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 verse.[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.