GONZA GA, gon-zit'gtl, 'Diem/a ANTONIO (1744-1809). A Portuguese poet, horn at Oporto. Having completed his law studies at the Uni versity of Coimbra, which he attended from 1763 to 1768, Gonznga in the latter year went to Brazil, and after having acted for some years as local magistrate at .Beja and elsewhere, he was appointed judge at Villa Rica, in the Prov ince of Minas. Before this time he developed sonic talent for versification, and his literary tastes soon brought him into intimate association with Claudio Manoel, Alvarenga Peixoto, and other writers of the so-called Minas school; but the love %%Welt inspires the poet did not come upon him until he had made the acquaintance (c.1788) of Dona Maria Joaquina Dorothea de Seixas, the Morilia of his masterpiece. the Marina de Direct; (the latter being the 1111111e adopted by the poet himself). He had just been nominated a member of the Supreme Court of Bahia. and was an the eve of his marriage, when discovery was made of the treasonable plot of Minas. and he was arrested
on suspicion of having been implicated in it. On merely circumstantial evidence, and that of a very inconclusive kind, he was condemned (1792) to banishment for life to Pedras de Angoche, a sentence which was afterwards commuted to one of ten years' exile at Mozambique. Here he made some effort to practice as an advocate, but he never recovered from the depression with which his cruel lot had affected him. He was attacked by nervous fever, which undermined his health, and after years of increasing melancholy, which occasionally alternated with fits of acute mania, he died. His poems are still favorites with the Portuguese-speaking peoples, chiefly because of the charm of their style, their melody, and their refined sentiment. At least fifteen editions of the Marilia de Dirceu have appeared since 1800. There are biographies prefixed to the editions of Rio Janeiro (1845 and 1862).