Even now it is not very difficult to procure the original editions of the best authors, scattered as they are over Europe, so little national reading is there.

As a language, the Portugueze has about a due proportion of vowels and consonants -bones enough for solidity, not all bone like the German.

This eldest daughter of the Latin has been the servant of the Goths and the slave of the Moors.

There is a fashion of language. The choice of expressions of the best authors in Portugueze, were aped affectedly in conversation; thus they became trite and vulgar. Fellows who could not ride Pegasus, made use of his trappings, and dirtied them, and wore them to rags and shabbiness.

An affectation of French words has brought the vernacular ones often into disuse, and the puppies of the day call the legitimate words of the old authors, the "wells undefiled" of Portugueze, gothic, and rusty, and obsolete. A French dictionary is now more necessary than a Portugueze, to enable our youth to understand their native tongue. This alters the construction of the sentences. The Portugueze is an inverted syntax, not difficultly perplexed, but well varied; the French, a straight-forward phraseology: thus translations have impoverished and debased the Portugueze.

Three epochs in the language.

1. From the foundation of the monarchy to Affonso V., four hundred years. to Sebastian.

2.

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| of euphony; lengthened, or abbreviated words, and made them from the Latin. Sometimes," says ANTONIO DAS NEVES, "he abused this liberty, and coined words almost macarronic." He revived obsolete words also.

These are merits which escape the notice of a foreigner. We look at Camoens as a dim eyed man beholds a cathedral. He catches the general plan, and the stronger features; but the minuter parts, the numberless ornaments escape him: he sees an arch indeed, but the capital and the frieze elude his eyesight; he beholds the battlements, but he cannot see the Caryatides that form them and their varying attitudes of beauty. We build with ready materials, but Camoens dug in the quarry, and hewed the stones for his edifice. Camoens called Barros his Ennius, and the frequent perusal of his Decades kindled his imagination. By studying the same author, Vieyra acquired his power of language.

In the Hospital de Letras, Camoens is complaining of four translators and two commentators. The Bishop Thome de Faria, who translated him into such Latin that mais parece Romance Punico que Romano. But if one Faria lessened him, another as extremely magnified him,-Manoel Severem de Fana, in his life. Macedc was the other translator, who rather travestied than translated him. Besides these was a Castelhão, and a Franchinoti, who, as they made him lose his name, do not deserve to have their own mentioned. Of the commentators, Manoel Correa was too short, and Manoel de Faria too long. "But I," says DON FRANCIS MANOEL, "from my friendship think it short," though his trouble was not, for more than twenty years did he study this book. There are besides MSS. commentaries of Joao Pinto Ribeyro, and another of Ayres Correa, corrected by Frey Francisco do Monti. Besides, Camoens complains of the Abbot Joao Soares, and the Sancristao Manoel Pires, for an Apology and a Defence, "for which God forgive them!" "Are there more Camoistas?" says

VIEYRA

LIPSIUS. Author. "One Rolim, and one Gallejos." Lipsius. "Both learned men, as I have heard." Boccalini. "Both, like many of our time, very learned, que sempre sabem o que naō importa."

Besides, he complains that certain booksellers have had little conscience enough to bind him up with the Sylvia de Lizardo!

Vieyra.

"LIKE Seneca, he corrupted the oratory of his countrymen, but not the language, which he alone enriched as much as all the poets."-FR. DIAS.

Corrupted! Vieyra is the Jeremy Taylor of Portugal.

Can the Arte de Furtar be his? It wants the flow, the fulness, the flood of language, the life, warmth, the animation of spirit.

His is a rapid style; he runs, yet is never out of breath: it is a current that hurries you on. A compressed sententious language would, in a fourth part of the words, express the meaning: perhaps the reader would not gain time: he must pause and ponder as he proceeded, the galley may equal the speed of the brig, but the one sails easily along, and the other is impelled by the tug and the labour of arms.

The Cid to his Sword. "Y QUANDO alguno te vença del torpe fecho enojado, fasta la Cruz en mi pecho te escondere muy ayrado."

JUAN DE ESCOBAR's Collection, ff. 7.

"TODOS cavalgan a mula, solo Rodrigo a cavallo; todos visten oro y seda. Rodrigo va bien armado; todos espadas ceñidas Rodrigo estoque dorado; todos con sendas varicas, Rodrigo lança en el mano;

todos guantes olorosas Rodrigo guante mallado; todos sombreros muy ricos Rodrigo casco afinado, y encima del casco lleva un bonete colorado."-ff. 10.

wwwwwwm

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Quelque demy philosophie, on demy medecin (honneur gardé a qui le merite) pourra demander en cest endroit, si usans de teller choses ne sont graveleux, attendu que le laict et formage sont matiere de gravelle, ainsi que l'on voit advenir a plusieurs en nostre Europe: je repondray que le fourmage de soy peut estre bon et mauvais, graveleux et non graveleux, selon la quantite que l'on en prend, et la disposition de la personne. Vray est qu'a nous autres, qui a une mesme heure non contens d'une espece de viande, en prenons bien souvent de vingt cinq on trente, ainsi qu'il vient et boire de mesme, et tant qu'il en peut tenir entre le bast et les sangles, seulement pour honorer chacune d'icelles, et en bonne quantité et souvent; si le fourmage se

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trouve d'abondant, nature desju grevée de la multitude, en pourra mal faire son proffit, joint que de soy il est assez difficile a cuire et a digerer; mais quand l'estomach est dispos, non debilité d' excessive crapule, non seulement il pourra digerer le fourmage, fust-il de Milan, ou de Bethune, mais encores chose plus dure a un besoing."

[La Hermandad vieja y nueva.] "La Hermandad vieja de su primer principio no fue ordenada o fundada por los Reyes, sino por los mismos pueblos de los montes; aunque despues fue confirmada por los Reyes y previlegiada. Y esta solamente la ay en tres pueblos, es a saber, en esta ciudad, y en Ciudad Real, y la villa de Talavera. Fue confirmada por el Rey Don

Fernando el Santo, circa de los años del Señor 1265: y para perpetuarla la dotó de cierto derecho, que es assudura mayor y menor, esto es una cabeça de cada hato que passa por los montes. El nombre de assadura por ventura fue tomado de la parte por el todo: o segun parecer de algunos, corrupto el vocablo se dize assadura, por dezir passadura, esto es, por los ganados que passan. Fue esta santa Hermandad instituyda por escusar las muertes y robos que ciertos ladrones, llama- | dos Golfines, (que eran muchos en numero,) hazian en toda esta comarca, acogiendose a los montes, donde por su espesura y grande aspereza se hazian fuertes, sin que nadie los pudiesse entrar. Tiene esta Hermandad su Cabildo, y se rigen los hermanos por antiguas costumbres y fueros: reside el juzgado en la misma car cel donde ay su sala, (y donde se ponen en prision los malhechores que hazen dano en los despoblados;) eligen entre si Alcaldes, y un quadrillero mayor, y otros oficiales.

"Mas la Hermandad nueva es la que ordenaron los Reyes Catholicos Don Fernando y Doña Ysabel año de 1476, y en el de 1478, a imitacion de la vieja, o alomenos la acrecentaron y favorecieron, aviendo començado en tiempo del Rey Don Enrique su antecessor: y se ordeno contra los salteadores y ladrones

que acometen en el campo. Esta la ay en todo el reyno, y se rige por leyes y pragmaticas que vienen en la nueva recopilacion. No tiene Cabildo de por si, sino que la ciudad en su Ayuntamiento cada año nombra dos Alcaldes, el un año a un Regidor, y un Ciudadano, otro año a un Jurado y un ciudadano alternativamente. Tienen su escrivano y quadrilleros, con todas las libertades celencias que le concedieron los dichos Reyes Catholicos sus instituydores." — Fran. de PISA. Desc. de Toledo, 1. 1, c. 23.

y ex

ALVAR FANEZ is mentioned in some rude old verses which Sandoval has inserted in his history. It is to be regretted that he did not give the whole poem, instead of only the introduction.

"Hismaelitarum gentes domuit, nec earum Oppida vel turres potuerunt stare fortes. Fortia frangebat, sic fortis ille premebat, Tempore Roldani si tertius Alvarus esset Post Oliverum fateor sine crimine rerum, Sub juga Francorum fuerat gens Agareno

rum,

Nec socii chari jacuissent morte perempti. Nullaque sub cœlo melior fuit hasta sereno. Ipse Rodericus mio Cid semper vocatus, De que cantatur quod ab hostibus haud superatus,

Qui domuit Mauros, Comites domuit quoque nostros,

Hunc extollebat, se laude minore ferebat. Sed fateor verum quod tollet nulla dierum, Meo Cidi primus, fuit Alvarus atque secundus."

Prefacio de Almeria. Sandoval, t. 2, p. 276.

Vargas y Ponze.

"Un fantasma de honor tu pecho embarga. Nuestro amor nada importa a los que yacen: mas allá del sepulcro de consortes no hay lazo conyugal: juntas no arden antorchas vivas que alumbro himeneo con las mustias del feretro espantable. ¿Tu juventud sin par la sorda lima de amargo llanto destruirá incesante ?