FARI'A Y SOUSA, MANOEL, a Portuguese historian and poet, was b. of an ancient family at Caravella, in the province of Entre 3Iinho e Douro, 18th Mar., 1590, and studied at the university of Braga. For some time he was in the service of the bishop of Oporto, but shortly after 1613 he went to Madrid, where, however, he did not long remain, as he found no opportunity there of improving his circumstances. In 1631, he obtained the office of secretary to the Spanish embassy at Rome, where his extensive acquirements procured him the notice of pope Urban VIII. and of all the learned men of the city. After some time, he returned to Spain, and died at Madrid 3d June, 1649. Faria's writings are partly in Spanish, and partly in Portuguese. Of the former, we may mention Discursos morales y politicos (2 Madr. 1623-26), Epitome de las Historias Portuguesas (Madr. 1628), Comentarios sobre lee Zu siada (2 vols., Madr. 1639), Asia Portu guesa (3 vols., Lisbon, 1666-75), Europa Portuguesa (3 vols., Lisbon, 1678-80), Africa
Portuguese (Lisbon, 1681), and the greater portion of his poems, which he collected under the title of Fuente de Aganippe o Rimas Varias (Madr. 1611 16). These poems consist of sonnets, eclogues, canzones, and madrigals. Faria, however, composed about 200 sonnets and 12 eclogues in the Portuguese language; and it is mainly by these, and also by three theoretical treatises on poetry, that he has influenced the development of the poetic literature of Portugal, in which he was long regarded as an oracle. His poetry exhibits talent and spirit, but is on the whole tasteless and bombastic. Faria is not to be confounded with another Portuguese author of the same name, who was born at Lisbon in 1581, and died at Evora in 1655, and who was one of the most learned• numismatists of his age.