Portuguese Literature

Among the moralists of the time three at least deserve the title of masters of prose style, Heitor Pinto for his Imagem da vida Christd, Bishop Arraez for his Dialogos, and Frei Thome de Jesus for his mystic and devotional treatise Trabalhos de Jesus, while the maxims of Joana da Gama, entitled Ditos da Freira, though lacking depth, form a curious psychological document. The ranks of scientists include the cosmographer Pedro Nunes (Nonius), a famous mathematician, and the botanist Garcia da Orta, whose Coloquios dos simples e drogas was the first book to be printed in the East (1563), while the form of Aristotelian scholastic philos ophy known as Philosophia coimbricensis had a succession of learned exponents, who mainly used Latin, in which also Francisco Sanches wrote his notable treatise Qvod nihil scitvr (1581).

The 17th Century.

From a literary as from a political point of view the I7th century found Portugal in a lamentable state of decadence which dated from the preceding age. In 1536 the In quisition began its work with the censorship of books and the Index, while between 1552 and 1555 the control of higher educa tion passed into the hands of the Jesuits. Next the taint of Gon gorism appeared, and the extent to which it affected the literature of Portugal may be seen in the five volumes of the Fenix renascida, where the very titles of the poems suffice to show the emphatic futilities which occupied the attention of some of the best talents. The prevailing European fashion of literary academies was not long in reaching Portugal, and 1647 saw the foundation of the Academia dos Generosos, which included in its ranks the men most illustrious by learning and social position, and in 1663, the Aca demia dos Singulares came into being. In bucolics there arose a worthy disciple of Ribeiro in Francisco Rodrigues Lobo (q.v.), author of Corte na aldea and the lengthy pastoral romance Prima vera, the songs in which, with his eclogues, earned him the name of the Portuguese Theocritus. The foremost literary figure of the time was the encyclopaedic D. Francisco Manuel de Mello (q.v.), who, though himself a Spanish classic, strove hard and success fully to free himself from subservience to Spanish forms and style. Most of the remaining lyricists of the period were steeped in Gongorism or, writing in Spanish, have no place here. It suffices to mention Soror Violante do Ceo, an exalted mystic called "the tenth muse"; Bernarda Ferreira de Lacerda, author of the Sole dades de Bussaco ; the Laura do Anfrizo of Manoel Tagarro, the Sylvia de Lisardo attributed to Frei Bernardo de Brito, and the poems of Frei Agostinho das Chagas, who, however, is better represented by his Cartas espirituaes. Satirical verse had two no

table cultivators in D. Thomas de Noronha and Antonio Serrao de Castro, the first a natural and facile writer, the second the author of Os Ratos da Inquisicii o, a facetious poem composed during his incarceration in the dungeons of the Inquisition, while Diogo de Sousa Camacho satirised the slaves of Gongorism.

The gallery of

epic poets is a large one, but most of their pro ductions are little more than rhymed chronicles. These works include the Ulyssea of Gabriel Pereira de Castro; the U/ys-ipo of Sousa de Macedo ; the Malaca conquistada of Francisco de SA de Meneses ; Rodrigues Lobo's 20 cantos in honour of the Holy Constable; and the Viriato tragico of Garcia de Mascarenhas.

History, Oratory and Drama.

Frei Bernardo de Brito be gan his ponderous Monarchia Lusitana with the creation of man and ended it where he should have begun, with the coming of Count Henry to the Peninsula. His contribution is a mass of legends destitute of foundation or critical sense, but both here and in the Chronica de Cister he writes a good prose. Of the four continuers of Brito's work, three are no better than their master, but Frei Antonio Brandão, who dealt with the period from King Alphonso Henriques to King John II., proved himself a man of high intelligence and a learned, conscientious historian.

Frei Luis de Sousa, a typical monastic chronicler, although he had begun life as a soldier, worked up the materials collected by others, and after much labor limae produced the panegyrical Vida de D. Frei Bartholemeu dos Martyres, the Historia de S. Do mingos, and the Annaes d'el rei D. Joao III. His style is excellent, but he lacks the critical sense. Manuel de Faria e Sousa (q.v.), a voluminous writer on Portuguese history and the commentator of Camoens, wrote in Spanish, and Mello's classic account of the Catalan War is also in that language, while in Portuguese Jacinto Freire de Andrade thought to picture and exalt the Cato-like vice roy of India by his grandiloquent Vida de D. Joao de Castro.

Other historical books of the period are the valuable Discursos of Severim de Faria, the Portugal restaurado of D. Luis de Me neses, sonde de Ericeira, the ecclesiastical histories of Archbishop Rodrigo da Cunha, the Agiologio lusitano of Jorge Cardoso and the Chronica da Companhia de Jesus by Padre Balthazar Telles. The last also wrote an Historia da Ethiopia, and, though the travel literature of this century compares badly with that of the preced ing, mention may be made of the Itinerario da India por terra ate a ilha de Chipre of Frei Gaspar de S. Bernardino, and the Relavio do novo caminho atraves da Arabia e Syria of Padre Manuel Godinho.