RODRIGUEZ LOBO.
That Portuguese writers, who, in other instances have shewn themselves so careful in the collection of biographic details, should be almost silent respecting the life of such a poet as Francisco Rodriguez Lobo, is a circumstance only to be explained by one of those sports of fortune, through which in literature, as in life, honour is often withheld from the most deserving, and lavished on the worthless. Rodriguez Lobo was also a poet of noble extraction; but nothing is known respecting the history of his life, except that he was born in the town of Leiria, in Portuguese Estremadura, about the middle of the sixteenth century; that by talent and industry he distinguished himself at the university, and afterwards spent the chief portion of his life in the country; and finally, that, in the passage of the Tagus, he perished in that river which in his poetry he had often celebrated in terms of romantic admiration. His remains were interred in the chapel of a convent not far distant from the spot, where the current of the stream cast his body on shore.210
To no other poet, after Saa de Miranda, Ferreira and Camoens, are the language and literature of Portugal so much indebted as to Rodriguez Lobo, with whom, indeed, the history of Portuguese eloquence may be said to commence. He so highly improved romantic prose in the Portuguese language, and laid so excellent a foundation for a pure prose style, that in endeavouring to attain classic perfection in that department of composition, later writers have merely followed in the same course. His verse is no way inferior to his prose; and with all his classical refinement he was not, like Ferreira, a poet of limited imagination. Of all the Portuguese poets, Rodriguez Lobo is, in every respect, entitled to the place next in rank to Saa de Miranda and Camoens. His great erudition did not prevent him from being completely imbued with poetic natural feeling, and in pictures drawn from the romantic arcadian world his fancy was inexhaustible. It is indeed only where his descriptions have a pastoral colouring that he is perfectly in his poetic sphere. But within that sphere he occasionally draws resources from practical good sense with a degree of adroitness which is displayed by no previous Portuguese poet.
The writings of Rodriguez Lobo are susceptible of three divisions which approximate to each other. To the first belongs his prose work:—“the Court in the Country,” in which no verses are introduced. Three connected pastoral romances form the second and most considerable portion; here the prose is merely a beautiful combining link by which the work is made a whole. The third comprises the author’s miscellaneous poems.
The Corte na Aldea, e Noites de Inverno, (the Court in the Country, and Winter Nights,) is the title of a book, by which Rodriguez Lobo endeavoured to introduce a kind of Ciceronean style into Portuguese prose, and at the same time to furnish a useful guide to the formation of character for public life. The antiquated style of the title is in a certain degree at variance with the classic elegance of the book itself. It is probable that no more in this, than in his other works, would Rodriguez Lobo have avoided the gothic ornaments of which the romantic prose of the Spaniards and Portuguese was never entirely divested, had he not, as a prose writer, been here guided by his favourite Cicero, in whose footsteps he trod. Perhaps he was also acquainted with some Italian works of a similar kind; for at this period the Italian prose writers imitated Cicero; and Il Cortegiano of Castiglione, bears in its subject at least a resemblance to Lobo’s “Court in the Country.” But the direct imitation of Cicero’s style is unquestionably an essential feature in this work. Precisely with the same forms of friendly courtesy, as those which characterize Cicero’s Tusculan and Academic discourses, but with some romantic modifications, Rodriguez Lobo collects around him a party of friends in the country. These friends discourse together concerning the proper education of an elegant man of the world. As conversation occupies the chief portion of the work, the whole is not inappropriately divided into dialogues. Each dialogue has, however, an historical frame work. But even though copying after Cicero’s models, it appears, that Rodriguez Lobo could not, without difficulty, find the path of pure prose composition. The first dialogue opens precisely in the style of an old romance.211 Nevertheless the long sentence with which it commences, bespeaks, by its facility and rhetorical harmony a cultivation of style, which is not discoverable in the works of any earlier Portuguese prose writer. At the same time the reader is still farther charmed by the delicate and sharp outline which is given of the characteristic features of the assembled interlocutors.212 The conversation does not take the turn which might be expected; but the natural colouring of the representation is thus augmented. The degree of cultivation by which these gentlemen are distinguished from the ordinary portion of society, leads them, in the first place, to discourse of literature. One of the party very properly observes, that, the country library of a man of their class, should consist chiefly of works on history, poetry, and practical philosophy. This gives rise to an encomium on the Portuguese language, which at that period had to contend with enemies in its native land, and which was still more vehemently attacked by the Spaniards. Cultivation of language again becomes the subject of discussion in these dialogues; and the epistolary style being considered more important than any other to a gentleman who is to figure in the world, Rodriguez Lobo, through the medium of one of the party, gives a full, and for the age in which it was written, a new treatise of the art of correct letter-writing. Even the external elegance of the letter comes under consideration. The interlocutors then discuss appointments, messages and visits; ornamental hyperboles (encarecimentos); the difference between love and desire; selfishness; social decorum in manners and discourse; social eloquence generally; the art of social anecdote in particular; witty conversation in society; true gallantry (cortesia); education at court, in the army and in the schools. The reader who forms his judgment of this ingenious work, apart from the age in which, and for which, it was written, will probably depreciate its intrinsic merits. Now that the first principles of modern cultivation have become common, the precepts of Rodriguez Lobo will be scorned as trivial by the merest noviciates in politeness; and our students of psychology will feel more inclined to receive instructions from a French observer of mankind of the eighteenth century, than from this Portuguese writer. But in the sixteenth century such a work as the Corte na Aldea could only have been written by a man initiated in the refined manners of his age, and combining a delicate spirit of observation with an extraordinary store of literary knowledge. In Portuguese eloquence it had no prototype. In the descriptive passages only is the style somewhat overcharged with antiquated and pompous phrases. The turns of the dialogue are, like the similar passages in the writings of Cicero, natural and pleasing, though they do not possess the poignant spirit of more recent productions of this kind.213 Where the exposition of the ideas assumes a totally didactic character, the expression is clear, decided and unostentatiously harmonious.214 Upon the whole the prose of Rodriguez Lobo has more of an oratorical character than the modern style of conversation admits; but the romantic tone of chivalrous gallantry in the sixteenth century, produced, even in the conversational style, a certain formality and rounding of long periods, by an influence similar to that which the oratorical prose of the forum exercised at Rome in Cicero’s time, over every species of prosaic composition.
But Rodriguez Lobo’s Corte na Aldea is entitled to honourable distinction, for even something more than its general merits, as the first book in classical prose produced in Portugal. By the anecdotes and tales which are interwoven with the dialogue and didactic passages, it furnished the Portuguese with the first model of light narrative style in their native tongue.215 The letters from the Ciceronean collections, and other ancient and modern works, which Rodriguez Lobo has translated, and introduced as illustrations of his theory of the epistolary style, are likewise very judiciously chosen. Finally, this copious theory of epistolary composition is the first successful attempt at any thing beyond a mere scholastic guide to eloquence in Portuguese literature. Previously to the production of this work, no rhetorical models were known in Portugal, save those of Aristotle, which were transmitted through the second and third hand in so barbarous a form, that a writer found it necessary to forget them in order to learn to express himself without pedantry.
Thus a Portuguese poet was the first who made his countrymen acquainted with the spirit of genuine and elegantly cultivated prose in their native tongue; and, therefore, of all the writings of that poet, the work by which he extended the boundary of the polite literature of his nation, deserves, in the history of that literature, to hold the most conspicuous place. But Rodriguez Lobo ranks still higher among poets than among prose writers, though he neither introduced a new style nor a new form of poetry into Portuguese literature. His three connected pastoral romances, are the most luxuriant blossoms of this old branch of Portuguese poetry. Such a treasure of romantic bucolics as the united works present, is no where else to be found. The prose with which Rodriguez Lobo has incorporated the pastoral poems, can only be regarded as a poetic groundwork. In the present age these romances would not easily find, except in Portugal, and perhaps not even there, a reader possessing sufficient patience to peruse them throughout with attention. Were they even two thirds shorter than they are, their monotony would still be intolerably tiresome except to persons accustomed,—like the polite world of Portugal and Spain, in the time of Rodriguez Lobo,—to pastoralize their joys and sorrows, and to be satisfied with the constant sameness of pastoral composition, if it in some degree flatter the heart and the senses. In describing the subject of this romance, nothing further can be said, than that this or that shepherd and shepherdess occasionally meet, and occasionally separate. The general story unfolds no action which excites particular interest; and as little do the individual descriptions exhibit any character properly fitted for originating action. It may with tolerable certainty be inferred, that the story is a disguised picture of the romantic events of real life, in which the author was engaged. But though the disguises be less mysterious and singular than those of Ribeyro’s old pastoral romance,216 still they present not the slightest attraction for posterity. If Lobo’s pastoral romance be compared with Montemayor’s Diana, the monotony of its subject will be found to be still more striking. However, notwithstanding that monotony, and also some ornamental excrescences of the old romantic kind, this romance well merits literary distinction, on account of the narrative and descriptive parts, which combine the most pleasing polish of language with a poetic tenderness of style, in which Lobo is not surpassed by Montemayor himself. The descriptions of scenery which frequently occur, are in particular remarkable for exquisite touches of romantic simplicity. They are, doubtless, sketched from nature: the scene is invariably laid in Portugal, and the country is sometimes accurately traced out by the rivers.217 But the parts in verse are by far the most beautiful of the whole; and the best of the cantigas and canções which occur in this delicate representation of romantic pastoral life, may be regarded as classic models in their kind.
Primavera (Spring) is the title of the first of Lobo’s pastoral romances. Pastoral images of spring are here exhibited in contrast with the complaints of unhappy love. The inexhaustible fertility which Rodriguez Lobo has evinced in the execution of this contrast, seems totally incredible in this prosaic age; for the same impressions and situations are continually recurring in an ever varied form. A descriptive song of spring, full of cheerfulness, opens the beautiful gallery.218 The spirit of a shepherd, who has been transformed into a fountain, sings the history of his tender passion. Sonnets, canções, tercets, octaves, and redondilhas, are by turns gracefully introduced in the succeeding cantos. Sometimes at the close of these lyric effusions the reader is surprised by ideas, which, however, were in some degree to be expected.219 In general the enthusiasm of love is represented with somewhat less quaintness by Rodriguez Lobo than by Montemayor. When plays of sentiment running through several stanzas turn on a prevailing idea occurring in the last line of each stanza, Lobo, like Montemayor, usually expresses this idea merely by a simple exclamation. These plays of sentiment are also very pleasingly combined with the usual reflections on the perishableness of all earthly things.220 The poetic salutations to nature, which to the poet appeared as though she sympathized with him, present, in this pastoral romance, all the charm of the tenderest simplicity.221 Then again the same melancholy reflections recur in another form.222 In many of these songs, however, the romantic complaints are carried to an excessive prolixity. That which might be sufficiently well expressed in five or six stanzas, sometimes occupies from thirty to forty. Scope is, however, advantageously given to romantic wit in the style of the age, by the poetic questions and answers with which Rodriguez Lobo’s shepherds and shepherdesses occasionally maintain conversation. In this way antiquated quaintness is successfully avoided, while the poetic character of these sportive exercises is carefully preserved. The plays of wit acquire indeed an augmented interest by being combined with a kind of poetic competition. Thus, for example, the question:—Whether love with or without hope be the truest love? is answered in two different songs.223 The question in what degree love and jealousy are allied? receives three answers in three songs.224 Rodriguez Lobo has not been surpassed by any ancient or modern poet in the ingenious simplicity and elegance of these fanciful compositions. But had he been less successful in productions of this class, still the poetic truth, intensity, delicacy and graceful ease of his pastoral cantigas and canções would have entitled him to one of the highest places among the lyric poets of all nations. The reader readily pardons the tedious length of the Primavera, as it could not otherwise include so many lyric poems. Even the antiquated division into Florestas (flower-beds), will not displease, if the exquisite lyric effusions which are scattered through the work, be allowed to represent the flowers. That this romance is arranged in geographical divisions according to the rivers of the district in which the scene is laid, must also be excused, though such a plan may not, perhaps, appear quite congenial with the spirit of romantic poetry.
The other two pastoral romances of Lobo are merely continuations of his Spring, which according to the plan on which it is written, might be protracted to infinity. The first continuation is entitled, O Pastor Peregrino, (the Wandering Shepherd). It is arranged in divisions, which, like the acts of the Spanish comedies, bear the name of jornadas. The second continuation, or the conclusion of the whole romance, is entitled, O Desenganado,225 (the Disenchanted), and its divisions are called discursos (discourses). Here also a rich harvest of lyric flowers charm the reader, though the romance itself becomes even less interesting. Rodriguez Lobo has endeavoured to render this last portion of his romance in a peculiar way instructive. Towards the close, as the events become more romantic, he introduces a portion of his geographical, historical, and physical knowledge. Still sound judgment and a delicate spirit of observation are here manifest.
But Rodriguez Lobo who found only within the boundary or in the vicinity of pastoral poetry the objects and impressions for the poetic representation of which he was destined by nature, was induced to take part with the Portuguese and Spanish poets of his age in the absurd competition for the prize of epopœia. He wrote a work entitled, O Condestabre de Portugal, (the Generalissimo of Portugal), which he intended should be a national epic poem. It is, however, merely a versified biography of the renowned Nuno Alvarez Pereira, whom the Portuguese of that age eulogized with an enthusiasm equal to that with which the Spaniards celebrated their favourite Cid. Rodriguez Lobo has collected with all requisite patience the most remarkable events in the life of his hero. He has arranged them chronologically, dividing the whole into twenty cantos, and the long narrative is written in neat octaves. But all the advantage which a story can impart to a poem is wanting in this tedious work. It is difficult to conceive how a man of Rodriguez Lobo’s poetic taste, could have written verses in this style without being conscious that he was only rhyming historical prose. The imagination has had but little or no share either in the cultivation of the style or the painting of the situations; and the whole work exhibits no trace of poetic invention. But it is soon evident that from beginning to end the author is resolved never to be at variance with historical truth. Thus Rodriguez Lobo purposely repressed his natural poetic feeling in order to conform with the false notions of epic composition, which were at that time firmly established in Spain and Portugal. So much, indeed, was he under the dominion of those notions that he has not had the courage to mingle even as much poetry with his narrative, as the Spaniard Ercilla introduced in his Araucana.226 The few stanzas which Camoens in his Lusiad consecrates to Nuno Alvarez,227 are worth more than the twenty cantos of Lobo’s versified biography. In a philological point of view, however, the composition deserves praise, for the simplicity, correctness and elegance of its language. A gleam of poetic beauty here and there distinguishes some of the descriptive and pathetic passages, and repays the labour of a perusal.
The predilection which Rodriguez Lobo unconsciously and almost exclusively entertained for pastoral poetry, is more than sufficiently proved by the ten eclogues which are included among the works of this poet, independently of the three pastoral romances already noticed. He wished to combine didactic with bucolic poetry. On this idea he has explained himself in a preface to his didactic eclogues. Man, he says, has abandoned the state for which nature destined him, since he has exchanged the quietude of his rural occupations and wishes, for a restless and dissatisfied life by sea and by land. Abel was a shepherd, and all the succeeding patriarchs, on whom God bestowed his favour, devoted themselves to the care of flocks and herds. Amidst rustic occupations the virtues of the ancient Romans were fostered; and there have arisen in the pastoral state many great men who have been called to fill thrones. Country life must therefore be regarded as the only natural state of existence, and consequently it is that state to which all the precepts of morality have reference. Thus poetry cannot be more suitably combined with morality than through the medium of pastoral composition. It is therefore nothing surprising that the discourse of shepherds should be the vehicle of practical philosophy. The shepherd in his smock-frock has not less correct notions of virtue and vice than the courtier and man of the world. But poetry is, generally speaking, merely the clothing of truth.228 According to these principles which may be regarded as a portion of the Portuguese art of poetry in the sixteenth century, Rodriguez Lobo chose for his didactic eclogues, a particular moral point of view. The first is directed against rudeness and ignorance; the second against hatred and envy; the third against avarice. In like manner each of the remaining eclogues censures some particular vice, and the censure is conveyed in a style of rural gentleness, while the opposite virtue is recommended by pleasing images. The simple morality which Rodriguez Lobo puts into the mouths of his shepherds is certainly not unnatural in their situation. Far removed also as the critic may be from the scholastic prejudices which formed the basis of the poetic art of the sixteenth century, and which would render poetry a mere robe for morality, still it is impossible entirely to reject the idea of this species of didactic eclogue. But such a homely morality, in union with pastoral poetry, could possess poetic interest, only at a time when the commonest remarks on moral relations, if divested of theological and monastic forms of expression, had all the charm of novelty. In the present age, however, when philosophy has long nourished poetry with more invigorating aliment, the didactic eclogues of Rodriguez Lobo cannot claim any particular favour among readers, who justly require that morality should not directly mix in the business of poetry, when it has nothing new to tell.
The works of Rodriguez Lobo, also include about a hundred romances, which, with the exception of a few, are written in Spanish. The first half contributed nothing to the advancement of Portuguese literature. It consists of fifty-six occasional poems in redondilhas, which are all pompous salutations of Philip III. who in the year 1619 visited his Portuguese dominions. Such occasional poems were at the period denominated romances. But the works of Rodriguez Lobo conclude with some real romances in the old spirit and style, which cast a new light on that part of Portuguese literature. They prove, that which more ancient data leave doubtful, namely, that the epic or heroic romance, which in Castile is as old as the Castilian language, was never completely naturalized in Portugal.229 The narrative romances in particular, the subjects of which are borrowed from the history of Moorish knights and ladies, and in which Spanish poetry is so profusely rich, seem only to have found their way into Portugal from Spain, and never to have been perfectly congenial with the national taste of the Portuguese. This kind of romance seems indeed to be essentially attached to the Castilian language. It appears that in the age of Rodriguez Lobo, the Spaniards made it a reproach to the Portuguese that they wanted the talent necessary for inventing these romances. Rodriguez Lobo, who was a zealous patriot, wrote a whole series, but only with the view of ridiculing this species of composition which appeared to him too vain-glorious. In an introductory romance he apostrophizes the romancistas (romance writers) of his native country. He conjures them, instead of continuing to plunder the Spanish language, to soar to distinction by means of originality, since where there were so many pens, wings could not be wanting. He begs them to observe, that the laurel tree on Parnassus had been completely stripped, since to every Spanish romancist a whole branch had been assigned as a garland.230 He adds, that they might roam to the Alhambra and the Alpuxarra in quest of the fair ladies Daraja and Celinda, Adalifa and Celidaxa.231 Lobo follows up this satirical address with a considerable number of Spanish romances of his own composition, apparently with the view of proving how easy it is to write such pieces. Indeed to a poet of Rodriguez Lobo’s talent it certainly could not be difficult to produce an exaggerated imitation of the style of the Spanish national romance. But such extravagant imitation will not deprive the best of those romances of the merit which they really possess. Lobo seems purposely to have introduced among these compositions, some pastoral romances in the Portuguese language; as if it were not as easy and even easier to ridicule pastoral poetry; or as if an exuberance of pastoral poetry were to be a proof that Portuguese literature could well dispense with the beautiful epic romance.
Rodriguez Lobo laid the foundation of that excessive accumulation of pastoral poetry, existing in the Portuguese language. He exerted his utmost endeavours to fix the taste of the nation in that direction. Before he appeared, the poetic genius of the Portuguese earnestly and zealously sought distinction in different ways. But after the period in which Rodriguez Lobo flourished, the Portuguese poets evinced an exclusive predilection for the pastoral style, even in other classes of poetic composition.
STATE OF PORTUGUESE ELOQUENCE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
Though Portuguese poetry had now attained a degree of consideration which in the following century it was unable to surpass, eloquence, or the elegant literature of prose remained far behind. That no writer of talent should have produced a work in Portuguese prose, which in a rhetorical point of view is worthy to mark an epoch, may in some respects be accounted for by peculiar circumstances, and must in others be attributed merely to the caprice of chance. The same restrictions on intellectual freedom, which in Portugal so effectually opposed the full developement of pure eloquence, had likewise held captive the thinking faculty in Spain. In Spain, however, a few, but still some men of talent, who pretended to no distinction in poetry, learned to move, even in their fetters, with rhetorical freedom and dignity, and there was nothing to prevent the occurrence of similar instances at an equally early period in Portugal. But it appears, that the Portuguese authors who had no ambition to be poets, were not endowed with the true talent for cultivating the art of rhetorical representation, and that the poets were too much engaged with their own art, to take any particular interest in the improvement of any other branch of polite literature. With the single exception of Rodriguez Lobo, whose Corte na Aldea afforded in Portugal the first example how a poet could elevate the language of common life, without confounding the boundaries of poetry and elegant prose, no Portuguese poet of the sixteenth century in any way contributed to the cultivation of eloquence; and the period when Rodriguez Lobo enjoyed his utmost celebrity was not earlier than the commencement of the seventeenth century. Now the Portuguese language was then, as the loud complaint of Lobo sufficiently proves, frequently denied, even in Portugal, any claim to the possession of that accuracy and elegance, without which poetry, deficient merely in cultivation, might indeed exist, but which is indispensably necessary to prose composition, when it is to be elevated above the formal style of ceremony, and the negligent expression of common life. Thus it seems to have happened that some Portuguese historians and moralists, who, even in the first half of the sixteenth century, had actually formed their style to a certain extent on the ancient models, still unconsciously fell into the rude manner of the chronicle and monastic prose. In Spain elegant prose was afforded the opportunity of an earlier developement, for the national pride of the Castilians had at all times powerfully protected the Castilian language; and men of learning who entertained a different opinion had not the deciding voice.232
ROMANCES AND NOVELS.
The novel style was at this period not more prejudicial to true eloquence in Portugal than in Spain. Every reader, however, unconscious of any theoretical reasoning on such subjects, regarded the romances and novels which were now profusely circulated as scions from the old stock of the national poetry. They were judged according to poetic laws; while fictitious events in forms wholly prosaic, would have been justly declared counterfeit. But the Portuguese attributed to themselves the peculiar merit of ingenious invention, and of an excellent, if not a perfect, style in the relation of romantic events. Palmerin de Oliva, which next to Amadis de Gaul, Cervantes spares in his judgment on romances of chivalry, was written by Francisco de Moràes, a Portuguese courtier and man of the world; and it has already been mentioned, that even Amadis, in its original form, is considered to have been the production of a Portuguese.233 Francisco de Moràes lived in the reign of John III. and he visited the French court in the suite of the Portuguese ambassador. This visit may have contributed to nurture his taste for romances of chivalry, which were then greatly in favour with people of rank in France.
SA SOTOMAYOR.
Many other Portuguese romances of different kinds were produced in the sixteenth century. The prize awarded to Rodriguez Lobo, as author of the most celebrated pastoral romance, had already been an object of ambition with Eloy de Sà Sotomayor, whose Ribeiras do Mondego, (Banks of the Mondego),234 was not, however, so early known as Lobo’s work. From the preface to the Ribeiras, it is quite evident that Rodriguez Lobo had, according to the fashion of the age, introduced into his pastoral romances a disguised picture of affairs of love which personally interested himself. Sà Sotomayor, who was also a bachelor of canon law, was considered one of the most successful rivals of Rodriguez Lobo, in romantic composition. But as a poet, he was in every respect far inferior. His narrative and descriptive styles are not destitute of grace.235 His verses, however, cannot bear comparison with those of Lobo: and even his most natural pictures of sentiment are deficient in novelty of idea and ingenious simplicity.236
PIRES DE REBELLO.
Among the Portuguese chivalric romances, which were so assiduously read in the sixteenth century, may be numbered A Constante Florinda, (the Constant Florinda) of Gaspar Pires de Rebello, who was likewise the author of some short didactic novels, (novelas exemplares) which were published about the period at which Cervantes enriched Spanish literature with tales of a totally different standard, though bearing the same title.237 Rebello entertained a very high opinion of the usefulness of his novels;238 but his inventions are common place; and his unceasing display of mythological learning is as affected as are many of his similies and images.239
PROGRESS OF THE HISTORICAL ART.
But the historical works which were written in the Portuguese language in the sixteenth century, are more important to the lover of literature, as well as the politician, than the other compositions in prose which have just been noticed. In Portugal, as well as in Spain, relations of real events had long been completely distinguished from romantic prose. But before the old chronicle style could become entirely obsolete, it was necessary that the old chronicle spirit should yield to the nobler spirit of historic art; and to this in that age, with all its great events, there was little inducement in Portugal. The ancient classic historians were, it is true, read and studied; but when Portuguese writers attempted to imitate them, they at most only succeeded in producing some resemblance to their force of description, and in a certain degree to their elegance of expression, but failed altogether in the arrangement of events according to the just idea of historical utility, and in the delicacy of the shades of an historical picture. Indeed the rude spirit of the chronicles seemed then to belong no less essentially to the narration of modern events, than the rhyme and the metres of romantic verse to modern poetry. He who felt himself called to be the historian of his native country, necessarily endeavoured to render himself no less intimate with the old chronicles than with classic authors; and, if, fully imbued with his subject, he took up the thread of the narrative where an earlier chronicler had dropped it, he unconsciously fell into the style of that chronicler. Had fate transplanted for several years to Italy, and placed in a sphere of political and literary activity, a Portuguese possessing the talent and energy of Diego de Mendoza, he would probably, like that distinguished Spaniard, have there learned to compose an historical work according to justly conceived ideas of historical art, independently of the influence of the chronicles.240 But in India, to which at that time all Portuguese subjects who wished to rise in the service of their country eagerly hastened, it was not to be expected that a historian could be formed. Still, however, the historical literature of the Portuguese of the sixteenth century, when considered with reference to its rhetorical character, possesses a degree of interest which the elegant compilations of later historians cannot excite. The men who at that memorable epoch, either from their own inclination, or as Cronistas in the service of the government, related the history of their native country, and more particularly of the Portuguese discoveries and conquests, were inspired with ardent national feeling, and that feeling they communicated to their works. Their narratives have character. The manner in which that character displays itself, is doubtless too prominent in cases in which the national interests come into conflict with claims of foreign powers. But an endeavour to preserve historical fidelity, is in general observable in the works of these writers. To confound them with the common chroniclers would be doing them great injustice. They earnestly endeavoured to introduce into their narratives as much of the style of the ancient classics as could be united with the style of the chronicle; and the remote traces of that historical art in which they were deficient are to be recognized in their works. It was not so much their object to string facts together, as to combine remarkable events as far as they were able, under one practical point of view.
JOAÕ DE BARROS.
The events of India formed the favourite theme of many of the Portuguese Cronistas of the sixteenth century. At the head of these industrious writers stands Joaõ de Barros, whose name is not altogether unknown in literature, beyond the boundaries of his native land. In the early part of the sixteenth century he was distinguished by his talents and acquirements among the young men of rank, who were educated at the court of Emanuel the Great. At this period he seems to have applied himself with particular delight to the study of the Roman historians, and in particular of Livy. In his twenty-first year he produced a romance of chivalry. King Emanuel, who on reading this romance thought that he perceived in the youthful author a talent for historical composition, commissioned him to draw up an account of the oriental discoveries and conquests of the Portuguese. Barros immediately prepared for the commencement of his arduous task; the execution of which was, however, delayed for some time in consequence of the death of King Emanuel. But he was speedily solicited by King John III. not to relinquish his design, and, as an encouragement, was invested with the lucrative but troublesome post of Treasurer to the Indian department (Caza da India). Without neglecting the duties of this office, Barros indefatigably collected materials for his great historical work, which he commenced and continued with unremitting activity until a short time previous to his decease. He died in the year 1570, at the age of seventy-four. The Portuguese have surnamed him their Livy. His historical labours sufficiently prove that he did not study Livy in vain, and though he cannot justly claim a place near that historian, yet are his labours well deserving of an ample notice in the history of Portuguese literature.
The celebrated work of Joaõ de Barros is entitled “Asia, or the Atchievements which the Portuguese performed in the Discovery and Conquest of the Seas and Lands of the Orient.241” The books are, like those of Livy’s works, distributed into decades. These decades are four in number, and each makes a moderately sized folio volume. In this work Barros, though he embraces only the most brilliant portion of Portuguese history, has pursued an idea similar to that which governed Livy, for he constantly endeavours to illustrate and render self-evident the greatness of the Portuguese name, as Livy does the majesty of the Roman people. Whether national pride may not sometimes have seduced him into violations of historical truth, is a question which the historian of eloquence cannot be required to investigate.242 This Portuguese Livy has to a certain degree approached the excellence of his model in the art of historical description. His language is sometimes not merely elegant; but the pictures he draws exhibit an unaffected charm of intuitive representation. These descriptions are neither disfigured by pompous phrases nor poetic excrescences; and they still possess a lively internal spirit as well when rural or urbane scenery is depicted,243 as when military events are represented.244 But passages thus distinguished for rhetorical beauty are only occasionally to be found in the works of Barros. His narrative style is, upon the whole, merely the old chronicle style, with the diction somewhat more elevated; and even his diction abounds in expressions which were beginning to grow antiquated at the period when he wrote. The practice of commencing several sentences in succession by the conjunction and, in the manner of the old chronicles, is not uncommon in the writings of Barros. But he seldom attains the real flexibility of the long, yet harmoniously articulated sentences of Livy. Barros sometimes very happily inculcates his practical views by speeches in the manner of the ancients, which under certain circumstances he introduces as delivered by the Public, in order to express in the most natural way all that can be said for and against certain enterprises; such, for example, as the continual fitting out, under the auspices of Prince Henry, so celebrated in the history of discoveries of vessels, for the further exploring of the new passage to India.245 Speeches by individuals, though seldom, are for the most part not inappropriately introduced; but the insipid style of the chronicles is then very unseasonably retained.246 Least of all did Barros understand the drawing of character; and in this respect the difference between the Roman and the Portuguese Livy is most striking. The monkish point of view in which this author, like every other of his age in Portugal and Spain, regarded the faults and excellencies of human character, rendered any thing like natural portraiture impossible. An ancient Roman observer of human nature would not, for instance, have deduced the courtesy and gentleness of Prince Henry, the encourager of navigation, from the purity of that prince’s soul, with an intimation that such a conclusion was to be drawn because he was held to be truly virginal.247 In the spirit of his age, Barros seizes every opportunity for putting forward his catholic opinions, though the result is by no means to the advantage of his historical work.
LOPEZ DE CASTANHEDA—DAMIAÕ DE GÓES—AFFONSO D’ALBOQUERQUE.
In order to form a correct estimate of the rhetorical merit of Barros, with reference to the age in which he lived, it is necessary to compare his historical works with others which were written in Portugal at the same period and on the same subjects. In this comparison Barros will be found to shine forth as a light of superior lustre. With equal patriotism and industry, and with a greater sacrifice of his own interest, Fernaõ Lopez de Castanheda composed his history of the discovery and conquest of India by the Portuguese: a narrative of events, which, though compendious in form, exhibits the most laborious accuracy in the investigation of facts.248 But whatever may be the historical merit of this work, it is, as to rhetorical character, merely a common chronicle. The diffuse chronicle of King Emanuel, which was about this period edited by Damiaõ de Góes, is also interesting only to the historian.
The life of the great Affonso d’Alboquerque, composed by his son, Affonso d’Alboquerque, the younger, is a biographical chronicle, which may be placed on a parallel with the works entitled, Histories, which have just been noticed.249 No historical work enjoys greater esteem in Portuguese literature: and that a father so celebrated, should have found so worthy a narrator of his atchievements in his son, certainly was not a thing easily to be anticipated. But in the scale of rhetorical merit, these Commentaries, as the work is usually denominated, weigh but lightly. The language may be said to be pure, but the style is monotonous; and upon the whole it is merely a repetition of the old chronicle style.250
BERNARDO DE BRITO.
Bernardo de Brito, a Portuguese historian, who lived in the latter end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries, possessed a far higher degree of historical cultivation. He was educated at Rome, and was master of several modern languages. He devoted himself to the ecclesiastical profession, but in the cloister he followed his predilection for Portuguese history; and as authorized Cronista of his convent, he undertook the arduous task of writing a complete history of the Portuguese monarchy. He died in the year 1617, in the forty-seventh year of his age, without having attained the object to which he honourably aspired. But, notwithstanding his early death, he might have succeeded in completing the history of his native country, had not the plan on which he proceeded placed that object beyond his reach. The idea of a history of the Portuguese monarchy, would have been properly fulfilled by commencing with the foundation of that monarchy, and in an introduction only, referring back somewhat beyond the eleventh century. But Bernardo de Brito contemplated the execution of a work of much greater magnitude. His Monarchia Lusitana was intended to be a complete history of the country, now called Portugal, from the most remote antiquity down to the latest period.251 The ancient history of Portugal was with him a favourite part of his subject. It is probable that he wished his history to rank as a companion to the Spanish work of Florian de Ocampo, who in the reign of Charles V. commenced on a similar plan, a history of the Spanish monarchy from the time of the flood.252 Brito, however, did not think that period sufficiently remote, but chose to start from the creation of the world. Whatever particulars are furnished by ancient authors, concerning Lusitania and the Lusitanians of the earliest ages, he has collected, examined, and arranged in historical connection. But a thick folio volume, which includes the four first books, brings the history no further than the birth of Christ; and towards the end of the second volume, where the history of modern Portugal commences, the work breaks off. Had it been completed, still it would not have been an easy matter to have brought the numerous notices respecting Portuguese antiquities, which Brito has introduced, under a point of view whereby they might have formed an appropriate union with the heterogeneous events of modern history. But the work is eminently distinguished for style and descriptive talent. The ingenious author seems like many other eminent persons of his age to have derived particular advantage from his residence in Italy. Without deteriorating by laborious polish, the vigorous style which is indispensable to historical composition, he gives even dry narratives of facts in a manner totally different from the compilers of the old chronicles; and where the internal interest of the subject animates the description, Brito’s historical pictures possess an impressive effect, which marks the pupil of the ancient classic writers.253
Brito’s preface, in which he gives an account of the spirit and plan of his history of the Portuguese monarchy, merits attention. He observes that even his own countrymen advised him to write his work, if not in Latin or Italian, at least in Spanish, in order to afford it an opportunity of being read beyond the confines of Portugal, and also for the sake of avoiding the vulgarity into which his native tongue might betray him.254 Thus, even in Portugal, during the sixteenth century, notwithstanding the progress made by Portuguese literature, the detractors of the Portuguese language must have been exceedingly numerous, since their conduct is so frequently a subject of complaint with patriotic writers. Brito was one of the patriots who most loudly expressed his indignation against that anti-national party. The Portuguese language, he says, has fallen into disrepute only because Portugal cherishes “ungrateful sons, like poisonous vipers.”255 He expresses his regret, that though possessing a little better knowledge of his native language, he could not write in the most brilliant style, which is only to be done when the author bestows greater attention on elegance of expression than on the veracity of facts, which is unworthy of a true historian.256
A smaller historical work by Bernardo de Brito, from its title of Elogios dos reys de Portugal, (Eulogies on the Kings of Portugal) seems to promise to the historian of eloquence a kind of rhetorical memoires, from which not a little might be expected. But these eulogies are brief and dull notices, and scarcely afford groundwork for biographical sketches. They are merely intended to illustrate the copper-plate portraits of the kings of Portugal, which are included in the work.257
The travels of Fernaõ Mendez Pinto,258 may also be numbered among the works written in cultivated Portuguese prose, which appeared during the sixteenth century. It seems to have been the first book of travels, the author of which bestowed labour on narrative and descriptive style.
The cultivation of the other departments of prosaic composition appears to have been at this period very much neglected in Portugal. Some moral treatises, written by the historian Barros, in the dialogue form, perhaps merit to be again brought into notice.259 A Panegyrico by the same author on an Infanta Maria, has also the reputation of being eloquently written.
An art of poetry and rhetoric composed on practical principles, and calculated to convey useful instruction, was not to be expected while writers had still sufficient difficulty in the preliminary study of the grammatical rules and purity of diction. To facilitate the acquisition of both, Nunez de Liaõ wrote his book on the origin of the Portuguese language, and his introduction to Portuguese orthography.260
CHAP. III.
HISTORY OF PORTUGUESE POETRY AND ELOQUENCE,
FROM THE LATTER YEARS OF THE SIXTEENTH
CENTURY UNTIL TOWARDS THE CLOSE OF THE
SEVENTEENTH.
Decay of the ancient national energy in Portuguese Literature.
At the end of the sixteenth century the most brilliant period of Portuguese poetry had passed away. A new epoch did not, it is true, commence; for the style of invention and composition which during that century was introduced, continued essentially unaltered. The influence which the fantastic school of the Gongorists produced, in the first half of the seventeenth century, on most of the Portuguese writers, did not entirely repress the cultivation of the better style.261 But the proper place to form a resting point in the account of the second period of the polite literature of Portugal is the present, for here genius ceased to advance, and dextrous talent merely traded on the stock which the sixteenth century had bequeathed. According to the plan of a history, in which it is intended to describe circumstantially, only the progress of poetic and rhetorical genius and taste, the account of Portuguese poetry and eloquence in the seventeenth century must therefore form merely a summary appendix to the preceding chapters.
At the commencement of the present book it was remarked, that the loss of independence experienced by the kingdom of Portugal, was attended with no immediate injury to Portuguese literature. The Spanish language could obtain no higher consideration in Portugal than it already enjoyed. The humbled national pride took pleasure in the courageous defence of the national language, and the Castilian tongue only served to remind the patriotic Portuguese of the ignominious occupation of his country. But several circumstances concurred to limit poetic genius in Portugal to a somewhat monotonous continuation of the old style in a few branches of poetic composition, while in Spain dramatic poetry, full of national boldness, rapidly advanced in the career of well merited fame. That fate had denied a Lope de Vega to the Portuguese language is not sufficient to account for this contrast, the Spanish would still have been banished from the stage in Portugal, had a Portuguese national theatre vied with that of Spain. In that case the competition of numerous poets would, perhaps, have ensured the cultivation of dramatic composition in the language of the country, which, since the death of Gil Vicente, had been neglected. But even Gil Vicente, as has been already observed, wrote his first drama in Spanish; and in his subsequent works he interspersed the Spanish with the Portuguese language, as if he felt that the latter was not of itself fitted to supply dialogue throughout the whole of a dramatic performance. The genuine Portuguese comedies of Saa de Miranda and Antonio Ferreira were by no means sufficiently national to excite the imitation of a poet who might wish to produce an effect upon the great body of the Portuguese public. Meanwhile the comedies of Lope de Vega found their way into Portugal, and since that period this class of comedy seemed to require the Spanish language to render it perfect. In the seventeenth century, many Spanish comedies were written by Portuguese authors; and the Portuguese poets who adhered to their mother tongue, sought another sphere. During the sixty years in which there was no court in Lisbon, Portuguese poetry withdrew entirely within the circle of private relations. The lyric forms of romantic love, with a supplemental supply of the favourite amatory pastoral poetry, and of versified jests of various kinds, seemed fully to satisfy the public. That the spirit of vigorous emulation should so suddenly have vanished among the Portuguese poets, would, however, be inconceivable, were it not that in Spain about the same period, every species of poetic composition, except dramatic poetry, which flowed like an impetuous torrent, remained stationary at the point at which it stood in the beginning of the seventeenth century. Both the Spaniards and the Portuguese felt the paralyzing influence of the political relations of their deeply humiliated countries; and in both nations despotism, spiritual and temporal, finally overthrew the power which had long kept it in equipoise. Even in Portugal, therefore, the restoration of the independence of the kingdom in the year 1640, though it excited new ebullitions of patriotism, could produce no new freedoms in poetry.
PORTUGUESE SONNETS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
In the history of Portuguese poetry, the seventeenth century may be called the Age of Sonnets. Lyric art in the old national syllabic metres was entirely abandoned in serious poetry. The composition of sonnets formed the particular recommendation of the man of the world in the circle of polite society; and both in spiritual and temporal affairs, sonnets were resorted to as the means of extricating their authors from difficulty. It would almost appear that at this period poetic merit in Portugal was estimated solely by the inexhaustible facility which an author displayed in the composition of these trifles. To acquire the title of a poet certainly nothing more was necessary than to write a few sonnets not absolutely contemptible. Thus, in the year 1631, when the number of printed Portuguese sonnets was increasing by thousands, Jacinto Cordeiro,262 a minute calculator of the poetic fame of his nation, added a supplement of thirty-eight names of Portuguese bards to the list of Spanish and Portuguese poets, which Lope de Vega had furnished in his celebrated Laurel de Apolo.263 Doubtless this erroneous estimate of the poetic glory of the nation contributed to check the growth of talent which might have taken a loftier flight, had not a few neatly turned sonnets been sufficient in public opinion, to confer on any individual all the fame of a poet. The limits of a general history of modern poetry are too narrow to afford room for a detailed notice of these sonneteers; a particular account can, therefore, only be given of a few of the most celebrated among them, who were also the authors of other poetical works, or who in any way assisted in improving or deteriorating the literary taste of their country.264
FARIA E SOUSA.
Manoel de Faria e Sousa who has been so repeatedly mentioned in the course of the present volume, and who has not been passed by unnoticed in the history of Spanish poetry,265 exercised an important influence on the poetry of the Portuguese sonneteers, particularly in the first half of the seventeenth century. Possessing uncommon faculties, which were early disclosed, and early perverted, he distinguished himself while yet a youth by his extraordinary talents and powers of memory. In the year 1605, he participated, in quality of secretary, in the official duties of one of his relations, under whom he received the education fitting for a statesman. But neither his talents and acquirements, nor his connection with the most distinguished families of his native country, having conducted him to an object commensurate with his diligence and ambition, he quitted Portugal and visited Madrid. Though he did not realize all his expectations in the Spanish capital, he was not entirely neglected. He obtained a post in an embassy to Rome; and on his return to Madrid he found at least a tolerable source of subsistence. Still, however, he continued dissatisfied with his income, and on that account his pen was in constant activity. He himself states that he daily wrote twelve sheets, each page containing thirty lines. He possessed so great a facility in rhetorical turns and flourishes, that in the space of a single day he could compose a hundred addresses of congratulation and condolence, all sufficiently different from each other. As an author both in verse and in prose, he continued to labour with unabated assiduity to the period of his death, which happened in the year 1649.266 A considerable portion of his numerous works will preserve his name in honourable recollection; but the value of that portion greatly depends on the subjects it embraces. They belong to the department of history and statistics, but they are all written in Spanish, and therefore cannot with propriety be farther noticed in the history of Portuguese literature. Faria e Sousa’s poems are also chiefly in Spanish; he wrote only sonnets and eclogues in Portuguese versez.267 Of the six hundred, or to use his own phrase, “the six centuries” of sonnets, which, as it appears he selected for posterity out of a still greater number, precisely two hundred are Portuguese. Some of these compositions merit the praise which Faria e Sousa’s admirers have lavished on them all;268 and the whole collection is animated by a buoyant spirit, which soars above ordinary and moderate elegance. But this spirit could not long accommodate itself to sound poetic judgment, nor to the old simplicity and natural flow of ideas and images. Without intentionally becoming an imitator of the Italian Marinists, the Spanish Gongorists, or the school of Lope de Vega, Faria e Sousa revelled in bold flights of fancy, like Lope de Vega, and indulged in eccentric extravagancies like the Marinists and Gongorists. The poetic flowers in his sonnets are overgrown by luxuriant parasitical weeds. In the first Century of the sonnets in the Portuguese language love is the only theme. The introductory sonnet announces that they are intended to celebrate the “penetrating shafts of love, which were shot from a pair of heavenly eyes, and which after inflicting immortal wounds, issued triumphant from the poet’s breast.”269 This style pervades the whole collection. In one place a tender swain, named Menalio, forbids the satyres of the wood to steep their feet in the brook which has served as a bath to the fair Albania, that “morning-star, who in the depth of the water is the first of suns, where the sun himself is dazzled.”270 On another occasion the poet complains of the “bitter taste he experiences in his mouth,” when he describes his pain to his mistress.271 Sometimes it is scarcely possible to guess the meaning of these romantic conceits. But this style of poetic composition was by the admirers of Faria e Sousa denominated the ingenious and the tender style. The principal sonnets in the second Century pursue the same theme of romantic love, but they are sometimes so charming that the beauty of the successful passages, nearly throws into shade the distortions by which even that beauty is more or less alloyed.272 Among the moral sonnets in this Century there are several which, though not abounding in ingenious ideas, are nevertheless expressive pictures of sentiment.273 The sonetos sacros (spiritual sonnets), with which the collection closes, are, however, destitute of all trace of poetic merit. Whatever deserves to be pointed out as remarkable in the twelve Portuguese eclogues of Faria e Sousa, may with propriety be included in the notice respecting the degree of merit which this industrious writer possessed as a poetic theorist.
Faria e Sousa is the author of three treatises; the first, “On the sonnet;” the second, “On the erroneous notions of the moderns concerning poetry;” and the third, “On pastoral poetry.” These works must not be overlooked in the history of the literary taste of Portugal, since theoretical prolusions of this kind by poetic writers, supplied the place of a detailed art of poetry in Portuguese literature. All these treatises are written in the Spanish language.274 The first, which is entitled Discurso de los Sonetos, is in itself insignificant. It merely contains a few scanty notices on the history of sonnet poetry, and some trifling observations hastily thrown together on the appropriateness of the sonnet metre in Spanish and Portuguese poetry. But towards the close of the treatise Faria e Sousa advances a very wide principle, which is exceedingly convenient for him in its application to his peculiar style of composition. One certainly must not, he says, grant absolution for excrescences and licences in poetry, from the notion that elegant language is of less importance than bold and beautiful ideas; but it is not to be forgotten “that a great man may sometimes do what he pleases, and that it is a great crime to call him to account for so doing, more particularly when those by whom he is called to account are pigmies in knowledge and judgment.”275 That Faria e Sousa ranked himself in the class of great men is a circumstance which admits of no doubt. In his second treatise (Contra la opinion moderna acerca lo que es poesia) he has more clearly explained the nature of the ideas which in his opinion are more to be esteemed in poetry than elegant words. In the first place he applies the just principle that language does not make a poet in so loose and perverted a manner as to imply that correct versification is but of little importance. He then reasons again on a just principle most inconsistently, concerning the essence of poetry. He first observes that the essence of poetry as little consists in fine phrases and even in grand ideas, as in deep knowledge or in polished verse, (versos muy peinados). He next makes this assertion,—“the only things required in poetry are invention, imagery, pathos, and a display of every kind of knowledge.”276 Considered in this point of view, he admits Marino to be far inferior to Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Dante, Ariosto, and similar poets. But then Torquato Tasso is scarcely a poet worth naming; for in Tasso’s poetry there is but little learning, little invention, and a common style of composition. Tasso is in his opinion a second Lucan, and nothing more; a historian indeed, but no poet. Finally, he complains that allegory, which he regards as particularly necessary to the beauty of a great poem, is totally wanting in Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered. Faria e Sousa seems to have picked up in Italy the opinions which form the groundwork of his vituperation of Tasso and his Jerusalem. Having ceased to rail against Tasso, he proceeds to declaim concerning poetry in a series of paragraphs, which plainly shew that he was totally deficient in clearness of ideas on the subject. Six of these paragraphs, in immediate succession, commence with such phrases as the following:—“He understands nothing of the matter;” or more briefly, “he is a fool,” (es necio); or “he is an absolute fool (es totalmente necio) who supposes,” &c. or “it is a proof of perfect ignorance,” (purissima ignorancia); or “it is a proof of a total want of knowledge of poetry to assert,” &c. And yet after all these rude sallies against a party which perhaps did no more than earnestly resist his attacks on correctness of ideas and language, he comes at last merely to this conclusion, that a writer of great genius must not be restrained by trifles, and that in his poetry he need only avoid singularity, coarseness and unintelligibility.
In a general history of literature any particular notice of these half true, but mainly trivial declamations, would be quite unnecessary, had not this author been for a considerable period revered as a critical oracle in Portugal.277 The absurd conversion of the pastoral style into a mere poetic figure was among other faults of Portuguese poetry, methodically favoured and confirmed by the fallacious theories of Faria e Sousa. The earlier Portuguese poets who availed themselves of this inappropriate freedom merely followed a custom which had accidentally arisen. After transforming all sorts of occasional poems into eclogues, they at least endeavoured to give these factitious eclogues a pastoral character. But Faria e Sousa having formed a perverted judgment on pastoral poetry, proceeded in conformity with that judgment to exhibit various kinds of completely disfigured eclogues. In his treatise on his own pastoral poems, he theoretically praises himself for never having attempted any species of poetic composition on which he did not confer some novelty. He was accordingly less scrupulous than the eclogue writers who had preceded him, in introducing into such poems characters from the great and polite world. It seems with him to be sufficient that the scene shall always be in the country. He composed, however, a few eclogues in the true spirit and style of pastoral life. He likewise endeavoured to introduce into pastoral poetry more of action and interesting incident than is usually exhibited in that species of composition, so that in this respect some of his eclogues are brought into comparison with serious comedies. According to these and similar principles, Faria e Sousa distinguished his love eclogues (eglogas amorosas,) from hunting eclogues (venatorias), sea-faring eclogues (maritimas), properly pastoral or rather rustic eclogues (rusticas), funeral eclogues (funebres), and other modifications of similar description. In pursuance of his theory he recognized even arbitrator eclogues (arbitrarias), monastic eclogues (monasticos), critical eclogues (criticas), genealogical eclogues (genealogicas), hermit eclogues (eremiticas), and finally, as a particular species, fantastical eclogues (fantasticas), the theme of which is a prophetic vision. Of all these styles he has given specimens according to his own fancy. The same confusion of ideas on which his art of poetry is founded, and the same search after the uncommon at the expense of sound judgment, pervades the whole of this collection of eclogues. The beautiful idea which pastoral poetry presents was completely lost in the way in which Faria e Sousa viewed it. He attached but little importance to the representation of a poetic rural life, and still less to ideal simplicity, his wish being to sport, after his own manner, in bucolic forms, with crude conceits, affected pathos, and extravagant images. His rustic eclogues are, it is true, sufficiently rural, but not in the style of Saa de Miranda, who with the most delicate art gave a poetic dignity to rustic manners. Faria e Sousa’s shepherds are absolute clowns; and he accordingly makes them discourse in a kind of low Portuguese, one half of which is unintelligible to foreigners unacquainted with the rudest dialect of the peasantry of Portugal.278