinced in the execution of this contrast, seems totally incredible in this prosaic age; for the same impressions and situations are continually recurring in an ever varied form. A descriptive song of spring, full of cheerfulness, opens the beautiful gallery.[218] The spirit of a shepherd, who has been transformed into a fountain, sings the history of his tender passion. Sonnets, canções, tercets, octaves, and redondilhas, are by turns gracefully introduced in the succeeding cantos. Sometimes at the close of these lyric effusions the reader is surprised by ideas, which, however, were in some degree to be expected.[219] In general the enthusiasm of love is represented with somewhat less quaintness by Rodriguez Lobo than by Montemayor. When plays of sentiment running through several stanzas turn on a prevailing idea occurring in the last line of each stanza, Lobo, like Montemayor, usually expresses this idea merely by a simple exclamation. These plays of sentiment are also very pleasingly combined with the usual reflections on the perishableness of all earthly things.[220] The poetic salutations to nature, which to the poet appeared as though she sympathized with him, present, in this pastoral romance, all the charm of the tenderest simplicity.[221] Then again the same melancholy reflections recur in another form.[222] In many of these songs, however, the romantic complaints are carried to an excessive prolixity. That which might be sufficiently well expressed in five or six stanzas, sometimes occupies from thirty to forty. Scope is, however, advantageously given to romantic wit in the style of the age, by the poetic questions and answers with which Rodriguez Lobo’s shepherds and shepherdesses occasionally maintain conversation. In this way antiquated quaintness is successfully avoided, while the poetic character of these sportive exercises is carefully preserved. The plays of wit acquire indeed an augmented interest by being combined with a kind of poetic competition. Thus, for example, the question:—Whether love with or without hope be the truest love? is answered in two different songs.[223] The question in what degree love and jealousy are allied? receives three answers in three songs.[224] Rodriguez Lobo has not been surpassed by any ancient or modern poet in the ingenious simplicity and elegance of these fanciful compositions. But had he been less successful in productions of this class, still the poetic truth, intensity, delicacy and graceful ease of his pastoral cantigas and canções would have entitled him to one of the highest places among the lyric poets of all nations. The reader readily pardons the tedious length of the Primavera, as it could not otherwise include so many lyric poems. Even the antiquated division into Florestas (flower-beds), will not displease, if the exquisite lyric effusions which are scattered through the work, be allowed to represent the flowers. That this romance is arranged in geographical divisions according to the rivers of the district in which the scene is laid, must also be excused, though such a plan may not, perhaps, appear quite congenial with the spirit of romantic poetry.

The other two pastoral romances of Lobo are merely continuations of his Spring, which according to the plan on which it is written, might be protracted to infinity. The first continuation is entitled, O Pastor Peregrino, (the Wandering Shepherd). It is arranged in divisions, which, like the acts of the Spanish comedies, bear the name of jornadas. The second continuation, or the conclusion of the whole romance, is entitled, O Desenganado,[225] (the Disenchanted), and its divisions are called discursos (discourses). Here also a rich harvest of lyric flowers charm the reader, though the romance itself becomes even less interesting. Rodriguez Lobo has endeavoured to render this last portion of his romance in a peculiar way instructive. Towards the close, as the events become more romantic, he introduces a portion of his geographical, historical, and physical knowledge. Still sound judgment and a delicate spirit of observation are here manifest.

But Rodriguez Lobo who found only within the boundary or in the vicinity of pastoral poetry the objects and impressions for the poetic representation of which he was destined by nature, was induced to take part with the Portuguese and Spanish poets of his age in the absurd competition for the prize of epopœia. He wrote a work entitled, O Condestabre de Portugal, (the Generalissimo of Portugal), which he intended should be a national epic poem. It is, however, merely a versified biography of the renowned Nuno Alvarez Pereira, whom the Portuguese of that age eulogized with an enthusiasm equal to that with which the Spaniards celebrated their favourite Cid. Rodriguez Lobo has collected with all requisite patience the most remarkable events in the life of his hero. He has arranged them chronologically, dividing the whole into twenty cantos, and the long narrative is written in neat octaves. But all the advantage which a story can impart to a poem is wanting in this tedious work. It is difficult to conceive how a man of Rodriguez Lobo’s poetic taste, could have written verses in this style without being conscious that he was only rhyming historical prose. The imagination has had but little or no share either in the cultivation of the style or the painting of the situations; and the whole work exhibits no trace of poetic invention. But it is soon evident that from beginning to end the author is resolved never to be at variance with historical truth. Thus Rodriguez Lobo purposely repressed his natural poetic feeling in order to conform with the false notions of epic composition, which were at that time firmly established in Spain and Portugal. So much, indeed, was he under the dominion of those notions that he has not had the courage to mingle even as much poetry with his narrative, as the Spaniard Ercilla introduced in his Araucana.[226] The few stanzas which Camoens in his Lusiad consecrates to Nuno Alvarez,[227] are worth more than the twenty cantos of Lobo’s versified biography. In a philological point of view, however, the composition deserves praise, for the simplicity, correctness and elegance of its language. A gleam of poetic beauty here and there distinguishes some of the descriptive and pathetic passages, and repays the labour of a perusal.

The predilection which Rodriguez Lobo unconsciously and almost exclusively entertained for pastoral poetry, is more than sufficiently proved by the ten eclogues which are included among the works of this poet, independently of the three pastoral romances already noticed. He wished to combine didactic with bucolic poetry. On this idea he has explained himself in a preface to his didactic eclogues. Man, he says, has abandoned the state for which nature destined him, since he has exchanged the quietude of his rural occupations and wishes, for a restless and dissatisfied life by sea and by land. Abel was a shepherd, and all the succeeding patriarchs, on whom God bestowed his favour, devoted themselves to the care of flocks and herds. Amidst rustic occupations the virtues of the ancient Romans were fostered; and there have arisen in the pastoral state many great men who have been called to fill thrones. Country life must therefore be regarded as the only natural state of existence, and consequently it is that state to which all the precepts of morality have reference. Thus poetry cannot be more suitably combined with morality than through the medium of pastoral composition. It is therefore nothing surprising that the discourse of shepherds should be the vehicle of practical philosophy. The shepherd in his smock-frock has not less correct notions of virtue and vice than the courtier and man of the world. But poetry is, generally speaking, merely the clothing of truth.[228] According to these principles which may be regarded as a portion of the Portuguese art of poetry in the sixteenth century, Rodriguez Lobo chose for his didactic eclogues, a particular moral point of view. The first is directed against rudeness and ignorance; the second against hatred and envy; the third against avarice. In like manner each of the remaining eclogues censures some particular vice, and the censure is conveyed in a style of rural gentleness, while the opposite virtue is recommended by pleasing images. The simple morality which Rodriguez Lobo puts into the mouths of his shepherds is certainly not unnatural in their situation. Far removed also as the critic may be from the scholastic prejudices which formed the basis of the poetic art of the sixteenth century, and which would render poetry a mere robe for morality, still it is impossible entirely to reject the idea of this species of didactic eclogue. But such a homely morality, in union with pastoral poetry, could possess poetic interest, only at a time when the commonest remarks on moral relations, if divested of theological and monastic forms of expression, had all the charm of novelty. In the present age, however, when philosophy has long nourished poetry with more invigorating aliment, the didactic eclogues of Rodriguez Lobo cannot claim any particular favour among readers, who justly require that morality should not directly mix in the business of poetry, when it has nothing new to tell.

The works of Rodriguez Lobo, also include about a hundred romances, which, with the exception of a few, are written in Spanish. The first half contributed nothing to the advancement of Portuguese literature. It consists of fifty-six occasional poems in redondilhas, which are all pompous salutations of Philip III. who in the year 1619 visited his Portuguese dominions. Such occasional poems were at the period denominated romances. But the works of Rodriguez Lobo conclude with some real romances in the old spirit and style, which cast a new light on that part of Portuguese literature. They prove, that which more ancient data leave doubtful, namely, that the epic or heroic romance, which in Castile is as old as the Castilian language, was never completely naturalized in Portugal.[229] The narrative romances in particular, the subjects of which are borrowed from the history of Moorish knights and ladies, and in which Spanish poetry is so profusely rich, seem only to have found their way into Portugal from Spain, and never to have been perfectly congenial with the national taste of the Portuguese. This kind of romance seems indeed to be essentially attached to the Castilian language. It appears that in the age of Rodriguez Lobo, the Spaniards made it a reproach to the Portuguese that they wanted the talent necessary for inventing these romances. Rodriguez Lobo, who was a zealous patriot, wrote a whole series, but only with the view of ridiculing this species of composition which appeared to him too vain-glorious. In an introductory romance he apostrophizes the romancistas (romance writers) of his native country. He conjures them, instead of continuing to plunder the Spanish language, to soar to distinction by means of originality, since where there were so many pens, wings could not be wanting. He begs them to observe, that the laurel tree on Parnassus had been completely stripped, since to every Spanish romancist a whole branch had been assigned as a garland.[230] He adds, that they might roam to the Alhambra and the Alpuxarra in quest of the fair ladies Daraja and Celinda, Adalifa and Celidaxa.[231] Lobo follows up this satirical address with a considerable number of Spanish romances of his own composition, apparently with the view of proving how easy it is to write such pieces. Indeed to a poet of Rodriguez Lobo’s talent it certainly could not be difficult to produce an exaggerated imitation of the style of the Spanish national romance. But such extravagant imitation will not deprive the best of those romances of the merit which they really possess. Lobo seems purposely to have introduced among these compositions, some pastoral romances in the Portuguese language; as if it were not as easy and even easier to ridicule pastoral poetry; or as if an exuberance of pastoral poetry were to be a proof that Portuguese literature could well dispense with the beautiful epic romance.

Rodriguez Lobo laid the foundation of that excessive accumulation of pastoral poetry, existing in the Portuguese language. He exerted his utmost endeavours to fix the taste of the nation in that direction. Before he appeared, the poetic genius of the Portuguese earnestly and zealously sought distinction in different ways. But after the period in which Rodriguez Lobo flourished, the Portuguese poets evinced an exclusive predilection for the pastoral style, even in other classes of poetic composition.

STATE OF PORTUGUESE ELOQUENCE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

Though Portuguese poetry had now attained a degree of consideration which in the following century it was unable to surpass, eloquence, or the elegant literature of prose remained far behind. That no writer of talent should have produced a work in Portuguese prose, which in a rhetorical point of view is worthy to mark an epoch, may in some respects be accounted for by peculiar circumstances, and must in others be attributed merely to the caprice of chance. The same restrictions on intellectual freedom, which in Portugal so effectually opposed the full developement of pure eloquence, had likewise held captive the thinking faculty in Spain. In Spain, however, a few, but still some men of talent, who pretended to no distinction in poetry, learned to move, even in their fetters, with rhetorical freedom and dignity, and there was nothing to prevent the occurrence of similar instances at an equally early period in Portugal. But it appears, that the Portuguese authors who had no ambition to be poets, were not endowed with the true talent for cultivating the art of rhetorical representation, and that the poets were too much engaged with their own art, to take any particular interest in the improvement of any other branch of polite literature. With the single exception of Rodriguez Lobo, whose Corte na Aldea afforded in Portugal the first example how a poet could elevate the language of common life, without confounding the boundaries of poetry and elegant prose, no Portuguese poet of the sixteenth century in any way contributed to the cultivation of eloquence; and the period when Rodriguez Lobo enjoyed his utmost celebrity was not earlier than the commencement of the seventeenth century. Now the Portuguese language was then, as the loud complaint of Lobo sufficiently proves, frequently denied, even in Portugal, any claim to the possession of that accuracy and elegance, without which poetry, deficient merely in cultivation, might indeed exist, but which is indispensably necessary to prose composition, when it is to be elevated above the formal style of ceremony, and the negligent expression of common life. Thus it seems to have happened that some Portuguese historians and moralists, who, even in the first half of the sixteenth century, had actually formed their style to a certain extent on the ancient models, still unconsciously fell into the rude manner of the chronicle and monastic prose. In Spain elegant prose was afforded the opportunity of an earlier developement, for the national pride of the Castilians had at all times powerfully protected the Castilian language; and men of learning who entertained a different opinion had not the deciding voice.[232]

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.

SA SOTOMAYOR.

Many other Portuguese romances of different kinds were produced in the sixteenth century. The prize awarded to Rodriguez Lobo, as author of the most celebrated pastoral romance, had already been an object of ambition with Eloy de Sà Sotomayor, whose Ribeiras do Mondego, (Banks of the Mondego),[234] was not, however, so early known as Lobo’s work. From the preface to the Ribeiras, it is quite evident that Rodriguez Lobo had, according to the fashion of the age, introduced into his pastoral romances a disguised picture of affairs of love which personally interested himself. Sà Sotomayor, who was also a bachelor of canon law, was considered one of the most successful rivals of Rodriguez Lobo, in romantic composition. But as a poet, he was in every respect far inferior. His narrative and descriptive styles are not destitute of grace.[235] His verses, however, cannot bear comparison with those of Lobo: and even his most natural pictures of sentiment are deficient in novelty of idea and ingenious simplicity.[236]

PIRES DE REBELLO.

Among the Portuguese chivalric romances, which were so assiduously read in the sixteenth century, may be numbered A Constante Florinda, (the Constant Florinda) of Gaspar Pires de Rebello, who was likewise the author of some short didactic novels, (novelas exemplares) which were published about the period at which Cervantes enriched Spanish literature with tales of a totally different standard, though bearing the same title.[237] Rebello entertained a very high opinion of the usefulness of his novels;[238] but his inventions are common place; and his unceasing display of mythological learning is as affected as are many of his similies and images.[239]

PROGRESS OF THE HISTORICAL ART.

But the historical works which were written in the Portuguese language in the sixteenth century, are more important to the lover of literature, as well as the politician, than the other compositions in prose which have just been noticed. In Portugal, as well as in Spain, relations of real events had long been completely distinguished from romantic prose. But before the old chronicle style could become entirely obsolete, it was necessary that the old chronicle spirit should yield to the nobler spirit of historic art; and to this in that age, with all its great events, there was little inducement in Portugal. The ancient classic historians were, it is true, read and studied; but when Portuguese writers attempted to imitate them, they at most only succeeded in producing some resemblance to their force of description, and in a certain degree to their elegance of expression, but failed altogether in the arrangement of events according to the just idea of historical utility, and in the delicacy of the shades of an historical picture. Indeed the rude spirit of the chronicles seemed then to belong no less essentially to the narration of modern events, than the rhyme and the metres of romantic verse to modern poetry. He who felt himself called to be the historian of his native country, necessarily endeavoured to render himself no less intimate with the old chronicles than with classic authors; and, if, fully imbued with his subject, he took up the thread of the narrative where an earlier chronicler had dropped it, he unconsciously fell into the style of that chronicler. Had fate transplanted for several years to Italy, and placed in a sphere of political and literary activity, a Portuguese possessing the talent and energy of Diego de Mendoza, he would probably, like that distinguished Spaniard, have there learned to compose an historical work according to justly conceived ideas of historical art, independently of the influence of the chronicles.[240] But in India, to which at that time all Portuguese subjects who wished to rise in the service of their country eagerly hastened, it was not to be expected that a historian could be formed. Still, however, the historical literature of the Portuguese of the sixteenth century, when considered with reference to its rhetorical character, possesses a degree of interest which the elegant compilations of later historians cannot excite. The men who at that memorable epoch, either from their own inclination, or as Cronistas in the service of the government, related the history of their native country, and more particularly of the Portuguese discoveries and conquests, were inspired with ardent national feeling, and that feeling they communicated to their works. Their narratives have character. The manner in which that character displays itself, is doubtless too prominent in cases in which the national interests come into conflict with claims of foreign powers. But an endeavour to preserve historical fidelity, is in general observable in the works of these writers. To confound them with the common chroniclers would be doing them great injustice. They earnestly endeavoured to introduce into their narratives as much of the style of the ancient classics as could be united with the style of the chronicle; and the remote traces of that historical art in which they were deficient are to be recognized in their works. It was not so much their object to string facts together, as to combine remarkable events as far as they were able, under one practical point of view.

JOAÕ DE BARROS.

The events of India formed the favourite theme of many of the Portuguese Cronistas of the sixteenth century. At the head of these industrious writers stands Joaõ de Barros, whose name is not altogether unknown in literature, beyond the boundaries of his native land. In the early part of the sixteenth century he was distinguished by his talents and acquirements among the young men of rank, who were educated at the court of Emanuel the Great. At this period he seems to have applied himself with particular delight to the study of the Roman historians, and in particular of Livy. In his twenty-first year he produced a romance of chivalry. King Emanuel, who on reading this romance thought that he perceived in the youthful author a talent for historical composition, commissioned him to draw up an account of the oriental discoveries and conquests of the Portuguese. Barros immediately prepared for the commencement of his arduous task; the execution of which was, however, delayed for some time in consequence of the death of King Emanuel. But he was speedily solicited by King John III. not to relinquish his design, and, as an encouragement, was invested with the lucrative but troublesome post of Treasurer to the Indian department (Caza da India). Without neglecting the duties of this office, Barros indefatigably collected materials for his great historical work, which he commenced and continued with unremitting activity until a short time previous to his decease. He died in the year 1570, at the age of seventy-four. The Portuguese have surnamed him their Livy. His historical labours sufficiently prove that he did not study Livy in vain, and though he cannot justly claim a place near that historian, yet are his labours well deserving of an ample notice in the history of Portuguese literature.

The celebrated work of Joaõ de Barros is entitled “Asia, or the Atchievements which the Portuguese performed in the Discovery and Conquest of the Seas and Lands of the Orient.[241]” The books are, like those of Livy’s works, distributed into decades. These decades are four in number, and each makes a moderately sized folio volume. In this work Barros, though he embraces only the most brilliant portion of Portuguese history, has pursued an idea similar to that which governed Livy, for he constantly endeavours to illustrate and render self-evident the greatness of the Portuguese name, as Livy does the majesty of the Roman people. Whether national pride may not sometimes have seduced him into violations of historical truth, is a question which the historian of eloquence cannot be required to investigate.[242] This Portuguese Livy has to a certain degree approached the excellence of his model in the art of historical description. His language is sometimes not merely elegant; but the pictures he draws exhibit an unaffected charm of intuitive representation. These descriptions are neither disfigured by pompous phrases nor poetic excrescences; and they still possess a lively internal spirit as well when rural or urbane scenery is depicted,[243] as when military events are represented.[244] But passages thus distinguished for rhetorical beauty are only occasionally to be found in the works of Barros. His narrative style is, upon the whole, merely the old chronicle style, with the diction somewhat more elevated; and even his diction abounds in expressions which were beginning to grow antiquated at the period when he wrote. The practice of commencing several sentences in succession by the conjunction and, in the manner of the old chronicles, is not uncommon in the writings of Barros. But he seldom attains the real flexibility of the long, yet harmoniously articulated sentences of Livy. Barros sometimes very happily inculcates his practical views by speeches in the manner of the ancients, which under certain circumstances he introduces as delivered by the Public, in order to express in the most natural way all that can be said for and against certain enterprises; such, for example, as the continual fitting out, under the auspices of Prince Henry, so celebrated in the history of discoveries of vessels, for the further exploring of the new passage to India.[245] Speeches by individuals, though seldom, are for the most part not inappropriately introduced; but the insipid style of the chronicles is then very unseasonably retained.[246] Least of all did Barros understand the drawing of character; and in this respect the difference between the Roman and the Portuguese Livy is most striking. The monkish point of view in which this author, like every other of his age in Portugal and Spain, regarded the faults and excellencies of human character, rendered any thing like natural portraiture impossible. An ancient Roman observer of human nature would not, for instance, have deduced the courtesy and gentleness of Prince Henry, the encourager of navigation, from the purity of that prince’s soul, with an intimation that such a conclusion was to be drawn because he was held to be truly virginal.[247] In the spirit of his age, Barros seizes every opportunity for putting forward his catholic opinions, though the result is by no means to the advantage of his historical work.

LOPEZ DE CASTANHEDA—DAMIAÕ DE GÓES—AFFONSO D’ALBOQUERQUE.

In order to form a correct estimate of the rhetorical merit of Barros, with reference to the age in which he lived, it is necessary to compare his historical works with others which were written in Portugal at the same period and on the same subjects. In this comparison Barros will be found to shine forth as a light of superior lustre. With equal patriotism and industry, and with a greater sacrifice of his own interest, Fernaõ Lopez de Castanheda composed his history of the discovery and conquest of India by the Portuguese: a narrative of events, which, though compendious in form, exhibits the most laborious accuracy in the investigation of facts.[248] But whatever may be the historical merit of this work, it is, as to rhetorical character, merely a common chronicle. The diffuse chronicle of King Emanuel, which was about this period edited by Damiaõ de Góes, is also interesting only to the historian.

The life of the great Affonso d’Alboquerque, composed by his son, Affonso d’Alboquerque, the younger, is a biographical chronicle, which may be placed on a parallel with the works entitled, Histories, which have just been noticed.[249] No historical work enjoys greater esteem in Portuguese literature: and that a father so celebrated, should have found so worthy a narrator of his atchievements in his son, certainly was not a thing easily to be anticipated. But in the scale of rhetorical merit, these Commentaries, as the work is usually denominated, weigh but lightly. The language may be said to be pure, but the style is monotonous; and upon the whole it is merely a repetition of the old chronicle style.[250]

BERNARDO DE BRITO.

Bernardo de Brito, a Portuguese historian, who lived in the latter end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries, possessed a far higher degree of historical cultivation. He was educated at Rome, and was master of several modern languages. He devoted himself to the ecclesiastical profession, but in the cloister he followed his predilection for Portuguese history; and as authorized Cronista of his convent, he undertook the arduous task of writing a complete history of the Portuguese monarchy. He died in the year 1617, in the forty-seventh year of his age, without having attained the object to which he honourably aspired. But, notwithstanding his early death, he might have succeeded in completing the history of his native country, had not the plan on which he proceeded placed that object beyond his reach. The idea of a history of the Portuguese monarchy, would have been properly fulfilled by commencing with the foundation of that monarchy, and in an introduction only, referring back somewhat beyond the eleventh century. But Bernardo de Brito contemplated the execution of a work of much greater magnitude. His Monarchia Lusitana was intended to be a complete history of the country, now called Portugal, from the most remote antiquity down to the latest period.[251] The ancient history of Portugal was with him a favourite part of his subject. It is probable that he wished his history to rank as a companion to the Spanish work of Florian de Ocampo, who in the reign of Charles V. commenced on a similar plan, a history of the Spanish monarchy from the time of the flood.[252] Brito, however, did not think that period sufficiently remote, but chose to start from the creation of the world. Whatever particulars are furnished by ancient authors, concerning Lusitania and the Lusitanians of the earliest ages, he has collected, examined, and arranged in historical connection. But a thick folio volume, which includes the four first books, brings the history no further than the birth of Christ; and towards the end of the second volume, where the history of modern Portugal commences, the work breaks off. Had it been completed, still it would not have been an easy matter to have brought the numerous notices respecting Portuguese antiquities, which Brito has introduced, under a point of view whereby they might have formed an appropriate union with the heterogeneous events of modern history. But the work is eminently distinguished for style and descriptive talent. The ingenious author seems like many other eminent persons of his age to have derived particular advantage from his residence in Italy. Without deteriorating by laborious polish, the vigorous style which is indispensable to historical composition, he gives even dry narratives of facts in a manner totally different from the compilers of the old chronicles; and where the internal interest of the subject animates the description, Brito’s historical pictures possess an impressive effect, which marks the pupil of the ancient classic writers.[253]

Brito’s preface, in which he gives an account of the spirit and plan of his history of the Portuguese monarchy, merits attention. He observes that even his own countrymen advised him to write his work, if not in Latin or Italian, at least in Spanish, in order to afford it an opportunity of being read beyond the confines of Portugal, and also for the sake of avoiding the vulgarity into which his native tongue might betray him.[254] Thus, even in Portugal, during the sixteenth century, notwithstanding the progress made by Portuguese literature, the detractors of the Portuguese language must have been exceedingly numerous, since their conduct is so frequently a subject of complaint with patriotic writers. Brito was one of the patriots who most loudly expressed his indignation against that anti-national party. The Portuguese language, he says, has fallen into disrepute only because Portugal cherishes “ungrateful sons, like poisonous vipers.”[255] He expresses his regret, that though possessing a little better knowledge of his native language, he could not write in the most brilliant style, which is only to be done when the author bestows greater attention on elegance of expression than on the veracity of facts, which is unworthy of a true historian.[256]

A smaller historical work by Bernardo de Brito, from its title of Elogios dos reys de Portugal, (Eulogies on the Kings of Portugal) seems to promise to the historian of eloquence a kind of rhetorical memoires, from which not a little might be expected. But these eulogies are brief and dull notices, and scarcely afford groundwork for biographical sketches. They are merely intended to illustrate the copper-plate portraits of the kings of Portugal, which are included in the work.[257]

The travels of Fernaõ Mendez Pinto,[258] may also be numbered among the works written in cultivated Portuguese prose, which appeared during the sixteenth century. It seems to have been the first book of travels, the author of which bestowed labour on narrative and descriptive style.

The cultivation of the other departments of prosaic composition appears to have been at this period very much neglected in Portugal. Some moral treatises, written by the historian Barros, in the dialogue form, perhaps merit to be again brought into notice.[259] A Panegyrico by the same author on an Infanta Maria, has also the reputation of being eloquently written.

An art of poetry and rhetoric composed on practical principles, and calculated to convey useful instruction, was not to be expected while writers had still sufficient difficulty in the preliminary study of the grammatical rules and purity of diction. To facilitate the acquisition of both, Nunez de Liaõ wrote his book on the origin of the Portuguese language, and his introduction to Portuguese orthography.[260]

CHAP. III.
HISTORY OF PORTUGUESE POETRY AND ELOQUENCE, FROM THE LATTER YEARS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY UNTIL TOWARDS THE CLOSE OF THE SEVENTEENTH.

Decay of the ancient national energy in Portuguese Literature.

At the end of the sixteenth century the most brilliant period of Portuguese poetry had passed away. A new epoch did not, it is true, commence; for the style of invention and composition which during that century was introduced, continued essentially unaltered. The influence which the fantastic school of the Gongorists produced, in the first half of the seventeenth century, on most of the Portuguese writers, did not entirely repress the cultivation of the better style.[261] But the proper place to form a resting point in the account of the second period of the polite literature of Portugal is the present, for here genius ceased to advance, and dextrous talent merely traded on the stock which the sixteenth century had bequeathed. According to the plan of a history, in which it is intended to describe circumstantially, only the progress of poetic and rhetorical genius and taste, the account of Portuguese poetry and eloquence in the seventeenth century must therefore form merely a summary appendix to the preceding chapters.

At the commencement of the present book it was remarked, that the loss of independence experienced by the kingdom of Portugal, was attended with no immediate injury to Portuguese literature. The Spanish language could obtain no higher consideration in Portugal than it already enjoyed. The humbled national pride took pleasure in the courageous defence of the national language, and the Castilian tongue only served to remind the patriotic Portuguese of the ignominious occupation of his country. But several circumstances concurred to limit poetic genius in Portugal to a somewhat monotonous continuation of the old style in a few branches of poetic composition, while in Spain dramatic poetry, full of national boldness, rapidly advanced in the career of well merited fame. That fate had denied a Lope de Vega to the Portuguese language is not sufficient to account for this contrast, the Spanish would still have been banished from the stage in Portugal, had a Portuguese national theatre vied with that of Spain. In that case the competition of numerous poets would, perhaps, have ensured the cultivation of dramatic composition in the language of the country, which, since the death of Gil Vicente, had been neglected. But even Gil Vicente, as has been already observed, wrote his first drama in Spanish; and in his subsequent works he interspersed the Spanish with the Portuguese language, as if he felt that the latter was not of itself fitted to supply dialogue throughout the whole of a dramatic performance. The genuine Portuguese comedies of Saa de Miranda and Antonio Ferreira were by no means sufficiently national to excite the imitation of a poet who might wish to produce an effect upon the great body of the Portuguese public. Meanwhile the comedies of Lope de Vega found their way into Portugal, and since that period this class of comedy seemed to require the Spanish language to render it perfect. In the seventeenth century, many Spanish comedies were written by Portuguese authors; and the Portuguese poets who adhered to their mother tongue, sought another sphere. During the sixty years in which there was no court in Lisbon, Portuguese poetry withdrew entirely within the circle of private relations. The lyric forms of romantic love, with a supplemental supply of the favourite amatory pastoral poetry, and of versified jests of various kinds, seemed fully to satisfy the public. That the spirit of vigorous emulation should so suddenly have vanished among the Portuguese poets, would, however, be inconceivable, were it not that in Spain about the same period, every species of poetic composition, except dramatic poetry, which flowed like an impetuous torrent, remained stationary at the point at which it stood in the beginning of the seventeenth century. Both the Spaniards and the Portuguese felt the paralyzing influence of the political relations of their deeply humiliated countries; and in both nations despotism, spiritual and temporal, finally overthrew the power which had long kept it in equipoise. Even in Portugal, therefore, the restoration of the independence of the kingdom in the year 1640, though it excited new ebullitions of patriotism, could produce no new freedoms in poetry.

PORTUGUESE SONNETS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

In the history of Portuguese poetry, the seventeenth century may be called the Age of Sonnets. Lyric art in the old national syllabic metres was entirely abandoned in serious poetry. The composition of sonnets formed the particular recommendation of the man of the world in the circle of polite society; and both in spiritual and temporal affairs, sonnets were resorted to as the means of extricating their authors from difficulty. It would almost appear that at this period poetic merit in Portugal was estimated solely by the inexhaustible facility which an author displayed in the composition of these trifles. To acquire the title of a poet certainly nothing more was necessary than to write a few sonnets not absolutely contemptible. Thus, in the year 1631, when the number of printed Portuguese sonnets was increasing by thousands, Jacinto Cordeiro,[262] a minute calculator of the poetic fame of his nation, added a supplement of thirty-eight names of Portuguese bards to the list of Spanish and Portuguese poets, which Lope de Vega had furnished in his celebrated Laurel de Apolo.[263] Doubtless this erroneous estimate of the poetic glory of the nation contributed to check the growth of talent which might have taken a loftier flight, had not a few neatly turned sonnets been sufficient in public opinion, to confer on any individual all the fame of a poet. The limits of a general history of modern poetry are too narrow to afford room for a detailed notice of these sonneteers; a particular account can, therefore, only be given of a few of the most celebrated among them, who were also the authors of other poetical works, or who in any way assisted in improving or deteriorating the literary taste of their country.[264]

FARIA E SOUSA.

Manoel de Faria e Sousa who has been so repeatedly mentioned in the course of the present volume, and who has not been passed by unnoticed in the history of Spanish poetry,[265] exercised an important influence on the poetry of the Portuguese sonneteers, particularly in the first half of the seventeenth century. Possessing uncommon faculties, which were early disclosed, and early perverted, he distinguished himself while yet a youth by his extraordinary talents and powers of memory. In the year 1605, he participated, in quality of secretary, in the official duties of one of his relations, under whom he received the education fitting for a statesman. But neither his talents and acquirements, nor his connection with the most distinguished families of his native country, having conducted him to an object commensurate with his diligence and ambition, he quitted Portugal and visited Madrid. Though he did not realize all his expectations in the Spanish capital, he was not entirely neglected. He obtained a post in an embassy to Rome; and on his return to Madrid he found at least a tolerable source of subsistence. Still, however, he continued dissatisfied with his income, and on that account his pen was in constant activity. He himself states that he daily wrote twelve sheets, each page containing thirty lines. He possessed so great a facility in rhetorical turns and flourishes, that in the space of a single day he could compose a hundred addresses of congratulation and condolence, all sufficiently different from each other. As an author both in verse and in prose, he continued to labour with unabated assiduity to the period of his death, which happened in the year 1649.[266] A considerable portion of his numerous works will preserve his name in honourable recollection; but the value of that portion greatly depends on the subjects it embraces. They belong to the department of history and statistics, but they are all written in Spanish, and therefore cannot with propriety be farther noticed in the history of Portuguese literature. Faria e Sousa’s poems are also chiefly in Spanish; he wrote only sonnets and eclogues in Portuguese versez.[267] Of the six hundred, or to use his own phrase, “the six centuries” of sonnets, which, as it appears he selected for posterity out of a still greater number, precisely two hundred are Portuguese. Some of these compositions merit the praise which Faria e Sousa’s admirers have lavished on them all;[268] and the whole collection is animated by a buoyant spirit, which soars above ordinary and moderate elegance. But this spirit could not long accommodate itself to sound poetic judgment, nor to the old simplicity and natural flow of ideas and images. Without intentionally becoming an imitator of the Italian Marinists, the Spanish Gongorists, or the school of Lope de Vega, Faria e Sousa revelled in bold flights of fancy, like Lope de Vega, and indulged in eccentric extravagancies like the Marinists and Gongorists. The poetic flowers in his sonnets are overgrown by luxuriant parasitical weeds. In the first Century of the sonnets in the Portuguese language love is the only theme. The introductory sonnet announces that they are intended to celebrate the “penetrating shafts of love, which were shot from a pair of heavenly eyes, and which after inflicting immortal wounds, issued triumphant from the poet’s breast.”[269] This style pervades the whole collection. In one place a tender swain, named Menalio, forbids the satyres of the wood to steep their feet in the brook which has served as a bath to the fair Albania, that “morning-star, who in the depth of the water is the first of suns, where the sun himself is dazzled.”[270] On another occasion the poet complains of the “bitter taste he experiences in his mouth,” when he describes his pain to his mistress.[271] Sometimes it is scarcely possible to guess the meaning of these romantic conceits. But this style of poetic composition was by the admirers of Faria e Sousa denominated the ingenious and the tender style. The principal sonnets in the second Century pursue the same theme of romantic love, but they are sometimes so charming that the beauty of the successful passages, nearly throws into shade the distortions by which even that beauty is more or less alloyed.[272] Among the moral sonnets in this Century there are several which, though not abounding in ingenious ideas, are nevertheless expressive pictures of sentiment.[273] The sonetos sacros (spiritual sonnets), with which the collection closes, are, however, destitute of all trace of poetic merit. Whatever deserves to be pointed out as remarkable in the twelve Portuguese eclogues of Faria e Sousa, may with propriety be included in the notice respecting the degree of merit which this industrious writer possessed as a poetic theorist.

Faria e Sousa is the author of three treatises; the first, “On the sonnet;” the second, “On the erroneous notions of the moderns concerning poetry;” and the third, “On pastoral poetry.” These works must not be overlooked in the history of the literary taste of Portugal, since theoretical prolusions of this kind by poetic writers, supplied the place of a detailed art of poetry in Portuguese literature. All these treatises are written in the Spanish language.[274] The first, which is entitled Discurso de los Sonetos, is in itself insignificant. It merely contains a few scanty notices on the history of sonnet poetry, and some trifling observations hastily thrown together on the appropriateness of the sonnet metre in Spanish and Portuguese poetry. But towards the close of the treatise Faria e Sousa advances a very wide principle, which is exceedingly convenient for him in its application to his peculiar style of composition. One certainly must not, he says, grant absolution for excrescences and licences in poetry, from the notion that elegant language is of less importance than bold and beautiful ideas; but it is not to be forgotten “that a great man may sometimes do what he pleases, and that it is a great crime to call him to account for so doing, more particularly when those by whom he is called to account are pigmies in knowledge and judgment.”[275] That Faria e Sousa ranked himself in the class of great men is a circumstance which admits of no doubt. In his second treatise (Contra la opinion moderna acerca lo que es poesia) he has more clearly explained the nature of the ideas which in his opinion are more to be esteemed in poetry than elegant words. In the first place he applies the just principle that language does not make a poet in so loose and perverted a manner as to imply that correct versification is but of little importance. He then reasons again on a just principle most inconsistently, concerning the essence of poetry. He first observes that the essence of poetry as little consists in fine phrases and even in grand ideas, as in deep knowledge or in polished verse, (versos muy peinados). He next makes this assertion,—“the only things required in poetry are invention, imagery, pathos, and a display of every kind of knowledge.”[276] Considered in this point of view, he admits Marino to be far inferior to Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Dante, Ariosto, and similar poets. But then Torquato Tasso is scarcely a poet worth naming; for in Tasso’s poetry there is but little learning, little invention, and a common style of composition. Tasso is in his opinion a second Lucan, and nothing more; a historian indeed, but no poet. Finally, he complains that allegory, which he regards as particularly necessary to the beauty of a great poem, is totally wanting in Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered. Faria e Sousa seems to have picked up in Italy the opinions which form the groundwork of his vituperation of Tasso and his Jerusalem. Having ceased to rail against Tasso, he proceeds to declaim concerning poetry in a series of paragraphs, which plainly shew that he was totally deficient in clearness of ideas on the subject. Six of these paragraphs, in immediate succession, commence with such phrases as the following:—“He understands nothing of the matter;” or more briefly, “he is a fool,” (es necio); or “he is an absolute fool (es totalmente necio) who supposes,” &c. or “it is a proof of perfect ignorance,” (purissima ignorancia); or “it is a proof of a total want of knowledge of poetry to assert,” &c. And yet after all these rude sallies against a party which perhaps did no more than earnestly resist his attacks on correctness of ideas and language, he comes at last merely to this conclusion, that a writer of great genius must not be restrained by trifles, and that in his poetry he need only avoid singularity, coarseness and unintelligibility.

In a general history of literature any particular notice of these half true, but mainly trivial declamations, would be quite unnecessary, had not this author been for a considerable period revered as a critical oracle in Portugal.[277] The absurd conversion of the pastoral style into a mere poetic figure was among other faults of Portuguese poetry, methodically favoured and confirmed by the fallacious theories of Faria e Sousa. The earlier Portuguese poets who availed themselves of this inappropriate freedom merely followed a custom which had accidentally arisen. After transforming all sorts of occasional poems into eclogues, they at least endeavoured to give these factitious eclogues a pastoral character. But Faria e Sousa having formed a perverted judgment on pastoral poetry, proceeded in conformity with that judgment to exhibit various kinds of completely disfigured eclogues. In his treatise on his own pastoral poems, he theoretically praises himself for never having attempted any species of poetic composition on which he did not confer some novelty. He was accordingly less scrupulous than the eclogue writers who had preceded him, in introducing into such poems characters from the great and polite world. It seems with him to be sufficient that the scene shall always be in the country. He composed, however, a few eclogues in the true spirit and style of pastoral life. He likewise endeavoured to introduce into pastoral poetry more of action and interesting incident than is usually exhibited in that species of composition, so that in this respect some of his eclogues are brought into comparison with serious comedies. According to these and similar principles, Faria e Sousa distinguished his love eclogues (eglogas amorosas,) from hunting eclogues (venatorias), sea-faring eclogues (maritimas), properly pastoral or rather rustic eclogues (rusticas), funeral eclogues (funebres), and other modifications of similar description. In pursuance of his theory he recognized even arbitrator eclogues (arbitrarias), monastic eclogues (monasticos), critical eclogues (criticas), genealogical eclogues (genealogicas), hermit eclogues (eremiticas), and finally, as a particular species, fantastical eclogues (fantasticas), the theme of which is a prophetic vision. Of all these styles he has given specimens according to his own fancy. The same confusion of ideas on which his art of poetry is founded, and the same search after the uncommon at the expense of sound judgment, pervades the whole of this collection of eclogues. The beautiful idea which pastoral poetry presents was completely lost in the way in which Faria e Sousa viewed it. He attached but little importance to the representation of a poetic rural life, and still less to ideal simplicity, his wish being to sport, after his own manner, in bucolic forms, with crude conceits, affected pathos, and extravagant images. His rustic eclogues are, it is true, sufficiently rural, but not in the style of Saa de Miranda, who with the most delicate art gave a poetic dignity to rustic manners. Faria e Sousa’s shepherds are absolute clowns; and he accordingly makes them discourse in a kind of low Portuguese, one half of which is unintelligible to foreigners unacquainted with the rudest dialect of the peasantry of Portugal.[278]

Faria e Sousa crowned his efforts towards the literary cultivation of his age by a diffuse commentary on the works of Camoens,—a production more calculated to obscure than to illustrate the original. This commentary is written in Spanish.[279] The value of the historical portion would be greatly enhanced, were it separated from the critical, so that the latter might be rejected and only the former retained. But the historical data which Faria e Sousa has collected for the elucidation of Camoens’s poems, and particularly the Lusiad, are everywhere interwoven with the critical paraphrase of the text, and that paraphrase is so overloaded with a mass of erudition not merely superfluous, but totally unconnected with the subject, that in the present age, a reader of the works of Camoens, might be enabled to estimate the extent of his admiration of the poet by the degree of patience with which he peruses the labours of this commentator. Faria e Sousa has furnished a new example of the little profit to be derived from critical investigation, by a man who does not commence with a mind rightly cultivated for such a study. His admiration of Camoens contributes nothing to the improvement of his own poetic talent, for he always forces his own perverted views into Camoens’s poetry.

The esteem which Faria e Sousa obtained in Portuguese literature, must have contributed not a little to promote the endless rhyming of sonnets, and to impede the developement of the loftier style of poetry in Portugal. The false liberality of his critical code proved very convenient for the sonneteers, who experienced but little difficulty in exhibiting the qualities which that critic required in their compositions; and the unreasonable severity with which he treated Tasso was calculated to seduce every eccentric sonneteer into the conceit that he was himself something more than a Tasso. The pretensions of Faria e Sousa were not, however, universally recognized on the Portuguese Parnassus. Even in the composition of sonnets, some of the principal Portuguese poets of the seventeenth century followed the more pure and elevated style of Camoens. But no one thought of avoiding the faults into which Camoens had fallen. That prince of Portuguese poets was always regarded as faultless.

THOMAS DE NORONHA.

Comic sonnet poetry, in which Camoens did not distinguish himself as a master, obtained a favourable reception from the Portuguese public on Thomas de Noronha, a contemporary of Faria e Sousa becoming celebrated for that kind of composition.[280] But Thomas de Noronha, though an agreeable man of the world, was but a pretender in wit. His writings probably acquired a particular interest from the convivial temper, for which he was distinguished in society, and of which the reader is reminded by his poetry. But such versified jests as this merry companion has left behind him, could only have obtained temporary popularity from personal and local circumstances. They want the sprightly extravagance of the burlesque poetry of the Italians, as well as the moral keeping and caustic delicacy of the more lofty style of satire. Burlesque, however, they certainly are. Some approach, at least in a coarse way, to the Italian jests of a similar kind;[281] and in others jesting and serious feeling are blended together in a very absurd manner. Thomas de Noronha thought fit to write a burlesque sonnet in honour of Rodriguez Lobo, when that poet was drowned in the Tagus. After a comic apostrophe to heaven and earth, Noronha declares that if he can catch Æolus he will give him a flogging.[282] In nearly the same manner he jests in comic canções and romances, and in redondilha stanzas, (decimas,) which may also be termed epigrams. In these verses the conceits frequently turn on a play of words. Many must be altogether unintelligible to the foreign reader, particularly in the nineteenth century.

BARBOSA BACELLAR.

As a writer of serious sonnets, and particularly of romantic love sonnets in the style of Camoens, no Portuguese poet of the seventeenth century was more successful than the elegant and ingenious Antonio Barbosa Bacellar, who was also celebrated as one of the most skilful disputants of the university of Coimbra. After filling various public offices, he died in the year 1663.[283] Barbosa Bacellar’s inclination to form his taste on the model of Camoens, is proved by several excellent glosses, which he composed on some of that great poet’s sonnets. He may indeed be ranked among the most distinguished writers of poetic glosses. In all his poems, many of which are written in the Spanish language, he has disdained those excrescences which Faria e Sousa commends as a proof of unconstrained genius. Barbosa Bacellar was one of the supporters of the correct style of sonnet composition, in whom the spirit of the sixteenth century survived; but so little was he disposed to approve the jejune correctness of Ferreira and Caminha, that he preferred deviating into the opposite extreme, rather than repress the spirit of his poetry by a rigid adherence to forms. He excelled in the art of ingeniously amplifying a romantic idea without allowing the sentimental to degenerate into the fantastic. Besides some very charming sonnets,[284] the most remarkable productions of this poet are the extended pictures of romantic aspiration which since his time have been distinguished in Portuguese poetry by the untranslatable name of Saudades.[285] The complaints of a lovelorn heart vented in solitude, are the only materials which enter into the composition of these poems; and the peculiar character of their class, which had rapidly grown into favour, was fixed by Barbosa Bacellar. A certain degree of prolixity is essential to these compositions. They do not well afford opportunity for the display of a brilliant store of novel ideas; and to employ an inexhaustible flow of words in painting the tender longing of love was deemed a proof of the ardour of the passion. They might very properly be classed with elegies, were it not that they have usually a narrative form. There are also among the Spanish and Portuguese eclogues, many poems which present the same character as these pictures of amatory aspiration. Barbosa Bacellar seems to have conferred on these pictures the highest degree of improvement which they were capable of receiving, consistently with fidelity to the style, which was then exclusively appropriated to the poetry of love in Spain and Portugal. But the modern forms of cultivation have given, at least on this side of the Pyrenees, a direction so totally different to poetic susceptibility, that the endless complaining of lovers must soon become tedious even to the readers most disposed to indulge in such romantic sentiments. It is, however, a remarkable circumstance in the history of the human mind, that the Portuguese taste in the seventeenth century fondly dwelt on every little feature of such never-ending repetitions in the expression of the same feeling. Barbosa Bacellar devoted no small portion of labour to every line in his Saudades. He is particularly successful in imparting a graceful colouring to the romantic conversations in which the solitary lover engages with natural objects.[286]

TORREZAÕ COELHO.

A doctor of canon law, and a member of the Inquisitorial college of Lisbon, named Simaõ Torrezaõ Coelho, vied with Barbosa Bacellar in this new modification of romantic poetry. His pictures of passion are, however, totally different from those of Bacellar. He imitated the perverted style of the Marinists and Gongorists, and followed the precepts of Faria e Sousa. He talks of “the just sensation of unjust love;”[287]—of the living feeling of a dead soul;[288] of “the memory that lives in the brass of the soul;”[289] and such like Marinisms and Gongorisms. His verses appear, however, to have been very popular.[290]

FREIRE DE ANDRADA.

Jacinto Freire de Andrade or Andrada, an ecclesiastic, who performed a part in the political history of his native country, and nearly fell a sacrifice to the patriotism with which he defended the claims of the house of Braganza against the Spanish occupation of the Portuguese throne, also endeavoured to enlarge the boundaries of comic poetry. Wit so highly cultivated had never before shewn itself in Portuguese verse. In the union of bold sportiveness, sustained humour and poignant satire, with perfect correctness and elegance of language, Andrada’s burlesque narratives of the fable of Narcissus, and the fable of Polyphemus and Galathæa,[291] excel all the earlier specimens of comic wit which the works of former Portuguese poets, including even the comedies, afford. The burlesque manner of Andrada is owing solely to a caricature style which he took no pains to avoid. From the introductory stanzas to his Polyphemus, it appears that he merely tried to divert himself by these plays of fancy, in the hope of forgetting the adversities of his life. He wished, he says, “to visit the region of folly, that he might thereby approach happiness.” He also observes, that “with three ounces of judgment he is more loaded than an elegy, and more solemnly sententious than a sonnet.”[292] In order to cheat his sorrow, he makes “joy play with false dice.”[293] Had Andrada thrown these dice more steadily, he would, without doubt, have been one of the first comic writers in narrative poetry. But his satire was chiefly directed against the affected poetry of the Gongorists. He attacked other follies merely incidentally as they happened to strike him, and while he was in the humour rather to jest than to castigate.

In his Narcissus, he begins with parodying the wild conceits and romantic imagery of the fantastic sonneteers. To explain whence the beauty of Narcissus originates, a minute detail is given of the charms of his mother, the nymph Liriope, to whom the river god Cephissus makes tender propositions. After describing how the nymph paints herself in the morning, it is said of her eyes “that for boldness and honour there are no fairer lights in heaven; that they are pirates rebelliously fallen from the sun, which now, like the Dutch, wage war against the stars.”[294] Of the lips of the beauteous nymph he says, that they make “the roses wither for envy.”[295] The declaration of love, put into the mouth of Cephissus in this parodying style, is still more whimsical. If, says he, the eyes of the nymph should summon him to battle, he must be immediately subdued, because he should “see the sun divided in two eyes.”[296] He conjures her not to destroy the paper on which he has written his declaration of love, as in that case she will destroy “the house in which she dwells; and the altar on which she is worshipped.”[297] He now begins to weep bitterly, upon which Liriope observes, that if he be a true lover, the fountain of his tears must never dry up; but that it would be better to begin by giving her a little present, and to let “the sin go first and the tears follow afterwards.”[298] Andrada’s conceits, though they sometimes consist of mere plays of words, are still not of a common kind; as when he makes the covetous nymph say, that, “the demon of the flesh, flies frightened from the cross, but clings to the crossed;”[299] and that of “all beautiful streams none murmur so sweetly as the Silver River (the Rio de la Plata in South America).” At length the nymph resigns herself to the river god, and he becomes the reputed father of Narcissus. The reader is next entertained with a comic biography of Narcissus, which is a satirical representation of the history of a fashionable beau. Before he quits the cradle he is destined to become a military officer, as it is discovered that he was born “in the sign of the lion, though it was really the sign of the bull.”[300] The officer when grown up is characterized as one who though choleric, is never sanguine (sanguinary); who has “sinned against the fifth commandment in word but not in deed;[301] and who has always displayed great gallantry in engagements with the wine flasks.[302]” Tired of the army, he applies himself to poetry, and writes a new Jerusalem Delivered, and some sonnets in which the sun is so frequently introduced, that the absurdity of the conceits or disparates is, as it is said, rendered quite transparent. Narcissus also becomes fond of tracing genealogies, but he considers it beneath his dignity to study law, or to endeavour to acquire any other kind of practical knowledge. Being convinced by the heralds of his distinguished extraction, he withdraws himself from the public eye; but at the same time takes a lively interest in all that occurs at court, and soon becomes a minister of state. The love of wealth being now his governing passion, he rapidly enriches himself at the expense of the nation, and at last dies of vanity.

What this satire occasionally wants in refinement, is compensated by its extraordinary features, in which Andrada’s wit shines with peculiar lustre: and though the comic effusions of the ingenious author can only rank as poetic trifles, they are nevertheless entitled to some attention in consequence of their being chiefly directed against the absurd style which then distinguished and disfigured Spanish and Portuguese literature.

Andrada’s Polyphemus is a direct ridicule of the monstrous production of Gongora which bears the same title. As an example of the kind of ridicule employed it may just be mentioned, that in this parody the Cyclops styles the conquering eyes of Galathæa, “Turks by land and Dutch by sea.” The poetic works of Andrada include some comic sonnets and romances. He is also the author of a still more remarkable prose work which will be hereafter noticed.

FURTHER DECLINE OF PORTUGUESE TASTE—RIBEIRO DE MACEDO—CORREA DE LA CERDA.

During the second half of the seventeenth century, until the period of the first imitation of the French style in Portuguese literature, the defenders and partizans of classic correctness in Portugal seem to have been constantly diminishing. After the kingdom was emancipated from Spanish dominion, the old patriotic spirit of the Portuguese again found its way into their poetry; but that poetry gained little thereby in interior cultivation; and its boundaries were not farther extended. A species of mythological tales in the romantic form, but very dull and frigid, obtained some favour. In this style did Duarte Ribeiro de Macedo, who was also a prose author, and who died in the year 1682, after filling several distinguished posts, relate the fable of Adonis in serious redondilhas. Undismayed by the ridicule with which Freire Andrada had overwhelmed poems formed of such materials, he says in his verses that “Adonis has obtained privileges from Cupid, and licences from Diana, for punishing wild beasts and enchanting the fair; that lightnings flash from his eyes, and arrows are shot from his hands; that the hills and valleys at once represent lamentation and horror, because in the former the beasts groan, and in the latter the goddesses sigh.”[303]

Fernaõ Correa de la Cerda, an ecclesiastic, who was Bishop of Oporto, may also be numbered among the versifiers of this class. In a sonnet on a lady who died a few days after an eclipse of the sun, he thought it pathetic to say, that “at the death of Phillis, the whole celestial sphere must be afflicted with deep sorrow, bitter anguish.” And then he asks “if an eclipsed sun excites so much regret, what is to be expected from a dead sun?”[304]

VIOLANTE DO CEO.

A poetess whose name and rank probably contributed to raise her reputation at this period, shone conspicuously among the writers whom Freire de Andrada ridiculed. She was called Violante do Ceo, that is, if a name may be translated, “Violante of Heaven.” As a nun of the order of Dominicans, she obtained the character of a pattern of piety. Portuguese writers, moreover mention, that she was an excellent performer on the harp, and a singer. Among her writings there are some spiritual meditations in prose. She was born in 1601, and died in 1693, having consequently attained the age of ninety-two. Her miscellaneous poems were for the first time collected after her death.[305] Violante do Ceo was certainly a woman of genius; but her genius had received a totally false cultivation. She delighted as much as any of the partizans of Faria e Sousa, in all the absurdities of Portuguese Gongorism and Marinism. With her no antithesis was too far-fetched, no play of words too trivial, if the idea she thereby expressed was, according to her opinion, extraordinary. When wanting a poetic image, she immediately has recourse to the sun, which constantly shines in her pages as in these of the other Portuguese Gongorists and Marinists, whose verses, on that account, were by the witty Andrada, pronounced transparent. The tenderness or warmth of feeling which in female poetry often gets the better of the judgment, is in the writings of Violante do Ceo unnaturally represented by a false overstrained wit, which, however, assumes the disguise of judgment. In a sonnet on a lady, named Marianna de Luna, Violante do Ceo apostrophizes the muses, as “the divinities, who, in the garden of the king of day, unloosing their sweet voices, arrest Zephyr;—who, admiring the thoughts, multiply the flowers which Apollo creates.” She implores the muses “to abandon the society of the sun, since a moon (that is to say, Marianna de Luna,) which is at once a sun and a prodigy, prepares for them a garden of harmony.” Whether Marianna de Luna was a musician, or whether she had really laid out a fine garden, is not clearly explained. After some unintelligible phrases, it is in conclusion declared, that “through the grace of the deity, this tuneful garden is secured by the immortal wall of eternity.”[306] In this spirit and style Violante do Ceo composed both sacred and profane poetry. One of her Spanish sonnets on the death of a lady, closes with the idea, that, “if for such a sun the world is the region of setting, heaven on the other hand is for such a sun (the words are expressly repeated) the region of rising.”[307] She addressed a similar sonnet to a physician, named Arraes, a word which in the Portuguese language signifies the master of a vessel; and she says, in allusion to his name, that he deserves to be captain of the ship of life, which navigates the ocean of tyrannic disease; that is to say, as the succeeding lines denote, that he ought to be the king’s physician.[308] By her writings, after the revolution in the year 1640, Violante do Ceo distinguished herself as a patriot, but never as a judicious poetess.[309]

DIDACTIC EPISTLES OF ALVARES DA CUNHA.

Of the extent to which the perverted taste, which in the seventeenth century disfigured Portuguese, even more than Spanish poetry influenced the didactic epistolary style, a judgment may be formed by reference to the writings of Antonio Alvares da Cunha. This author, one of the most distinguished statesmen and literary characters of the reigns of John IV. and Alphonso VI. addressed epistles to Joaõ Nunez da Cunha, who was appointed viceroy of the Portuguese dominions in India. To express the trivial idea of Nunez da Cunha being about to sail from Lisbon for India, Alvares da Cunha pompously says, that the new viceroy will cut through “the crystal waves from the mouth of the Tagus, to those new regions which the world descried by the waving of the Quinas.”[310] The time of the sailing of the ship is described as the time during which the viceroy’s “winged beachen trees spread their pinions, carrying with them the wind, while they pursue their silvery path.” He next regrets that the instrument with which he writes does not perfectly express his ideas, observing “that though the pen touch softly the guitar of the paper, rude thunder resounds from that guitar.”[311] This epistle is one of the longest in Portuguese literature; and though totally deficient in the true epistolary character, it nevertheless contains many good ideas and sound precepts, while at the same time it exhibits a vain display of historical erudition.[312]

JERONYMO BAHIA.

The taste of the public was, in like manner, corrupted by Jeronymo Bahia, of whose existence in other respects no account is preserved.[313] The old fable of Polyphemus and Galathæa had already been so completely exhausted, that a recurrence to it might have been expected rather to disgust than to please; and yet, as if a new relation of that wearisomely repeated story had been all that was necessary to establish a writer on a level with Gongora, Jeronymo Bahia collected a store of affected phrases, and with pompous gravity remodelled the often celebrated theme of the Cyclops and his disdainful mistress.[314] Thus powerless had been all the pointed satire of the more judicious party. Divested of its original heaviness, and united with the fanciful Marinism, Gongorism now seemed to its defenders to be raised above the reach of ridicule. Bahia, too, thought it, perhaps, the less necessary to guard against the wit of the adverse party, since he was himself a master in subtle witticism. He wrote numerous comic romances, that is to say, comic tales and descriptions of travels in redondilhas. His playful loquacity flows in an inexhaustible current in these romances, which are not destitute of comic interest; but their extreme length would still have rendered them tedious, even though the author had better succeeded in catching the gay style suited to such trivial compositions.[315] His great facility in rhyming is recorded in a notice affixed to one of his odes. This ode was written on a victory gained by the Portuguese during their war with Spain, and Bahia composed it in a single day, so that it was presented to the king on the evening of the day on which the account of the battle was circulated. Surely no other manufacturer of rhyme would, like him, have spun out an Idyllio panegyrico, on a chandelier, which the Duchess of Savoy presented to the Queen of Portugal, to fifty octavo pages of versified prattle. From the works of this author may also be incidentally learned the direction which the prevailing spirit of religion took in Portugal, when the old national energy expired, and when the still more remarkable decline of the Spanish monarchy enabled the Portuguese to maintain an eight-and-twenty years war against Spain, in defence of their recovered independence. It was at this period that the court of Lisbon resorted to the far-famed expedient of enlisting by prayers and entreaties Saint Anthony among the Portuguese troops, and formally investing him with the military rank of generalissimo, in order to render the army invincible. The inhabitant of heaven was declared to have accepted the command, and Jeronymo Bahia wrote a song of praise in honour of King Alphonso VI. who effected this extraordinary arrangement.[316]

FRANCISCO VASCONCELLOS.

The dominion of bad taste and worthless subtilty was not, however, during the second half of the seventeenth century extended over the whole of the Portuguese Parnassus. The writings of some poets still evinced sound judgment and some portion of the old and nobler style of art. Francisco de Vasconcellos of the island of Madeira, inclined somewhat more to the side of reason than most of his contemporaries.[317] Some of his sonnets are so free from unnatural and overstrained thoughts,[318] that one might be induced to consider his other productions as parodied imitations in the style of Andrada, were it not that these outbalance the number of his correct poems, and that his works include a new dressing of the long before overdone story of Polyphemus and Galatæa.

TELLES DA SYLVA AND NUNES DA SYLVA.

Antonio Telles da Sylva was likewise distinguished among the multitude of sonneteers by a better cultivated taste.[319] He also composed latin verses, though he was gentil-homem da camara (a gentleman of the chamber).

But a greater share of attention is due to the poems of Andre Nunes da Sylva, an equally unassuming and ingenious writer, who received his first education in Brazil, and who died a Theatin monk in Portugal.[320] His spiritual sonnets, canções, and romances, are at least free from absurd conceits and Marinistical subtilties. It was, however, scarcely possible at any time, but more especially at the period of the most violent re-action against protestantism, not to deviate from reason, in representing poetically, and with religious fervour, the mysteries of the catholic faith, according to the opinions alone considered orthodox in Portugal and Spain. Nevertheless among the spiritual poems of Nunes da Sylva there are some, which though certainly as romantic as pious, are by no means fantastic, and which may be ranked among the best of their kind.[321] Even where the pious writer appears to have fallen into the most extravagant metaphors of the Marinists, as when he styles the tomb of St. Isabella “a flower of the firmament, a star of the field;” or, shortly after, “a nightingale, an animated jewel, an Orpheus to the ear, and a flower to the eye,”[322] his eccentric plays of ideas have still a poetic keeping. Among the patriotic poems, to which the war with Spain gave birth, there are several by Nunes da Sylva, which are distinguished for correct and picturesque representation, at least in single passages;[323] and his sonnets and songs of love possess, with all their faults, a considerable portion of poetic tenderness.

OTHER SONNETEERS—CONTINUED INTERVENTION OF THE SPANISH LANGUAGE IN PORTUGUESE POETRY.

It is not necessary to enter into particular details respecting other Portuguese sonneteers. Some who enjoyed celebrity lived until the commencement of the eighteenth century, among whom the names of Diogo de Monroy e Vasconcellos, Thomas de Sousa, and Luis Simoes de Azavedo, deserve to be mentioned. About the same period lived Diogo Camacho, who was the author of a lively poem, entitled a Journey to Parnassus; the idea of which was doubtless taken from the work of Cervantes of the same name, but which when compared with that master-piece, possesses no great merit. On comparing the Portuguese sonnets, the authors of which lived till the eighteenth century, with those of a somewhat older date, an obvious, though certainly not a striking tendency of Portuguese taste, to a more correct direction of the imagination, is, upon the whole, perceptible. But how far this change in Portuguese literature was effected by the increasing influence of French taste, which about this time commenced its universal sway; or whether it is at all attributable to the introduction of that taste, are questions not easy to be decided. This, however, is certain, that the incorrect, silly, and fantastic style of writing and judging poetry, still maintained its ground in the Portuguese literature of the eighteenth century long after the Count de Ericeira, who will soon be further noticed, had drawn from the school of Boileau those principles by which he wished to improve the literary taste of his countrymen.

Of the Portuguese sonneteers, who more or less contributed to transfuse the style of the seventeenth into the eighteenth century, there was none who did not, according to the custom of the age, pride himself in his facility of composing verses in the Spanish language. The recent separation of Portugal from the Spanish monarchy, had not, in the least, diminished this old custom of the Portuguese poets. They addressed complimentary verses in Spanish to the Queen of Portugal. Spanish comedies were still represented in Lisbon; and even the loas, or prologues, were recited in the same language. It was not until the esteem for Spanish literature had declined throughout Europe, that the literature of Portugal became entirely Portuguese.[324]

It is proper to observe here, that the collections of Portuguese poems of the seventeenth century, likewise contain sonnets by a Prince Don Pedro, and by several anonymous ladies.

PORTUGUESE ELOQUENCE DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

All that need be said respecting the Portuguese eloquence of the seventeenth century, may be related within the compass of a few pages. The obstacles which had hitherto impeded the free cultivation of energetic and reasoning prose in Portuguese literature, operated still more fatally, when the restraints on conscience became more oppressive, and when there was no longer any feeling of political greatness to give excitement to the thinking mind.

ROMANTIC PROSE—MATHEUS RIBEYRO—CASTANHEIRA TURACEM.

Viewed in relation to the whole of Portuguese literature, romantic prose continued nearly on the same footing on which it long had stood. It maintained its ground; but it was long after the death of Rodriguez Lobo before any more distinguished writer in this class of composition arose. With regard to invention, however, some of the Portuguese romances of the seventeenth century are not without merit. This praise is due to a work written by Matheus Ribeyro, a priest, who did not scruple to publish his name on the title-page, together with an enumeration of all his ecclesiastical dignities. This romance, which is entitled, “Retirement from Care, or the Life of Carlos and Rosaura,”[325] is not wanting in adventures both by sea and land. The style, however, is that of the old romance, with all its excrescences, and is particularly fantastical in the descriptive passages.

But a more elegant and far more valuable production of fancy now demands some notice. That this work was written with the view of opposing fantastic ornament in polite literature, and of assisting to restore a more natural and dignified spirit and style, would never be suspected from its affected title, which, stripped of its antiquated form, means, as far as it can be rendered intelligible, “The elegant Evening Party, or the Improvement of Bad Manners.”[326] On the title-page, and at the close of the dedicatory address, the author styles himself Felix da Castanheira Turacem. No information respecting him, beyond what his work affords, seems to have been preserved; but from that it may be concluded that he was a man who moved in the more elevated and polished ranks of society. The bad custom which he particularly condemned was an improper extension of the liberty taken at the season of the carnival in Lisbon. To present a picture of a more elegant and noble style of social entertainment, he contrasts the sprightly conversation of the company, whose manners he describes, with the licentious tricks of the carnival (entrudo.) The plan of Castanheira’s work is similar to that of Rodriguez Lobo’s “Court in the Country;” but the composition possesses a higher degree of romantic interest. In the party which Castanheira assembles, beautiful women play prominent parts; and between them and the young gentlemen who most contribute to the entertainment, attachments are formed which cross and oppose each other. The characters by turns sing, play, tell stories, and converse. The composition is, upon the whole, equally graceful and natural; but the execution is in many passages less successful. Castanheira, particularly where he begins to describe, is often drawn unconsciously into the stream of Gongorism and Marinism, though it appears that he was really anxious to separate himself completely from the partisans of these styles. That this was his most serious determination, is obvious from his spirited preface, in which he acknowledges that he does not calculate on a very favourable reception in the polite world. He declares that he is not ambitious of the honour of writing verses extempore. He sought to steer clear of dulness and bombast, the Scylla and Charybdis of the wide ocean of eloquence; and in all his digressions never to lose sight of the haven of clearness, as its entrance is difficult. “But deliver us from metaphor,” he adds in latin, and in the words of the Lord’s Prayer.[327] A man who, at this period, could so express himself in Portugal, deserves, were it on that account only, to be distinguished in the history of polite literature. Castanheira’s language, too, is, upon the whole, as natural according to the manner of its cultivation, as is his lively descriptive art. It is singular, however, that occasionally in the course of his work, and sometimes in those very passages, the superiority of which would otherwise be unquestionable, he falls into the very faults which he himself ridicules.[328] On the novel style, which is discussed in the first evening party, Cervantes appears, by that time, to have exercised a favourable influence. The severe criticism on the Poesia Incuravel (Incurable Poetry), in the second evening’s conversation, is certainly the best theoretical disquisition on Gongorism and Marinism, to be found in the Portuguese literature of the seventeenth century. It ought, also, to be stated, that the sonnets and other poems which are scattered through the work, exhibit some very successful passages. Occasion is taken to introduce a Discurso Academico, which towards the conclusion refers to the Italian academic system, which had long been imitated in Portugal, but which proved of as little advantage to Portuguese as to Italian literature.[329] Among the poems comprised in this book, there are many in the Spanish language.

HISTORICAL PROSE—FREIRE DE ANDRADA.

Of the cultivation of prose style in Portuguese literature during the seventeenth century, nothing could be said, had not a man in whom the spirit of the sixteenth century survived, successfully pursued the path which Barros and Brito traced out. This writer, who must be regarded as single in his age, was Jacinto Freire de Andrada, the same who in his comic tales already noticed, ridiculed the Gongorism and Marinism of poetry. The reader is almost inclined to doubt the evidence of his own eyes, when, among the Portuguese writings of the seventeenth century, he discovers such a prose work as “the Life of Dom Joaõ de Castro, fourth Viceroy of India, by Freire de Andrada.”[330] No biographical work, deserving to be ranked on a level with this, had hitherto appeared either in Portuguese or any other modern language. Andrada is reproached with a certain degree of far-fetched elegance and refined subtlety; and certainly his historical style might often, with advantage, be more simple. But that this ingenious writer upon the whole entertained the most correct notion of the rhetorical cultivation of historical prose, and that his intention was to write an energetic style appropriate to his subject, but by no means to make an ostentatious display of elegant phrases, would be sufficiently evident from the character of the whole work, even though the author had not, in his brief preface, explained himself with sufficient clearness on this point. He observes, that he has written his book in the language of truth, and according to credible authorities. He neither followed the advice of some who recommended the extension of his work, nor adopted the opinion of others who wished him to sacrifice the truth of nature to the fashionable ornaments of affected cultivation. His object was not to flatter a corrupt taste; on the contrary he wished to merit, by the unadorned language of truth, the approbation of sensible readers, rather than to gain a name among the great mass of a mis-judging public.[331] To a man of Andrada’s cultivated mind, it never could appear that the duty of a faithful historian required him to write in the chronicle style, as a means of thereby ensuring historical truth. When he took up the pen he felt that a demand was made upon him for the exercise of intellectual powers. His biography of Joaõ de Castro was to be a monument in honour of that distinguished man. Andrada, therefore, devoted no less attention to the representation than to the distribution of the materials of his narrative. To all appearance he did not form his style on that of any particular author of antiquity, but he makes nearer approaches to Sallust than to any other; and the influence which the study of the classics must have had on the literary education of Andrada, is sufficiently obvious. His turn for wit occasionally led him to express himself in antitheses of too poignant a character; but in every other respect his narrative style possesses the clearness, precision, lightness, and moreover the deep interest of the classic prose of antiquity. It is only necessary to read the commencement of this biography, to enter immediately into the spirit of the whole work.[332] Andrada’s appropriate diction never resolves into merely elegant prolixity; and whatever be the degree of polish it receives, its character is generally unassuming. In the biographical arrangement of the events, little historical art is observable, but a clear practical understanding is displayed throughout the whole work. The character of Joaõ de Castro is exhibited even in the first accounts given of his childhood and education. The reader afterwards finds it developed with farther precision, but without any appearance of being again obtruded by the historian. The dark side, which, however, should never be wanting in an historical picture, is left by Andrada to the imagination of his readers. But the intuitive power displayed in the representation of the events, which is naturally and nowhere poetically adorned, leaves nothing to be wished for in this biographical work.[333] Andrada also proved himself a disciple of the classic school by his predilection for the ancient custom of enlivening the narrative, and augmenting the interest of the subject, by speeches attributed to the principal personages who figure in the work. These are sometimes delivered by Joaõ de Castro himself, and more frequently by his most dangerous but interesting enemy, Coge Cofar, the general in chief of the Mussulmans in India. Some of these speeches are decidedly excellent, but others are rather artificial.[334] Towards the close of the biography where documents are interpolated, the story loses some portion of its deep interest. It was by no means a happy idea to add to this work an appendix, which is intended as a summary recapitulation of the whole; and at the same time as a supplemental picture of the character of Joaõ de Castro, whose character is sufficiently portrayed in the narrative of his achievements.

Treatises in the Portuguese language, intended for the developement of the principles of poetry and rhetoric in systematic order, or for the extended application of some of these principles, seem either not to have been written, or at least not to have been much known in the seventeenth century. Practically cultivated taste and critical tact, without which the art of poetry and rhetoric degenerates into useless scholastic theory, must, to men like Freire Andrada, in a great measure have supplied the place of systematic rules.

BOOK III.
FROM THE CLOSE OF THE SEVENTEENTH TO THE END OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS.

The third period of Portuguese poetry and eloquence arises so imperceptibly out of the second, that no particular date, or remarkable event in Portuguese literature can be said to form a dividing point between them. The influence of the French taste on the Portuguese is the characteristic mark of the commencement of this last period. But even that influence never produced any thing like a revolution in the state of polite learning in Portugal. French taste worked its way into the language and the literature of the Portuguese, as tranquilly as into their manners. It therefore neither forcibly supplanted the old taste, nor caused any conflict of literary factions at all resembling that warfare, which arose between the Gallicists and the adherents of the old style in Spain. Thus the literature of Portugal, for the second time, asserted its peaceful character. As in the sixteenth century no Portuguese Boscan had to contend with an old romantic party, so in the eighteenth century there arose no Portuguese Luzan to uphold the French taste by methodical rules of art. There occurred, therefore, no violent reaction of old patriotism against Gallicism, like that experienced in Spanish literature. Under these circumstances an opportunity was at last afforded for the English taste also to operate quietly and imperceptibly on that of the Portuguese. The historian, however, who finds it necessary to fix on some particular point for the commencement of this last principal division of the history of Portuguese poetry and eloquence, is constrained to take his departure from the change of political relations, which has been the main cause of Portuguese cultivation and literature becoming, in the struggle between French and English tendencies, what they now are. Towards the close of the seventeenth century, those conflicting tendencies which have threatened the very existence of the kingdom of Portugal, first began to manifest themselves.

CHAP. I.
GENERAL HISTORY OF POETICAL AND RHETORICAL CULTIVATION IN PORTUGAL DURING THIS PERIOD.

Total decay of Portuguese Literature towards the end of the Seventeenth Century.

In the year 1668, when the Spanish government again recognized the independence of the Portuguese monarchy, the difference between what that monarchy had been, and what it then was, became palpable. It appeared that even its new existence was not altogether assured by the peace with Spain. The flame of patriotism no longer glowed with its wonted ardour in Portuguese breasts; and the hope of re-conquering those territories in India of which the Dutch had obtained possession was extinguished. The gold and diamond mines, discovered in Brazil, offered, it is true, a compensation for the lost sources of oriental wealth. But the old spirit of national enterprise was no more, and the people, as well as the government, wanted energy and talent for the useful employment of treasures, from which the commercial policy of England well knew how to derive advantage. A general lethargy seemed to overspread the nation; and towards the close of the seventeenth century the effects of that lethargy became no less manifest in the depression of literature than in the decay of military and maritime power, of the finances, and of all the branches of national industry. On the breaking out of the war of the Spanish succession, the court of Lisbon inclined sometimes to the French, and sometimes to the English party; but while the government thus wavered, and was at a loss what to do, the nation seemed perfectly disposed to adopt the manners introduced from France, and French literature soon gained the same ascendancy in Portugal as in the rest of Europe. But the Portuguese were not, at that period, prepared to estimate the merits of French literature. Those who moved in the polite world learned to speak and read French, and to mutilate their mother tongue.[335] But only a few individuals of uncommon acquirements took pleasure in cultivating their literary taste after French models. The majority of the poets, or versifiers of Portugal were, properly speaking, entirely destitute of taste.

In taking a comprehensive view of the state of poetry and eloquence in Portugal, during the eighteenth century, it will be proper to follow the thread of the national annals; for the general history of this portion of Portuguese literature resolves into about as many sections as the number of the reigns into which the political history of the country is divided. The period was indeed now gone by in which the nation formed itself, rather than suffered itself to be formed by the government.

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE PORTUGUESE ACADEMY IN 1714.

During the forty-four years reign of John V. namely, from 1705 to 1750, there was no want of institutions, calculated to raise the nation to the point of elevation whence it had fallen. For the polite literature of Portugal a new era seemed to have commenced, when, in the year 1714, an Academia Portugueza, on the model of the French academy, was established under the presidency of so accomplished a man as the Count de Ericeyra. But we nowhere find an account of any advantage which the language and literature of Portugal derived from the labours of this academy; and the establishment was soon so completely neglected, that it is difficult to conjecture how and when it sank into decay.[336] Other academies on the Italian plan had their rise and decline without producing any beneficial results; while several Portuguese poets were satisfied with the honour of admission into the Italian academy of the Arcadians. The academy of history, founded at Lisbon in 1720, also promised to be useful to Portuguese eloquence, as well as to historical science; but in the end little or nothing was effected even by this institution. Besides, though the general character of the Portuguese, which had always been less fanatical than that of the Spaniards, appeared about this period to become somewhat more liberal in religious and ecclesiastical matters, that favourable symptom was merely a consequence of the friendly relations which Portugal was under the necessity of maintaining with England; and these relations seemed to place Portugal too much in a state of dependence, to be flattering to the national feeling, or to reanimate it by the diffusion of knowledge. The inquisition, too, continued to adopt the old precautions against all attempts at free-thinking, after the manner of Voltaire. It was, therefore, neither the spirit of the old nor of the new age, which, in the reign of John V. sometimes maintained the ancient forms in Portuguese poetry and eloquence, and sometimes endeavoured to introduce new ones. This fluctuation was merely the result of a feeble wavering between the old Portuguese, the French, and the Italian taste. The better poetry was, however, still to be found in the works of the authors, who remained faithful to the ancient manner.

ADMINISTRATION OF THE MARQUIS OF POMBAL.

The twenty-six years reign of Joseph Emanuel, from 1750 to 1777, proved more salutary for the Portuguese nation. The rigid despotism of the powerful Marquis de Pombal, who in the name of the king ruled with unlimited sway, left unpleasant recollections in the minds of a portion of the nation. Nevertheless the spirit of the higher nobility and of the ecclesiastics was not wholly subdued by his measures. In the dungeons which were filled with state prisoners, it is possible that some men of talent languished. But Pombal’s iron arm roused the slumbering nation. The despotic system of government adopted by this state reformer, who was, perhaps, only cruel from necessity, was an enlightening system, and his object was to restore the ancient glory of the Portuguese name. To literature he attached but little immediate importance. But he crippled the spiritual despotism, which held captive the last remnant of Portuguese energy. Europe is mainly indebted to him for the suppression of the order of the jesuits; and the Portuguese, in particular, have to thank him for that revived feeling of independence which soon penetrated into their literature. A taste for the fine arts, for philosophy, and literary cultivation, became fashionable in Portugal. The connexion with England proved, in some respects, advantageous to the new progress of Portuguese genius, and promoted literary improvement; for the Gallicists lost a considerable portion of their political ascendancy, when English literature began to be properly estimated in Portugal.

REVIVED SPIRIT OF LITERATURE—UTILITY OF THE PORTUGUESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES.

It was not until after the death of King Joseph Emanuel, that the change which had taken place in Portugal became fully manifest. Pombal’s institutions seemed indeed destined to be annihilated, when his enemies triumphed. But even the new degree of favour which the clergy enjoyed in the reign of the pious Queen Maria, had not the effect of stifling the revived spirit of improvement in Portugal. Young Portuguese travelled to several parts of Europe and carried back to their native country the fruits of modern cultivation. The Prince Regent loved and favoured literature. In the course of a few years the Royal Academy of Sciences at Lisbon did much to rouse the nation to new activity, and in particular to reconcile philosophic study with enlightened views of national interest. Had that excellent institution, especially as it existed under the judicious guidance of the Duke of Lofoens, been left undisturbed in the pursuit of its glorious and successful labours, the benefits produced to Portugal would have been more extensive and direct than those which most of the European academies have conferred on the countries to which they belong. The cosmopolite observer will, doubtless, be less interested in what the academy accomplished for polite literature, than in its zealous exertions for the encouragement of science, the diffusion of just and liberal ideas, and the consequent improvement of national industry and public prosperity. This institution was, however, of important service to polite literature. Prizes were offered for the best comedy and the best tragedy, to be written in the Portuguese language. It was endeavoured, through the influence of some of the academicians, to restore to due consideration the Portuguese classic writers of the sixteenth century, and also to re-introduce the language of that better period into literature, and the business of common life. Some volumes of academic transactions, which have in furtherance of this object been published since the year 1792, contain, in imitation of the French manner, essays purely literary, interspersed with articles on national history. This was, however, only a harmless blending of heterogeneous subjects; and the recollections of ancient times to which it gave birth, contributed to recall to Portuguese poetry and eloquence some portion of the old national spirit, from the revival of which the general interests of the country had every thing to expect[337].

CHAP. II.
HISTORY OF PORTUGUESE POETRY DURING THIS PERIOD.

THE CONDE DA ERICEYRA.

The first Portuguese poet remarkable for paying homage to the French taste, was the ingenious and meritorious Francisco Xavier de Menezes, Conde da Ericeyra, born in 1673. The family rank of this writer doubtless added to the celebrity of the talents by which he distinguished himself at an early period of life. This will account for the extraordinary circumstance, that while yet in the twentieth year of his age he was elected president of one of the academies which were founded in Lisbon, on the model of those of Italy. He is said to have spoken the Latin, Spanish, Italian and French languages with facility. He made, however, no progress in Greek. At an early age he translated Boileau’s Art of Poetry into Portuguese octaves; and from that period he maintained a friendly intercourse with the French critic. Literary and more particularly poetical studies continued to occupy him even during the Spanish war of succession, in which he made several campaigns. He rose in the Portuguese army to the rank of mestre do campo (major general.) The consideration and influence which the Count da Ericeyra enjoyed in Portuguese literature, were rapidly augmented by the authority attached to the offices which he filled; for in the year 1714, he was appointed rector and secretary of the Portuguese academy which was then founded; and in the year 1721, co-director of the new academy of history. His literary reputation soon extended beyond the narrow limits of Portugal; and during the latter half of his life, he held a conspicuous place among the men of his age, whose talents had given them a general celebrity. He maintained a correspondence with learned foreigners both in the south and north of Europe. The Pope and the King of France bestowed on him particular marks of their esteem; and the transactions of the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences were formally transmitted to him by that learned body. In his old age this diligent writer bestowed the greatest share of his attention on an epic poem, entitled, the Henriqueida, in which he endeavoured, as far as possible, to fulfil all the conditions of poetic art, according to the principles of the most celebrated critics. It would appear that he completed his task in the year 1738, and at the age of sixty-nine he enjoyed the satisfaction of seeing his work printed. He died two years afterwards. The number of his works, both in verse and prose, is considerable; and it seems that many of them still remain unprinted.[338]

The poetical works of the Count da Ericeyra, among which are several in the Spanish language, are distinguished by a degree of polish in which it is impossible not to recognise the disciple and admirer of Boileau. But this nobleman was not destined to mark an epoch in Portuguese poetry. To regard him as a mere Gallicist would be extremely unjust, and to rank him among poets in the highest and strictest sense of the term, would be to form an equally erroneous judgment of poetic art. Ericeyra certainly was not a slavish imitator of the French style. He endeavoured to form his talent by the study of all the works which he conceived fitted to serve as models whatever might be the language in which they were written; and this spirit of liberality in literary cultivation was a peculiarly estimable trait in his character. In the metrical structure, as well as in the style of his poems, he remained faithful to the forms and spirit of the old Portuguese national poetry, and to the school of the sixteenth century. But with all his plastic capabilities, he was wanting in creative fancy; and with all his endeavours to attain classic correctness, he did not avoid faults, which are readily pardoned in the works of the older Portuguese poets, in consideration of the poetic energy which is manifest in those very faults. In that poetic energy all the writings of the Count da Ericeyra are deficient. His imagination, which never of itself took a lofty flight, was much more inclined to enlarge artificially upon any pleasing subject, than to seize with inspiration and freely fashion a subject of its own; and the rules of French criticism doubtless contributed to allure him to the cultivated occasional style, as that style may justly be denominated, which, whenever the opportunity for an occasional poem offers, is always at the command of a writer possessing no common share of descriptive talent. Accordingly not a few occasional poems are to be found in the works of the Count da Ericeyra. In compliance with the old Portuguese custom, he sometimes made choice of the eclogue form, to record in a pleasing strain of verse, certain events which occurred in the Royal family. In this form, for example, he deplores, through the medium of shepherds and shepherdesses, the death of the Infante Dom Miguel, which took place in the year 1724. After what has already been said respecting other works of this kind, to dwell longer on the eclogues of the Count da Ericeyra would be a superfluous labour; but in the history of Portuguese poetry, the Henriqueida claims a more particular notice.[339]

The Henriqueida may unquestionably be called an epic poem with far more propriety than the Condestabre de Portugal of Rodriguez Lobo.[340] It is the work of an industrious talent, which occasionally seizes, with happy effect, a poetic situation, and by poetic handling elevates a series of historical events, somewhat above the sphere of prosaic nature. But this tedious and laboured poem possesses no other merit. Neither in the invention, highly as it has been esteemed, nor in the execution, which is not wanting in incidental beauties, is there displayed any thing like the captivating energy of the epic poetry of Camoens; and even in correctness of ideas and images, Ericeyra’s Henriqueida is very deficient. The subject is patriotically chosen. Henry of Burgundy, the founder of the Portuguese monarchy, is the hero of the poem. The action is not destitute of intrinsic interest, and the epic unity belonging to it has been happily caught by Ericeyra. The poem is divided into twelve cantos. Henry of Burgundy, the son-in-law of Alphonso VI. King of Castile, receives the county of Portugal as a fief, but on condition of first conquering that dowry, and afterwards securing it by further conquests. At the commencement of the poem the prince is waging war against the Moorish King Muley; but there appears little probability of the conquest of Lisbon, which is still in the hands of the Moors. Henry is informed that a Portuguese sybil lives somewhere in the vicinity of the camp in a concealed cavern, which he determines to explore, and for that purpose withdraws unnoticed from his army. The rashness with which this purpose is executed, is more characteristic of a fool-hardy adventurer than of a hero destined to be the founder of a kingdom. After taking a desperate leap, he succeeds in discovering the cavern and its inhabitant, who proves to be a christian sybil. She reveals to him the secret of his destination, together with some facts relative to the future greatness of the nation. While he is engaged in collecting this prophetic information, his troops suppose him to be lost. The Moors attack; the Christians are giving way; but at the critical moment Henry arrives, and turns the tide of victory. This first event, by which the interest of the epic action becomes immediately attached to the hero of the poem, is succeeded by a series of single combats, sieges, and victories, interspersed with love adventures, and carried on until the taking of Lisbon, with which exploit the poem concludes. The distribution of the parts is managed with much art, so that the characters in which it is wished the reader should take an interest, appear one after the other in their proper lights. The situations, too, are for the most part well chosen. Prophetic dreams, and a certain portion of fairyism still impart to the tale the charm of the miraculous, even after the christian sybil has divulged the general influence of the celestial powers. But the Henriqueida is from the first to the last canto destitute of that poetic warmth and spirit, the absence of which cannot be supplied by the ablest descriptive talent, and without which poetic art degenerates into mere exercises of style; for the industriously ingenious author was deficient in energy and depth of natural feeling, as well as in purity of ideal feeling. In his advertencias preliminares, or theoretical introduction, Ericeyra declares that he has in a certain measure endeavoured to imitate all epic poets, and to imbibe a portion of the manner of each; but had he withheld this acknowledgment no reader acquainted with other epic poems, could have failed to recognise in the Henriqueida the styles of Homer, Virgil, Ariosto, Tasso, and progressively of Lucan, Silius Italicus, and Statius, but without ever discerning the animating spirit of genuine poetry. The tedious coldness which pervades the whole poem destroys the effect of those incidental beauties of style which it must be allowed to possess. The very first stanzas give birth to an unfavourable presage;[341] and to invoke the inspiration of the deity rather than the muses is but a frigid conceit.[342] Even the descriptive passages, in which Ericeyra displays most talent, are deteriorated by artificial traits which launch into the region of Portuguese Marinism, and betray all the coldness of study.[343] Sometimes these traits stand as abruptly forward as if they had been interpolated by a sonnetist of the seventeenth century; thus, in allusion to Henry of Burgundy’s descent into the sybil’s cave amidst the fury of the conflicting elements, it is said, that “the vivid flames of his heart dried up the waves, and set fire to the winds.”[344] When the assembled princes sit down to hear Henry relate what he has seen in the cave, it is said of the plumes of the military heroes, that “they wafted glorious deeds to heaven, and inscribed victories without the aid of letters.”[345] On another occasion, the author describes the effect of a violent shout of the storming troops, by saying, that “even the stones of the walls seemed touched by the cry, and had nearly disclosed the medals which their celebrated founders had buried beneath them.”[346] Among the poetic ornaments of Ericeyra’s narrative style, the picturesque comparisons are for the most part well conceived; but with all their truth they are deficient in poetic energy;[347] and sometimes, contrary to all expectation, they terminate quite in the Marinistic style.[348] The Henriqueida is tolerably free of mythological decoration. Still, however, Ericeyra could not altogether refrain from availing himself of an ornament which he considered so essential. He has, therefore, contrary to all prosaic probability, for the violation of which there is no adequate poetic motive, introduced a Moorish princess in the character of a secret adherent of the Greek mythology, and he has thus taken occasion to describe a whole gallery of gods and goddesses. At the conclusion of the poem, Ericeyra again summons all his powers of description, not entirely without success, but still without avoiding those faults into which his factitious enthusiasm had previously involved him.[349]

That such a poet as the Count da Ericeyra could, with all his praiseworthy endeavours, succeed in restoring the ancient glory of Portuguese poetry, or in giving a new direction to the poetic spirit of his nation, certainly was not to be expected. But in consequence of his labours it ceased to be taken for granted in Portugal, that the mines of the higher poetry were exhausted, and he contributed to encourage the idea of improvement in poetic cultivation. His name, therefore, deserves to be held in honourable recollection. What benefits he, as a theorist, sought to impart to the poetic art, shall be noticed in the next chapter.

CONTINUANCE OF CORRUPT TASTE IN PORTUGUESE POETRY.

BARROS PEREIRA—ALEXANDRE ANTONIO DE LIMA.

The age of the Count da Ericeyra presents, at its close, a resting point in the history of Portuguese poetry, which, if the numerical division of the years be not too rigidly insisted on, may form a boundary between the first and the second halves of the eighteenth century. It was solely during the latter half that a favourable change became obvious in the poetic cultivation of the Portuguese. In the former half only a few Portuguese poets of celebrity laboured to maintain a suitable connection between the new and the old eras.

Among those poets it is not meant to include Father Antonio de Lima Barros Pereira, who in the year 1720 published his spiritual and temporal works, under the title of Floresta Apollinea, (Apollinian Flower-garden). But this collection of miscellaneous poems ought to be mentioned, as it serves to prove that in the beginning of the eighteenth century the Spanish was the favourite dramatic language in Lisbon. Among the works of Barros Pereira, his loas, or allegorical preludes, are the most numerous, and are all written in Spanish. Barros Pereira also sought to distinguish himself by those poetic rhapsodies without plan or object, which were, both in Spain and Portugal, called Sylvas (Forests.)

The Rasgos Metricos (Metrical Fragments) of a writer, named Alexandre Antonio de Lima, which were printed in 1740, are likewise about equally divided between the Portuguese and Spanish languages. The title-page bears a dedication to St. Ann; and in the same spirit which dictated that kind of address, the author, who seems to have been of a sprightly humour, has mingled spiritual and temporal productions together; and he has sometimes made even pieces of the most sacred character vehicles for jokes, which, however, are meant to be pious after their own way.[350] This singular incongruity was still considered inoffensive by the Portuguese of that age. The miscellaneous poems of Antonio de Lima are chiefly of a comic character. But a foreigner who has never lived in Portugal will be unable to understand most of this writer’s epigrammatic conceits, as they all refer to particular customs and local relations.[351] Some of Antonio de Lima’s serious sonnets are by no means contemptible productions.[352] In satirical prose he attempted an imitation of Quevedo’s visions.

THE PORTUGUESE DRAMA IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

SPURIOUS DRAMAS CALLED OPERAS.

In the first half of the eighteenth century, a new, though not a happy turn, became perceptible in the dramatic poetry of the Portuguese. While the Spanish drama still supplied the place of a Portuguese national drama, the favour of the court of Lisbon was bestowed on the Italian opera. The general approbation which was soon extended to operatic performances of every description, led to the introduction on the Portuguese stage of a singular species of hybridous comedy. There was a wish to naturalize the Italian opera; but it is probable that few Portuguese singers were then capable of executing recitative; and it may also be presumed, that the Portuguese had heard of the little French operas, in which the characters speak and sing alternately. This, however, is certain, that the public of Lisbon had always a strong predilection for comic entertainments; and, it appears, that with the view of fully satisfying the popular taste, it was thought advisable to introduce the pomp of the serious Italian opera into the comic drama of Portugal. By what practical head this idea was suggested no Portuguese writer has thought fit to record. It seems not improbable that it had its origin in the speculation of a theatrical manager, who wished to venture on the experiment of amusing the public in a new way; and who, for that purpose, availed himself of the services of some obscure writer, who happened to have a talent for dramatic poetry. The first essays of this theatrical novelty were all anonymous. It is, however, likely, that the result greatly exceeded the expectation of the speculator. The scenic decorations, in which the new species of drama rivalled the Italian, the burlesque humour of the pieces themselves, the effects of music, both vocal and instrumental, captivated the great mass of the Lisbon public. The higher ranks of society too, and even the court, took an interest in these performances. New dramas in this spirit and style followed each other in rapid succession, more particularly during the ten years which elapsed between 1730 and 1740. But no poet, who had previously acquired reputation, appears to have devoted himself to this kind of composition; and the prolific dramatist, whose anonymous productions were so fortunate as to obtain the chief favour of the public, had probably at the time private reasons for wishing to remain unknown. He was a Jew, whose name, even after it was disclosed, was seldom mentioned, as the public, content with the antonomasia, still continued to call him O Judeo, (the Jew).[353]

The popularity of the new dramas soon became so great, that manuscript copies were eagerly procured for the purpose of private performance or reading. From these copies collections were printed, the increase of which fell still short of the public demand.[354] To none of the dramas contained in these collections is the name of an author affixed. In spirit and style they so closely resemble each other, that they may all be considered as the production of one individual. If at this period French taste had acquired any decided influence on Portuguese literature, such dramas, though they might, for the sake of incident, music, and decoration, have been tolerated on the stage, would never have been sought for in print. It is impossible to imagine a more rude combination of low jests, with romantic and miraculous events, partly taken from real history, and partly from the Greek and Roman mythology. Had this strange compound been the workmanship of cultivated as well as of inventive talent, then, indeed, might the grotesque medley have been rendered, by the ingenuity of composition, entertaining even to readers of cultivated taste. But in these confused jumbles, called comic operas, the composition is, in general, as inartificial as the wit intended to enliven them is dull. The lowest buffoonery is blended with singular adventures, tournaments, or ceremonies; and trivial airs and songs are successively introduced. Some can lay no claim to any merit of invention, either in arrangement of story or incidents, as is exemplified in a spectacle of this class called Don Quixote, which was represented in 1733. No fewer than thirty-six characters figure in this compilation from the master work of Cervantes, whose spirit is, however, banished from the composition. The Esopaida ou Vida de Esopo, (Æsopeid, or Life of Æsop) is one of these pieces which seems intended to be particularly comic. The first scene represents a fair at Athens with all its appropriate accompaniments. The philosopher Zeno appears with Æsop and two other slaves, all of whom he wishes to sell. Æsop soon distinguishes himself by coarse jests and endless quibbling.[355] Another philosopher, named Xanthus enters, accompanied by his disciples Periander and Ennius. He puts Æsop’s wit to the test, and purchases him.[356] The scene now changes. Filena, the daughter of Xanthus, confides the secrets of her heart to an old and ugly female slave, named Gerigonza. They are joined by Euripedes, the wife of the philosopher, who reprimands her daughter, and sings a silly scolding duet with her.[357] Æsop enters and again makes a display of his wit. Then follows a tender scene between Filena and her lover; Gerigonza becomes enamoured of Æsop; and the philosopher and his wife quarrel together, singing a duet of the most vulgar character. By a succession of scenes of this sort, the action is carried on through the first act. In the second act King Crœsus of Lydia arrives with an army to besiege Athens: and Themistocles appears on horse-back in the suite of Crœsus. The scene is now alternately in Athens and in the camp of Crœsus. Drums and fifes are kept in constant employment. Splendid pleasure gardens adorned with statues add to the pomp of the spectacle. But Æsop, whose puns and quibbles are inexhaustible, is always the hero of the piece. At last, after bringing about a peace between Crœsus, and the people of Athens, he is appointed governor of the city. Thus ends the Æsopeid, which might with more propriety be entitled the Buffooniad. Amidst this grotesque jumble, however, sparks of no common fancy are occasionally elicited; but the anonymous author seems to have been totally destitute of literary cultivation, and to have had no higher aim than to give a humorous colouring to the rudeness of his combinations. The rest of the Portuguese comic operas are, upon the whole, still more rude than the Æsopeid, though some are richer in the musical part of the composition, and possess grave or even pathetic airs and duets in the style of the serious Italian opera.

It might, at first sight, be supposed, that a nation which could be pleased by dramas of this kind, must be for ever excluded from the path of higher cultivation. In Lisbon, the Italian opera-house continued to be the real court theatre. But the Portuguese opera which stood like a spurious child beside the Italian, maintained its ground in spite of its parent. Had not the taste for this kind of dramatic entertainment prevailed down to the second half of the eighteenth century, a new edition of the Æsopeid, and other theatrical caricatures, would not have been published in 1787. The restoration of a truly noble style in Portuguese poetry, could not therefore be expected to derive its origin from the drama.

RESUMPTION OF AN IMPROVED STYLE IN PORTUGUESE POETRY.

MANOEL DA COSTA.

To obtain this object, it was, however, only necessary that a poet should arise, who, charmed by the renewed union of Portuguese and Italian poetry, might be induced to place himself under the tutelage of the early Italian poets. Thus would the Italian opera have rendered compensation for the evils to which it had given birth. A Brazilian, named Claudio Manoel da Costa, was one of the first writers who in this way contributed to reintroduce an elevated style into Portuguese poetry.[358] Born in the province of Minas Geraes, that part of Brazil where the chief object is the working of mines, he seems not to have been destined for the service of the muses. He indeed passed through a course of academic studies in Europe; but he himself states that during the five years which he spent at the university of Coimbra, no kind of poetry was there held in esteem, save that which was composed in the corrupt but fashionable style of the Portuguese Marinists. That young Da Costa, while at the university of Coimbra, should have applied himself to the study and imitation of the older Italian poets, and of Metastasio, was a circumstance peculiarly favourable to his improvement, while at the same time it afforded the first proof of his being destined to arrive at a point of purer cultivation than his contemporaries. He even ventured on the composition of Petrarchic sonnets in the Italian language, and in this attempt he was not unsuccessful. On his return to Brazil his poetic studies were continued in the region of gold and diamond treasures, to which he seems to have attached but little value; for he complains that amidst these mountains, no Arcadian stream awakes by its sweet murmur harmonious verse: and that the turbid waters of the brooks only serve to call to recollection the rapacious perseverance of the miners by whose labour they are discoloured. On his own poems he pronounces a remarkable judgment. He observes that he was too late in learning the rules of good taste from the Greeks, Italians and French; and that influenced by bad example, he sinned against principles, the justice of which he recognized. The perverted manner of the sonnetists of the seventeenth century is certainly here and there perceptible in the writings of Da Costa. But upon the whole, it may be said, that for nearly the space of a century, no Portuguese writer had so well succeeded in that kind of sonnet poetry, which most charmingly approximates to the style of Petrarch; and that in the other compositions of this Brazilian poet, the faults are counterbalanced by merits of the most pleasing kind. The sonnets included in the collection of his poetic works, amount to nearly a hundred; and among them are some in Italian, but none in the Spanish language. The style of these sonnets, nearly all of which have love for their subject, is, however, not altogether that of Petrarch. They possess a certain tone of poignancy, which betrays the spirit of modern times. Nevertheless, Da Costa’s style, alike free from exaggeration and fantastic ornaments, exhibits the truth of nature and of poetry so happily united with Petrarchic intensity of feeling, and expressed in language so elegant and unostentatious, that his sonnets may justly be numbered among the very best in Portuguese literature.[359] While perusing them, the reader cannot fail sometimes to fancy that he recognizes the simple tone of the old Portuguese lyric poetry, reflected by an Italian echo.[360] Though the influence of French taste was far less powerful than the Italian with Da Costa, it still had some effect on his poetry. It appears to have guided him in the choice of a metre for his epicedios, or elegies. These poems, however, are not composed in Alexandrines, but in iambics of five feet, without any complexity in the rhymes. This is a kind of verse which is frequently used by English writers; and yet Da Costa seems never to have turned his attention to English poetry. But though such verse was quite uncommon, similar measures had long before been known in Portugal, and perhaps Da Costa was not the first Portuguese poet who in this way attempted to approximate to the French style, as far as the diversity of the languages would, with propriety, permit the experiment to be carried. This dull style of rhyming, appears, however, always somewhat foreign and inharmonious in Portuguese poetry. In other respects, these epicedios possess the merit of noble, inartificial, and pleasing expression; but they want the high charm of the author’s sonnets, and some of his other poetic compositions.[361] He himself appears to have attached most value to his twenty eclogues. They are indeed written with peculiar care, and are not destitute of beauty in some of their parts; but, like most Portuguese eclogues, they are either occasional poems in a bucolic dress, or partly lyric compositions, which, with the exception of pastoral names, exhibit no trace of bucolic character. The extraordinary predilection of the more ancient Portuguese for this species of pastoral poetry, had therefore descended from one generation to another, down to these latter times. One of Da Costa’s eclogues is dedicated to the prime minister, the Marquis of Pombal, or as he was then still called, the Count of Oeyras, with a warmth of feeling which seems to have been the genuine effusion of the poet’s heart. From an emphatic eulogy pronounced on that minister, it may be concluded that the Portuguese poets immediately and sensibly felt the beneficial effects of his administration, for the general encouragement of mental freedom was a part of Pombal’s system. The poet says of the statesman, that he reconciled innocence with genius, and recalled justice to the world.[362] Among Da Costa’s other poems, the most remarkable are his masterly imitations of canzonettas, cantatas, and other modern Italian poems for music, to which the opera has given birth. Nothing finer in this style of poetry is to be found even in the similar minor works of Metastasio. His A’ Lyra Desprezo (Farewell to Poetry), and the Palinodia, which accompanies it, are alone sufficient to prove the perfect accordance of the Italian and Portuguese language with respect to the laws of musical poetry.[363] But still finer is another Farewell, entitled, Fileno ä Nize, despedida, which was probably composed by Da Costa on his return to America. Here the old romantic inexhaustibility in the poetic amplification of a favourite idea, sustained by a constantly recurring burthen, is united with all the magic of Metastasio’s versification.[364] In some poems of the same class which Da Costa composed in the Italian language, a certain degree of constraint is observable. But his Portuguese cantatas, spiritual as well as temporal, are not only free from that fault, but often bear the stamp of excellence.

PROGRESS OF PORTUGUESE POETRY IN THE LATTER PART OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.[365]

To make a detailed report of Portuguese poetry during the last thirty years of the eighteenth century, is a task which must be consigned to other writers. In this general history it is sufficient briefly to describe how the new spirit of Portuguese literature acquired, even on its poetic side, a marked influence, though it did not unfold itself with that energy which was necessary to reproduce the poetry of the sixteenth century under somewhat varied features. This period must not yet be extolled as the commencement of a second golden age of Portuguese poetry; but the poetic talent of the Portuguese has opened for itself a wider field; and fantastic rhyming no longer finds admirers among the educated class of readers. The Portuguese zealously endeavour to rival, in polite literature, as well as in science, those nations who have, or who seem to have outstripped them. But this rivalry is happily combined with a revived veneration for the poetry of the sixteenth century. Thus have the old national forms of Portuguese poetry been preserved for modern times; and the Portuguese drama alone seems doomed to be governed by French laws.

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.