1580-1706
_The Seiscentistas_
Philip II entered his new capital under triumphal arches on June 29,
1581, and the subjection of Portugal to Spain during the next sixty
years in part accounts for the fact that nowhere was the decadence of
literature in the seventeenth century more marked than at Lisbon. For
Spain in her sturdy independence and reaction from rigid classicism
had led the way in those precious affectations which invaded the
literatures of Europe, and the universal malady, gongorism with its
Lylyan conceits and cultured style, now found a ready welcome in
Portugal. The literary style which corresponded to the Churriguerresque
in architecture naturally proved congenial to the land of the _estilo
manuelino_. King Philip was glad to conciliate and provide for
Portuguese men of letters,[581] but if in the preceding centuries
many of them wrote in Spanish, that tendency was now necessarily
strengthened. Another cause of decadence was no doubt the Inquisition,
although its influence in this respect has been greatly exaggerated. It
required no immense tact on the part of an author to prevent his works
from being placed on the Index. An examination, for instance, of the
differences between the 1616 edition of _Eufrosina_ and the condemned
1561 edition shows that the parts excised were chiefly coarse passages
or unsuitable references to the Bible (this was also the charge against
the letters of Clenardus). That remarkable mathematician, Pedro Nunez,
pays a tribute to the enlightened patronage of letters by Cardinal
Henrique, the most ardent promoter of the Inquisition in Portugal:
_qui cum nullum_ _tempus intermittat quin semper aut animarum saluti
prospiciat aut optimos quosque auctores evolvat aut literatorum hominum
colloquia audiat_.[582]
No literary figure in Portugal of the seventeenth century, few in the
Peninsula,[583] can rank with D. FRANCISCO MANUEL DE MELLO (1608-66).
Born at Lisbon,[584] he belonged to the highest Portuguese nobility
and began both his military and literary career in his seventeenth
year. He wrote in Spanish, although, in verse at least, he felt it to
be a hindrance,[585] and it was not till he was over forty that he
published a work in Portuguese: _Carta de Guia de Casados_ (1651).[586]
Few men have accomplished more, and towards the end of his life he
could say with pride that it would be difficult to find an idle hour
in it. He was shipwrecked near St. Jean de Luz in 1627 and fought
in the battle of the Downs in 1639. He was sent with the Conde de
Linhares to quell the Evora insurrection in 1637, and took part in
the campaign against revolted Catalonia (1640), which he described in
his _Guerra de Cataluña_[587] (1645), written _em varias fortunas_
and recognized as a classic of Spanish literature. A man frankly
outspoken like Mello must have made many enemies, enemies dangerous
in a time of natural distrust. During the Catalan campaign he was
sent under arrest to Madrid, apparently on suspicion of favouring the
cause of an independent Portugal,[588] and a little later, when he
was in the service of the King of Portugal, the suspicion as to his
loyalty recurred. On November 19, 1644, he was arrested at Lisbon on a
different charge. It appears that a servant dismissed by Mello revenged
himself by implicating his former master in a murder that he had
committed (of a man as obscure as himself). Whether he did this of his
own initiative or at the bidding of Mello’s enemies is uncertain, but
they saw to it that Mello once in prison should not be soon released.
They might, probably did, assure the king that this was the best place
for one ‘devoted to the cause of Castile’. There are other theories to
account for Mello’s long imprisonment, the most romantic of which--that
he and the king were rivals in the affections of the Condessa de Villa
Nova, and, meeting disguised and by accident at the entrance of her
house, drew their swords, the king recognizing Mello by his voice--is
now generally abandoned. Although no evidence of Mello’s participation
in the murder was forthcoming, he was condemned to be deported for
life to Africa, for which Brazil was later substituted. It was only
in 1655, after eleven years of more or less[589] strict confinement,
that he sailed for Brazil. João IV died in 1656 and two years later
Mello returned to Portugal: he was formally pardoned[590] and spent
the last years of his life in important diplomatic missions to London,
Rome, and Paris. The unfaltering courage and gaiety with which he faced
his adventures and misfortunes win our admiration, but his life can
strike no one as literary. Yet it is probable that but for his long
imprisonment he would never have found leisure to write many of his
best works, and prosperity might have dimmed his insight and dulled
his style--that style (influenced no doubt by Quevedo and Gracián)
which is hard and clear as the glitter of steel or the silver chiming
of a clock, with _concinnitas quaedam venusta et felix verborum_.[591]
Even when full of points and conceits it retains its clearness and
trenchancy, and in his more familiar works he is unrivalled, as the
_Carta de Guia de Casados_, in which, _innuptus ipse_, he brings
freshness and originality to the theme already treated in Fray Luis de
Leon’s _La Perfecta Casada_ (1583), Diogo Paiva de Andrade’s sensible
but less caustic _Casamento Perfeito_ (1631), and Dr. João de Barros’
_Espelho de Casados_ (1540),[592] or the pithy and delightful _Cartas
Familiares_, of which five centuries--a mere fragment--were published
at Rome in 1664, with a rapier-thrust of his wit and a maxim of good
sense on every page, preserving for us some vestige of what Frei Manuel
Godinho described as his ‘admirable conversation’ when he met him at
Marseilles in 1633.[593] The _Epanaphoras de varia Historia Portugueza_
(1660) are unequal and often excessively detailed.[594] Three of the
five are, however, the accounts of an eyewitness and as such are full
of interest: the _Alteraçoens de Evora_ (i), the _Naufragio da Armada
Portuguesa em França_ (ii), and the _Conflito do Canal de Inglaterra_
(iv).[595]
Mello’s knowledge of men was as wide as his knowledge of books, and
both appear to great advantage in his _Apologos Dialogaes_ (1721). An
individualist in religion[596] and politics,[597] an acute thinker and
a keen student of men and manners, he found no dullness in life even at
its worst and no solitude, for, if alone, his fancy instilled wit and
wisdom into clocks[598] and coins[599] and fountains.[600] The first
three _Apologos_ contain incisive portraits in which types and persons
are sharply etched in a few lines: the poor _escudeiro_, the _beata_,
the Lisbon market-woman, the litigious _ratinho_, the _fidalgo_ from
the provinces,[601] the ambitious priest, the shabby grammarian,, the
worldly monk, political place-hunter, _miles gloriosus_, or melancholy
author, a tinselled nobody boiling down the good sayings of past
writers. The fourth _Apologo_ entitled _Hospital das Lettras_ (1657)
is devoted more especially to literary criticism; Mello with Quevedo,
Justus Lipsius, and Traiano Boccalini (who died when Mello was five)
makes a notable scrutiny of Spanish and Portuguese literature. As a
literary critic Mello is excellent within limits. Himself an artificial
writer, although as it were naturally artificial, bred at Court, versed
in social and political affairs, he considered that the proper study of
mankind was man, and, like Henry Fielding a century later, admired ‘the
wondrous power of art in improving Nature’.[602] For him the country
and Nature, the bucolic poetry and prose of Fernam Alvarez do Oriente,
the ingenuous narratives of the early chroniclers, had no charm; he
preferred Rodrigo Mendez Silva’s _Vida y hechos del gran Condestable_
(Madrid, 1640) to the _Cronica do Condestabre_.[603] But all that was
vernacular and indigenous attracted him, as is proved in his letters,
in his lively farce _Auto do Fidalgo Aprendiz_ (1676), and in the
_Feira dos Anexins_, which is a long string of popular maxims and of
those plays upon words in which Mello delighted. His poetry--_Las Tres
Musas del Melodino_ (1649), _Obras Metricas_ (1665)--is marred by the
conceits which in his prose often serve effectively to point a moral
or drive home an argument. It is far too clever. When in a poem ‘On
the death of a great lady’ we find the line _contigo o sepultara a
sepultura_ we do not know whether to laugh or weep, but we suspect the
sincerity of the author’s grief, and although he wrote some excellent
_quintilhas_, most of his poems, which are, as might be expected,
always vigorous, are too sharp and thin, stalks without flowers, the
very skeletons of poetry. It is to his prose in its wit and grace, its
shrewd thought, its revelation of a sincere and lofty but unassuming
character, its directness,[604] its _bom portugues velho e relho_, that
he owes his place among the greatest writers of the Peninsula.
The taste in poetry in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is
seen in two collections, partly Spanish, partly Portuguese: _Fenix
Renascida_ (5 vols., 1716-28) and _Eccos que o Clarim da Fama dá_
(2 vols., 1761, 2). The latter is sufficiently characterized by
its title, too long to quote in full. As to the former the Phoenix
seems to have given real pleasure to contemporary readers, but for
us the bird and song are flown and only the ashes remain, from which
a sixteenth-century poem such as the sonnet _Horas breves_ stands
out conspicuously. The subjects are often as trivial as those of the
_Cancioneiro_ published two centuries earlier and more domestic: to
a cousin sewing, to an overdressed man, to a large mouth, a sonnet
to two market-women fighting, another to the prancing horse of the
Conde de Sabugal, on a present of roses, two long _romances_ on a
goldfinch killed by a cat, verses sent with a gift of handkerchiefs or
eggs or melons, or to thank for sugar-plums--the _Fenix_ rarely soars
above such themes. The magistrate ANTONIO BARBOSA BACELLAR (1610-63)
figures largely, with glosses on poems by Camões, a _romance_ _A umas
saudades_, a satirical poem _A umas beatas_. His _romances varios_ are
mostly in Spanish, but a few of his sonnets in Portuguese have some
merit. The fifth volume opens (pp. 1-37) with a far more elaborate
satire by DIOGO CAMACHO (or Diogo de Sousa): _Jornada que Diogo Camacho
fez ás Cortes do Parnaso_, the best burlesque poem of the century,
in which the author did not spare contemporary Lisbon poets.[605]
The poems of JERONIMO BAHIA likewise cover many pages. He it is who
bewails at length the sad fate of a goldfinch. In _oitavas_ he wrote a
_Fabula de Polyfemo a Galatea_,[606] and in octosyllabic _redondilhas_
jocular accounts of journeys from Lisbon to Coimbra and from Lisbon
into Alentejo (on a very lean mule) which are sometimes amusing. His
sonnet _Fallando com Deos_ shows a deeper nature, and the collection
contains other religious verse, notably that of Violante Montesino,
better known as SOROR VIOLANTE DO CEO (1601-93). Here,[607] as in her
_Rythmas varias_ (Rouen, 1646) and _Parnaso Lusitano de divinos e
humanos versos_ (2 vols., 1733), this nun, who spent over sixty years
in the Dominican Convento da Rosa at Lisbon, and who from an early
age was known for her skill upon the harp and in poetry--admiring
contemporaries called her the tenth Muse--showed that she could write
with simple fervour, as in the Portuguese _deprecações devotas_ of the
_Meditações da Missa_ (1689) or her Spanish _villancicos_. But she
could also be the most gongorical of writers, her very real native
talent being too often spoilt by the taste of the time.[608] BERNARDA
FERREIRA DE LACERDA (1595-1644), another _femina incomparabilis_, like
Soror Violante and Dercylis considered the tenth Muse and fourth Grace,
wrote almost exclusively in Spanish, nor can her _Soledades de Buçaco_
(1634) or her epic _Hespaña Libertada_ (2 pts., 1618, 73) be considered
a heavy loss to Portuguese literature. SOROR MARIA MAGDALENA EUPHEMIA
DA GLORIA (1672-? _c._ 1760), in the world Leonarda Gil da Gama, in
_Brados do Desengano_ (1739), _Orbe Celeste_ (1742), and _Reino de
Babylonia_ (1749), rarely descends from the high-flown style indicated
in these titles. On the other hand, the Franciscan nun of Lisbon, SOROR
MARIA DO CEO (1658-1753), or Maria de Eça, in _A Preciosa_ (2 pts.,
1731, 3) and _Enganos do Bosque, Desenganos do Rio_ (1741), among much
verse of the same kind has some poems of real charm and an almost
rustic simplicity.
By reason of a certain intensity and a vigorous style D. FRANCISCO
CHILD ROLIM DE MOURA (1572-1640), Lord of the towns of Azambuja and
Montargil, although more versed in arms than in letters, wrote in _Os
Novissimos do Homem_ (1623) a poem quite as readable as the longer
epics of his contemporaries, despite its duller subject (man’s first
disobedience and all our woe). The four cantos in _oitavas_ are headed
Death, Judgement, Hell, Paradise.[609] Of the life of MANUEL DA VEIGA
TAGARRO we know little or nothing, but his volume of eclogues and
odes, _Lavra de Anfriso_ (1627), stands conspicuous in the seventeenth
century for its simplicity and true lyrical vein. There is nothing
original in these four eclogues, but the verse is of a harmonious
softness. In the odes he succeeds in combining fervent thought with a
classical restraint of expression. He aimed high; Horace, Lope de Vega,
and Luis de Leon seem to have been his models. Some measure of the
latter’s deliberate tranquillity he occasionally attained. The works of
the ‘discreet and accomplished’, keen-eyed and graceful D. FRANCISCO
DE PORTUGAL (1585-1632) appeared posthumously[610]: _Divinos e humanos
versos_ (1652) and (without separate title-page) _Prisões e solturas de
hũa alma_, consisting of mystic poems mostly in Spanish in a setting
of Portuguese prose, and, in Spanish, _Arte de Galanteria_ (1670), of
which a second edition was published in 1682. Lope de Vega praised the
‘elegant verses’ of the _Gigantomachia_ (1628) written by MANUEL DE
GALHEGOS (1597-1665). That he could write good Portuguese poetry the
author showed in the 732 verses of his _Templo da Memoria_ (1635),
in the preface of which he declares that it had become a rash act to
publish poems written in Portuguese but quotes the example of Pereira
de Castro and of Góngora as having used the language of everyday life
and plebeian words without indignity.
The later epics testified to the perseverance of their authors rather
than to their poetical talent. They are perhaps less guilty than the
critics, who should have discouraged the kind and recognized that
the _Lusiads_ were only an accident in Portuguese literature, the
accident of the genius of Camões. As a rule the epic spirit of the
Portuguese expressed itself better in prose. GABRIEL PEREIRA DE CASTRO
(1571?-1632) forestalled Sousa de Macedo in his choice of a subject.
His _Vlyssea, ov Lysboa Edificada, Poema heroyco_ (1636) was published
posthumously by his brother Luis, and perhaps the most remarkable
thing about it is that it should have run through six editions. The
structure of the poem, in ten cantos of _oitavas_, is closely modelled
on that of the _Lusiads_, and the gods of Olympus duly take a part
in the story. He sings, he says boldly, to his country, to the world
and to eternity, but his sails flap sadly for lack of inspiration and
enthusiasm, and his daring _enjambements_[611] do not compensate for
the dullness of theme and treatment. If, for instance, we compare his
storm[612] with that of the _Lusiads_ (vi. 70-91) it must be confessed
that the former has much the air of a commotion in a duckpond. Ulysses
on his way to Lisbon visits (canto 4) the infernal regions, is
astonished to meet kings there, and (canto 6) relates the siege and
fall of Troy.
The life of BRAS GARCIA DE MASCARENHAS (1596-1656) was more interesting
than his verses. He was born at Avó, near the Serra da Estrella,
and his adventures began early, for he was arrested on account of
a love affair (1616) and made a daring escape from Coimbra prison
after wounding his jailer. His careful biographer, Dr. Antonio de
Vasconcellos, has shown that there is no record of his having studied
at Coimbra University. Subsequently he travelled and fought in Brazil
(1623-32), Italy, France, Flanders, and Spain, and in 1641, as captain,
raised and commanded a body of horse known as the Company of Lions. As
Governor of Alfaiates, the ‘key of Beira’, he was wrongfully accused
of having a treasonable understanding with Spain and imprisoned at
Sabugal, some ten miles from Alfaiates (1642). He obtained a book (the
_Flos Sanctorum_), flour, and scissors and cut out a letter in verse
to King João IV, who restored him to his governorship and gave him the
habit of Avis. His long epic _Viriato Tragico_ (1699) contains some
forcible descriptions and has a pleasantly patriotic and indigenous
atmosphere--one feels that he is singing _os patrios montes_ as much
as the hero--but in style it differs little from prose. Tedious
geographical descriptions, dry catalogues of names, a whole stanza
(vii. 39) composed exclusively of nouns, another (iv. 63) of proper
names, incline the reader less to praise than sleep, from which he is
only gently stirred when the sun is called _a solar embaixadora_. In
the prevailing fashion of the time the author works in lines of Camões,
Sá de Miranda, Garci Lasso, Ariosto, and other poets. While the work
was still in manuscript another poet, and perhaps a relation, Andre da
Silva Mascarenhas, helped himself liberally to its stanzas (they number
2,287) for his epic _A Destruição de Hespanha_ (1671). He could have
given no better proof of the poverty of his genius. FRANCISCO DE SÁ DE
MENESES (_c._ 1600-1664?), although less true a poet than his cousin
and namesake the Conde de Mattosinhos, won a far wider fame by his
epic poem _Malaca Conqvistada_ (1634), in which he recounts _a heroica
historia dos feitos de Albuquerque_. The reader who accompanies his
frail bark[613] through twelve cantos of _oitavas_ feels that he has
well earned the fall of Malacca at the end. For although the author is
not incapable of vigorous and succinct description he too often decks
out the pure gold of Camões’ style[614] with periphrases and Manueline
ornaments which delay the action. The sun is ‘the lover of Clytie’ or
‘the rubicund son of Latona’. He stops to tell us that a diamond won
by Albuquerque had been ‘cut by skilled hand in Milan’, and some of
his more elaborate similes are not without charm. Canto 7 tells of the
future deeds of the Portuguese in India. The gods interfere less than
in the _Lusiads_ (Asmodeus plays a part in canto 6), but the general
effect is that of a great theme badly handled. After the death of his
wife, the author spent the last twenty years of his life (from 1641) in
the Dominican convent of Bemfica as Frei Francisco de Jesus.
ANTONIO DE SOUSA DE MACEDO (1606-82), _moço fidalgo_ of Philip IV
and later Secretary of Embassy and Minister (_Residente_) in London
(1642-6) and Secretary of State to the weak and unlettered Afonso
VI, wrote at the age of twenty-two _Flores de España, Excelencias
de Portugal_ (1631). This historical work of considerable interest
and importance was written in Spanish por ser mais universal, but he
returned to Portuguese presently in a curious prose miscellany, _Eva
e Ave_ (1676), and in the epic poem _Vlyssippo_ (1640) in fourteen
cantos of _oitavas_. He seems to have felt that interest could not
easily be sustained by the subject, the foundation of Lisbon by
Ulysses. Accordingly, following the example of Camões, he inset
various episodes. Canto 6 summarizes the events of the _Iliad_ and
the _Odyssey_, canto 10 describes a tapestry adorned with future
Portuguese victories, in canto 11 the Delphic Sibyl foretells the deeds
of Portugal’s kings, down to Sebastian, in canto 12 the wise Chiron
prophesies of her _famosos varões_. The style is correct, but the poem
as a whole is commonplace. VASCO MOUSINHO DE QUEVEDO, of Setubal,
although no records of his life remain, won high fame by his epic poem
in _oitavas_ (twelve cantos) _Afonso Africano_ (1611), in which ‘the
marvellous prowess of King Afonso V in Africa’ is described. The poem,
admired by Almeida Garrett, is particularly wearisome because it is
largely allegorical. The king conquering Arzila represents the strong
man subduing the city of his own soul, the Moors are the spirits of the
damned, and seven of their knights representing the seven deadly sins
are defeated by seven Christian knights who stand for the virtues.
The poverty of profane prose, compared with its flourishing condition
in the preceding century, is also remarkable. A few historians of
the seventeenth century have already been mentioned. The literary
academies, of which the most famous were the _Academia dos Generosos_
(1649-68) and the _Academia dos Singulares_ (1663-5),[615] existed
rather for the interchange of wit and complimentary or satiric verses
than for the encouragement of historical and scientific research. The
Conde da Ericeira’s _Portugal Restaurado_ and Freire de Andrade’s Life
bear no comparison with works of the _Quinhentistas_. Yet it was the
second golden age of Portuguese prose, as the names of Manuel Bernardes
and Vieira prove. The latter’s letters, with those of Frei Antonio
das Chagas and Mello, are in three different kinds--the political,
religious, and familiar--the most notable written in the century.
GASPAR PIRES DE REBELLO in the preface to his _Infortvnios tragicos
da Constante Florinda_ (1625) excuses himself for its publication
on the ground that ‘not spiritual and divine books only benefit
our intelligence’. The book, which records the love of Arnaldo and
Florinda, of Zaragoza, shows the modern novel growing through _Don
Quixote_ out of the _Celestina_ plays and the romances of chivalry,
but has little other interest. A second part was published in 1633,
and _Novellas Exemplares_, six stories by the same author, in 1650.
Numerous other works appeared with more or less alluring or sensational
titles but contents disappointingly dull. MATTHEUS DE RIBEIRO (_c._
1620-95), in his _Alivio de Tristes e Consolação de Queixosos_ (1672,
4), shows greater skill than Pires de Rebello in the invention of
the story, but it is marred by the diffuse and pedantic style--April
becomes an ‘academy in which Flora was opening the doors for the study
of flowers’. The pastoral novel ended in sad contortions with the
_Desmayos de Mayo em sombras de Mondego_ (1635) by DIOGO FERREIRA DE
FIGUEIROA (1604-74). Its title and the three involved sentences which
cover the first three pages (ff. 10, 11) convey an adequate idea of its
character and contents.
Of several prose works written by MARTIM AFONSO DE MIRANDA, of Lisbon,
in the first third of the century, the most important is _Tempo de
Agora_ (2 pts., 1622, 4). It contains seven dialogues dealing with
truth and falsehood, the evils of idleness, temperance, friendship,
justice, the evils of dice and cards, and precepts for princes. Much of
their matter is interesting and the comments incisive, especially as
to the prevailing luxury in food and dress. They tell of the infinite
number of curiously bound books at Lisbon, of the soldiers unpaid,
‘eating at the doors of convents’, of the delight in foreign fashions,
and the craze for ‘diabolical’ books from Italy to the exclusion of
_livros de historias_ and books in Portuguese. The anonymous _Primor
e honra da vida soldadesca no Estado da India_ (1630), edited by the
Augustinian FREI ANTONIO FREIRE (_c._ 1570-1634), is a different
work from Geronimo Ximenez de Urrea’s _Diálogo de la verdadera honra
militar_ (1566), which it resembles slightly in title. It is divided
into four parts and contains various episodes of the Portuguese in the
East and some curious information. MIGUEL LEITÃO DE ANDRADE (1555-1632)
went straight from Coimbra University to Africa with King Sebastian.
After the battle of Alcacer Kebir he succeeded in escaping from
captivity, followed the cause of the Prior of Crato, and was imprisoned
under Philip II. In his book, in twenty dialogues, _Miscellanea do
Sitio de N. Sᵃ da Lvz do Pedrogão Grande_ (1629), he disclaims any
purpose of writing history. It reveals an inquiring and observant but
uncritical mind, interested in fossils, inscriptions, astrology, the
early history of Portugal, etymology, heraldry, and the ‘infinite
wonderful secrets of Nature daily being revealed’. It contains a
graphic account of his escape from Fez, but on the whole, in spite
of attractive passages and interesting details, scarcely merits its
great reputation. _Do Sitio de Lisboa_ (1608), which Mello praises as
_aquelle elegantissimo livro_, by the author of _Arte Militar_ (1612),
LUIS MENDES DE VASCONCELLOS, is written in the form of a dialogue
between a philosopher, a soldier, and a politician, and deserves its
place among the minor classics of Portuguese literature.
The famous love letters of the Portuguese nun MARIANNA ALCOFORADO
(1640-1723), which bring a breath of life and nature into the stilted
writing of that day, only belong to Portuguese literature in the
sense that Osorio’s history belongs to it--by translation. They
first appeared in indifferent French (_Lettres Portvgaises_, Paris,
1669) and were not retranslated, or, if we accept the theory that
the nun originally wrote them in French[616]--French _suranné et
dénué d’élégance_--translated into Portuguese for a century and a
half: _Cartas de uma Religiosa Portugueza_ (1819).[617] Meanwhile,
even before their obscure author died in the remote and beautiful
city of Beja, they had been translated into English and Italian and
had received over fifty French editions. Colonel (later Marshal)
Noël Bouton, Comte de Saint-Léger, afterwards Marquis de Chamilly
(1636-1715), accompanied the French troops sent to help Portugal
against Spain, and was in Portugal from 1665 to 1667. Marianna
Alcoforado, belonging to an old Alentejan family, was a nun in the
convent of Nossa Senhora da Conceição at Beja. Her five letters,
written between the end of 1667 and the middle of 1668 after her
desertion, in their artlessness, contradictions, and disorder, vibrate
with emotion. They are a succession of intense cries like the popular
quatrain:
Por te amar deixei a Deus:
Ve lá que gloria perdi!
E agora vejo-me só,
Sem Deus, sem gloria, sem ti.
Sometimes, it is true, a trace of French reason seems to mingle with
the ingenuous Portuguese sentiment, and it is almost incredible,
although of course not impossible, since _omnia vincit amor_, that the
nun should have written certain passages. From these and not on the
amazing assumption of Rousseau that a mere woman could not write so
passionately--he was ready to wager that the letters were the work of a
man[618]--one may suspect that the lover, who did not scruple to hand
over the letters to a publisher (unless he was merely guilty of showing
them to his friends), sank a little lower and edited them, adding a
phrase here and there more peculiarly pleasing to his vanity.[619] In
that case the nun actually wrote these letters, full of passion and
despair, and perhaps in French, to her French lover; but we only read
them as they were touched up for publication by another hand.
A work which has nothing in common with these fervent love letters
except an enigmatic origin is the _Arte de Furtar_, which in part at
least probably belongs to the seventeenth century. It is a curious
and amusing treatise on the noble art of thieving in all kinds,
private and official, civil and military. Its anecdotes are racy if
not original. Two of the happiest incidents (in caps. 6 and 41) are
copied without acknowledgement from _Lazarillo de Tormes_.[620] The
author seems to have had misgivings that he had presented his subject
in too favourable a light, for he ends by assuring his reader thieves
that many tons of worldly glory are not worth an ounce of eternal
blessedness, and promises them before long another ‘more liberal
treatise on the art of acquiring true glory’. These tardy qualms did
not save his book from the Index. The first edition, purporting to
be printed at Amsterdam, bears the date 1652[621] and attributes the
work to Antonio Vieira. That attribution may be set aside. Were there
no other reasons for its rejection it would suffice to read the book
or even its title in order to be convinced that it is not from the
_veneravel penna_ of that great statesman and preacher. He might dabble
in Bandarra prophecies, but would scarcely have sunk to the picaresque
familiarities of the _Arte de Furtar_ or occupy himself with the sad
habits of innkeepers, the long stitches of tailors, or the price of
straw. It has also been attributed, without adequate ground, to Thomé
Pinheiro da Veiga (1570?-1656), the author of a lively account of the
festivities at the Spanish Court and description of Valladolid in
1605, entitled _Fastigimia_ (it mentions Don Quixote and Sancho (p.
119) but says nothing of Cervantes), and to João Pinto Ribeiro (_c._
1590-1649), the magistrate who played a notable part in the Restoration
of 1640 and wrote various short treatises such as _Preferencia das
Letras ás Armas_ (1645); and even less plausibly to DUARTE RIBEIRO
DE MACEDO (1618?-80), statesman and diplomatist, an indifferent poet
but an excellent writer of prose and a careful although not original
historian. His halting verses and his treatises were collected in his
_Obras_ (2 vols., 1743). Of the latter the _Summa Politica_ has been
shown by Snr. Solidonio Leite[622] to be copied almost word for word
from the work of identical title by D. SEBASTIÃO CESAR DE MENESES
(†1672), Bishop of Oporto and Archbishop of Braga. Both author and book
were too well known for Ribeiro de Macedo to claim it as his own. He
seems merely to have translated it from the original Latin published at
Amsterdam in 1650, a year after the first Portuguese edition. The work
is remarkable for acute thought and clear and concise expression. A
work of a similar character is the well-written _Arte de Reinar_ (1643)
by P. ANTONIO CARVALHO DE PARADA (1595-1655). The _Tratado Analytico_
(1715), by MANUEL RODRIGUEZ LEITÃO (_c._ 1620-91), a controversial
treatise written to prove the right of Portugal to appoint bishops, is
also the work of a good stylist. Some would say the same of one of the
best-known books of the seventeenth century, the _Vida de Dom João de
Castro_ (1651), by JACINTO FREIRE DE ANDRADE (1597-1657). The author,
born at Beja, was suspected at Madrid of nationalist inclinations, and
retired to his cure in the diocese of Viseu; after the Restoration
he refused the bishopric of Viseu. His book has often been regarded
as a model of Portuguese prose. Pompous and emphatic,[623] it may be
described as inflated Tacitus, or rather a mixture of Tacitean phrases,
conceits, and rhetorical affectation. But if as a whole it is more akin
to Castro’s garish triumph at Goa than to the scientific spirit of his
letters, it scarcely deserves the severe strictures which followed
excessive praise[624]: it might even become excellent if judiciously
pruned of antitheses and artifice.[625] The second Conde da Ericeira,
D. FERNANDO DE MENESES (1614-99), wrote a _Historia de Tangere_ (1732)
and the _Vida e Acçoens d’El Rei D. João I_ (1677), which ends with
an elaborate parallel between Julius Caesar and the Master of Avis.
Equally clear but far more artificial is the style of the third Count,
D. LUIS DE MENESES (1632-90), in the best-known historical work of the
century in Portuguese: _Historia de Portugal Restaurado_ (2 pts., 1679,
98). Its author ended his life by leaping from an upper window into the
garden of his palace on a May morning in a fit of melancholy.
The great prose-writer of the century, ANTONIO VIEIRA (1608-97), was
born in the same year and city as D. Francisco Manuel de Mello and
spent a life as unquiet. He was not literary in the same sense as
Mello, but he has always been considered one of the great classics
of the Portuguese language. He was the son of Cristovam Vieira
Ravasco, _escrivão das devassas_ at Lisbon, but at the age of seven
he accompanied his parents to Brazil (1615) and began his education
in the Jesuit college at Bahia. In 1623, by his own ardent wish,
long opposed by his parents, he became a Jesuit novice and professed
in the following year. Before he was thirty he was Professor of
Theology in the Bahia college and a celebrated preacher, the sermons
in which he encouraged the citizens of Bahia in the war against the
Dutch being especially eloquent. In 1641 he was chosen with Padre
Simão de Vasconcellos to accompany D. Fernando de Mascarenhas, son
of the viceroy, to Europe in order to congratulate King João IV on
his accession. Vieira preached in the Royal Chapel on New Year’s
Day, 1642. Both his sermons and his conversation greatly impressed
the king, and from 1641 to the end of the reign (1656) his influence
was great although not unchallenged. They were critical years in
Portugal’s foreign policy, and Vieira, who refused a bishopric but
was appointed Court preacher, was entrusted with several important
missions--to Paris and The Hague (February-July 1646), London, Paris,
and The Hague (1647-8), and Rome (1650). In 1652 he returned to
Brazil as a missionary in Maranhão, and during two years roused the
bitter hostility of the settlers by his protection of the slaves or
rather by his opposition to slavery. In 1655 he again left Lisbon for
Maranhão,[626] and during five arduous years showed unfailing courage
and energy in dealing with natives and settlers. The latter in 1661
attacked the mission-house and arrested and expelled the Jesuits. At
home King João, Vieira’s friend, was dead. Differences arose between
the Queen Regent supported by Vieira, and her son, and one of the first
acts of the latter on taking power into his own hands was to banish
Vieira to Oporto and later to Coimbra. Here in the spring of 1665[627]
he wrote that curious work _Historia do Futuro_ (1718), which was to
interpret Portugal’s destiny by the light of old prophecies, but of
which only the introduction (_livro anteprimeiro_) was printed. An even
stranger book, in which he had paid serious attention politically to
the prophecies of Bandarra, was denounced in 1663, and in October 1665
Vieira was consigned to the prison of the Inquisition at Coimbra. His
sentence was not read till 1667 (December 24), and it condemned him to
seclusion in a college or convent of his Order and to perpetual silence
in matters of religion. The deposition of King Afonso VI (1667) and the
accession of his brother Pedro II altered Vieira’s prospects, and his
eloquent voice was again heard in the pulpit. After preaching before
the Court in Lent 1669 he proceeded to Rome on business of the Company
and spent six years there. He preached several times in Italian, and
Queen Christina of Sweden, who had settled in Rome in 1655, offered
him the post of preacher and confessor, which he refused. In August
1675 he returned to Lisbon, where he was coldly received by the Prince
Regent, and in 1681 retired to Brazil. In the same year he was burnt
in effigy by the mob at Coimbra. A special brief given to him by the
Pope secured his person from the attacks of the Inquisition. But even
at Bahia he was not free from troubles and intrigues. His activity
continued to the end of his long life. In 1688 he preached in Bahia
Cathedral, and was Visitor of the Province of Brazil from 1688 to 1691.
Even in 1695 we find him, although feeble and broken, writing letters
and eager to finish his _Clavis Prophetica_[628] (or _Prophetarum_),
which now lies in manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris and
elsewhere. Seventy years earlier he had been entrusted by the Jesuits
with the composition of the annual Latin letters of the Company.
Vieira’s vein of caustic satire no doubt made him numerous enemies and
increased the difficulties which his advocacy of the Jews and slaves
and his fearless stand against injustice and oppression were certain to
produce. Ambitious and fond of power, he could devote himself to causes
which entailed a life of toil and poverty. An energetic if unsuccessful
diplomatist, an ingenious thinker, a statesman of far-reaching views,
he was also a fantastic dreamer, but his dreams and restlessness rarely
affected the sanity of his judgement. The works of this great writer
and extraordinary man are an inexhaustible mine of pure and vigorous
prose, at its best in his numerous _Cartas_, written in _selecta et
propria dictio, nusquam verbis indulgens sed rebus inhaerens_. A
Portuguese critic, Dias Gomes, notes his ’sustained elegance’, and
we may sometimes sigh for an interval of Mello’s familiarity or Frei
Luis de Sousa’s charm. In his famous _Sermões_ he bowed intermittently
to the taste of the time for conceit and artifice. He condemned
the practice in a celebrated sermon, but indeed a certain humorous
quaintness was not foreign to his temperament, and in the obscurity, at
least, of the _cultos_ he never indulged. When inspired by patriotism
or indignation his words soar beyond cold reason and colder conceits to
a fiery eloquence. Among writers whom he influenced was the Benedictine
FREI JOÃO DOS PRAZERES (1648-1709), of whose principal work, _O
Principe dos Patriarchas S. Bento_, or _Empresas de S. Bento_, only
the first two volumes were published. Closer imitators of Vieira were
FREI FRANCISCO DE SANTA MARIA (1653-1713), author of _O Ceo Aberto na
Terra_ (1697) and many sermons, and the Jesuit preacher ANTONIO DE SÁ
(1620-78), whose _Sermões Varios_ appeared in 1750.