Chapter C: R. = Cancioneiro de Resende. Lisboa, 1516 (= Cancioneiro Geral) (9)

Inseparably connected with the name of Barros is that of DIOGO DO COUTO (1542-1616), who continued his _Asia_, writing _Decadas_ 4-12. He was born at Lisbon, and at the age of ten entered the service (_guardaroupa_) of the Infante Luis, who sent him to study at the College of the Jesuits and then with his son, D. Antonio, under Frei Bartholomeu dos Martyres, afterwards Archbishop of Braga, at S. Domingos, Bemfica. When thirteen he was present at the death of his talented patron Prince Luis, and remained in the palace as page to the king till the king’s death two years later.[446] Couto then went to seek his fortune in India, and there as soldier, trader, official (in 1571 he was in charge of the stores at Goa),[447] and historian he spent the best part of the following half-century, his last visit to Portugal being in 1569-71. At the bidding of Philip II (I of Portugal), who appointed him _Cronista Môr_ of India, he undertook the completion of Barros’ _Asia_. Probably he needed little inducement--his was the pen of a ready writer, and the composition of his history was, he tells us, a pleasure to him in spite of frequent discouragement. He had received a classical education; as a boy in the palace he had listened to stories of India[448] and had been no doubt deeply impressed by the vivid account of the Sepulveda shipwreck.[449] In India he won general respect. At Goa he married the sister of Frei Adeodato da Trindade (1565-1605), who in Lisbon saw some of his _Decadas_ through the press; he became Keeper of the Indian Archives (Torre do Tombo) and more than once made a speech on behalf of the City Councillors, as at the inauguration of the portrait of Vasco da Gama in the Town Hall in the centenary year of the discovery of India, before Gama’s grandson, then Viceroy, and a gathering of noblemen and captains. Couto knew every one--we find him conversing with Viceroy, Archbishop, natives, Moorish prisoners, rich merchants from Cambay or the Ambassador of the Grand Mogul. This personal acquaintance with the scenes, events, and persons gives a lively dramatic air to his work. The sententious generalities of the majestic Barros are replaced by bitter protests and practical suggestions. He is a critic of abuses rather than of persons.[450] He writes from the point of view of the common soldier, as one who had seen both sides of the tapestry of which Barros smoothly ignored the snarls and thread-ends. He displays a hatred of _semjustiças_, treachery, and ‘the insatiable greed of men’, with a fine zest in descriptions of battles, but he has not Barros’ skill in proportion and the grand style.[451] He can, however, write excellent prose, and he gives more of graphic detail[452] and individual sayings and anecdotes than his predecessor. Nor is he by any means an ignorant chronicler. A poet[453] and the friend of poets, he read Dante and Petrarca and Ariosto, was old-fashioned enough to admire Juan de Mena, consulted the works of ancient and modern historians, travellers, and geographers, and was deeply interested in the customs and religions of the East. The inequality of his _Decadas_ is in part explained by their history, which constitutes a curious chapter in the _fata_ of manuscripts. He first wrote _Decada_ X, which is the longest and most resembles those of Barros: this was only sent to Portugal in 1600 and was not immediately published, apparently because the period, 1580-8, was too recent. It remained in manuscript till 1788. Meanwhile Couto, working with extraordinary speed, sent home the fourth and fifth _Decadas_ in 1597, the sixth in 1599, and the seventh in 1601. Noting the fact that the last two books (9 and 10) of Castanheda’s history had been suppressed by royal order as being excessively fond of truth (_porque fallava nelles verdades_), he remarks that, should this happen to a volume of his, another would be forthcoming to take its place. Friends and enemies, indeed the very elements, took up the challenge, but fortunately Couto’s spirit and independence continued to the year of his death. The fourth _Decada_ was at once printed, but the text of the fifth was tampered with and its publication delayed, the sixth was destroyed by fire when ready for publication and recast by Frei Adeodato, the seventh was captured at sea by the English and re-written in 1603 by Couto and sent home in the same year, the eighth and ninth, finished in 1614, were stolen from him in manuscript during a severe illness. This was a crushing blow, but he partially reconstructed them _a modo de epilogo_ and, writing in old age from memory, dwelt, to our gain, on personal recollections: his literary bent appears--his friend Camões, Cristovam Falcão, and Garcia de Resende are mentioned. Finally _Decada_ xi (1588-97), which, writing to King Philip III in January 1616, he says ‘survived this shipwreck’, has disappeared and _Decada_ xii is incomplete, although the first five books bring the history to the end of the century (1599). His successor in the Goa Archives, Antonio Bocarro, took up the history at the year 1612, in a work which was published in 1876: _Decada 13ᵃ da Historia da India_. The manuscript of his _Dialogo do Soldado Pratico na India_ (written before the fourth _Decada_) was also stolen. The indomitable Couto re-wrote it and both versions have survived. They were not published till 1790, the title given to the earlier version being _Dialogo do soldado pratico portugues_. With its _verdades chans_, this dialogue between an old soldier of India, an ex-Governor, and a judge forms a most valuable and interesting indictment of the decadence of Portuguese rule in India, where the thief and rogue escaped scot-free, while the occasional honest man was liable to suffer for their sins, and the sleek soldier in velvet with gold ribbons on his hat had taken the place of the bearded _conquistadores_ (_Dialogo_, pp. 91-2).

GASPAR CORRÊA (_c._ 1495-_c._ 1565) claims, like Fernam Lopez de Castanheda and Barros, to have been the first historian of the Portuguese in the East.[454] He went to India sixteen years before Lopez de Castanheda and no doubt soon began[455] to take notes and collect material, but he was still working at his history in 1561 and 1563, and his _Lendas da India_ were not published till the nineteenth century. In the year 1506 Corrêa entered the king’s service as _moço da camara_,[456] and six years later went to India, where he became one of the six or seven secretaries of Afonso de Albuquerque.[457] They were young men carefully chosen by the Governor from among those who had been brought up in the palace and to whom he felt he could entrust his secrets.[458] Theirs was no humdrum or sedentary post, for they had to accompany the Governor on foot or on horseback, in peace and war, ever ready with ink and paper. Thus Corrêa had occasion vividly to describe Aden in 1513, and helped with his own hands to build the fortress of Ormuz in 1515. After Albuquerque’s death Corrêa seems to have continued to fight and write. In 1526 he was appointed to the factory of Sofala,[459] and in the following year the _moço da camara_ has become a _cavaleiro_ and is employed at the customs house at Cochin.[460] He cannot have remained much longer at Cochin than at Sofala, since he signed his name in the book of _moradias_ at Lisbon in 1529, and in 1530-1, in a ship provided by himself (_em um meu catur_), went with the Governor of India’s fleet to the attack of Diu. Later he was commissioned by the Viceroy, D. João de Castro, to furnish lifesize drawings[461] of all the Governors of India, so that he must then have been living at Goa. The ever-growing abuses in India and the scanty reward given to his fifty years of service and honourable wounds[462] embittered his last years, and if his spoken comments were as incisive as the indictment of the Governors and Captains contained in the _Lendas_[463] he must have made enemies in high positions: it seems, at least, that his murder one night at Malacca went unpunished, as if to prove the truth of his frequent complaint that no one ever was punished in India. At the time of his death he may still have been at work, as in 1561 and 1563, on the revision of his _Lendas_ or _Cronica dos Feytos da India_,[464] originally completed in 1551.[465] The first three books relate the events from 1497 to 1538; the last carries the history down to 1550. The account of the discovery is based on the narrative of one, and the recollections of others, of Vasco da Gama’s companions, and the subsequent events are drawn largely from Corrêa’s own experience. He spared no trouble to obtain first-hand information, from aged officials, Moors, natives, captives, a Christian galley-slave, or a woman from Malabar, distrusting mere hearsay. He lays frequent stress on his personal evidence.[466] Without necessarily establishing the trustworthiness of his work on every point, this method had the advantage of rendering it singularly vivid, and it contains many a brilliantly coloured picture of the East. In many respects he is the most remarkable of the historians of India. It was not for nothing that he had written down some of Albuquerque’s letters to King Manuel.[467] If Albuquerque’s words are still striking when read after four centuries, we may imagine their effect on the boy still in his teens to whom he dictated them. _Tinha grande oratoria_, says Corrêa, and many years afterwards some of the phrases remained in his memory.[468] He no doubt learnt from Albuquerque his direct, vigorous style, his love of concrete details, his regard for truth. His account of the sack of Malacca--the rifled chests of gold coins and brocades of Mecca and cloth of gold, the narrow dusty streets in shadow in the midday _calma_--must, one thinks, be that of an eyewitness; yet Corrêa was not in India at the time. The explanation is that it was largely the account of Albuquerque.[469]

Corrêa writes in even greater detail than Lopez de Castanheda. There is no trace of literary leanings in his work; he is sparing of descriptions as interrupting the story.[470] Whole pages have scarcely an adjective, and this gives his narrative clearness and rapidity, yet he is careless of style. It has been called redundant and verbose, but that is true mainly of the prefaces, which show that Corrêa in a library might have developed into a rhetorical Zurara of _boas oratorias_. It is, however, no longer the fashion to sneer at this ‘simple and half barbarous chronicler’, this ‘soldier adventurer in whose artless words appears his lack of culture’.[471] His _Lendas_ are infinitely preferable to the sleek periods of Barros and often as reliable, being legendary in little beyond their title, as understood by the ignorant (for the word _lenda_ meant not legend but record or log). They have a harsh flavour of religious fervour and of lust for gold[472] and an intense atmosphere of the East--_sangre e incenso, cravo e escravaria_, St. James fighting for the Christians, St. Thomas transformed into a peacock, all in a region of horror and enchantment. Corrêa was aware that it was dangerous to write history in India (iii. 9)--_periculosae plenum opus aleae_--but although he had no intention of immediately publishing it[473] he evidently expected some recognition of his work. The appearance of Lopez de Castanheda’s _Historia_ and Barros’ _Decadas_ must have been a blow almost as cruel as the daggers of his assassins a few years later.

The events of India from 1506-15, chronicled by Castanheda and Barros, necessarily centred round the great figure of Afonso de Albuquerque, and they were recorded afresh by his illegitimate son BRAS DE ALBUQUERQUE (1500-80), whom the dying Governor recommended to the king in his last letter. King Manuel in belated gratitude bestowed his favour on this son and bade him assume the name of Afonso in memory of his father. His _Commentarios de Afonso de Alboquerque_ (1557) were revised by the author in a second edition (1576) four years before his death. They are written in unassuming but straightforward style and furnish a very clear and moderate account based on letters written by Albuquerque to King Manuel.[474] The author seems to have realized that Albuquerque’s words and deeds speak sufficiently for themselves, but the reflection produced is somewhat pale.

The gallant and chivalrous apostle of the Moluccas, ANTONIO GALVAM (_c._ 1490?-1557), ‘as rich in valour and knowledge as poor in fortune’,[475] printed nothing in his lifetime but his manuscripts were handed over after his death to Damião de Goes as _Cronista Môr_.[476] We have only a brief treatise by him published posthumously. Copious in matter rather than in length, for it has but eighty small folios in spite of its lengthy title, this _Tratado_ (1563), or, if we adopt the briefer title from the colophon, this _Lyvro dos Descobrimentos das Antilhas & India_, is remarkable for the curious observation shown and its vivid, concise style of a man of action. Written in the form of annals, it begins with the Flood, and on f. 12 we are still in the age of Merlin; but the most valuable part consists in the writer’s direct experience--he tells of buffaloes, cows and hens ‘of flesh black as this ink’, of mocking parrots, fires made of earth ‘as in Flanders’. Goes, who had certainly handled the manuscript, may have added this comparison; he evidently interpolated the account of his own travels (ff. 58 v.-59 v.). The life of Galvam gives a further interest to this rare book, for, a man of noble and disinterested character, himself a prince by election, he has always been regarded as a stock instance of the ingratitude of princes. Born in the East, the son of Albuquerque’s old friend, the historian Duarte Galvam, he won fame by his courage and martial qualities, both as soldier and skilful mariner. After subduing the Molucca Islands he, as their Governor (Captain), spent his energies and income in missionary zeal and in developing agriculture. On the expiry of his term as Governor (1536-40) he refused the position of Raja of Ternate, which the grateful natives besought him to accept. He arrived penniless in Portugal and penniless died seventeen years later in the Lisbon hospital.

Besides the general histories many briefer records of separate regions or events were written, and these are often of great value as the accounts of men who had seen and taken part in what they describe.

LOPO DE SOUSA COUTINHO (?1515-77), father of Frei Luis de Sousa and one of the captains in the heroic siege of Diu (1538)--he is said to have died by accidentally running himself through with his sword when dismounting from his horse--wrote a striking account of the siege, especially of its last incidents, in his _Livro Primeiro do Cerco de Diu_ (1556). The siege of Mazagam (1562) was similarly described in clear, vigorous prose by AGOSTINHO GAVY DE MENDONÇA: _Historia do famoso cerco qve o Xarife pos á fortaleza de Mazagam_ (1607). JORGE DE LEMOS, of Goa, wrote a careful _Historia dos Cercos ... de Malaca_ (1585), and ANTONIO CASTILHO, the distinguished son of the celebrated architect João, published a _Commentario do Cerco de Goa e Chaul no anno MDLXX_ (1572). Events in the Moluccas were briefly recorded in an _Informaçam das cousas de Maluco_ (1569) by GABRIEL DE RABELLO, who went out as factor of Tidore in 1566.

The anonymous gentleman of Elvas who wrote the _Relaçam verdadeira_ (1557) of Soto’s discovery of Florida was a keen observer and related what he saw in direct language. His publisher, André de Burgos, in a short preface washes his hands of the style as insufficiently polished (_limado_).

The deeds of D. Cristovam da Gama, his conquest of a hundred leagues of territory in Ethiopia, his defeat, torture, and beheadal, are recounted with the vivid details of an eyewitness by MIGUEL DE CASTANHOSO, of Santarem, who accompanied him on his fatal expedition. This _Historia_ (1564) was published by João da Barreira, who dedicated it to D. Cristovam’s nephew, D. Francisco de Portugal.

MANUEL DE ABREU MOUSINHO wrote in Spanish a brief account of the conquest of Pegu by Salvador Ribeiro de Sousa, of which a Portuguese version appeared in the 1711 edition of Mendez Pinto’s travels: _Breve discurso em que se contem a conquista do reyno de Pegu_, nearly a century after the original edition, _Breve Discvrso en qve se cventa_, &c. (1617). The _Jornada do Maranhão feita por Jeronymo de Albuquerque em 1614_ is ascribed to DIOGO DE CAMPOS MORENO, who took part in that _conquista_. It was published in the _Collecção de Noticias para a Historia e Geographia das Nações Ultramarinas_.[477] The second volume of this collection contains several re-translations of _Navegações_ (by Thomé Lopez and anonymous Portuguese pilots) surviving in Italian in Ramusio. It would require a separate volume to give an account of all the sixteenth-and seventeenth-century narratives of newly conquered countries written in Portuguese and often immediately translated into many European languages, e.g. the _Novo Descobrimento do Grão Cathayo_ (1626) by the Jesuit ANTONIO DE ANDRADE (_c._ 1580-1634), or the _Relaçam_ of the Jesuit ALVARO SEMMEDO (1585?-1658) written in Portuguese but published in the Spanish translation of Faria e Sousa: _Imperio de la China_ (1642). However unliterary, they are often so vividly written as to be literature in the best sense.

PEDRO DE MAGALHÃES DE GANDAVO, of Braga, whose _Regras_ (1574) ran into three editions before the end of the century, described Brazil and its discovery in two short works: _Historia da prouincia Sãcta Cruz_ (1576) and _Tratado da terra do Brazil_ first published in 1826 in the _Collecção de Noticias_. This collection also prints works of the following century, such as the _Fatalidade historica da Ilha de Ceilão_[478] by Captain JOÃO RIBEIRO, who had served the king as a soldier for eighteen years in the _preciosa ilha de Ceilão_. His manuscript, written in 1685, was translated and published in French (1701) 135 years before it was printed in Portuguese. Gandavo’s _Historia_ (48 ff.), his first work (_premicias_), was introduced by _tercetos_ and a sonnet of Luis de Camões, who speaks of his _claro estilo_, and _engenho curioso_. The author himself in a prefatory letter says that he writes as an eyewitness, content with a ‘plain and easy style’ without seeking _epithetos exquisitos_.

The Jesuit BALTHASAR TELLEZ[479] (1595-1675) won considerable fame as an historian and prose-writer in his _Cronica da Companhia de Iesus_ (2 pts., 1645, 1647) in which he forswears what he calls the artifices and liberties of ordinary _seiscentista_ prose. He also edited the work of the Jesuit missionary MANUEL DE ALMEIDA (1580-1646), recasting it in an abbreviated form: _Historia Geral da Ethiopia a Alta ov Preste Ioam_ (1660), for which Tellez’ friend, Mello, provided a prefatory letter. Almeida, born at Viseu, had gone to India in 1601 and in 1622 was sent to Ethiopia, where he became the head of the mission. He died at Goa after a life of much hard work and various adventure. In writing his history of Ethiopia he made use of the _Historia da Ethiopia_ of an earlier (1603-19) head of the mission, PEDRO PAEZ (1564-1622), who had started for Ethiopia in 1595 but was captured by the Turks and only ransomed in 1602. Although a Spaniard by birth (born at Olmeda), Paez wrote in Portuguese. A third Jesuit missionary, MANUEL BARRADAS, born in 1572 at Monforte, who went to India in 1612, was also a prisoner of the Turks for over a year at Aden. In 1624 he went to _Ethiope, terre maldite_, and remained there some ten years. Of his three treatises the most important is that entitled _Do Reyno de Tygrê e seus mandos em Ethiopia_. The modern editor of these works, P. Camillo Beccari, considers that their authors’ simple style caused their treatises to be regarded rather as the material of history than in themselves history,[480] but their value for us is in this very simplicity and in the detailed observation which bring the country and its inhabitants clearly before us. Scarcely less important, as material for history and as human documents, are the _Cartas_ from Jesuits in China and Japan, especially the collection of 82 letters (Coimbra, 1570), and that of 206 letters (Evora, 1598). The Jesuit FERNAM CARDIM at about the same time rendered a like service to Brazil in his _Narrativa epistolar_, edited in 1847 by F. A. de Varnhagen. A more important work on Brazil was that of GABRIEL SOAREZ DE SOUSA (_c._ 1540-92)--the _Tratado descriptivo do Brasil em 1587_, which its modern editor, F. A. de Varnhagen, described in a moment of enthusiasm as ‘the most admirable of all the works of the Portuguese _quinhentistas_’. Two other works of interest, half history, half travels, are the _Jornada do Arcebispo de Goa Dom Frey Aleixo de Meneses_ (1606) by ANTONIO DE GOUVEA, Bishop of Cyrene (_c._ 1565-1628), in three parts, describing the archbishop’s life and visits in his diocese; and the _Discvrso da Iornada de D. Gonçalo Covtinho á villa de Mazagam e sev governo nella_ (1629). The writer--the admirer of Camões and alleged author of the 1614 life of Sá de Miranda--who, as he says, had grown white in the council-chamber, lived on till 1634. He here relates with much directness his voyage and four years’ Governorship (1623-7).

The _Saudades da Terra_ (1873) of GASPAR FRUCTUOSO (1522-91), who was born at S. Miguel in the Azores, was written in 1590 and waited three centuries in manuscript for an editor. Both its title and the ‘preamble’, in which Truth says that she will write of nothing but sadness, are misleading, since the book is an account--in good, straightforward style after the manner of Castanheda and other historians--of the discovery and subsequent conditions of various islands, especially of Madeira and the lives of its Governors. ANTONIO CORDEIRO (1641-1722), Jesuit, of Angra, wrote at the age of seventy-six an uncritical but interesting work entitled _Historia Insulana das Ilhas a Portugal sujeitas no Oceano Occidental_ (1717), based partly on Fructuoso’s manuscript.

It was only as it were by an afterthought that the historians turned to consider the history of Portugal as apart from separate chronicles of the kings or episodes of Eastern conquest. The historical scheme of João de Barros was too vast to be executed by one man and the European part was never written. André de Resende likewise failed to carry out his project of a history of Portugal. PEDRO DE MARIZ (_c._ 1550-1615), son of the Coimbra printer, Antonio, in the last four of his _Dialogos de Varia Historia_ (1594) between a Portuguese and an Italian, embraces the whole history of Portugal, but these dialogues, although industriously written in good plain style, were eclipsed by the appearance three years later of the first part of the _Monarchia Lusitana_ (1597). Its author, a young Cistercian monk of Alcobaça, FREI BERNARDO DE BRITO (1569-1617), in the world Balthasar de Brito de Andrade, at once became known as one of the best writers of his time, and he is still reckoned among the masters of Portuguese prose. His style, clear, restrained, copious, proved that the mantle of Barros had fallen upon worthy shoulders. But, despite his rich vein of humanity, as a historian he is far inferior to Barros and even more uncritical than Mariz. The value of evidence seems to have weighed with him little when it was a question of exalting his language, literature, religion, or country, and he used and incorporated documents entirely worthless. Whether he deliberately manufactured spurious documents to serve his purposes cannot be known, but he seems at least to have quoted authorities which had never existed.[481]

In a word he failed to make good use of the incomparable material which the library of Alcobaça afforded. His was a misdirected erudition, and we would willingly exchange the knowledge of where Adam lies buried, or on what day the world began, or how Gorgoris, King of Lusitania, who died 1227 years after the Flood, invented honey, for accurate details of more recent Portuguese history. Yet he had the diligence and enthusiasm of the true historian and made use, sometimes a skilful use,[482] of coins and inscriptions. His brief _Geographia antiga da Lusytania_ also appeared in 1597, and in the same year the Cistercian Order appointed him its chronicler. Thus he interrupted his main work--the second part of the _Monarchia Lusitana_ was only published in 1609--in order to write the _Primeira Parte da Cronica de Cister_ (1602).[483] This, in many ways his best work, runs to nearly a thousand pages, and treats of the saints of the Order and especially of the life of the charming St. Bernard, with contemporary events in Portugal.[484] It was to be followed by two other parts, but Brito’s early death at his native Almeida on his way back to Alcobaça from Spain, a year after he had been appointed _Cronista Môr_ (1616), left his work unfinished. He is remembered as a fine stylist, a poet who wrote history rather than as a great historian. Mariana, the Latin original of whose _Historia de España_ (1592) he knew and quoted, is by comparison almost a scientific writer--at least he is not, like Brito, pseudo-scientific.

The two parts of the _Monarchia Lusitana_ written by Brito ended with the beginning of the Portuguese monarchy. Parts 3 and 4, by FREI ANTONIO BRANDÃO (1584-1637), to whose sincerity and skill Herculano paid tribute, appeared in 1632 and carried it down to the year 1279. Brandão had spent nearly ten years collecting and sifting documentary evidence for his work and is a far better historian than Brito, although in style he is not his equal. His nephew FREI FRANCISCO BRANDÃO (1601-80), _vir modestus, diligens et eruditus_, succeeded Frei Antonio as _Cronista Môr_ and wrote Parts 5 and 6 (1650), describing the reign of King Dinis. The style was less well maintained in Part 7 (1633) by FREI RAPHAEL DE JESUS (1614-93). Part 8 (1727), the last to be published, was added by FREI MANUEL DOS SANTOS (1672-1740) over a century after the publication of the first Part, but only brought the history to the battle of Aljubarrota (1385). Santos’ Part 7 as well as Parts 9 and 10 remained in manuscript. His prose is worthy of a work which is a monument of the language, not of the history of Portugal. Perhaps the truest epitaph of this history as a whole--after allowance has been made for Brito’s style and the excellent work of Antonio Brandão--is a severe sentence from the preface of the author of Part 7: ‘There are histories whose tomes are tombs.’

It could hardly, perhaps, be expected that the historians of the reigns of King Manuel and King João III should pass over events in the East as already fully related, and in Damião de Goes’ _Cronica do Felicissimo Rey Dom Emanvel_ and Francisco de Andrade’s _Cronica de Dom João III_ (1613), although they lose much by compression, they still occupy a disproportionate space. Andrade wrote most correct prose, even in his poems, and the style of his history is excellent, but neither of these works gives any adequate account of the internal history of Portugal, any more than does that of Frei Luis de Sousa on João III’s reign, in which there should have been more scope for originality. The same prominence is given to India in the history of JERONIMO OSORIO (1506-80), Bishop of Silves, _De Rebvs Emmanvelis Regis Lvsitaniae_ (1571), written in Latin in order to spread the knowledge of these events _per omnes reipublicae Christianae regiones_.[485] Osorio, whose father, like Lopez de Castanheda’s, had been a judge (_ouvidor_) in India, was born at Lisbon, but studied abroad, at Salamanca, Paris, and Bologna. After occupying the Chair of Scripture at Coimbra for a brief space, he went to Lisbon and became secretary to the Infante Luis. In 1560 he was made Archdeacon of Evora and four years later Bishop of Silves. (The see was removed to Faro three years before his death and his title is sometimes given as Bishop of Algarve.) A few remarkable letters in Portuguese, in one of which (1567) he attempted to convert Queen Elizabeth, show that he was skilled in the use of his native tongue; his countrymen delighted to call him the Portuguese Cicero. According to Sousa de Macedo ‘many people came from England, Germany and other parts with the sole object of seeing him’.[486] In England certainly his book was highly prized, and both Dryden and Pope praised Gibbs’ translation, although Francis Bacon noted the diffuseness of Osorio’s style: _luxurians et diluta_, certainly not a just verdict on the style as a whole; we have but to think of the concise sketches of Albuquerque (_De Rebus_, p. 380) and King Manuel (p. 478). Osorio acknowledged his ample debt to the chronicle of Goes, which he describes as written ‘with incredible felicity’. FREI BERNARDO DA CRUZ, who accompanied King Sebastian to Africa in 1578 as chaplain, in his _Cronica de El Rei D. Sebastião_ wrote the history of his life and reign and happily describes him as ‘a young king without experience or fear’. The _Cronica do Cardeal Rei D. Henrique_ (1840) completed the history of the house of Avis. It chronicles in fifty-four diminutive chapters the eighteen months’ reign of the _pouco mimoso e severo_ Cardinal King Henry. It was written in 1586,[487] and, although anonymous, is ascribed with some probability to the Jesuit Padre ALVARO LOBO (1551-1608).

The _Jornada de Africa_ (1607) by JERONIMO DE MENDOÇA, of Oporto, is divided into three parts, describing the expedition and the battle of Alcacer Kebir, the ransoms and escapes of the captives, and the death of Christian martyrs in Africa. Its object was to refute certain statements in Conestaggio’s recent work _Dell’unione del regno di Portogallo alla corona di Castiglia_, but Mendoça had fought at Alcacer Kebir and had been taken prisoner; he thus writes as an eyewitness, and his excellent style and power of description give more than a controversial value and interest to his book and make it matter for regret that this short history was apparently his only work.

MIGUEL DE MOURA (1538-1600), secretary to five kings and one of the three Governors of Portugal in 1593, set an example too rarely followed by those who have played an important part in Portuguese history by composing a brief autobiography: _Vida de Miguel de Moura_. It was written on the eve of St. Peter’s Day, 1594, except a few pages which were added in the year before the author’s death. Incidentally it has the distinction of containing one of the longest sentences ever written (114 lines--1840 ed., pp. 126-9).

The painstaking and talented DUARTE NUNEZ DE LEAM (_c._ 1530-1608), born at Evora, son of the Professor of Medicine João Nunez, besides genealogical and legal works, _Leis extravagantes_ (1560, 1569), wrote two valuable treatises on the Portuguese language and an interesting _Descripção do Reino de Portugal_ (1610), which he finished in 1599. He also found time to spare from his duties as a magistrate to recast the chronicles of the Kings of Portugal. The _Cronicas dos Reis de Portugal_ (1600) contain those from Count Henry to King Fernando, and the _Cronicas del Rey Dom Ioam de gloriosa memoria_ those of Kings João I, Duarte, and Afonso V. Shorn of the individuality of the early chroniclers, they yet retain much of interest, and Nunez de Leam would be accorded a higher place as historian were it not for our knowledge of the inestimable value of the originals which he edited and ‘improved’. Two generations earlier Cristovam Rodriguez Azinheiro (or Acenheiro), born in 1474 (he tells us that he was sixty-one in May 1535), had treated the early chronicles in the same way, but only succeeded in retaining all that was jejune without preserving their picturesqueness in his _Cronicas dos Senhores Reis de Portugal_.[488]

More interesting personally than as historian, the humanist DAMIÃO DE GOES (1502-74[489]) was one of the most accomplished men of his time,[490] and, thanks partly to his trial before the Inquisition, partly to the not unpleasant egotism with which he chronicled autobiographical details, not only in his _Genealogia_[491] but in many of his other works, we know more of his life than we know of most contemporary writers. Traveller and diplomatist, scholar, singer, musician, he was a man of many friends during his lifetime, and the tragic circumstances of his last years have won him fresh sympathizers after his death. Born at Alenquer and brought up at the Court of King Manuel, he became page to the king in 1518, and five years later was appointed secretary at the Portuguese Factory at Antwerp. In 1529 he was sent on a diplomatic mission to Poland, and in this and the following years, on similar missions or for his own pleasure, ‘saw and conversed with all the kings, princes, nobles and peoples of Christendom’.[492] He made the acquaintance of Montaigne’s _aubergistes allemands, ‘glorieux, colères et ivrognes’_, turned aside to visit Luther and Melanchthon at Wittenberg,[493] and was for several months the guest of Erasmus at Freiburg. In Italy he lived with Cardinal Sadoletto at Padua (1534-8) and met Cardinal Bembo and other celebrated men of the day. At Louvain, too, _mihi intime carum et iucundum_, as throughout Europe, he had many devoted friends. A senator of Antwerp welcomed him in Latin verse on his return from his Scythian travels,[494] Luis Vives addressed affectionate letters to _mi Damiane_, Albrecht Dürer painted his portrait, Glareanus in his _Dodecachordon_ included music of his composition.[495]

In 1542 he was on his way to Holland with his Flemish wife when he heard that Louvain was threatened by a French force commanded by Longueval and _meus ille in Academiam Louvaniensem fatalis amor_ took him back to share its perils. He played a principal part in the defence, and finally remained a prisoner in the enemy’s hands, _quasi piacularis hostia_, as he says.[496] His imprisonment in France lasted nine months, and after paying a ransom of 6,000 ducats he went back to Louvain. The Emperor Charles V rewarded him for his services with a splendid coat of arms. In 1545, after twenty-one years of European travel, he returned with his wife and children[497] to Portugal, and three years later was entrusted with Fernam Lopez’ old post, the Keepership of the Archives. He lived in the Paços d’Alcaçova with a certain magnificence, keeping open house for all foreigners, one of whom records that already in 1565 _il se faict fort vieulx_. Six years later, on April 4, 1571, he was arrested by the Inquisition and spent twenty months in prison.

It was, perhaps, inevitable that he should have incurred suspicion, nor is it necessary to explain his trial by the enmity of certain persons at Court due to passages in his works. His life had been out of keeping with the _gravedades de Hespanha_, and the charges against him were numerous and varied. He had eaten and drunken with heretics, he had read strange books, the sound of songs not understanded of the people and organ music had issued from his house at Lisbon, he had omitted to observe fasts, he had called the Pope a tyrant, he set no store by papal indulgences or auricular confession. Even the testimony of his grand-niece is recorded, to the effect that her mother had said of Goes, her husband’s uncle, that he had no more belief in God than in a stone wall (she seems to have had Berkeleian tendencies). As usual it is less the proceedings of the Inquisition than the bad faith of the witnesses that arouse disgust. The poet Andrade Caminha, who apparently came forward of his own accord--we are not told that he was _chamado_--admitted that certain words of Goes which he now denounced had not seemed so serious to him before he knew that Goes was in the prison of the Inquisition. Goes had already been denounced to the Inquisition in 1545 and 1550, and his book _Fides, Religio Moresque Aethiopum_ (Lovanii, 1540) had been condemned in Portugal in 1541. He was examined frequently in 1571 and 1572, was left for three months without news of his family, and complained of being old, weak, and ill, and that his body had become covered with a kind of leprosy (July 14, 1572). His sentence (October 16, 1572) pronounced him to have incurred, as a Lutheran heretic, excommunication, confiscation of all his property, and the life-long confinement of his person. He was transferred to the famous monastery of Batalha in December, but his death (January 30, 1574) occurred in his own house. His return and his death probably explain one another. He was growing very old in 1565 and we must suppose that his recent experiences had not made him younger. His last request--to die among his family--was apparently granted, and the further explanations (that he fell forward into the fire, that he died of an apoplexy, was killed by order of the Inquisition, was beaten to death by the lackeys of the Conde da Castanheira, or murdered and robbed by his own servants) are superfluous. His works consist of several brief Latin treatises crowded with interesting facts (especially his _Hispania_); and in Portuguese the _Cronica do Principe Dom Ioam_ (1567) and _Cronica do Felicissimo Rey Dom Emanvel_, 4 pt. (1566, 1567). He also found time to translate Cicero’s _De Senectute_: _Livro ... da Velhice_, (Veneza, 1534). He had not the imagination of an historian, and unless events have passed before his eyes, or happen to interest him personally, he can be bald and meagre as an annalist. But in any matter which touches him closely, as the expulsion and the cruel treatment of the Jews, or the massacre of new Christians, or the account of Ethiopia, he broadens out into moving and detailed description. The result is that this long Chronicle of King Manuel is a number of excellent separate treatises rather than a history with unity and a sense of proportion. It is the work of a scholar who likes to describe directly, from his own experience. The _Cronica do Principe_ was written some months before that of King Manuel. The latter was a difficult undertaking,[498] for many persons concerned were still alive, and subjects such as the expulsion of the Jews needed delicate handling. For thirty-one years it had hung fire in the hands of previous chroniclers when in 1558 Cardinal Henrique entrusted it to Damião de Goes. After eight years the four parts were ready for press,[499] but the difficulties were not yet over, for certain chapters met with strong disapproval at Court[500] and had to be altered, so that two editions of the first part appeared in 1566 (the first being apparently submitted as a proof and not for sale), but the publication of the work as a whole was not completed before 1567.

Scarcely less celebrated than Goes, the archaeologist LUCIO ANDRÉ DE RESENDE (1493?-1573),[501] friend of Goes, Clenardus, and Erasmus, left the Dominican convent of Bemfica, in which he was a novice, in order to study abroad, at Salamanca, Paris, and Louvain. ‘Tall, with very large eyes, curling hair, rather dark complexion but of a cheerful, open countenance’, living in his house (_as casas de Resende_) at Evora among his books and coins, statues and inscriptions--his small garden hedged with _marmores antigos_ as, according to Brito, too often were peasants’ vine-yards--he exercised a considerable influence on the writers of his time[502] and was held in high esteem by the Emperor Charles V and by King João III. The principal of his own works were written in Latin, but besides his _De Antiquitatibus Lusitaniae_ (1593), which was edited by Mendez de Vasconcellos with the addition of a fifth book from notes left by the author, he composed in Portuguese a ‘brief but learned’ _Historia da Antiguidade da Cidade de Evora_ (1553). In his _Vida do Infante Dom Duarte_ (1789)[503] he did not write the ‘very copious history’ which Paiva de Andrade[504] said the subject required. He did better, for this sketch of a few pages is a little masterpiece in which the vignettes, for instance, of the boatman and his figs, or the meal in the mill, must ever retain their vividness and charm. Resende had been the prince’s tutor and writes of what he saw; he shows that he could decipher a person’s character as keenly as a Latin inscription. Resende’s legitimate successor in archaeology, MANUEL SEVERIM DE FARIA (1583-1655), scarcely belongs to the sixteenth century although he wrote verses in 1598 and 1599. He succeeded his uncle as Canon (1608) and Precentor (1609) of Evora Cathedral and resigned in favour of his nephew Manuel de Faria Severim as Canon in 1633 and Precentor in 1642. Living in ancient Evora when the memory of Resende was still fresh, this antiquary of the pale face and blue eyes, ‘store-house of all the treasures of the past’,[505] with his medals and statues and choice library of rare books, soon rivalled Resende’s fame. His most important works are _Discursos varios politicos_ (1624) containing four essays and the lives of Barros, Camões, and Couto, and _Noticias de Portugal_ (1655).

A less attractive personality is that of MANUEL DE FARIA E SOUSA (1590-1649), born near Pombeiro (Minho), a most accomplished, industrious, but untrustworthy author who wrote mainly in Spanish. His _Epitome de las Historias Portuguesas_ was published in 1628 at Madrid, where he spent the greater part of his life, and where he died. He seems to have retained a real affection for his native country, but he was not a man of independent character and bestowed his flatteries as his interest required. After the Restoration of 1640 he stayed on at the Spanish Court, and there appears to be some doubt whether it was João IV, his nominal master, or Philip IV of Spain that he served best. His long historical works, _Europa Portuguesa_, _Asia Portuguesa_, _Africa Portuguesa_, appeared posthumously, between 1666 and 1681. He is most pleasant when he is not trying to ‘make’ history but is simply describing, as in his account of the various provinces of Portugal.[506] In his own not over-modest verdict in Part 4 of the same volume, _De las primazias deste Reyno_, he was _el primero que supo historiar con más acierto_. Faria e Sousa was enthusiastic but unscrupulous and he has been severely handled by the critics. With posterity he has fallen between two stools, since the Spanish are only moderately interested in his subject, Portugal, and the Portuguese consider him to belong to Spanish literature.

FOOTNOTES:

[436] Antonio Vieira, _Historia do Futuro_ (1718), p. 24: _esta historia era o silencio de todas as historias_.

[437] _O primeiro Portugues que na nossa lingoa as [façanhas] resuscitei._ João de Barros, in his preface, makes a similar claim: _foi o primeiro_.

[438] Cf. vi. 37, 38; vii. 77, 78; or vi. 100, where the ships bristling with the enemy’s arrows are likened to porcupines.

[439] 1496, the generally accepted year of his birth, is the calculation of Severim de Faria, followed by Barbosa Machado, Nicolás Antonio, &c. As he retired at the end of 1567 it is difficult not to suspect (from his love of method and the decimal system) that he was born in 1497--the year of Vasco da Gama’s expedition.

[440] 400,000 _réis_. He also obtained the privilege of trading with India free from all taxes so as to clear a profit of 1,600,000 _réis_. Innocencio da Silva adds ‘yearly’ to this sum, mentioned by Severim de Faria. In any case Barros’ complaints of his poverty seem misplaced.

[441] Faria e Sousa (_Varias Rimas_, pt. 2 (1689), p. 165), says that neither Lopez de Castanheda nor Barros was widely read, one of the reasons being the length of their histories.

[442] According to Pero de Magalhães de Gandavo (_Dialogo em defensam da lingua portvgvesa_) Barros ‘is in Venice preferred to Ptolemy’.

[443] His account of the fleet leaving Lisbon (I. v. 1) _is_ that of an eyewitness.

[444] _Mais trabalhamos no substancial da historia que no ampliar as miudezas que enfadam e não deleitam_ (I. vii. 8). Cf. I. v. 10 (1778 ed., p. 465); III. ix. 9 (p. 426); III. x. 5 (p. 489). Yet the vivid light thrown by the details recorded in other writers, such as the ‘bushel of sapphires’ sent to Albuquerque by one of the native kings, or the open boat drifting with a few Portuguese long dead and a heap of silver beside them, is of undeniable value. Goes inserts details, but is too late a writer to do so without apology, like Corrêa and Lopez de Castanheda: _pode parecer a algũa pessoa_ [e. g. his friend Barros] _que em historia grave nam eram necessarias estas miudezas_ (_Cron. do Pr. D. Joam_, cap. cii).

[445] e.g. the following mortar of conjunctions between the stones on p. 335 of _Decada_ II (1777 ed.) opened at hazard: _nas quaes ... que ... que ... qual ... que ... como ... que ... que ... o qual ... cujos ... que ... que ... que ... posto que ... como ... porque ... que_.

[446] _E sendo eu moço servindo a El Rey D. João na guardaroupa_ (_Dec._ IV. iii. 8). In _Dec._ VII. viii. 1 he speaks of having served João III for two years as _moço da camara_ (1555-7). In the same passage he embarks for India in 1559 aged _fifteen_. In _Dec._ VII. ix. 12 (1783 ed. p. 396) he is eighteen (April 1560).

[447] According to the Governor, Francisco Barreto, he was more at home with arms than with prices (_Dec._ IX. 20, 1786 ed., p. 160). Another passage in the _Decadas_ proves him to have been an excellent horseman.

[448] Cf. _Dec._ IV. iii. 8 (1778 ed. p. 234).

[449] He himself describes with great detail and pathos the wrecks of the ships _N. Senhora da Barca_ (VII. viii. 1), _Garça_ (VII. viii. 12), _S. Paulo_ (VII. ix. 16), _Santiago_ (X. vii. 1), as well as that of Sepulveda (_Dec._ VI. ix. 21, 22). In his account of the loss of the _S. Thomé_ (which was printed in the _Historia Tragico-Maritima_, in the _Vida de D. Paulo de Lima_, and no doubt in the lost eleventh _Decada_), the separation of D. Joana de Mendoça from her child is one of the most tantalizing and touching incidents ever penned.

[450] _Não particularizo ninguem_ (_Dec._ XII. i. 7).

[451] What he lacks in _gravidade_ (cf. _Dec._ X. x. 14)--he is quite ready to admit that he writes _toscamente_ (VII. iii. 3), _singelamente, sem ornamento de palavras_ (VI. ii. 3), _simplesmente, sem ornamento nem artificio de palavras_ (V. v. 6)--he makes good by directness as an eyewitness, _de mais perto_ (IV. i. 7; cf. IV. x. 4 _ad init._). When he had not himself been present he preferred the accounts of those who had, as Sousa Coutinho’s description of the siege of Diu (_Commentarios_) _em estilo excellente e grave, e foi o melhor de todos, porque escreveo como testemunha de vista_, V. iii. 2) or Miguel de Castanhoso’s _copioso tratado_ (V. viii. 7). Among the traces of his close touch with reality are the popular _romances_, _cantigas_, _adagios_, which Barros would have deemed beneath the dignity of history.

[452] As the fleets grew, long catalogues of the captains’ names were perhaps inevitable. They are certainly out of place in a biography, but Couto’s _Vida de D. Paulo de Lima Pereira_ (1765) is really a collection of those passages from the _Decadas_ which bear on the life of Couto’s old friend, a _fidalgo muito pera tudo_. As far as chapter 32 it is told in words similar to or identical with those of _Decada_ X. Chapter 32 corresponds with the beginning of the lost _Decada_ XI.

[453] His biographer, Manuel Severim de Faria, says that he left (in manuscript) ‘a large volume of elegies, eclogues, songs, sonnets and glosses’ (Barbosa Machado calls them _Poesias Varias_), and that he wrote a commentary on the first five books of the _Lusiads_. _Carminibus quoque pangendis non infeliciter vacavit_, says N. Antonio.

[454] _Lendas_, iii. 7: _nom ouve alguem que tomasse por gloria escrever e cronizar o descobrimento da India_. In an earlier passage (i. 3) he refers to narratives of travellers such as that of Duarte Barbosa.

[455] He says (_Lendas_, ii. 5): _quando comecei esta ocupação de escrever as cousas da India erão ellas tão gostosas, per suas bondades, que dava muito contentamento ouvilas recontar_.

[456] _Lenda_, iii. 438.

[457] _Fui hum dos seus escrivães que com elle andei tres annos_ (ii. 46). Elsewhere (i. 2) he says that he went to India _moço de pouca idade_ sixteen years after the discovery of India. 1512 was fourteen years after the actual discovery (1498), but might be counted the sixteenth year from 1497.

[458] _Homens da criação d’El Rei_, says Corrêa with some pride, _de que confiasse seus segredos_ (ii. 46).

[459] Lima Felner, _Noticia preliminar_ (_Lendas_, i, p. xi).

[460] Ibid.; but Corrêa says (_Lendas_, ii. 891) that he held this post at Cochin (_almoxarife do almazem da Ribeira_) in 1525.

[461] _Por ter entendimento em debuxar._ The portraits, drawn by Corrêa and painted by ‘a native painter’ so cleverly that you could recognize the originals (iv. 597), as well as Corrêa’s very curious drawings of Aden and other cities, are reproduced in the 1858-66 edition of the _Lendas_.

[462] _Passa de cincoenta annos_ [i.e. 1512-63] _que ando no rodizio d’este serviço, aleijado de feridas com que irei á cova sem satisfação._

[463] Cf. ii. 608, 752; iii. 437; iv. 338, 537-8, 567-8, 665, 669, 730-1.

[464] He so styles his work in the preface of _Lenda_ iv.

[465] He is writing, he says, in 1561 (_Lendas_, i. 265); 1561 again (i. 995: _não cessando este trabalho até este anno_); 1563 (iii. 438); 1550 (iv. 25); 1551 (iv. 732).

[466] The value of that evidence varies. For instance, he assures us (iii. 689) that he saw with his own eyes a native 300 years old and his son of 200; yet there is something suspicious in the roundness of the figures.

[467] _Escrevia com elle as cartas pera El Rei_ (ii. 172).

[468] Albuquerque in one of his letters (No. 95) says that in Portugal a man is hanged for stealing Alentejan _mantas_. Corrêa repeats this phrase twice (_Lendas_, ii. 752; iv. 731).

[469] Cf. ii. 247: _Eu ouvi dizer a Afonso d’Albuquerque_.

[470] _Neste meu trabalho não tomei sentido senão escrever os feitos dos Portugueses e nada das terras_ (iii. 66). Cf. i. 651, 815; ii. 222.

[471] Latino Coelho, _Fernão de Magalhães_ in _Archivo Pittoresco_, vi. (1863), p. 170 et seq.

[472] Corrêa himself seems to have been rather unsuccessful than scrupulous in amassing money. He tells without a hint of embarrassment (ii. 432) how he took the white and gold scarf (_rumal_) of the murdered Resnordim (or Rais Ahmad) and sold it for 20 _xarafins_ (about £7), and (iii. 281) helped to dispose of stolen goods in 1528 at Cochin.

[473] _Protestando d’em meus dias esta lenda nom mostrar a nenhum_ (i. 3).

[474] _Que colligi dos proprios originaes._ The work is a history of events in India, not a biography of Albuquerque, the first forty years of whose life are represented only by half a dozen sentences (1774 ed., iv. 255).

[475] _Aquelle tão pouco venturoso como sciente & valeroso Antonio Galvão_ (João Pinto Ribeyro, _Preferencia das Letras ás Armas_, 1645). In his youth in India he won the regard of that keen judge of men, Afonso de Albuquerque, who could see in him nothing to find fault with except his excessive generosity.

[476] _Tratado. Prologo_ [3 ff.]. _Em este tractado con noue ou dez liuros das cousas de Maluco & da India que me o Cardeal mandou dar a Damiam de Goes._

[477] Vol. i, No. 4.

[478] Vol. v, No. 1 (1836).

[479] The name would seem to have been really Tillison, i.e. son of John Tilly, who married a granddaughter of Moraes, the author of _Palmeirim_.

[480] He speaks of their _lingua alquanto negletta e lo stile molto semplice, naturale e piano, la qual cosa deveva apparire un’ anomalia a confronto della lingua purgata con cui si scriveva allora in Portogallo_ (_Contenuto della storia del Patriarca Alfonso Mendez_, p. 115). This work was written in Latin in 1651 by AFONSO MENDEZ (1579-1656), born at Moura, who became Patriarch of Ethiopia in 1623. This splendid edition (_Rerum Aethiopicarum Scriptores_) also contains three volumes of _Relationes et Epistolae Variorum_ (Romae, 1910-12).

[481] Nicolás Antonio dwells more than once on the invisibility of Brito’s authorities (_Bib. Vet._ i. 65, 453; ii. 374): _Nos de invisis hactenus censere abstinemus_. Antonio Brandão, Brito’s successor, he says, _nullum horum vidit librorum quos Brittus olim historiae suae Atlantes iactaverat; nihil autem horum librorum (quod mirum si ibi asservabantur) vidit_. Soares (_Theatrum_) remarks epigrammatically: _fama est eloquentiam minus desiderari quam fidem_.

[482] From a comparison of inscriptions he notes the similarity between the Etruscan and ‘our ancient’ (Iberian?) letters. The Iberians may have originally gone East from Tuscany.

[483] His _Elogios dos Reis de Portugal_ appeared in 1603.

[484] ff. 248 v.-249 v. give a very curious description of Ireland: _tam remota de nossa conversação e metida debaixo do Polo Arctico_. Brito had not inherited Barros’ knowledge of geography and confuses Ireland with Iceland, but is far richer in fables, as these pages delightfully prove.

[485] To Spanish readers they were presented later by Faria e Sousa in his _Asia_.

[486] _Flores de España_ (1631), f. 248. Arias Montano refers to him as a close friend (_Doc. inéd._ t. xli. p. 386).