despotism, spiritual and temporal, finally overthrew the power which had long kept it in equipoise. Even in Portugal, therefore, the restoration of the independence of the kingdom in the year 1640, though it excited new ebullitions of patriotism, could produce no new freedoms in poetry. PORTUGUESE SONNETS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. In the history of Portuguese poetry, the seventeenth century may be called the Age of Sonnets. Lyric art in the old national syllabic metres was entirely abandoned in serious poetry. The composition of sonnets formed the particular recommendation of the man of the world in the circle of polite society; and both in spiritual and temporal affairs, sonnets were resorted to as the means of extricating their authors from difficulty. It would almost appear that at this period poetic merit in Portugal was estimated solely by the inexhaustible facility which an author displayed in the composition of these trifles. To acquire the title of a poet certainly nothing more was necessary than to write a few sonnets not absolutely contemptible. Thus, in the year 1631, when the number of printed Portuguese sonnets was increasing by thousands, Jacinto Cordeiro,* a minute calculator of the poetic fame of his nation, added a supplement of thirty-eight names of Portuguese bards * A writer of Spanish verse, and the author of several approved Spanish comedies. to the list of Spanish and Portuguese poets, which Lope de Vega had furnished in his celebrated Laurel de Apolo.* Doubtless this erroneous estimate of the poetic glory of the nation contributed to check the growth of talent which might have taken a loftier flight, had not a few neatly turned sonnets been sufficient in public opinion, to confer on any individual all the fame of a poet. The limits of a general history of modern poetry are too narrow to afford room for a detailed notice of these sonneteers; a particular account can, therefore, only be given of a few of the most celebrated among them, who were also the authors of other poetical works, or who in any way assisted in improving or deteriorating the literary taste of their country.† FARIA E SOUSA. Manoel de Faria e Sousa who has been so repeatedly mentioned in the course of the present volume, and who * Jacinto Cordero (according to the Spanish orthography and pronunciation of Cordeiro), Elogio de poetas Lusitanos. Lisb. 1631. Those who wish to study the progress of Portuguese poetry, will derive no information from this book. A sufficient acquaintance with the more celebrated of these Portuguese sonneteers, may be acquired from the collection of Portuguese poems, edited by Matthias Pereira da Sylva, under the following fantastical title:-A Fenix renascida, ou Obras poeticas dos melhores engenhos Portugueses (though only those of the seventeenth century are included). Segunda ediçaõ. Lisb. 1746, in 3 volumes octavo. Not one half of this collection is worth perusing. has not been passed by unnoticed in the history of Spanish poetry,* exercised an important influence on the poetry of the Portuguese sonneteers, particularly in the first half of the seventeenth century. Possessing uncommon faculties, which were early disclosed, and early perverted, he distinguished himself while yet a youth by his extraordinary talents and powers of memory. In the year 1605, he participated, in quality of secretary, in the official duties of one of his relations, under whom he received the education fitting for a statesman. But neither his talents and acquirements, nor his connection with the most distinguished families of his native country, having conducted him to an object commensurate with his diligence and ambition, he quitted Portugal and visited Madrid. Though he did not realize all his expectations in the Spanish capital, he was not entirely neglected. He obtained a post in an embassy to Rome; and on his return to Madrid he found at least a tolerable source of subsistence. Still, however, he continued dissatisfied with his income, and on that account his pen was in constant activity. He himself states that he daily wrote twelve sheets, each page containing thirty lines. He possessed so great a facility in rhetorical turns and flourishes, that in the space of a single day he could compose a hundred addresses of congratulation and condolence, all sufficiently different from each other. As an author both in verse and in prose, he continued to labour with unabated assiduity to the period of his death, which hap See preceding vol. page 428. pened in the year 1649.* A considerable portion of his numerous works will preserve his name in honourable recollection; but the value of that portion greatly depends on the subjects it embraces. They belong to the department of history and statistics, but they are all written in Spanish, and therefore cannot with propriety be farther noticed in the history of Portuguese literature. Faria e Sousa's poems are also chiefly in Spanish; he wrote only sonnets and eclogues in Portuguese verse.† Of the six hundred, or to use his own phrase, "the six centuries" of sonnets, which, as it appears he selected for posterity out of a still greater number, precisely two hundred are Portuguese. Some of these compositions merit the praise which Faria e Sousa's admirers have lavished on them all; and the whole * Barbosa Machado notices this polygraphic author with nearly as much enthusiasm as the Spaniards speak of Lope de Vega. He even asserts, that, in point of style Faria y Sousa may be placed on a parallel with the most distinguished of the ancient writers. They are included in the first and fourth volumes of his Fuente de Aganippe. (Madrid, 1446). The following sonnet will afford a specimen of these compositions. It is not indeed totally free from affected phrases; for example, the sixth line. But that line is sufficiently atoned for by the rest: Ninfas, Ninfas, do prado, tam fermosas que nelle cada qual mil flores gera, collection is animated by a buoyant spirit, which soars above ordinary and moderate elegance. But this spirit could not long accommodate itself to sound poetic judgment, nor to the old simplicity and natural flow of ideas and images. Without intentionally becoming an imitator of the Italian Marinists, the Spanish Gongorists, or the school of Lope de Vega, Faria e Sousa revelled in bold flights of fancy, like Lope de Vega, and indulged in eccentric extravagancies like the Marinists and Gongorists. The poetic flowers in his sonnets are overgrown by luxuriant parasitical weeds. In the first Century of the sonnets in the Portuguese language love is the only theme. The introductory sonnet announces that they are intended to celebrate the "penetrating shafts of love, which were shot from a pair of heavenly eyes, and which after inflicting immortal wounds, issued triumphant from the poet's breast."* This style pervades the whole collection. In one place a tender swain, named Menalio, forbids the satyres of the wood to steep their feet in the brook que todas me acudisseys, bem quisera, com vossas luzes, e com vossas rosas. De todas me trazey maes abundantes, |