oracle in Portugal.* The absurd conversion of the pastoral style into a mere poetic figure was among other faults of Portuguese poetry, methodically favoured and confirmed by the fallacious theories of Faria e Sousa. The earlier Portuguese poets who availed themselves of this inappropriate freedom merely followed a custom which had accidentally arisen. After transforming all sorts of occasional poems into eclogues, they at least endeavoured to give these factitious eclogues a pastoral character. But Faria e Sousa having formed a perverted judgment on pastoral poetry, proceeded in conformity with that judgment to exhibit various kinds of completely disfigured eclogues. In his treatise on his own pastoral poems, he theoretically praises himself for never having attempted any species of poetic composition on which he did not confer some novelty. He was accordingly less scrupulous than the eclogue writers who had preceded him, in introducing into such poems characters from the great and polite world. It seems with him to be sufficient that the scene shall always be in the country. He composed, however, a few eclogues in the true spirit and style of pastoral life. He likewise endeavoured to introduce into pastoral poetry more of action and interesting incident than is usually exhibited in that species of composition, so that in this respect some of his eclogues are brought into comparisson with serious comedies. According to these and similar principles, Faria e Sousa distinguished his love eclogues (eglogas amorosas,) from * Barbaso Machado, in his Lexicon of learned men, expressly says of Faria e Sousa, that he was indebted to his extraordinary talents and knowledge de ser venerado por Oraculo. hunting eclogues (venatorias), sea-faring eclogues (maritimas), properly pastoral or rather rustic eclogues (rusticas), funeral eclogues (funebres), and other modifications of similar description. In pursuance of his theory he recognized even arbitrator eclogues (arbitrarias), monastic eclogues (monasticas), critical eclogues (criticas), genealogical eclogues (genealogicas), hermit eclogues (eremiticas), and finally, as a particular species, fantastical eclogues (fantasticas), the theme of which is a prophetic vision. Of all these styles he has given specimens according to his own fancy. The same confusion of ideas on which his art of poetry is founded, and the same search after the uncommon at the expense of sound judgment, pervades the whole of this collection of eclogues. The beautiful idea which pastoral poetry presents was completely lost in the way in which Faria e Sousa viewed it. He attached but little importance to the representation of a poetic rural life, and still less to ideal simplicity, his wish being to sport, after his own manner, in bucolic forms, with crude conceits, affected pathos, and extravagant images. His rustic eclogues are, it is true, sufficiently rural, but not in the style of Saa de Miranda, who with the most delicate art gave a poetic dignity to rustic manners. Faria e Sousa's shepherds are absolute clowns; and he accordingly makes them discourse in a kind of low Portuguese, one half of which is unintelligible to foreigners unacquainted with the rudest dialect of the peasantry of Portugal.* Those who understand, or imagine they understand Portuguese, may try how far it is practicable to translate verbally the commencement of one of these eclogues: Faria e Sousa crowned his efforts towards the literary cultivation of his age by a diffuse commentary on the works of Camoens,-a production more calculated to obscure than to illustrate the original. This commentary is written in Spanish.* The value of the historical portion would be greatly enhanced, were it separated from the critical, so that the latter might be rejected and only the former retained. But the historical data which Faria e Sousa has collected for the elucidation of Camoens's poems, and particularly the Lusiad, are everywhere intervoven with the critical paraphrase of the text, and that paraphrase is so overloaded with a mass of erudition not merely superfluous, but totally unconnected with the subject, that in the present age, a reader of the works of Camoens, might be enabled to estimate the extent of his admiration of Roque. He gram coisa bergonha ter no rosto; Afons. a o tella nelle antrambos ugalmente, agora a hum põto aqui ambos ha posto Se a todos lhe esquece o Samsodorninho, de dar ós bolos fim, a fim o binho. Em tè, maes nom querer todos folgamos. * The commentary on the Lusiad is published separately. It is entitled, Lusiadas de Luis de Camoens, &c. commentadas por Manuel de Faria y Sousa. Madr. 1639, 4 parts, in 2 folio volumes. The commentary on the miscellaneous poems of Camoens is entitled: Rimas varias de Luis de Camoens, &c. commentadas por Man. de Faria y Sousa. Lisb. 1685, in 7 small folio volumes. The latter, therefore, was not printed until thirty-six years after the death of Faria e Sousa. the poet by the degree of patience with which he peruses the labours of this commentator. Faria e Sousa has furnished a new example of the little profit to be derived from critical investigation, by a man who does not commence with a mind rightly cultivated for such a study. His admiration of Camoens contributes nothing to the improvement of his own poetic talent, for he always forces his own perverted views into Camoens's poetry. The esteem which Faria e Sousa obtained in Portuguese literature, must have contributed not a little to promote the endless rhyming of sonnets, and to impede the developement of the loftier style of poetry in Portugal. The false liberality of his critical code proved very convenient for the sonneteers, who experienced but little difficulty in exhibiting the qualities which that critic required in their compositions; and the unreasonable severity with which he treated Tasso was calculated to seduce every eccentric sonneteer into the conceit that he was himself something more than a Tasso. The pretensions of Faria e Sousa were not, however, universally recognized on the Portuguese Parnassus. Even in the composition of sonnets, some of the principal Portuguese poets of the seventeenth century followed the more pure and elevated style of Camoens. But no one thought of avoiding the faults into which Camoens had fallen. That prince of Portuguese poets was always regarded as faultless. THOMAS DE NORONHA. Comic sonnet poetry, in which Camoens did not distinguish himself as a master, obtained a favourable reception from the Portuguese public on Thomas de Noronha, a contemporary of Faria e Sousa becoming celebrated for that kind of composition.* But Thomas de Noronha, though an agreeable man of the world, was but a pretender in wit. His writings probably acquired a particular interest from the convivial temper, for which he was distinguished in society, and of which the reader is reminded by his poetry. But such versified jests as this merry companion has left behind him, could only have obtained temporary popularity from personal and local circumstances. They want the sprightly extravagance of the burlesque poetry of the Italians, as well as the moral keeping and caustic delicacy of the more lofty style of satire. Burlesque, however, they certainly are. Some approach, at least in a coarse way, to the Italian jests of a similar kind;† and in others jesting * An abundant collection of comic sonnets, decimas, canções and epigrams by Noronha, may be found in the fifth volume of the Fenix renascida, already quoted. † A specimen shall be given here, little worthy as such fooleries are of perusal. The sonnet is written to rhymed endings (com consoantes forçados.) Naõ socegue eu mais, que hum bonifrate, De agoa sobre mim se vase hum pote, As galas, que eu vestir, sejaõ picote, Se jogar o xadrez, me dem hum mate, E jogando às trezentas hum capote, |