Faria e Sousa crowned his efforts towards the literary cultivation of his age by a diffuse commentary on the works of Camoens,—a production more calculated to obscure than to illustrate the original. This commentary is written in Spanish.279 The value of the historical portion would be greatly enhanced, were it separated from the critical, so that the latter might be rejected and only the former retained. But the historical data which Faria e Sousa has collected for the elucidation of Camoens’s poems, and particularly the Lusiad, are everywhere interwoven with the critical paraphrase of the text, and that paraphrase is so overloaded with a mass of erudition not merely superfluous, but totally unconnected with the subject, that in the present age, a reader of the works of Camoens, might be enabled to estimate the extent of his admiration of the poet by the degree of patience with which he peruses the labours of this commentator. Faria e Sousa has furnished a new example of the little profit to be derived from critical investigation, by a man who does not commence with a mind rightly cultivated for such a study. His admiration of Camoens contributes nothing to the improvement of his own poetic talent, for he always forces his own perverted views into Camoens’s poetry.
The esteem which Faria e Sousa obtained in Portuguese literature, must have contributed not a little to promote the endless rhyming of sonnets, and to impede the developement of the loftier style of poetry in Portugal. The false liberality of his critical code proved very convenient for the sonneteers, who experienced but little difficulty in exhibiting the qualities which that critic required in their compositions; and the unreasonable severity with which he treated Tasso was calculated to seduce every eccentric sonneteer into the conceit that he was himself something more than a Tasso. The pretensions of Faria e Sousa were not, however, universally recognized on the Portuguese Parnassus. Even in the composition of sonnets, some of the principal Portuguese poets of the seventeenth century followed the more pure and elevated style of Camoens. But no one thought of avoiding the faults into which Camoens had fallen. That prince of Portuguese poets was always regarded as faultless.
THOMAS DE NORONHA.
Comic sonnet poetry, in which Camoens did not distinguish himself as a master, obtained a favourable reception from the Portuguese public on Thomas de Noronha, a contemporary of Faria e Sousa becoming celebrated for that kind of composition.280 But Thomas de Noronha, though an agreeable man of the world, was but a pretender in wit. His writings probably acquired a particular interest from the convivial temper, for which he was distinguished in society, and of which the reader is reminded by his poetry. But such versified jests as this merry companion has left behind him, could only have obtained temporary popularity from personal and local circumstances. They want the sprightly extravagance of the burlesque poetry of the Italians, as well as the moral keeping and caustic delicacy of the more lofty style of satire. Burlesque, however, they certainly are. Some approach, at least in a coarse way, to the Italian jests of a similar kind;281 and in others jesting and serious feeling are blended together in a very absurd manner. Thomas de Noronha thought fit to write a burlesque sonnet in honour of Rodriguez Lobo, when that poet was drowned in the Tagus. After a comic apostrophe to heaven and earth, Noronha declares that if he can catch Æolus he will give him a flogging.282 In nearly the same manner he jests in comic canções and romances, and in redondilha stanzas, (decimas,) which may also be termed epigrams. In these verses the conceits frequently turn on a play of words. Many must be altogether unintelligible to the foreign reader, particularly in the nineteenth century.
BARBOSA BACELLAR.
As a writer of serious sonnets, and particularly of romantic love sonnets in the style of Camoens, no Portuguese poet of the seventeenth century was more successful than the elegant and ingenious Antonio Barbosa Bacellar, who was also celebrated as one of the most skilful disputants of the university of Coimbra. After filling various public offices, he died in the year 1663.283 Barbosa Bacellar’s inclination to form his taste on the model of Camoens, is proved by several excellent glosses, which he composed on some of that great poet’s sonnets. He may indeed be ranked among the most distinguished writers of poetic glosses. In all his poems, many of which are written in the Spanish language, he has disdained those excrescences which Faria e Sousa commends as a proof of unconstrained genius. Barbosa Bacellar was one of the supporters of the correct style of sonnet composition, in whom the spirit of the sixteenth century survived; but so little was he disposed to approve the jejune correctness of Ferreira and Caminha, that he preferred deviating into the opposite extreme, rather than repress the spirit of his poetry by a rigid adherence to forms. He excelled in the art of ingeniously amplifying a romantic idea without allowing the sentimental to degenerate into the fantastic. Besides some very charming sonnets,284 the most remarkable productions of this poet are the extended pictures of romantic aspiration which since his time have been distinguished in Portuguese poetry by the untranslatable name of Saudades.285 The complaints of a lovelorn heart vented in solitude, are the only materials which enter into the composition of these poems; and the peculiar character of their class, which had rapidly grown into favour, was fixed by Barbosa Bacellar. A certain degree of prolixity is essential to these compositions. They do not well afford opportunity for the display of a brilliant store of novel ideas; and to employ an inexhaustible flow of words in painting the tender longing of love was deemed a proof of the ardour of the passion. They might very properly be classed with elegies, were it not that they have usually a narrative form. There are also among the Spanish and Portuguese eclogues, many poems which present the same character as these pictures of amatory aspiration. Barbosa Bacellar seems to have conferred on these pictures the highest degree of improvement which they were capable of receiving, consistently with fidelity to the style, which was then exclusively appropriated to the poetry of love in Spain and Portugal. But the modern forms of cultivation have given, at least on this side of the Pyrenees, a direction so totally different to poetic susceptibility, that the endless complaining of lovers must soon become tedious even to the readers most disposed to indulge in such romantic sentiments. It is, however, a remarkable circumstance in the history of the human mind, that the Portuguese taste in the seventeenth century fondly dwelt on every little feature of such never-ending repetitions in the expression of the same feeling. Barbosa Bacellar devoted no small portion of labour to every line in his Saudades. He is particularly successful in imparting a graceful colouring to the romantic conversations in which the solitary lover engages with natural objects.286
TORREZAÕ COELHO.
A doctor of canon law, and a member of the Inquisitorial college of Lisbon, named Simaõ Torrezaõ Coelho, vied with Barbosa Bacellar in this new modification of romantic poetry. His pictures of passion are, however, totally different from those of Bacellar. He imitated the perverted style of the Marinists and Gongorists, and followed the precepts of Faria e Sousa. He talks of “the just sensation of unjust love;”287—of the living feeling of a dead soul;288 of “the memory that lives in the brass of the soul;”289 and such like Marinisms and Gongorisms. His verses appear, however, to have been very popular.290
FREIRE DE ANDRADA.
Jacinto Freire de Andrade or Andrada, an ecclesiastic, who performed a part in the political history of his native country, and nearly fell a sacrifice to the patriotism with which he defended the claims of the house of Braganza against the Spanish occupation of the Portuguese throne, also endeavoured to enlarge the boundaries of comic poetry. Wit so highly cultivated had never before shewn itself in Portuguese verse. In the union of bold sportiveness, sustained humour and poignant satire, with perfect correctness and elegance of language, Andrada’s burlesque narratives of the fable of Narcissus, and the fable of Polyphemus and Galathæa,291 excel all the earlier specimens of comic wit which the works of former Portuguese poets, including even the comedies, afford. The burlesque manner of Andrada is owing solely to a caricature style which he took no pains to avoid. From the introductory stanzas to his Polyphemus, it appears that he merely tried to divert himself by these plays of fancy, in the hope of forgetting the adversities of his life. He wished, he says, “to visit the region of folly, that he might thereby approach happiness.” He also observes, that “with three ounces of judgment he is more loaded than an elegy, and more solemnly sententious than a sonnet.”292 In order to cheat his sorrow, he makes “joy play with false dice.”293 Had Andrada thrown these dice more steadily, he would, without doubt, have been one of the first comic writers in narrative poetry. But his satire was chiefly directed against the affected poetry of the Gongorists. He attacked other follies merely incidentally as they happened to strike him, and while he was in the humour rather to jest than to castigate.
In his Narcissus, he begins with parodying the wild conceits and romantic imagery of the fantastic sonneteers. To explain whence the beauty of Narcissus originates, a minute detail is given of the charms of his mother, the nymph Liriope, to whom the river god Cephissus makes tender propositions. After describing how the nymph paints herself in the morning, it is said of her eyes “that for boldness and honour there are no fairer lights in heaven; that they are pirates rebelliously fallen from the sun, which now, like the Dutch, wage war against the stars.”294 Of the lips of the beauteous nymph he says, that they make “the roses wither for envy.”295 The declaration of love, put into the mouth of Cephissus in this parodying style, is still more whimsical. If, says he, the eyes of the nymph should summon him to battle, he must be immediately subdued, because he should “see the sun divided in two eyes.”296 He conjures her not to destroy the paper on which he has written his declaration of love, as in that case she will destroy “the house in which she dwells; and the altar on which she is worshipped.”297 He now begins to weep bitterly, upon which Liriope observes, that if he be a true lover, the fountain of his tears must never dry up; but that it would be better to begin by giving her a little present, and to let “the sin go first and the tears follow afterwards.”298 Andrada’s conceits, though they sometimes consist of mere plays of words, are still not of a common kind; as when he makes the covetous nymph say, that, “the demon of the flesh, flies frightened from the cross, but clings to the crossed;”299 and that of “all beautiful streams none murmur so sweetly as the Silver River (the Rio de la Plata in South America).” At length the nymph resigns herself to the river god, and he becomes the reputed father of Narcissus. The reader is next entertained with a comic biography of Narcissus, which is a satirical representation of the history of a fashionable beau. Before he quits the cradle he is destined to become a military officer, as it is discovered that he was born “in the sign of the lion, though it was really the sign of the bull.”300 The officer when grown up is characterized as one who though choleric, is never sanguine (sanguinary); who has “sinned against the fifth commandment in word but not in deed;301 and who has always displayed great gallantry in engagements with the wine flasks.302” Tired of the army, he applies himself to poetry, and writes a new Jerusalem Delivered, and some sonnets in which the sun is so frequently introduced, that the absurdity of the conceits or disparates is, as it is said, rendered quite transparent. Narcissus also becomes fond of tracing genealogies, but he considers it beneath his dignity to study law, or to endeavour to acquire any other kind of practical knowledge. Being convinced by the heralds of his distinguished extraction, he withdraws himself from the public eye; but at the same time takes a lively interest in all that occurs at court, and soon becomes a minister of state. The love of wealth being now his governing passion, he rapidly enriches himself at the expense of the nation, and at last dies of vanity.
What this satire occasionally wants in refinement, is compensated by its extraordinary features, in which Andrada’s wit shines with peculiar lustre: and though the comic effusions of the ingenious author can only rank as poetic trifles, they are nevertheless entitled to some attention in consequence of their being chiefly directed against the absurd style which then distinguished and disfigured Spanish and Portuguese literature.
Andrada’s Polyphemus is a direct ridicule of the monstrous production of Gongora which bears the same title. As an example of the kind of ridicule employed it may just be mentioned, that in this parody the Cyclops styles the conquering eyes of Galathæa, “Turks by land and Dutch by sea.” The poetic works of Andrada include some comic sonnets and romances. He is also the author of a still more remarkable prose work which will be hereafter noticed.
FURTHER DECLINE OF PORTUGUESE TASTE—RIBEIRO DE MACEDO—CORREA DE LA CERDA.
During the second half of the seventeenth century, until the period of the first imitation of the French style in Portuguese literature, the defenders and partizans of classic correctness in Portugal seem to have been constantly diminishing. After the kingdom was emancipated from Spanish dominion, the old patriotic spirit of the Portuguese again found its way into their poetry; but that poetry gained little thereby in interior cultivation; and its boundaries were not farther extended. A species of mythological tales in the romantic form, but very dull and frigid, obtained some favour. In this style did Duarte Ribeiro de Macedo, who was also a prose author, and who died in the year 1682, after filling several distinguished posts, relate the fable of Adonis in serious redondilhas. Undismayed by the ridicule with which Freire Andrada had overwhelmed poems formed of such materials, he says in his verses that “Adonis has obtained privileges from Cupid, and licences from Diana, for punishing wild beasts and enchanting the fair; that lightnings flash from his eyes, and arrows are shot from his hands; that the hills and valleys at once represent lamentation and horror, because in the former the beasts groan, and in the latter the goddesses sigh.”303
Fernaõ Correa de la Cerda, an ecclesiastic, who was Bishop of Oporto, may also be numbered among the versifiers of this class. In a sonnet on a lady who died a few days after an eclipse of the sun, he thought it pathetic to say, that “at the death of Phillis, the whole celestial sphere must be afflicted with deep sorrow, bitter anguish.” And then he asks “if an eclipsed sun excites so much regret, what is to be expected from a dead sun?”304
VIOLANTE DO CEO.
A poetess whose name and rank probably contributed to raise her reputation at this period, shone conspicuously among the writers whom Freire de Andrada ridiculed. She was called Violante do Ceo, that is, if a name may be translated, “Violante of Heaven.” As a nun of the order of Dominicans, she obtained the character of a pattern of piety. Portuguese writers, moreover mention, that she was an excellent performer on the harp, and a singer. Among her writings there are some spiritual meditations in prose. She was born in 1601, and died in 1693, having consequently attained the age of ninety-two. Her miscellaneous poems were for the first time collected after her death.305 Violante do Ceo was certainly a woman of genius; but her genius had received a totally false cultivation. She delighted as much as any of the partizans of Faria e Sousa, in all the absurdities of Portuguese Gongorism and Marinism. With her no antithesis was too far-fetched, no play of words too trivial, if the idea she thereby expressed was, according to her opinion, extraordinary. When wanting a poetic image, she immediately has recourse to the sun, which constantly shines in her pages as in these of the other Portuguese Gongorists and Marinists, whose verses, on that account, were by the witty Andrada, pronounced transparent. The tenderness or warmth of feeling which in female poetry often gets the better of the judgment, is in the writings of Violante do Ceo unnaturally represented by a false overstrained wit, which, however, assumes the disguise of judgment. In a sonnet on a lady, named Marianna de Luna, Violante do Ceo apostrophizes the muses, as “the divinities, who, in the garden of the king of day, unloosing their sweet voices, arrest Zephyr;—who, admiring the thoughts, multiply the flowers which Apollo creates.” She implores the muses “to abandon the society of the sun, since a moon (that is to say, Marianna de Luna,) which is at once a sun and a prodigy, prepares for them a garden of harmony.” Whether Marianna de Luna was a musician, or whether she had really laid out a fine garden, is not clearly explained. After some unintelligible phrases, it is in conclusion declared, that “through the grace of the deity, this tuneful garden is secured by the immortal wall of eternity.”306 In this spirit and style Violante do Ceo composed both sacred and profane poetry. One of her Spanish sonnets on the death of a lady, closes with the idea, that, “if for such a sun the world is the region of setting, heaven on the other hand is for such a sun (the words are expressly repeated) the region of rising.”307 She addressed a similar sonnet to a physician, named Arraes, a word which in the Portuguese language signifies the master of a vessel; and she says, in allusion to his name, that he deserves to be captain of the ship of life, which navigates the ocean of tyrannic disease; that is to say, as the succeeding lines denote, that he ought to be the king’s physician.308 By her writings, after the revolution in the year 1640, Violante do Ceo distinguished herself as a patriot, but never as a judicious poetess.309
DIDACTIC EPISTLES OF ALVARES DA CUNHA.
Of the extent to which the perverted taste, which in the seventeenth century disfigured Portuguese, even more than Spanish poetry influenced the didactic epistolary style, a judgment may be formed by reference to the writings of Antonio Alvares da Cunha. This author, one of the most distinguished statesmen and literary characters of the reigns of John IV. and Alphonso VI. addressed epistles to Joaõ Nunez da Cunha, who was appointed viceroy of the Portuguese dominions in India. To express the trivial idea of Nunez da Cunha being about to sail from Lisbon for India, Alvares da Cunha pompously says, that the new viceroy will cut through “the crystal waves from the mouth of the Tagus, to those new regions which the world descried by the waving of the Quinas.”310 The time of the sailing of the ship is described as the time during which the viceroy’s “winged beachen trees spread their pinions, carrying with them the wind, while they pursue their silvery path.” He next regrets that the instrument with which he writes does not perfectly express his ideas, observing “that though the pen touch softly the guitar of the paper, rude thunder resounds from that guitar.”311 This epistle is one of the longest in Portuguese literature; and though totally deficient in the true epistolary character, it nevertheless contains many good ideas and sound precepts, while at the same time it exhibits a vain display of historical erudition.312
JERONYMO BAHIA.
The taste of the public was, in like manner, corrupted by Jeronymo Bahia, of whose existence in other respects no account is preserved.313 The old fable of Polyphemus and Galathæa had already been so completely exhausted, that a recurrence to it might have been expected rather to disgust than to please; and yet, as if a new relation of that wearisomely repeated story had been all that was necessary to establish a writer on a level with Gongora, Jeronymo Bahia collected a store of affected phrases, and with pompous gravity remodelled the often celebrated theme of the Cyclops and his disdainful mistress.314 Thus powerless had been all the pointed satire of the more judicious party. Divested of its original heaviness, and united with the fanciful Marinism, Gongorism now seemed to its defenders to be raised above the reach of ridicule. Bahia, too, thought it, perhaps, the less necessary to guard against the wit of the adverse party, since he was himself a master in subtle witticism. He wrote numerous comic romances, that is to say, comic tales and descriptions of travels in redondilhas. His playful loquacity flows in an inexhaustible current in these romances, which are not destitute of comic interest; but their extreme length would still have rendered them tedious, even though the author had better succeeded in catching the gay style suited to such trivial compositions.315 His great facility in rhyming is recorded in a notice affixed to one of his odes. This ode was written on a victory gained by the Portuguese during their war with Spain, and Bahia composed it in a single day, so that it was presented to the king on the evening of the day on which the account of the battle was circulated. Surely no other manufacturer of rhyme would, like him, have spun out an Idyllio panegyrico, on a chandelier, which the Duchess of Savoy presented to the Queen of Portugal, to fifty octavo pages of versified prattle. From the works of this author may also be incidentally learned the direction which the prevailing spirit of religion took in Portugal, when the old national energy expired, and when the still more remarkable decline of the Spanish monarchy enabled the Portuguese to maintain an eight-and-twenty years war against Spain, in defence of their recovered independence. It was at this period that the court of Lisbon resorted to the far-famed expedient of enlisting by prayers and entreaties Saint Anthony among the Portuguese troops, and formally investing him with the military rank of generalissimo, in order to render the army invincible. The inhabitant of heaven was declared to have accepted the command, and Jeronymo Bahia wrote a song of praise in honour of King Alphonso VI. who effected this extraordinary arrangement.316
FRANCISCO VASCONCELLOS.
The dominion of bad taste and worthless subtilty was not, however, during the second half of the seventeenth century extended over the whole of the Portuguese Parnassus. The writings of some poets still evinced sound judgment and some portion of the old and nobler style of art. Francisco de Vasconcellos of the island of Madeira, inclined somewhat more to the side of reason than most of his contemporaries.317 Some of his sonnets are so free from unnatural and overstrained thoughts,318 that one might be induced to consider his other productions as parodied imitations in the style of Andrada, were it not that these outbalance the number of his correct poems, and that his works include a new dressing of the long before overdone story of Polyphemus and Galatæa.
TELLES DA SYLVA AND NUNES DA SYLVA.
Antonio Telles da Sylva was likewise distinguished among the multitude of sonneteers by a better cultivated taste.319 He also composed latin verses, though he was gentil-homem da camara (a gentleman of the chamber).
But a greater share of attention is due to the poems of Andre Nunes da Sylva, an equally unassuming and ingenious writer, who received his first education in Brazil, and who died a Theatin monk in Portugal.320 His spiritual sonnets, canções, and romances, are at least free from absurd conceits and Marinistical subtilties. It was, however, scarcely possible at any time, but more especially at the period of the most violent re-action against protestantism, not to deviate from reason, in representing poetically, and with religious fervour, the mysteries of the catholic faith, according to the opinions alone considered orthodox in Portugal and Spain. Nevertheless among the spiritual poems of Nunes da Sylva there are some, which though certainly as romantic as pious, are by no means fantastic, and which may be ranked among the best of their kind.321 Even where the pious writer appears to have fallen into the most extravagant metaphors of the Marinists, as when he styles the tomb of St. Isabella “a flower of the firmament, a star of the field;” or, shortly after, “a nightingale, an animated jewel, an Orpheus to the ear, and a flower to the eye,”322 his eccentric plays of ideas have still a poetic keeping. Among the patriotic poems, to which the war with Spain gave birth, there are several by Nunes da Sylva, which are distinguished for correct and picturesque representation, at least in single passages;323 and his sonnets and songs of love possess, with all their faults, a considerable portion of poetic tenderness.
OTHER SONNETEERS—CONTINUED INTERVENTION OF THE SPANISH LANGUAGE IN PORTUGUESE POETRY.
It is not necessary to enter into particular details respecting other Portuguese sonneteers. Some who enjoyed celebrity lived until the commencement of the eighteenth century, among whom the names of Diogo de Monroy e Vasconcellos, Thomas de Sousa, and Luis Simoes de Azavedo, deserve to be mentioned. About the same period lived Diogo Camacho, who was the author of a lively poem, entitled a Journey to Parnassus; the idea of which was doubtless taken from the work of Cervantes of the same name, but which when compared with that master-piece, possesses no great merit. On comparing the Portuguese sonnets, the authors of which lived till the eighteenth century, with those of a somewhat older date, an obvious, though certainly not a striking tendency of Portuguese taste, to a more correct direction of the imagination, is, upon the whole, perceptible. But how far this change in Portuguese literature was effected by the increasing influence of French taste, which about this time commenced its universal sway; or whether it is at all attributable to the introduction of that taste, are questions not easy to be decided. This, however, is certain, that the incorrect, silly, and fantastic style of writing and judging poetry, still maintained its ground in the Portuguese literature of the eighteenth century long after the Count de Ericeira, who will soon be further noticed, had drawn from the school of Boileau those principles by which he wished to improve the literary taste of his countrymen.
Of the Portuguese sonneteers, who more or less contributed to transfuse the style of the seventeenth into the eighteenth century, there was none who did not, according to the custom of the age, pride himself in his facility of composing verses in the Spanish language. The recent separation of Portugal from the Spanish monarchy, had not, in the least, diminished this old custom of the Portuguese poets. They addressed complimentary verses in Spanish to the Queen of Portugal. Spanish comedies were still represented in Lisbon; and even the loas, or prologues, were recited in the same language. It was not until the esteem for Spanish literature had declined throughout Europe, that the literature of Portugal became entirely Portuguese.324
It is proper to observe here, that the collections of Portuguese poems of the seventeenth century, likewise contain sonnets by a Prince Don Pedro, and by several anonymous ladies.
PORTUGUESE ELOQUENCE DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
All that need be said respecting the Portuguese eloquence of the seventeenth century, may be related within the compass of a few pages. The obstacles which had hitherto impeded the free cultivation of energetic and reasoning prose in Portuguese literature, operated still more fatally, when the restraints on conscience became more oppressive, and when there was no longer any feeling of political greatness to give excitement to the thinking mind.
ROMANTIC PROSE—MATHEUS RIBEYRO—CASTANHEIRA TURACEM.
Viewed in relation to the whole of Portuguese literature, romantic prose continued nearly on the same footing on which it long had stood. It maintained its ground; but it was long after the death of Rodriguez Lobo before any more distinguished writer in this class of composition arose. With regard to invention, however, some of the Portuguese romances of the seventeenth century are not without merit. This praise is due to a work written by Matheus Ribeyro, a priest, who did not scruple to publish his name on the title-page, together with an enumeration of all his ecclesiastical dignities. This romance, which is entitled, “Retirement from Care, or the Life of Carlos and Rosaura,”325 is not wanting in adventures both by sea and land. The style, however, is that of the old romance, with all its excrescences, and is particularly fantastical in the descriptive passages.
But a more elegant and far more valuable production of fancy now demands some notice. That this work was written with the view of opposing fantastic ornament in polite literature, and of assisting to restore a more natural and dignified spirit and style, would never be suspected from its affected title, which, stripped of its antiquated form, means, as far as it can be rendered intelligible, “The elegant Evening Party, or the Improvement of Bad Manners.”326 On the title-page, and at the close of the dedicatory address, the author styles himself Felix da Castanheira Turacem. No information respecting him, beyond what his work affords, seems to have been preserved; but from that it may be concluded that he was a man who moved in the more elevated and polished ranks of society. The bad custom which he particularly condemned was an improper extension of the liberty taken at the season of the carnival in Lisbon. To present a picture of a more elegant and noble style of social entertainment, he contrasts the sprightly conversation of the company, whose manners he describes, with the licentious tricks of the carnival (entrudo.) The plan of Castanheira’s work is similar to that of Rodriguez Lobo’s “Court in the Country;” but the composition possesses a higher degree of romantic interest. In the party which Castanheira assembles, beautiful women play prominent parts; and between them and the young gentlemen who most contribute to the entertainment, attachments are formed which cross and oppose each other. The characters by turns sing, play, tell stories, and converse. The composition is, upon the whole, equally graceful and natural; but the execution is in many passages less successful. Castanheira, particularly where he begins to describe, is often drawn unconsciously into the stream of Gongorism and Marinism, though it appears that he was really anxious to separate himself completely from the partisans of these styles. That this was his most serious determination, is obvious from his spirited preface, in which he acknowledges that he does not calculate on a very favourable reception in the polite world. He declares that he is not ambitious of the honour of writing verses extempore. He sought to steer clear of dulness and bombast, the Scylla and Charybdis of the wide ocean of eloquence; and in all his digressions never to lose sight of the haven of clearness, as its entrance is difficult. “But deliver us from metaphor,” he adds in latin, and in the words of the Lord’s Prayer.327 A man who, at this period, could so express himself in Portugal, deserves, were it on that account only, to be distinguished in the history of polite literature. Castanheira’s language, too, is, upon the whole, as natural according to the manner of its cultivation, as is his lively descriptive art. It is singular, however, that occasionally in the course of his work, and sometimes in those very passages, the superiority of which would otherwise be unquestionable, he falls into the very faults which he himself ridicules.328 On the novel style, which is discussed in the first evening party, Cervantes appears, by that time, to have exercised a favourable influence. The severe criticism on the Poesia Incuravel (Incurable Poetry), in the second evening’s conversation, is certainly the best theoretical disquisition on Gongorism and Marinism, to be found in the Portuguese literature of the seventeenth century. It ought, also, to be stated, that the sonnets and other poems which are scattered through the work, exhibit some very successful passages. Occasion is taken to introduce a Discurso Academico, which towards the conclusion refers to the Italian academic system, which had long been imitated in Portugal, but which proved of as little advantage to Portuguese as to Italian literature.329 Among the poems comprised in this book, there are many in the Spanish language.
HISTORICAL PROSE—FREIRE DE ANDRADA.
Of the cultivation of prose style in Portuguese literature during the seventeenth century, nothing could be said, had not a man in whom the spirit of the sixteenth century survived, successfully pursued the path which Barros and Brito traced out. This writer, who must be regarded as single in his age, was Jacinto Freire de Andrada, the same who in his comic tales already noticed, ridiculed the Gongorism and Marinism of poetry. The reader is almost inclined to doubt the evidence of his own eyes, when, among the Portuguese writings of the seventeenth century, he discovers such a prose work as “the Life of Dom Joaõ de Castro, fourth Viceroy of India, by Freire de Andrada.”330 No biographical work, deserving to be ranked on a level with this, had hitherto appeared either in Portuguese or any other modern language. Andrada is reproached with a certain degree of far-fetched elegance and refined subtlety; and certainly his historical style might often, with advantage, be more simple. But that this ingenious writer upon the whole entertained the most correct notion of the rhetorical cultivation of historical prose, and that his intention was to write an energetic style appropriate to his subject, but by no means to make an ostentatious display of elegant phrases, would be sufficiently evident from the character of the whole work, even though the author had not, in his brief preface, explained himself with sufficient clearness on this point. He observes, that he has written his book in the language of truth, and according to credible authorities. He neither followed the advice of some who recommended the extension of his work, nor adopted the opinion of others who wished him to sacrifice the truth of nature to the fashionable ornaments of affected cultivation. His object was not to flatter a corrupt taste; on the contrary he wished to merit, by the unadorned language of truth, the approbation of sensible readers, rather than to gain a name among the great mass of a mis-judging public.331 To a man of Andrada’s cultivated mind, it never could appear that the duty of a faithful historian required him to write in the chronicle style, as a means of thereby ensuring historical truth. When he took up the pen he felt that a demand was made upon him for the exercise of intellectual powers. His biography of Joaõ de Castro was to be a monument in honour of that distinguished man. Andrada, therefore, devoted no less attention to the representation than to the distribution of the materials of his narrative. To all appearance he did not form his style on that of any particular author of antiquity, but he makes nearer approaches to Sallust than to any other; and the influence which the study of the classics must have had on the literary education of Andrada, is sufficiently obvious. His turn for wit occasionally led him to express himself in antitheses of too poignant a character; but in every other respect his narrative style possesses the clearness, precision, lightness, and moreover the deep interest of the classic prose of antiquity. It is only necessary to read the commencement of this biography, to enter immediately into the spirit of the whole work.332 Andrada’s appropriate diction never resolves into merely elegant prolixity; and whatever be the degree of polish it receives, its character is generally unassuming. In the biographical arrangement of the events, little historical art is observable, but a clear practical understanding is displayed throughout the whole work. The character of Joaõ de Castro is exhibited even in the first accounts given of his childhood and education. The reader afterwards finds it developed with farther precision, but without any appearance of being again obtruded by the historian. The dark side, which, however, should never be wanting in an historical picture, is left by Andrada to the imagination of his readers. But the intuitive power displayed in the representation of the events, which is naturally and nowhere poetically adorned, leaves nothing to be wished for in this biographical work.333 Andrada also proved himself a disciple of the classic school by his predilection for the ancient custom of enlivening the narrative, and augmenting the interest of the subject, by speeches attributed to the principal personages who figure in the work. These are sometimes delivered by Joaõ de Castro himself, and more frequently by his most dangerous but interesting enemy, Coge Cofar, the general in chief of the Mussulmans in India. Some of these speeches are decidedly excellent, but others are rather artificial.334 Towards the close of the biography where documents are interpolated, the story loses some portion of its deep interest. It was by no means a happy idea to add to this work an appendix, which is intended as a summary recapitulation of the whole; and at the same time as a supplemental picture of the character of Joaõ de Castro, whose character is sufficiently portrayed in the narrative of his achievements.
Treatises in the Portuguese language, intended for the developement of the principles of poetry and rhetoric in systematic order, or for the extended application of some of these principles, seem either not to have been written, or at least not to have been much known in the seventeenth century. Practically cultivated taste and critical tact, without which the art of poetry and rhetoric degenerates into useless scholastic theory, must, to men like Freire Andrada, in a great measure have supplied the place of systematic rules.
BOOK III.
FROM THE CLOSE OF THE SEVENTEENTH TO THE END
OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS.
The third period of Portuguese poetry and eloquence arises so imperceptibly out of the second, that no particular date, or remarkable event in Portuguese literature can be said to form a dividing point between them. The influence of the French taste on the Portuguese is the characteristic mark of the commencement of this last period. But even that influence never produced any thing like a revolution in the state of polite learning in Portugal. French taste worked its way into the language and the literature of the Portuguese, as tranquilly as into their manners. It therefore neither forcibly supplanted the old taste, nor caused any conflict of literary factions at all resembling that warfare, which arose between the Gallicists and the adherents of the old style in Spain. Thus the literature of Portugal, for the second time, asserted its peaceful character. As in the sixteenth century no Portuguese Boscan had to contend with an old romantic party, so in the eighteenth century there arose no Portuguese Luzan to uphold the French taste by methodical rules of art. There occurred, therefore, no violent reaction of old patriotism against Gallicism, like that experienced in Spanish literature. Under these circumstances an opportunity was at last afforded for the English taste also to operate quietly and imperceptibly on that of the Portuguese. The historian, however, who finds it necessary to fix on some particular point for the commencement of this last principal division of the history of Portuguese poetry and eloquence, is constrained to take his departure from the change of political relations, which has been the main cause of Portuguese cultivation and literature becoming, in the struggle between French and English tendencies, what they now are. Towards the close of the seventeenth century, those conflicting tendencies which have threatened the very existence of the kingdom of Portugal, first began to manifest themselves.
CHAP. I.
GENERAL HISTORY OF POETICAL AND RHETORICAL
CULTIVATION IN PORTUGAL DURING THIS
PERIOD.
Total decay of Portuguese Literature towards the end of the Seventeenth Century.
In the year 1668, when the Spanish government again recognized the independence of the Portuguese monarchy, the difference between what that monarchy had been, and what it then was, became palpable. It appeared that even its new existence was not altogether assured by the peace with Spain. The flame of patriotism no longer glowed with its wonted ardour in Portuguese breasts; and the hope of re-conquering those territories in India of which the Dutch had obtained possession was extinguished. The gold and diamond mines, discovered in Brazil, offered, it is true, a compensation for the lost sources of oriental wealth. But the old spirit of national enterprise was no more, and the people, as well as the government, wanted energy and talent for the useful employment of treasures, from which the commercial policy of England well knew how to derive advantage. A general lethargy seemed to overspread the nation; and towards the close of the seventeenth century the effects of that lethargy became no less manifest in the depression of literature than in the decay of military and maritime power, of the finances, and of all the branches of national industry. On the breaking out of the war of the Spanish succession, the court of Lisbon inclined sometimes to the French, and sometimes to the English party; but while the government thus wavered, and was at a loss what to do, the nation seemed perfectly disposed to adopt the manners introduced from France, and French literature soon gained the same ascendancy in Portugal as in the rest of Europe. But the Portuguese were not, at that period, prepared to estimate the merits of French literature. Those who moved in the polite world learned to speak and read French, and to mutilate their mother tongue.335 But only a few individuals of uncommon acquirements took pleasure in cultivating their literary taste after French models. The majority of the poets, or versifiers of Portugal were, properly speaking, entirely destitute of taste.
In taking a comprehensive view of the state of poetry and eloquence in Portugal, during the eighteenth century, it will be proper to follow the thread of the national annals; for the general history of this portion of Portuguese literature resolves into about as many sections as the number of the reigns into which the political history of the country is divided. The period was indeed now gone by in which the nation formed itself, rather than suffered itself to be formed by the government.
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE PORTUGUESE ACADEMY IN 1714.
During the forty-four years reign of John V. namely, from 1705 to 1750, there was no want of institutions, calculated to raise the nation to the point of elevation whence it had fallen. For the polite literature of Portugal a new era seemed to have commenced, when, in the year 1714, an Academia Portugueza, on the model of the French academy, was established under the presidency of so accomplished a man as the Count de Ericeyra. But we nowhere find an account of any advantage which the language and literature of Portugal derived from the labours of this academy; and the establishment was soon so completely neglected, that it is difficult to conjecture how and when it sank into decay.336 Other academies on the Italian plan had their rise and decline without producing any beneficial results; while several Portuguese poets were satisfied with the honour of admission into the Italian academy of the Arcadians. The academy of history, founded at Lisbon in 1720, also promised to be useful to Portuguese eloquence, as well as to historical science; but in the end little or nothing was effected even by this institution. Besides, though the general character of the Portuguese, which had always been less fanatical than that of the Spaniards, appeared about this period to become somewhat more liberal in religious and ecclesiastical matters, that favourable symptom was merely a consequence of the friendly relations which Portugal was under the necessity of maintaining with England; and these relations seemed to place Portugal too much in a state of dependence, to be flattering to the national feeling, or to reanimate it by the diffusion of knowledge. The inquisition, too, continued to adopt the old precautions against all attempts at free-thinking, after the manner of Voltaire. It was, therefore, neither the spirit of the old nor of the new age, which, in the reign of John V. sometimes maintained the ancient forms in Portuguese poetry and eloquence, and sometimes endeavoured to introduce new ones. This fluctuation was merely the result of a feeble wavering between the old Portuguese, the French, and the Italian taste. The better poetry was, however, still to be found in the works of the authors, who remained faithful to the ancient manner.
ADMINISTRATION OF THE MARQUIS OF POMBAL.
The twenty-six years reign of Joseph Emanuel, from 1750 to 1777, proved more salutary for the Portuguese nation. The rigid despotism of the powerful Marquis de Pombal, who in the name of the king ruled with unlimited sway, left unpleasant recollections in the minds of a portion of the nation. Nevertheless the spirit of the higher nobility and of the ecclesiastics was not wholly subdued by his measures. In the dungeons which were filled with state prisoners, it is possible that some men of talent languished. But Pombal’s iron arm roused the slumbering nation. The despotic system of government adopted by this state reformer, who was, perhaps, only cruel from necessity, was an enlightening system, and his object was to restore the ancient glory of the Portuguese name. To literature he attached but little immediate importance. But he crippled the spiritual despotism, which held captive the last remnant of Portuguese energy. Europe is mainly indebted to him for the suppression of the order of the jesuits; and the Portuguese, in particular, have to thank him for that revived feeling of independence which soon penetrated into their literature. A taste for the fine arts, for philosophy, and literary cultivation, became fashionable in Portugal. The connexion with England proved, in some respects, advantageous to the new progress of Portuguese genius, and promoted literary improvement; for the Gallicists lost a considerable portion of their political ascendancy, when English literature began to be properly estimated in Portugal.
REVIVED SPIRIT OF LITERATURE—UTILITY OF THE PORTUGUESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES.
It was not until after the death of King Joseph Emanuel, that the change which had taken place in Portugal became fully manifest. Pombal’s institutions seemed indeed destined to be annihilated, when his enemies triumphed. But even the new degree of favour which the clergy enjoyed in the reign of the pious Queen Maria, had not the effect of stifling the revived spirit of improvement in Portugal. Young Portuguese travelled to several parts of Europe and carried back to their native country the fruits of modern cultivation. The Prince Regent loved and favoured literature. In the course of a few years the Royal Academy of Sciences at Lisbon did much to rouse the nation to new activity, and in particular to reconcile philosophic study with enlightened views of national interest. Had that excellent institution, especially as it existed under the judicious guidance of the Duke of Lofoens, been left undisturbed in the pursuit of its glorious and successful labours, the benefits produced to Portugal would have been more extensive and direct than those which most of the European academies have conferred on the countries to which they belong. The cosmopolite observer will, doubtless, be less interested in what the academy accomplished for polite literature, than in its zealous exertions for the encouragement of science, the diffusion of just and liberal ideas, and the consequent improvement of national industry and public prosperity. This institution was, however, of important service to polite literature. Prizes were offered for the best comedy and the best tragedy, to be written in the Portuguese language. It was endeavoured, through the influence of some of the academicians, to restore to due consideration the Portuguese classic writers of the sixteenth century, and also to re-introduce the language of that better period into literature, and the business of common life. Some volumes of academic transactions, which have in furtherance of this object been published since the year 1792, contain, in imitation of the French manner, essays purely literary, interspersed with articles on national history. This was, however, only a harmless blending of heterogeneous subjects; and the recollections of ancient times to which it gave birth, contributed to recall to Portuguese poetry and eloquence some portion of the old national spirit, from the revival of which the general interests of the country had every thing to expect337.
CHAP. II.
HISTORY OF PORTUGUESE POETRY DURING THIS
PERIOD.
THE CONDE DA ERICEYRA.
The first Portuguese poet remarkable for paying homage to the French taste, was the ingenious and meritorious Francisco Xavier de Menezes, Conde da Ericeyra, born in 1673. The family rank of this writer doubtless added to the celebrity of the talents by which he distinguished himself at an early period of life. This will account for the extraordinary circumstance, that while yet in the twentieth year of his age he was elected president of one of the academies which were founded in Lisbon, on the model of those of Italy. He is said to have spoken the Latin, Spanish, Italian and French languages with facility. He made, however, no progress in Greek. At an early age he translated Boileau’s Art of Poetry into Portuguese octaves; and from that period he maintained a friendly intercourse with the French critic. Literary and more particularly poetical studies continued to occupy him even during the Spanish war of succession, in which he made several campaigns. He rose in the Portuguese army to the rank of mestre do campo (major general.) The consideration and influence which the Count da Ericeyra enjoyed in Portuguese literature, were rapidly augmented by the authority attached to the offices which he filled; for in the year 1714, he was appointed rector and secretary of the Portuguese academy which was then founded; and in the year 1721, co-director of the new academy of history. His literary reputation soon extended beyond the narrow limits of Portugal; and during the latter half of his life, he held a conspicuous place among the men of his age, whose talents had given them a general celebrity. He maintained a correspondence with learned foreigners both in the south and north of Europe. The Pope and the King of France bestowed on him particular marks of their esteem; and the transactions of the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences were formally transmitted to him by that learned body. In his old age this diligent writer bestowed the greatest share of his attention on an epic poem, entitled, the Henriqueida, in which he endeavoured, as far as possible, to fulfil all the conditions of poetic art, according to the principles of the most celebrated critics. It would appear that he completed his task in the year 1738, and at the age of sixty-nine he enjoyed the satisfaction of seeing his work printed. He died two years afterwards. The number of his works, both in verse and prose, is considerable; and it seems that many of them still remain unprinted.338
The poetical works of the Count da Ericeyra, among which are several in the Spanish language, are distinguished by a degree of polish in which it is impossible not to recognise the disciple and admirer of Boileau. But this nobleman was not destined to mark an epoch in Portuguese poetry. To regard him as a mere Gallicist would be extremely unjust, and to rank him among poets in the highest and strictest sense of the term, would be to form an equally erroneous judgment of poetic art. Ericeyra certainly was not a slavish imitator of the French style. He endeavoured to form his talent by the study of all the works which he conceived fitted to serve as models whatever might be the language in which they were written; and this spirit of liberality in literary cultivation was a peculiarly estimable trait in his character. In the metrical structure, as well as in the style of his poems, he remained faithful to the forms and spirit of the old Portuguese national poetry, and to the school of the sixteenth century. But with all his plastic capabilities, he was wanting in creative fancy; and with all his endeavours to attain classic correctness, he did not avoid faults, which are readily pardoned in the works of the older Portuguese poets, in consideration of the poetic energy which is manifest in those very faults. In that poetic energy all the writings of the Count da Ericeyra are deficient. His imagination, which never of itself took a lofty flight, was much more inclined to enlarge artificially upon any pleasing subject, than to seize with inspiration and freely fashion a subject of its own; and the rules of French criticism doubtless contributed to allure him to the cultivated occasional style, as that style may justly be denominated, which, whenever the opportunity for an occasional poem offers, is always at the command of a writer possessing no common share of descriptive talent. Accordingly not a few occasional poems are to be found in the works of the Count da Ericeyra. In compliance with the old Portuguese custom, he sometimes made choice of the eclogue form, to record in a pleasing strain of verse, certain events which occurred in the Royal family. In this form, for example, he deplores, through the medium of shepherds and shepherdesses, the death of the Infante Dom Miguel, which took place in the year 1724. After what has already been said respecting other works of this kind, to dwell longer on the eclogues of the Count da Ericeyra would be a superfluous labour; but in the history of Portuguese poetry, the Henriqueida claims a more particular notice.339
The Henriqueida may unquestionably be called an epic poem with far more propriety than the Condestabre de Portugal of Rodriguez Lobo.340 It is the work of an industrious talent, which occasionally seizes, with happy effect, a poetic situation, and by poetic handling elevates a series of historical events, somewhat above the sphere of prosaic nature. But this tedious and laboured poem possesses no other merit. Neither in the invention, highly as it has been esteemed, nor in the execution, which is not wanting in incidental beauties, is there displayed any thing like the captivating energy of the epic poetry of Camoens; and even in correctness of ideas and images, Ericeyra’s Henriqueida is very deficient. The subject is patriotically chosen. Henry of Burgundy, the founder of the Portuguese monarchy, is the hero of the poem. The action is not destitute of intrinsic interest, and the epic unity belonging to it has been happily caught by Ericeyra. The poem is divided into twelve cantos. Henry of Burgundy, the son-in-law of Alphonso VI. King of Castile, receives the county of Portugal as a fief, but on condition of first conquering that dowry, and afterwards securing it by further conquests. At the commencement of the poem the prince is waging war against the Moorish King Muley; but there appears little probability of the conquest of Lisbon, which is still in the hands of the Moors. Henry is informed that a Portuguese sybil lives somewhere in the vicinity of the camp in a concealed cavern, which he determines to explore, and for that purpose withdraws unnoticed from his army. The rashness with which this purpose is executed, is more characteristic of a fool-hardy adventurer than of a hero destined to be the founder of a kingdom. After taking a desperate leap, he succeeds in discovering the cavern and its inhabitant, who proves to be a christian sybil. She reveals to him the secret of his destination, together with some facts relative to the future greatness of the nation. While he is engaged in collecting this prophetic information, his troops suppose him to be lost. The Moors attack; the Christians are giving way; but at the critical moment Henry arrives, and turns the tide of victory. This first event, by which the interest of the epic action becomes immediately attached to the hero of the poem, is succeeded by a series of single combats, sieges, and victories, interspersed with love adventures, and carried on until the taking of Lisbon, with which exploit the poem concludes. The distribution of the parts is managed with much art, so that the characters in which it is wished the reader should take an interest, appear one after the other in their proper lights. The situations, too, are for the most part well chosen. Prophetic dreams, and a certain portion of fairyism still impart to the tale the charm of the miraculous, even after the christian sybil has divulged the general influence of the celestial powers. But the Henriqueida is from the first to the last canto destitute of that poetic warmth and spirit, the absence of which cannot be supplied by the ablest descriptive talent, and without which poetic art degenerates into mere exercises of style; for the industriously ingenious author was deficient in energy and depth of natural feeling, as well as in purity of ideal feeling. In his advertencias preliminares, or theoretical introduction, Ericeyra declares that he has in a certain measure endeavoured to imitate all epic poets, and to imbibe a portion of the manner of each; but had he withheld this acknowledgment no reader acquainted with other epic poems, could have failed to recognise in the Henriqueida the styles of Homer, Virgil, Ariosto, Tasso, and progressively of Lucan, Silius Italicus, and Statius, but without ever discerning the animating spirit of genuine poetry. The tedious coldness which pervades the whole poem destroys the effect of those incidental beauties of style which it must be allowed to possess. The very first stanzas give birth to an unfavourable presage;341 and to invoke the inspiration of the deity rather than the muses is but a frigid conceit.342 Even the descriptive passages, in which Ericeyra displays most talent, are deteriorated by artificial traits which launch into the region of Portuguese Marinism, and betray all the coldness of study.343 Sometimes these traits stand as abruptly forward as if they had been interpolated by a sonnetist of the seventeenth century; thus, in allusion to Henry of Burgundy’s descent into the sybil’s cave amidst the fury of the conflicting elements, it is said, that “the vivid flames of his heart dried up the waves, and set fire to the winds.”344 When the assembled princes sit down to hear Henry relate what he has seen in the cave, it is said of the plumes of the military heroes, that “they wafted glorious deeds to heaven, and inscribed victories without the aid of letters.”345 On another occasion, the author describes the effect of a violent shout of the storming troops, by saying, that “even the stones of the walls seemed touched by the cry, and had nearly disclosed the medals which their celebrated founders had buried beneath them.”346 Among the poetic ornaments of Ericeyra’s narrative style, the picturesque comparisons are for the most part well conceived; but with all their truth they are deficient in poetic energy;347 and sometimes, contrary to all expectation, they terminate quite in the Marinistic style.348 The Henriqueida is tolerably free of mythological decoration. Still, however, Ericeyra could not altogether refrain from availing himself of an ornament which he considered so essential. He has, therefore, contrary to all prosaic probability, for the violation of which there is no adequate poetic motive, introduced a Moorish princess in the character of a secret adherent of the Greek mythology, and he has thus taken occasion to describe a whole gallery of gods and goddesses. At the conclusion of the poem, Ericeyra again summons all his powers of description, not entirely without success, but still without avoiding those faults into which his factitious enthusiasm had previously involved him.349
That such a poet as the Count da Ericeyra could, with all his praiseworthy endeavours, succeed in restoring the ancient glory of Portuguese poetry, or in giving a new direction to the poetic spirit of his nation, certainly was not to be expected. But in consequence of his labours it ceased to be taken for granted in Portugal, that the mines of the higher poetry were exhausted, and he contributed to encourage the idea of improvement in poetic cultivation. His name, therefore, deserves to be held in honourable recollection. What benefits he, as a theorist, sought to impart to the poetic art, shall be noticed in the next chapter.