Lobo Daraja and Celinda, Adalifa and Celidaxa.* follows up this satirical address with a considerable number of Spanish romances of his own composition, apparently with the view of proving how easy it is to write such pieces. Indeed to a poet of Rodriguez Lobo's talent it certainly could not be difficult to produce an exaggerated imitation of the style of the Spanish national romance. But such extravagant imitation will not deprive the best of those romances of the merit which they really possess. Lobo seems purposely to have introduced among these compositions, some pastoral romances in the Portuguese language; as if it were not as easy and even easier to ridicule pastoral poetry; or as if an exuberance of pastoral poetry were to be a proof that Portuguese literature could well dispense with the beautiful epic romance. Rodriguez Lobo laid the foundation of that excessive accumulation of pastoral poetry, existing in the Portuguese language. He exerted his utmost endeavours to fix the taste of the nation in that direction. Before he appeared, the poetic genius of the Portuguese earnestly and zealously sought distinction in different ways. But after the period in which Rodriguez Lobo flourished, the Portuguese poets evinced an exclusive predilection for the pastoral style, even in other classes of poetic composition. * No correremos tambien El Alhambra, el Alpuxarra, STATE OF PORTUGUESE ELOQUENCE IN THE SIX TEENTH CENTURY. Though Portuguese poetry had now attained a degree of consideration which in the following century it was unable to surpass, eloquence, or the elegant literature of prose remaind far behind. That no writer of talent should have produced a work in Portuguese prose, which in a rhetorical point of view is worthy to mark an epoch, may in some respects be accounted for by peculiar circumstances, and must in others be attributed merely to the caprice of chance. The same restrictions on intellectual freedom, which in Portugal so effectually opposed the full developement of pure eloquence, had likewise held captive the thinking faculty in Spain. In Spain, however, a few, but still some men of talent, who pretended to no distinction in poetry, learned to move, even in their fetters, with rhetorical freedom and dignity, and there was nothing to prevent the occurrence of similar instances at an equally early period in Portugal. But it appears, that the Portuguese authors who had no ambition to be poets, were not endowed with the true talent for cultivating the art of rhetorical representation, and that the poets were too much engaged with their own art, to take any particular interest in the improvement of any other branch of polite literature. With the single exception of Rodriguez Lobo, whose Corte na Aldea afforded in Portugal the first example how a poet could elevate the language of common life, without confounding the boundaries of poetry and elegant prose, no Portuguese poet of the sixteenth century in any way contributed to the cultivation of eloquence; and the period when Rodriguez Lobo enjoyed his utmost celebrity was not earlier than the commencement of the seventeenth century. Now the Portuguese language was was then, as the loud complaint of Lobo sufficiently proves, frequently denied, even in Portugal, any claim to the possession of that accuracy and elegance, without which poetry, deficient merely in cultivation, might indeed exist, but which is indispensably necessary to prose composition, when it is to be elevated above the formal style of ceremony, and the negligent expression of common life. Thus it seems to have happened that some Portuguese historians and moralists, who, even in the first half of the sixteenth century, had actually formed their style to a certain extent on the ancient models, still unconsciously fell into the rude manner of the chronicle and monastic prose. In Spain elegant prose was afforded the opportunity of an earlier developement, for the national pride of the Castilians had at all times powerfully protected the Castilian language; and men of learning who entertained a different opinion had not the deciding voice.* * ROMANCES AND NOVELS. The novel style was at this period not more prejudicial to true eloquence in Portugal than in Spain. * See preceding vol. page 306. Every reader, however, unconscious of any theoretical reasoning on such subjects, regarded the romances and novels which were now profusely circulated as scions from the old stock of the national poetry. They were judged according to poetic laws; while fictitious events in forms wholly prosaic, would have been justly declared counterfeit. But the Portuguese attributed to themselves the peculiar merit of ingenious invention, and of an excellent, if not a perfect, style in the relation of romantic events. Palmerin de Oliva, which next to Amadis de Gaul, Cervantes spares in his judgment on romances of chivalry, was written by Francisco de Moraes, a Portuguese courtier and man of the world; and it has already been mentioned, that even Amadis, in its original form, is considered to have been the production of a Portuguese.* Francisco de Moraes lived in the reign of John III. and he visited the French court in the suite of the Portuguese ambassador. This visit may have contributed to nurture his taste for romances of chivalry, which were then greatly in favour with people of rank in France. SA SOTOMAYOR. Many other Portuguese romances of different kinds were produced in the sixteenth century. The prize awarded to Rodriguez Lobo, as author of the most celebrated pastoral romance, had already been an object of ambition with Eloy de Sà Sotomayor, whose Ribeiras *See preceding vol. page 49. do Mondego, (Banks of the Mondego),* was not, however, so early known as Lobo's work. From the preface to the Ribeiras, it is quite evident that Rodriguez Lobo had, according to the fashion of the age, introduced into his pastoral romances a disguised picture of affairs of love which personally interested himself. Sa Sotomayor, who was also a bachelor of canon law, was considered one of the most successful rivals of Rodriguez Lobo, in romantic composition. But as a poet, he was in every respect far inferior. His narrative and descriptive styles are not destitute of grace. His verses, however, cannot bear comparison with those of Lobo: and even his most natural pictures *The Ribeiras are here the streams which flow into the Mondego. As, however, the word ribeira also signifies a bank, the title of this unimportant romance may in translation be more conveniently expressed by the latter sense. The commencement of the tale may be transcribed here as a specimen. It is preceded by an introductory song: Se alguem chorando canta, assi cantava hum pastor à vista do Rio do Mondego, sentado sobre huma sepultura, cuja antiguidade a pezar do tempo, et da inveja descobria a fama entre as ruynas de huns derribados edificios na entrada de hum valle, a quem altos Cyprestes, et outras funebras plantas faziaõ com carregadas sombras morada eterna da tristeza. Corria o Rio alegre, et nunca tanto atras da fermosa Arethusa o namorado Alpheo. Agora com appressado curso, por se appartar das Ribeyras humildes, que o perseguem, mostrava seu furor na crespa escuma, et logo desfazendoa jà livre dellas hia mais vagoroso. Retratavaõse nelle (como em espelho) os frescos arvoredos, que de huma, e doutra parte o assombravaõ em cerrada espessura. |