by his patriotic writings. He was obliged to take refuge in Cadiz from the victorious arms of the French. He was intrusted with various diplomatic negotiations, and, among the rest, was sent to London, where he published his poem of "Zaragoza.' On his return to Cadiz, in 1812, he composed his tragedy of "La Viuda de Padilla," which was represented in the midst of the siege of that city, so that the spectators, on their way to the theatre, were exposed to danger from the bursting of the bombs which were continually thrown into the city by the French. In 1814, he was appointed a member, from Granada, of the cortes convoked at Madrid. At the Restoration, he was sent to Africa, and imprisoned in consequence of the zeal with which he had supported the constitutional party. The revolution of 1820 restored him to liberty, and he was a member of the extraordinary cortes of 1820 and 1821, in which he distinguished himself by his eloquence and his moderation. In 1822, he became, against his will, a member of the cabinet; but was driven from office by the crisis of the 7th of July, and came near losing his life. The Restoration of 1823 again drove him into banishment. After travelling through Holland, Switzerland, and Italy, he fixed his residence in Paris, where he remained, devoted to poetry and letters, and occupied with the publication of his "Obras Literarias," until 1831, when, by the king's permission, he returned to his country, and lived in Malaga. Here he collected and revised his "Poesías Líricas," which were printed in 1833, at Madrid. Since then, he has written a variety of historical, lyrical, and dramatic works. His poetical style is marked by ease, picturesqueness, and harmony. THE ALHAMBRA. COME to my bidding, gentle damsels fair, More fresh and pure than April balms distil! With long, dark locks adown your shoulders straying; With eyes of fire, and lips of honeyed power; Uncinctured robes, the bosom bare displaying, Let songs of love escort me to the bower. With love resounds the murmur of the stream; With love the nightingale awakes the grove; O'er wood and mountain love inspires the theme, And Earth and Heaven repeat the strain of love. Even there, where, 'midst the Alcazar's Moorish pride, Three centuries of ruin sleep profound, From marble walls, with gold diversified, The sullen echoes murmur love around. THIS nobleman, who unites the qualities of the soldier, patriot, and statesman to the genius of the poet and painter, was born at Córdova, March 1, 1791. He studied in the Seminary of Nobles at Madrid, and in 1807 entered the royal guards. He fought in the battles of Rio Seco, Tudela, Uclés, Ciudad Real, Talavera, and Ocaña. In the last he received eleven severe wounds, and was borne from the field by a soldier of cavalry. He was made prisoner at Malaga by General Sebastiani, but succeeded in escaping to Gibraltar, and afterwards to Cadiz. He was present during the whole siege of Cadiz, and took part in the battle of Chiclana. In 1820, he supported the constitutional party with great zeal, and about this time published two volumes of "Poesías." He also represented Córdova in the cortes, and when that body was dissolved by the French in 1823, he went to London, where he occupied himself with literary labors. His love of painting attracted him to Italy. He reached Leghorn in July, 1825, but, not being allowed to remain there, crossed over to Malta, where he was received, both by the English and the natives, with great distinction. While here, he studied painting and literature, and finished his epic poem of "Florinda." He remained in Malta until 1830. Not being permitted by the government of Charles the Tenth to reside in Paris, he opened a school of drawing in Orléans; but after the July revolution, he lived in Paris, with his wife and children. In 1832, he finished a work, entitled "El Moro Expósito," written in the romantic, as distinguished from the classical style, to which he had adhered in his former productions. In 1834, he was restored to his country, and having succeeded to the dukedom of Rivas, by the death of his elder brother, took rank among the chief grandees of Spain. Since then, he has written several dramatic pieces. Last visited my brow! Niagara ! Thou with thy rushing waters dost restore The heavenly gift that sorrow took away. Tremendous torrent! for an instant hush The terrors of thy voice, and cast aside Those wide-involving shadows, that my eyes May see the fearful beauty of thy face! I am not all unworthy of thy sight; For from my very boyhood have I loved, Shunning the meaner track of common minds, To look on Nature in her loftier moods. At the fierce rushing of the hurricane, At the near bursting of the thunderbolt, I have been touched with joy; and when the sea, Lashed by the wind, hath rocked my bark, and showed Its yawning caves beneath me, I have loved Hath moved me as thy grandeur moves me Above earth's frivolous pleasures; they partake Thy grandeur, at the utterance of thy name. God of all truth! in other lands I 've seen Lying philosophers, blaspheming men, Questioners of thy mysteries, that draw Their fellows deep into impiety; And therefore doth my spirit seek thy face Dread torrent, that with wonder and with Dost overwhelm the soul of him that looks plies, To thy down-rushing waters; he hath girt And I bethink me how the tide of time And he awakes to sorrow. I, alas! Feel that my youth is withered, and my brow Ploughed early with the lines of grief and care. Never have I so deeply felt as now The hopeless solitude, the abandonment, The anguish of a loveless life. Alas! How can the impassioned, the unfrozen heart Be happy without love? I would that one, Beautiful, worthy to be loved and joined In love with me, now shared my lonely walk On this tremendous brink. 'T were sweet to PORTUGUESE LANGUAGE AND POETRY. corded in the annals of Portuguese poetry are those of Gonzalo Hermiguez, and Egaz Moniz. They flourished about the middle of the twelfth century, during the reign of Alfonso the First. They were knights of his court, and, like all poetic knights, since knighthood first began, sang of love and its despairs," the sweet pains and pleasant woes of true love." Some specimens of their songs have been published THE Portuguese language is that form which the Romance assumed on the Atlantic seaboard of the Peninsula, and was originally one and the same with the Galician dialect of Spain. It is a sister dialect of the Spanish or Castilian, to which it bears a striking resemblance. "Daughters of the same country," says a Portuguese writer,* "but differently educated, they have distinct features, and a different genius, gait, and manner; and yet there is in the fea-by Faria y Souza.* To the same period belongs tures of both that family likeness (ar de familia), which is recognized at the first glance." The Portuguese is softer and more musical than the Spanish, but wants the Spanish strength and majesty. It has discarded the Arabic guttural, but has adopted the equally unmusical nasal of the French.t Sismondi calls it un Castillan désossé, "boned Castilian." The history of Portuguese poetry may be divided into three periods, corresponding with those of the Spanish. I. From 1150 to 1500. II. From 1500 to 1700. III. From 1700 to the present time. I. From 1150 to 1500. The first names re * Bosquejo da Historia da Poesia e Lingua Portugueza (by ALMEIDA GARRETT), in FONSECA'S Parnaso Lusitano. 5 vols. Paris. 32mo. "The Romance, out of which the present Portuguese language has grown" (says Bouterwek, in the Introduction I., pp. 12-14), was probably spoken along the coast of the to his History of Spanish and Portuguese Literature, Vol. Atlantic long before a kingdom of Portugal was founded. Though far more nearly allied to the Castilian dialect than to the Catalonian, it resembles the latter in the remarkable abbreviation of words, both in the grammatical structure and in the pronunciation. At the same time, it is strikingly distinguished from the Castilian by the total rejection of the guttural, by the great abundance of its hissing sounds, and by a nasal pronunciation common to no people in Europe except the French and the Portuguese. In the Spanish province of Galicia, only politically separated from Portugal, this dialect, known under the name of lingoa Gallega, is still as indigenous as in Portugal itself, and was, at an early period, so highly esteemed, that Alfonso the Tenth, king of Castile, surnamed the Wise (el Sabio), com posed verses in it. But the Galician modification of this dialect of the western shores of the Peninsula has sunk, like the Catalonian Romance of the opposite coast, into a mere provincial idiom, in consequence of the language of the Castilian court being adopted by the higher classes in Galicia. Indeed, the Portuguese language, which, in its present state of improvement, must no longer be confounded with the popular idiom of Galicia, would have experienced great difficulty in obtaining a literary culti vation, had not Portugal, which, even in the twelfth century, formed an independent kingdom, constantly vied in arts and in arms with Castile, and during the sixty years of her union with Spain, from 1580 to 1640, zealously maintained her particular national character." also the first essay in Portuguese epic poetry; the fragment of an old chronicle of the conquest of Spain by the Moors, from the hand of an unknown author. During the thirteenth century, no advance was made in Portuguese poetry, though the language became more fixed and subject to rules. In the last half of this century, King Diniz (Dionysius), like his contemporary, Alfonso the Wise, of Spain, displayed himself as a poet and the friend of poets. He likewise founded, in 1290, the National University. His poems are preserved in Cancioneiros,, as yet unpublished. In the fourteenth century, the entire Portuguese Parnassus seems to have escheated to the crown. Hardly a poetic name of that century survives, which does not belong to the royal family. Alfonso the Fourth, son of King Diniz, was a poet; so was his brother, Alfonso Sanchez; so was Pedro the First, the poetical part of whose history is not in what he wrote, but in what he did, in the romantic episode of "Ignez de Castro." The Portuguese poetry of the fifteenth century, like the Spanish, is preserved, for the most part, in the Song-books, or Cancioneiros Geraes. That of Garcia de Resende is said to contain the names of more authors than the Spanish collection, that is, more than one hundred and thirty-six. Among these, the most distinguished are Bernardim Ribeyro, and Christovao Falcao. Ribeyro is called the Portuguese Ennius; and his fame rests chiefly upon his eclogues, and his pastoral romance in prose, "Menina e Moça" (The Innocent Maiden), the prototype of Montemayor's "Diana." Falcao * Europa Portuguesa. Por MANUEL DE FARIA Y Souza. 3 vols. Lisboa. 1678-80. fol. ↑ The Cancioneiro usually spoken of is that of Garcia de Resende, published in 1516. Another was made in 1577, by Father Pedro Ribeyro, but never printed. One of the series of the "Bibliothek des Literarischen Vereins," in Stuttgart, now in press, is entitled "Der Portuguesische Cancioneiro, herausgegeben von Archivrath Kausler." The full title is not given. "the renowned men, Who, from the western Lusitanian shore, was a knight of the order of Christ, an admiral, | tury, as of all others in Portuguese poetry, is and a governor of Madeira, as well as a poet. he who sang of His principal work is the eclogue of "Crisfal," in which, as in the writings of Ribeyro, the Tagus, the Mondego, and the rocks and groves of Cintra form the scenery, and the heroine is the poet's mistress. At the conclusion of this pastoral, a wood nymph, who has overheard the lover's complaints, "inscribes them on a poplar, in order, as it is said, that they may grow with the tree to a height beyond the reach of vulgar ideas." To this century belong, doubtless, many of the Portuguese ballads, of which no collection has yet been published. This was the heroic age of Portugal, when "a tender as well as heroic spirit, a fiery activity and a soft enthusiasm, war and love, poetry and glory, filled the whole nation; which was carried, by its courage and spirit of chivalrous enterprise, far over the ocean to Africa and India. This separation from home, and the dangers encountered on the ocean, in distant climes, and unknown regions, gave their songs a tone of melancholy and complaining love, which strangely contrasts with their enthusiasm for action, their heroic fire, and even cruelty." Luis de Camoens, author of the national epic, "Os Lusiadas," who lived in poverty and wretchedness, died in the Lisbon hospital, and, after death, was surnamed the Great, a title never given before, save to popes and emperors. The life of no poet is so full of vicissitude and romantic adventure as that of Camoens. In youth, he was banished from Lisbon on account of a love affair with Catharina de Attayda, a dama do paçɔ, or lady of honor at court; he served against the Moors as a volunteer on board the fleet in the Mediterranean, and lost his right eye by a gun-shot wound in a battle off Ceuta; he returned to Lisbon, proud and poor, but found no favor at court, and no means of a livelihood in the city; he abandoned his native land for India, indignantly exclaiming with Scipio, "Ingrata patria, non possidebis ossa mea! "three ships of the squadron were lost in a storm, he reached Goa safely in the fourth; he fought under the king of Cochin against II. From 1500 to 1700. This is the most the king of Pimenta; he fought against the illustrious period of Portuguese literature. At Arabian corsairs in the Red Sea; he was banits commencement, the classic or Italian taste ished from Goa to the island of Macao, where was introduced by Saa de Miranda, and Anto- he became administrator of the effects of denio Ferreira, as it was in Spain by Boscan and ceased persons, and where he wrote the greatGarcilaso. Saa de Miranda is called the Portu-er part of the "Lusiad"; he was shipwrecked guese Theocritus, as indicating his supremacy in bucolic poetry. Living for the most part in the seclusion of the country, he made his song an image of his life; for he divided his hours between domestic ease, hunting the wolf through the forests of Entre Douro e Minho, and, as he himself expresses it, "culling flowers with the Muses, the Loves, and the Graces." From his solitude he sang to his countrymen the charms of a simple life, the dangers of foreign luxuries, and the enervating effects of "the perfumes of Indian spices." Antonio Ferreira was surnamed the Portuguese Horace. He is distinguished for the beauty of his odes, which have become the models for the poets of his nation, as those of Herrera and Luis de Leon are for those of Spain. To these distinguished names may be added a third, of equal, if not greater, distinction, that of Gil Vicente, the Portuguese Plautus. Had he been born later, or under more auspicious dramatic influences, he might have stood beside the great Lope de Vega; as it is, his fame is by no means inconsiderable, and Erasmus is said to have studied Portuguese for the purpose of reading his comedies. He persevered to the last in adhering to the old national taste, in opposition to the new school of Saa de Miranda and Ferreira. But the greatest poet of the sixteenth cen Ross's BOUTERWEK, Vol. II., p. 42. on the coast of Camboya, saving only his life and his poem, the manuscript of which he brought ashore saturated with sea-water; he was accused of malversation in office, and thrown into prison at Goa; after an absence of sixteen years, he returned in abject poverty to Lisbon, then ravaged by the plague; he lived a few years on a wretched pension granted him by King Sebastian when the "Lusiad" was published, and on the alms which a slave he had brought with him from India collected at night in the streets of Lisbon; and finally died in the hospital, exclaiming, "Who could believe that on so small a stage as that of one poor bed Fortune would choose to represent so great a tragedy? Thus was completed the Iliad of his woes. Fifteen years afterward, a splendid monument was erected to his memory; so that, as has been said of another, "he asked for bread, and they gave him a stone." The other poets of this century are eclipsed and rendered almost invisible by the superior splendor of Camoens. Those most worthy of mention among them are Pedro de Andrade Caminha, and Diogo Bernardes, both admirers and disciples of Ferreira and the classic school; and Francisco Rodriguez Lobo, whose "Corte na Aldea, e Noites de Inverno" (The Court in the Country, and Winter Nights), with its stately phrases and Ciceronian fulness of periods, is one of the earliest specimens of elegant and † Encyclopædia Americana, Art. Portuguese Language cultivated prose in Portuguese literature, and and Literature. |
