Chapter XI: Book II (6)

Jacinto Freire de Andrade or Andrada, an ecclesiastic, who performed a part in the political history of his native country, and nearly fell a sacrifice to the patriotism with which he defended the claims of the house of Braganza against the Spanish occupation of the Portuguese throne, also endeavoured to enlarge the boundaries of comic poetry. Wit so highly cultivated had never before shewn itself in Portuguese verse. In the union of bold sportiveness, sustained humour and poignant satire, with perfect correctness and elegance of language, Andrada’s burlesque narratives of the fable of Narcissus, and the fable of Polyphemus and Galathæa,[291] excel all the earlier specimens of comic wit which the works of former Portuguese poets, including even the comedies, afford. The burlesque manner of Andrada is owing solely to a caricature style which he took no pains to avoid. From the introductory stanzas to his Polyphemus, it appears that he merely tried to divert himself by these plays of fancy, in the hope of forgetting the adversities of his life. He wished, he says, “to visit the region of folly, that he might thereby approach happiness.” He also observes, that “with three ounces of judgment he is more loaded than an elegy, and more solemnly sententious than a sonnet.”[292] In order to cheat his sorrow, he makes “joy play with false dice.”[293] Had Andrada thrown these dice more steadily, he would, without doubt, have been one of the first comic writers in narrative poetry. But his satire was chiefly directed against the affected poetry of the Gongorists. He attacked other follies merely incidentally as they happened to strike him, and while he was in the humour rather to jest than to castigate.

In his _Narcissus_, he begins with parodying the wild conceits and romantic imagery of the fantastic sonneteers. To explain whence the beauty of Narcissus originates, a minute detail is given of the charms of his mother, the nymph Liriope, to whom the river god Cephissus makes tender propositions. After describing how the nymph paints herself in the morning, it is said of her eyes “that for boldness and honour there are no fairer lights in heaven; that they are pirates rebelliously fallen from the sun, which now, like the Dutch, wage war against the stars.”[294] Of the lips of the beauteous nymph he says, that they make “the roses wither for envy.”[295] The declaration of love, put into the mouth of Cephissus in this parodying style, is still more whimsical. If, says he, the eyes of the nymph should summon him to battle, he must be immediately subdued, because he should “see the sun divided in two eyes.”[296] He conjures her not to destroy the paper on which he has written his declaration of love, as in that case she will destroy “the house in which she dwells; and the altar on which she is worshipped.”[297] He now begins to weep bitterly, upon which Liriope observes, that if he be a true lover, the fountain of his tears must never dry up; but that it would be better to begin by giving her a little present, and to let “the sin go first and the tears follow afterwards.”[298] Andrada’s conceits, though they sometimes consist of mere plays of words, are still not of a common kind; as when he makes the covetous nymph say, that, “the demon of the flesh, flies frightened from the cross, but clings to the crossed;”[299] and that of “all beautiful streams none murmur so sweetly as the Silver River (the Rio de la Plata in South America).” At length the nymph resigns herself to the river god, and he becomes the reputed father of Narcissus. The reader is next entertained with a comic biography of Narcissus, which is a satirical representation of the history of a fashionable beau. Before he quits the cradle he is destined to become a military officer, as it is discovered that he was born “in the sign of the lion, though it was really the sign of the bull.”[300] The officer when grown up is characterized as one who though _choleric_, is never _sanguine_ (sanguinary); who has “sinned against the fifth commandment in word but not in deed;[301] and who has always displayed great gallantry in engagements with the wine flasks.[302]” Tired of the army, he applies himself to poetry, and writes a new Jerusalem Delivered, and some sonnets in which the sun is so frequently introduced, that the absurdity of the conceits or _disparates_ is, as it is said, rendered quite transparent. Narcissus also becomes fond of tracing genealogies, but he considers it beneath his dignity to study law, or to endeavour to acquire any other kind of practical knowledge. Being convinced by the heralds of his distinguished extraction, he withdraws himself from the public eye; but at the same time takes a lively interest in all that occurs at court, and soon becomes a minister of state. The love of wealth being now his governing passion, he rapidly enriches himself at the expense of the nation, and at last dies of vanity.

What this satire occasionally wants in refinement, is compensated by its extraordinary features, in which Andrada’s wit shines with peculiar lustre: and though the comic effusions of the ingenious author can only rank as poetic trifles, they are nevertheless entitled to some attention in consequence of their being chiefly directed against the absurd style which then distinguished and disfigured Spanish and Portuguese literature.

Andrada’s Polyphemus is a direct ridicule of the monstrous production of Gongora which bears the same title. As an example of the kind of ridicule employed it may just be mentioned, that in this parody the Cyclops styles the conquering eyes of Galathæa, “Turks by land and Dutch by sea.” The poetic works of Andrada include some comic sonnets and romances. He is also the author of a still more remarkable prose work which will be hereafter noticed.

FURTHER DECLINE OF PORTUGUESE TASTE--RIBEIRO DE MACEDO--CORREA DE LA CERDA.

During the second half of the seventeenth century, until the period of the first imitation of the French style in Portuguese literature, the defenders and partizans of classic correctness in Portugal seem to have been constantly diminishing. After the kingdom was emancipated from Spanish dominion, the old patriotic spirit of the Portuguese again found its way into their poetry; but that poetry gained little thereby in interior cultivation; and its boundaries were not farther extended. A species of mythological tales in the romantic form, but very dull and frigid, obtained some favour. In this style did Duarte Ribeiro de Macedo, who was also a prose author, and who died in the year 1682, after filling several distinguished posts, relate the fable of Adonis in serious redondilhas. Undismayed by the ridicule with which Freire Andrada had overwhelmed poems formed of such materials, he says in his verses that “Adonis has obtained privileges from Cupid, and licences from Diana, for punishing wild beasts and enchanting the fair; that lightnings flash from his eyes, and arrows are shot from his hands; that the hills and valleys at once represent lamentation and horror, because in the former the beasts groan, and in the latter the goddesses sigh.”[303]

Fernaõ Correa de la Cerda, an ecclesiastic, who was Bishop of Oporto, may also be numbered among the versifiers of this class. In a sonnet on a lady who died a few days after an eclipse of the sun, he thought it pathetic to say, that “at the death of Phillis, the whole celestial sphere must be afflicted with deep sorrow, bitter anguish.” And then he asks “if _an eclipsed_ sun excites so much regret, what is to be expected from _a dead_ sun?”[304]

VIOLANTE DO CEO.

A poetess whose name and rank probably contributed to raise her reputation at this period, shone conspicuously among the writers whom Freire de Andrada ridiculed. She was called Violante do Ceo, that is, if a name may be translated, “Violante of Heaven.” As a nun of the order of Dominicans, she obtained the character of a pattern of piety. Portuguese writers, moreover mention, that she was an excellent performer on the harp, and a singer. Among her writings there are some spiritual meditations in prose. She was born in 1601, and died in 1693, having consequently attained the age of ninety-two. Her miscellaneous poems were for the first time collected after her death.[305] Violante do Ceo was certainly a woman of genius; but her genius had received a totally false cultivation. She delighted as much as any of the partizans of Faria e Sousa, in all the absurdities of Portuguese Gongorism and Marinism. With her no antithesis was too far-fetched, no play of words too trivial, if the idea she thereby expressed was, according to her opinion, extraordinary. When wanting a poetic image, she immediately has recourse to the sun, which constantly shines in her pages as in these of the other Portuguese Gongorists and Marinists, whose verses, on that account, were by the witty Andrada, pronounced transparent. The tenderness or warmth of feeling which in female poetry often gets the better of the judgment, is in the writings of Violante do Ceo unnaturally represented by a false overstrained wit, which, however, assumes the disguise of judgment. In a sonnet on a lady, named Marianna de Luna, Violante do Ceo apostrophizes the muses, as “the divinities, who, in the garden of the king of day, unloosing their sweet voices, arrest Zephyr;--who, admiring the thoughts, multiply the flowers which Apollo creates.” She implores the muses “to abandon the society of the sun, since a moon (that is to say, Marianna de _Luna_,) which is at once a sun and a prodigy, prepares for them a garden of harmony.” Whether Marianna de Luna was a musician, or whether she had really laid out a fine garden, is not clearly explained. After some unintelligible phrases, it is in conclusion declared, that “through the grace of the deity, this tuneful garden is secured by the immortal wall of eternity.”[306] In this spirit and style Violante do Ceo composed both sacred and profane poetry. One of her Spanish sonnets on the death of a lady, closes with the idea, that, “if _for such a sun_ the world is the region of setting, heaven on the other hand is _for such a sun_ (the words are expressly repeated) the region of rising.”[307] She addressed a similar sonnet to a physician, named Arraes, a word which in the Portuguese language signifies the master of a vessel; and she says, in allusion to his name, that he deserves to be captain of the ship of life, which navigates the ocean of tyrannic disease; that is to say, as the succeeding lines denote, that he ought to be the king’s physician.[308] By her writings, after the revolution in the year 1640, Violante do Ceo distinguished herself as a patriot, but never as a judicious poetess.[309]

DIDACTIC EPISTLES OF ALVARES DA CUNHA.

Of the extent to which the perverted taste, which in the seventeenth century disfigured Portuguese, even more than Spanish poetry influenced the didactic epistolary style, a judgment may be formed by reference to the writings of Antonio Alvares da Cunha. This author, one of the most distinguished statesmen and literary characters of the reigns of John IV. and Alphonso VI. addressed epistles to Joaõ Nunez da Cunha, who was appointed viceroy of the Portuguese dominions in India. To express the trivial idea of Nunez da Cunha being about to sail from Lisbon for India, Alvares da Cunha pompously says, that the new viceroy will cut through “the crystal waves from the mouth of the Tagus, to those new regions which the world descried by the waving of the _Quinas_.”[310] The time of the sailing of the ship is described as the time during which the viceroy’s “winged beachen trees spread their pinions, carrying with them the wind, while they pursue their silvery path.” He next regrets that the instrument with which he writes does not perfectly express his ideas, observing “that though the pen touch softly the guitar of the paper, rude thunder resounds from that guitar.”[311] This epistle is one of the longest in Portuguese literature; and though totally deficient in the true epistolary character, it nevertheless contains many good ideas and sound precepts, while at the same time it exhibits a vain display of historical erudition.[312]

JERONYMO BAHIA.

The taste of the public was, in like manner, corrupted by Jeronymo Bahia, of whose existence in other respects no account is preserved.[313] The old fable of Polyphemus and Galathæa had already been so completely exhausted, that a recurrence to it might have been expected rather to disgust than to please; and yet, as if a new relation of that wearisomely repeated story had been all that was necessary to establish a writer on a level with Gongora, Jeronymo Bahia collected a store of affected phrases, and with pompous gravity remodelled the often celebrated theme of the Cyclops and his disdainful mistress.[314] Thus powerless had been all the pointed satire of the more judicious party. Divested of its original heaviness, and united with the fanciful Marinism, Gongorism now seemed to its defenders to be raised above the reach of ridicule. Bahia, too, thought it, perhaps, the less necessary to guard against the wit of the adverse party, since he was himself a master in subtle witticism. He wrote numerous comic romances, that is to say, comic tales and descriptions of travels in redondilhas. His playful loquacity flows in an inexhaustible current in these romances, which are not destitute of comic interest; but their extreme length would still have rendered them tedious, even though the author had better succeeded in catching the gay style suited to such trivial compositions.[315] His great facility in rhyming is recorded in a notice affixed to one of his odes. This ode was written on a victory gained by the Portuguese during their war with Spain, and Bahia composed it in a single day, so that it was presented to the king on the evening of the day on which the account of the battle was circulated. Surely no other manufacturer of rhyme would, like him, have spun out an _Idyllio panegyrico_, on a chandelier, which the Duchess of Savoy presented to the Queen of Portugal, to fifty octavo pages of versified prattle. From the works of this author may also be incidentally learned the direction which the prevailing spirit of religion took in Portugal, when the old national energy expired, and when the still more remarkable decline of the Spanish monarchy enabled the Portuguese to maintain an eight-and-twenty years war against Spain, in defence of their recovered independence. It was at this period that the court of Lisbon resorted to the far-famed expedient of enlisting by prayers and entreaties Saint Anthony among the Portuguese troops, and formally investing him with the military rank of generalissimo, in order to render the army invincible. The inhabitant of heaven was declared to have accepted the command, and Jeronymo Bahia wrote a song of praise in honour of King Alphonso VI. who effected this extraordinary arrangement.[316]

FRANCISCO VASCONCELLOS.

The dominion of bad taste and worthless subtilty was not, however, during the second half of the seventeenth century extended over the whole of the Portuguese Parnassus. The writings of some poets still evinced sound judgment and some portion of the old and nobler style of art. Francisco de Vasconcellos of the island of Madeira, inclined somewhat more to the side of reason than most of his contemporaries.[317] Some of his sonnets are so free from unnatural and overstrained thoughts,[318] that one might be induced to consider his other productions as parodied imitations in the style of Andrada, were it not that these outbalance the number of his correct poems, and that his works include a new dressing of the long before overdone story of Polyphemus and Galatæa.

TELLES DA SYLVA AND NUNES DA SYLVA.

Antonio Telles da Sylva was likewise distinguished among the multitude of sonneteers by a better cultivated taste.[319] He also composed latin verses, though he was _gentil-homem da camara_ (a gentleman of the chamber).

But a greater share of attention is due to the poems of Andre Nunes da Sylva, an equally unassuming and ingenious writer, who received his first education in Brazil, and who died a Theatin monk in Portugal.[320] His spiritual sonnets, canções, and romances, are at least free from absurd conceits and Marinistical subtilties. It was, however, scarcely possible at any time, but more especially at the period of the most violent re-action against protestantism, not to deviate from reason, in representing poetically, and with religious fervour, the mysteries of the catholic faith, according to the opinions alone considered orthodox in Portugal and Spain. Nevertheless among the spiritual poems of Nunes da Sylva there are some, which though certainly as romantic as pious, are by no means fantastic, and which may be ranked among the best of their kind.[321] Even where the pious writer appears to have fallen into the most extravagant metaphors of the Marinists, as when he styles the tomb of St. Isabella “a flower of the firmament, a star of the field;” or, shortly after, “a nightingale, an animated jewel, an Orpheus to the ear, and a flower to the eye,”[322] his eccentric plays of ideas have still a poetic keeping. Among the patriotic poems, to which the war with Spain gave birth, there are several by Nunes da Sylva, which are distinguished for correct and picturesque representation, at least in single passages;[323] and his sonnets and songs of love possess, with all their faults, a considerable portion of poetic tenderness.

OTHER SONNETEERS--CONTINUED INTERVENTION OF THE SPANISH LANGUAGE IN PORTUGUESE POETRY.

It is not necessary to enter into particular details respecting other Portuguese sonneteers. Some who enjoyed celebrity lived until the commencement of the eighteenth century, among whom the names of Diogo de Monroy e Vasconcellos, Thomas de Sousa, and Luis Simoes de Azavedo, deserve to be mentioned. About the same period lived Diogo Camacho, who was the author of a lively poem, entitled a Journey to Parnassus; the idea of which was doubtless taken from the work of Cervantes of the same name, but which when compared with that master-piece, possesses no great merit. On comparing the Portuguese sonnets, the authors of which lived till the eighteenth century, with those of a somewhat older date, an obvious, though certainly not a striking tendency of Portuguese taste, to a more correct direction of the imagination, is, upon the whole, perceptible. But how far this change in Portuguese literature was effected by the increasing influence of French taste, which about this time commenced its universal sway; or whether it is at all attributable to the introduction of that taste, are questions not easy to be decided. This, however, is certain, that the incorrect, silly, and fantastic style of writing and judging poetry, still maintained its ground in the Portuguese literature of the eighteenth century long after the Count de Ericeira, who will soon be further noticed, had drawn from the school of Boileau those principles by which he wished to improve the literary taste of his countrymen.

Of the Portuguese sonneteers, who more or less contributed to transfuse the style of the seventeenth into the eighteenth century, there was none who did not, according to the custom of the age, pride himself in his facility of composing verses in the Spanish language. The recent separation of Portugal from the Spanish monarchy, had not, in the least, diminished this old custom of the Portuguese poets. They addressed complimentary verses in Spanish to the Queen of Portugal. Spanish comedies were still represented in Lisbon; and even the _loas_, or prologues, were recited in the same language. It was not until the esteem for Spanish literature had declined throughout Europe, that the literature of Portugal became entirely Portuguese.[324]

It is proper to observe here, that the collections of Portuguese poems of the seventeenth century, likewise contain sonnets by a Prince Don Pedro, and by several anonymous ladies.

PORTUGUESE ELOQUENCE DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

All that need be said respecting the Portuguese eloquence of the seventeenth century, may be related within the compass of a few pages. The obstacles which had hitherto impeded the free cultivation of energetic and reasoning prose in Portuguese literature, operated still more fatally, when the restraints on conscience became more oppressive, and when there was no longer any feeling of political greatness to give excitement to the thinking mind.

ROMANTIC PROSE--MATHEUS RIBEYRO--CASTANHEIRA TURACEM.

Viewed in relation to the whole of Portuguese literature, romantic prose continued nearly on the same footing on which it long had stood. It maintained its ground; but it was long after the death of Rodriguez Lobo before any more distinguished writer in this class of composition arose. With regard to invention, however, some of the Portuguese romances of the seventeenth century are not without merit. This praise is due to a work written by Matheus Ribeyro, a priest, who did not scruple to publish his name on the title-page, together with an enumeration of all his ecclesiastical dignities. This romance, which is entitled, “Retirement from Care, or the Life of Carlos and Rosaura,”[325] is not wanting in adventures both by sea and land. The style, however, is that of the old romance, with all its excrescences, and is particularly fantastical in the descriptive passages.

But a more elegant and far more valuable production of fancy now demands some notice. That this work was written with the view of opposing fantastic ornament in polite literature, and of assisting to restore a more natural and dignified spirit and style, would never be suspected from its affected title, which, stripped of its antiquated form, means, as far as it can be rendered intelligible, “The elegant Evening Party, or the Improvement of Bad Manners.”[326] On the title-page, and at the close of the dedicatory address, the author styles himself Felix da Castanheira Turacem. No information respecting him, beyond what his work affords, seems to have been preserved; but from that it may be concluded that he was a man who moved in the more elevated and polished ranks of society. The bad custom which he particularly condemned was an improper extension of the liberty taken at the season of the carnival in Lisbon. To present a picture of a more elegant and noble style of social entertainment, he contrasts the sprightly conversation of the company, whose manners he describes, with the licentious tricks of the carnival (_entrudo_.) The plan of Castanheira’s work is similar to that of Rodriguez Lobo’s “Court in the Country;” but the composition possesses a higher degree of romantic interest. In the party which Castanheira assembles, beautiful women play prominent parts; and between them and the young gentlemen who most contribute to the entertainment, attachments are formed which cross and oppose each other. The characters by turns sing, play, tell stories, and converse. The composition is, upon the whole, equally graceful and natural; but the execution is in many passages less successful. Castanheira, particularly where he begins to describe, is often drawn unconsciously into the stream of Gongorism and Marinism, though it appears that he was really anxious to separate himself completely from the partisans of these styles. That this was his most serious determination, is obvious from his spirited preface, in which he acknowledges that he does not calculate on a very favourable reception in the polite world. He declares that he is not ambitious of the honour of writing verses extempore. He sought to steer clear of dulness and bombast, the Scylla and Charybdis of the wide ocean of eloquence; and in all his digressions never to lose sight of the haven of clearness, as its entrance is difficult. “But deliver us from metaphor,” he adds in latin, and in the words of the Lord’s Prayer.[327] A man who, at this period, could so express himself in Portugal, deserves, were it on that account only, to be distinguished in the history of polite literature. Castanheira’s language, too, is, upon the whole, as natural according to the manner of its cultivation, as is his lively descriptive art. It is singular, however, that occasionally in the course of his work, and sometimes in those very passages, the superiority of which would otherwise be unquestionable, he falls into the very faults which he himself ridicules.[328] On the novel style, which is discussed in the first evening party, Cervantes appears, by that time, to have exercised a favourable influence. The severe criticism on the _Poesia Incuravel_ (Incurable Poetry), in the second evening’s conversation, is certainly the best theoretical disquisition on Gongorism and Marinism, to be found in the Portuguese literature of the seventeenth century. It ought, also, to be stated, that the sonnets and other poems which are scattered through the work, exhibit some very successful passages. Occasion is taken to introduce a _Discurso Academico_, which towards the conclusion refers to the Italian academic system, which had long been imitated in Portugal, but which proved of as little advantage to Portuguese as to Italian literature.[329] Among the poems comprised in this book, there are many in the Spanish language.

HISTORICAL PROSE--FREIRE DE ANDRADA.

Of the cultivation of prose style in Portuguese literature during the seventeenth century, nothing could be said, had not a man in whom the spirit of the sixteenth century survived, successfully pursued the path which Barros and Brito traced out. This writer, who must be regarded as single in his age, was Jacinto Freire de Andrada, the same who in his comic tales already noticed, ridiculed the Gongorism and Marinism of poetry. The reader is almost inclined to doubt the evidence of his own eyes, when, among the Portuguese writings of the seventeenth century, he discovers such a prose work as “the Life of Dom Joaõ de Castro, fourth Viceroy of India, by Freire de Andrada.”[330] No biographical work, deserving to be ranked on a level with this, had hitherto appeared either in Portuguese or any other modern language. Andrada is reproached with a certain degree of far-fetched elegance and refined subtlety; and certainly his historical style might often, with advantage, be more simple. But that this ingenious writer upon the whole entertained the most correct notion of the rhetorical cultivation of historical prose, and that his intention was to write an energetic style appropriate to his subject, but by no means to make an ostentatious display of elegant phrases, would be sufficiently evident from the character of the whole work, even though the author had not, in his brief preface, explained himself with sufficient clearness on this point. He observes, that he has written his book in the language of truth, and according to credible authorities. He neither followed the advice of some who recommended the extension of his work, nor adopted the opinion of others who wished him to sacrifice the truth of nature to the fashionable ornaments of affected cultivation. His object was not to flatter a corrupt taste; on the contrary he wished to merit, by the unadorned language of truth, the approbation of sensible readers, rather than to gain a name among the great mass of a mis-judging public.[331] To a man of Andrada’s cultivated mind, it never could appear that the duty of a faithful historian required him to write in the chronicle style, as a means of thereby ensuring historical truth. When he took up the pen he felt that a demand was made upon him for the exercise of intellectual powers. His biography of Joaõ de Castro was to be a monument in honour of that distinguished man. Andrada, therefore, devoted no less attention to the representation than to the distribution of the materials of his narrative. To all appearance he did not form his style on that of any particular author of antiquity, but he makes nearer approaches to Sallust than to any other; and the influence which the study of the classics must have had on the literary education of Andrada, is sufficiently obvious. His turn for wit occasionally led him to express himself in antitheses of too poignant a character; but in every other respect his narrative style possesses the clearness, precision, lightness, and moreover the deep interest of the classic prose of antiquity. It is only necessary to read the commencement of this biography, to enter immediately into the spirit of the whole work.[332] Andrada’s appropriate diction never resolves into merely elegant prolixity; and whatever be the degree of polish it receives, its character is generally unassuming. In the biographical arrangement of the events, little historical art is observable, but a clear practical understanding is displayed throughout the whole work. The character of Joaõ de Castro is exhibited even in the first accounts given of his childhood and education. The reader afterwards finds it developed with farther precision, but without any appearance of being again obtruded by the historian. The dark side, which, however, should never be wanting in an historical picture, is left by Andrada to the imagination of his readers. But the intuitive power displayed in the representation of the events, which is naturally and nowhere poetically adorned, leaves nothing to be wished for in this biographical work.[333] Andrada also proved himself a disciple of the classic school by his predilection for the ancient custom of enlivening the narrative, and augmenting the interest of the subject, by speeches attributed to the principal personages who figure in the work. These are sometimes delivered by Joaõ de Castro himself, and more frequently by his most dangerous but interesting enemy, Coge Cofar, the general in chief of the Mussulmans in India. Some of these speeches are decidedly excellent, but others are rather artificial.[334] Towards the close of the biography where documents are interpolated, the story loses some portion of its deep interest. It was by no means a happy idea to add to this work an appendix, which is intended as a summary recapitulation of the whole; and at the same time as a supplemental picture of the character of Joaõ de Castro, whose character is sufficiently portrayed in the narrative of his achievements.

* * * * *

Treatises in the Portuguese language, intended for the developement of the principles of poetry and rhetoric in systematic order, or for the extended application of some of these principles, seem either not to have been written, or at least not to have been much known in the seventeenth century. Practically cultivated taste and critical tact, without which the art of poetry and rhetoric degenerates into useless scholastic theory, must, to men like Freire Andrada, in a great measure have supplied the place of systematic rules.