[629] _Lettere Familiari_, No. 30.
[630] Or _Arcadia Lusitana_. For a list of its members see T. Braga,
_A Arcadia Lusitana_ (1899), pp. 210-29; for its statutes, ibid., pp.
189-205.
[631] Debt might seem a more probable cause, were it not for the
apparent rigour of his confinement.
[632] _A sua alma conversava com Bernardes e Ferreira_, says his friend
Tolentino, who advises another _cabelleireiro_ poet to cease writing
verses, since _vale mais que cem sonetos a peior penteadura_. The _Arte
de Furtar_ mentions a barber who sank still lower, since he left his
profession in order to cut purses. The modern writer Antonio Francisco
Barata (1836-1910) likewise began life as a poor hairdresser at Coimbra.
[633] Cf. _Ecloga_ 1. Dorindo to Alcino (_Alcino Mycenio_ was Quita’s
Arcadian name):
E tu és dos pastores mais famosos
No cantar de improviso o verso brando.
[634] i. e. the military governor of a district, with rank next to that
of _Capitão Môr_.
[635] This Arcadian name was given to him by the Marquesa de Alorna,
although he did not properly belong to the _Arcadia_, being, like
Tolentino, one of the _dissidentes_.
[636] = fishwife; literally ‘woman of Ovar’, a small sea-town between
Aveiro and Oporto.
[637] Sá do Miranda, he says, _em quem das doces quintilhas Sómente
a rima aprendi.... Falta-me arte e natureza, Mas pude delle imitar A
verdadeira singeleza._
[638] The sky is _a estellifera morada_ (the starry abode), birds _o
plumoso aereo bando_, bees _mordazes enxames voadores_, &c.
[639] Menéndez y Pelayo (_Antología_, tom. xiii (1908), p. 377) calls
him _el poeta de más condiciones nativas que ha producido Portugal
después de Camoens_, ‘the most indigenous Portuguese poet since
Camões’, and elsewhere gives the highest praise to his sonnets.
[640] His modern editor, Visconde (Julio) de Castilho, has shown that
the additional surname de Vasconcellos was bestowed on him gratuitously.
[641] The _Couvade_ (ii. 62) is also described by Henrique Diaz,
_Naufragio da Nao S. Paulo_, 1904 ed., p. 25, and Pero de Magalhães
Gandavo, _Historia da Provincia Sancta Cruz_ (1576), cap. 10.
[642] His works in the _Dicc. Bibliog._ go from J. 2163 to J. 2475.
Many are, however, single odes, sermons, &c. Other eighteenth-century
sermons worth reading are those of the learned Franciscan Frei
Sebastião de Santo Antonio: _Sermões_, 2 vols. (1779, 84).
[643] Superficially, at least, more than Manuel Caetano de Sousa
(1658-1734) he deserves to be called a _varão encyclopedico_.
[644] He admires Cicero--not only as philosopher and orator but as a
‘sublime poet’! (_O Homem_ (1815), p. 98)--and Seneca, calls Petrarca
immortal, Tasso incomparable, and is generous in his appreciation of
English writers. At about the same time John Keats, as Petrarca five
centuries earlier, was also reading Homer in translation, but in a
somewhat different spirit.
[645] _Newton, Proemio._
[646] In the second edition (1827) he says that this poem, in twelve
cantos and about 1,000 _oitavas_, written with ‘more fire and a purer
light’ than those of Camões, had cost him ‘nine years of assiduous
application’.
[647] Macedo called Bocage _fanfarrão glosador_, and much abuse of the
same kind varied the monotony of _elogio mutuo_.
[648] Such woodenness was unlikely to appreciate El Greco’s pictures.
In the preface to his _Agriparia_ (_Theatro_, vol. v, 1804) he speaks
of _a extravagancia do vaidoso Domenico_, herein following Faria e
Sousa, who calls Theotocopuli the Góngora of painters and adds: _Pero
vale más una llaneza del Ticiano que todas sus extravagancias juntas
por mas que ingeniosas_ (_Fuente de Aganipe Prólogo_, § 37).
[649] Arnaldo Gama, _Um motim ha cem annos_, 3ᵃ ed. (1896), p. 35.
[650] _Theatro Comico Portuguez_, 4 vols. (1759-90), vol. iii.
[651] Ibid., vol. i.
[652] Ibid., vol. ii.
[653] Innocencio da Silva, _Dicc. Bibliog._ vi. 275-85; xvii. 91-3,
gives 217 titles.
[654] Now _Academia das Sciencias de Lisboa_, but it is found
convenient to retain the original title in order to distinguish it from
a more recent (private) institution, the _Academia das Sciencias de
Portugal_.