Chapter D: JOANA DA GAMA (†1568), a nun of noble birth who directed a small (1)

community founded by herself at Evora, a few miles from her native Viana, published a short collection of moral sentences in alphabetical order, followed by a few poems (_trovas_): _Ditos da Freyra_ (1555). She insists, perhaps a little too emphatically for conviction, on her lack of intelligence and ability, and says that these sayings were written down for herself alone and that she purposely avoids subtleties (_ditos sotijs_), but her aphorisms contain some shrewd personal observation. Fact and legend have combined to weave an atmosphere of romance about the life of Manuel de Sousa Coutinho, better known as FREI LUIS DE SOUSA (1555?-1632). A descendant of the second Conde de Marialva, he early entered or was about to enter the Order of Knights Hospitallers at Malta, but was captured by the Moors in much the same way and at about the same time (1575) as was Cervantes. He was taken to Algiers, and may have known Cervantes there, or the statement that he became Cervantes’ friend may have been an inference from the latter’s mention of him in _Los Trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda_; they may have met in Lisbon in 1590, or at Madrid. Sousa Coutinho returned to Portugal in 1578, and some years later married D. Magdalena de Vilhena, widow of D. João de Portugal, one of all the peerage that fell with King Sebastian at Alcacer Kebir. Sousa Coutinho, at the invitation of his brother in Panama, is said to have gone thither in the hope of making a fortune, but the date is not clear. His unbending patriotism was immortalized when as Governor of Almada in 1599 he burnt down his house rather than receive as guests the Spanish Governors of Portugal. The prospect of riches at Panama may have seemed especially alluring after this rash act. He appears to have lived quietly in Portugal for some years before 1613, when both he and his wife entered a convent. Their act has been variously explained as due to melancholy disposition or to the early death of their daughter, D. Anna de Noronha. Probably after her death the example of their friend the Conde de Vimioso and the conviction that the only abiding pleasure is the renunciation of all the rest were prevalent factors in their decision. The legend, however, related by Frei Antonio da Encarnação and dramatized two centuries later by Garrett, records that D. João de Portugal, D. Magdalena de Vilhena’s first husband, had been not killed but taken prisoner in Africa, and after many years’ captivity he reappears as an aged pilgrim and bitterly reveals his identity. In the convent of Bemfica, where he had professed in September 1614, Frei Luis de Sousa was consulted on various matters by the Duke of Braganza and others who valued his fine character and clear judgement, but he did not live to see the Restoration. He was entrusted by his Order with the revision of works left by another Dominican, FREI LUIS DE CACEGAS (_c._ 1540-1610). These he re-wrote, giving them a lasting value by virtue of his style. The first part of the _Historia de S. Domingos_, ‘a new kind of chronicle’ as he calls it in his preface addressed to the king, appeared in 1623, but the second (1662) and third (1678) parts were not published in his lifetime. A fourth part (1733) was added by FREI LUCAS DE SANTA CATHARINA (1660-1740), who among other works wrote a curious miscellany of verse and prose, romance and literary criticism, entitled _Seram politico_ (1704). In the biography of the saintly and strong-willed Archbishop of Braga, _Vida de D. Fr. Bertolomeu dos Martyres_ (1619), the excellence of Sousa’s style is even more apparent, for it has here no trace of rhetoric and the pictures stand out with the more effect for the economy with which they are drawn--the dearth of adjectives is noticeable. The archbishop’s visits to his diocese give occasion for charming, homely glimpses of Minho. Neither of these books is the work of a critical historian (in the _Vida_, for instance, winds and waves obey the archbishop), but the latter, especially, is in matter and manner one of the masterpieces of Portuguese literature, a _livro divino_, as a modern Portuguese writer called it.[567] The _Annaes de El Rei Dom João Terceiro_, written at the bidding of Philip IV, was published in 1844 by Herculano, who described the work as little more than a series of notes, except in the Indian sections, which summarize Barros. It is as a stylist, not as a historian, that Frei Luis de Sousa will always be read, and read with delight.[568] The subject of his biography, FREI BARTHOLOMEU DOS MARTYRES (1514-90), wrote in Portuguese a simple _Catecismo da Dovtrina Christam_ (Braga, 1564), resembling the Portuguese work of his friend Fray Luis de Granada (1504-88): _Compendio de Doctrina Christãa_ (Lixboa, 1559).

The _Historia da Vida do Padre Francisco Xavier_ (1600), by the Jesuit JOÃO DE LUCENA (1550-1600), born at Trancoso, who made his mark as an eloquent preacher and Professor of Philosophy in the University of Evora, is also one of the classics of the Portuguese language. It receives a glowing fervour from the author’s evident delight in his subject--the life of the famous Basque missionary in whose arms D. João de Castro died. His command of clear, fluent, vigorous prose, his skilful use of words and abundant power of description, enable him to convey this enthusiasm to his readers. Part of the matter of his book was derived from Fernam Mendez Pinto, but the style is his own.

Like Frei Luis de Sousa, FREI MANUEL DA ESPERANÇA (1586-1670) became the historian of his Order in the _Historia Seraphica da Ordem dos Frades Menores_ (2 pts., 1656, 66). We know from remarks in the second part that he paid the greatest attention to its composition, for which he had prepared himself by reading _hũa multidão notavel_ of books on that and kindred subjects. Similar excellence of style marks the later work of the Jesuit FRANCISCO DE SOUSA (1628?-1713), _O Oriente conquistado_ (2 vols., 1710), in which he chronicles the history of the Company in the East.

The most celebrated Portuguese preacher of his time,[569] Frei Thomé de Jesus’ brother, DIOGO DE PAIVA DE ANDRADE (1528-75), represented Portugal at the Council of Trent in 1561. His eloquent _Sermões_ (1603, 4, 15) were published posthumously in three parts. His mantle fell upon FRANCISCO FERNANDEZ GALVÃO (1554-1610), the prose of whose _Sermões_ (3 vols., 1611, 13, 16) is admirably restrained and pure. Less sonorous than the periods of Paiva de Andrade, the _Trattados_ [_sic_] _Quadragesimais e da Paschoa_ (1609) and _Tratados das Festas e Vidas dos Santos_ (2 pts., 1612, 15) of the Dominican FREI ANTONIO FEO (1573-1627) perhaps gain rather than lose by being read, not heard. In the clearness and precision of their prose they are scarcely inferior to the remarkable _Sermões_ (3 pts., 1617, 18, 25) of the Augustinian FREI PHILIPE DA LUZ (1574-1633), confessor to the Duke of Braganza (afterwards King João IV), in whose palace at Villa Viçosa he died. He, too, writes _sem grandes eloquencias_; he is as precise as Feo in his use of words, and his vocabulary is as extensive. Purity, concision, clearness, and harmony give him, together with Feo, Ceita, and Veiga, a high place in Portuguese prose.

The sermons for which the Dominican FREI PEDRO CALVO (born _c._ 1550) was celebrated were published in _Homilias de Quaresma_ (2 pts., 1627, 9), and at the repeated request of a friend he wrote his _Defensam das Lagrimas dos ivstos persegvidos_ (1618) to prove that ‘tears shed in time of trouble do not lessen merit’. The _Sermões_ (1618) and _Considerações_ (1619, 20, 33) of FREI THOMAS DA VEIGA (1578-1638), like his father a Professor of Coimbra University, are written in a style of great excellence, as, although a trifle more redundant[570] and latinized, is that of his contemporary, like him a Franciscan, FREI JOÃO DA CEITA (1578-1633), whose prose has a natural grace and harmony, if it is less pure and indigenous than that of Luz. His best known works are the _Quadragena de Sermoens_ (1619) and _Quadragena Segunda_ (1625). Two more volumes of _Sermões_ (1634, 5) appeared after his death. Two slightly later writers were FREI CRISTOVAM DE LISBOA (†1652), brother of Manuel Severim de Faria, and FREI CRISTOVAM DE ALMEIDA (1620-79), Bishop of Martyria. The former, author of _Jardim da Sagrada Escriptura_ (1653) and _Consolaçam de Afflictos e Allivio de Lastimados_ (1742), in the preface to his _Santoral de Varios Sermões_ (1638) deplores the new fashion of certain preachers who hide their meaning under their eloquence. He is himself sometimes inclined to be florid. Bishop Almeida attained a reputation for great eloquence even in the days of Antonio Vieira.[571] His _Sermões_ (1673, 80, 86) are simpler than those of Vieira, but for the reader their prose lacks the quiet precision of Ceita, Veiga, or Luz, whose sermons may be considered one of the sources from which a greater master of Portuguese, Manuel Bernardes, derived his magic. The Jesuit LUIS ALVAREZ (1615?-1709?), who was born a few years after Vieira, and lived on into the eighteenth century, also had a great reputation as a preacher. The fire is absent from the printed page, but his works, _Sermões da Quaresma_ (3 pts., 1688, 94, 99), _Amor Sagrado_ (1673), and _Ceo de graça, inferno custoso_ 1692), are notable for the purity of their prose.

The religious works of the seventeenth, as of the sixteenth century are very various in subject and treatment. FREI JOÃO CARDOSO (†1655), author of _Ruth Peregrina_ (2 pts., 1628, 54), also wrote a lengthy commentary on the 113th Psalm in twenty-one discourses: _Jornada Dalma Libertada_ (1626). Ten years earlier a Jew, JOÃO BAPTISTA D’ESTE, had published in excellent Portuguese a translation of the Psalms: _Consolaçam Christam e Lvz para o Povo Hebreo_ (1616). His title was suggested by that of a far more remarkable book by another Jew, SAMUEL USQUE (fl. 1540), _Consolaçam ás Tribulaçoens de Israel_, written probably between 1540 and 1550[572] and first printed at Ferrara by Abraham ben Usque in 1553. The author was the son of Spanish Jews who had taken refuge in Portugal, where he was born, probably at the end of the fifteenth century.[573] His famous work is an account of the sufferings of the Jewish race. In three dialogues Jacob (_Ycabo_), Nahum (_Numeo_), and Zachariah (_Zicareo_) converse as shepherds. Israel, in person, relates his sorrows down to the fall of Jerusalem, an event which is described in detail, and so on to the persecutions in European countries (_novas gentes_), and at the end of each dialogue the prophets administer their comfort. The book closes with a chorus of rapturous psalms in biblical prose, rejoicing at the coming end of Israel’s tribulations and calling for vengeance on their enemies, and thus finishes on a note of joyful faith and courageous hope, without an inkling of charity. The first dialogue, which condenses Old Testament history, has a rhythmical, luxuriant style, rich in Oriental imagery, but later, where Roman history is the authority, or in the tragic account of the persecution of Jews in Portugal[574] under João II and the two succeeding kings, the style is shorn of rhetoric. Nor is there a trace of false ornament in a long passage of wonderful eloquence, Israel’s final complaint and invocation to sky and earth, waters and mortal creatures. The agony and awful glow of indignation at these recent events had a restraining influence on the style, which loses nothing by this simplicity. Quieter descriptions are those of the shepherd’s life and of the chase in the first, and of spring and evening in the third part.

The Jesuit DIOGO MONTEIRO (1561-1634), when towards the end of his life he published his _Arte de Orar_ (1631), promised, should his ‘great occupations’ allow, to print very soon the second volume dealing with the divine attributes. This did not appear in that generation: _Meditações dos attribvtos divinos_ (Roma, 1671). The _Arte de Orar_ contains twenty-nine treatises (604 ff.). Its subjects are various (of the virtue of magnificence; of the esteem in which singing is held by God, &c.), and they are presented with fervour and clear concision, and especially with a complete absence of oratorical effect. Quintilian takes part in one of the six dialogues which compose the _Peregrinaçam Christam_ (1620) by TRISTÃO BARBOSA DE CARVALHO (†1632); he is on a pilgrimage from Lisbon to the tomb of Saint Isabel at Coimbra, but he expresses himself in excellent Portuguese, modelled perhaps on that of Arraez. The prose of the _Retrato de Prvdentes, Espelho de Ignorantes_ (1664) by the Jesuit FRANCISCO AIRES (1597-1664) often rises to eloquence, notably in the fervent prayers. His _Theatro dos Trivmphos Divinos contra os Desprimores Hvmanos_ (1658) is of a more practical character. The Franciscan FREI MANUEL DOS ANJOS (1595-1653) laid no claim to originality in his _Politica predicavel e doutrina moral do bom governo do mundo_ (1693), written in a clear and correct but slightly redundant[575] style.

FREI LUIS DOS ANJOS (_c._ 1570-1625) in his _Iardim de Portugal_ (1626) gathered edifying anecdotes of saintly women from various writers, and set them down in good Portuguese prose. The Franciscan FREI PEDRO DE SANTO ANTONIO (_c._ 1570-1641) in his _Iardim Spiritual, tirado dos Sanctos e Varoens spiritvaes_ (1632) contented himself with translation of his authorities, adding, he modestly says, ‘some things of my own of not much importance’. He carefully avoided interlarding his Portuguese with Latin, his object being _fazer prato a todos_. Even more humble is the work of the Cistercian FREI FRADIQUE ESPINOLA (_c._ 1630-1708), who compiled in his _Escola Decurial_ (12 pts., 1696-1721) an encyclopaedia of themes so various as the fate of King Sebastian, the duties of women, and the habits of storks. Although it lacks the literary pretensions of the _Divertimento erudito_ by the Augustinian FREI JOÃO PACHECO (1677-?1747), it contains some curious matter. A similar miscellany of anecdotes and precepts was written by João Baptista de Castro in the eighteenth century: _Hora de Recreio nas ferias de maiores estudos_ (2 pts., 1742, 3).

The life of the ardent FREI ANTONIO DAS CHAGAS (1631-82) abounded in contrasts. Born at Vidigueira, of an old Alentejan family, Antonio da Fonseca Soares began his career as a soldier in 1650; a duel (arising out of one of his many love affairs), in which he killed his man, drove him to Brazil, and it was only after several years of distinguished service[576] that he returned to Portugal, perhaps in 1657. In 1661 he attained the rank of captain, but in the following year abandoned his military career, and in 1663 professed in the Franciscan convent at Evora, exchanging the composition of gongoric verse for a voluminous correspondence in prose, and his unregenerate days of dissipation for a glowing and saintly asceticism. (_Trocando as galas em burel e os caprichos em cilicios_ are the words with which he veils the real sincerity of his conversion.) Preferring the humbler but strenuous duties of missionary in Portugal and Spain to the bishopric of Lamego, he founded the missionary convent of Varatojo, and died there twenty years after his novitiate. During those years he built up and exercised a powerful spiritual influence throughout Portugal, and it continued after his death. Few of his poems survive, since he committed the greater part of his profane verse to the flames, but some of his _romances_ may still be read. It is, however, as a prose-writer, especially in his _Cartas Espirituaes_ (2 pts., 1684, 7), that he holds a foremost place in Portuguese literature. There is less affectation in these more familiar letters than in his _Sermões genuinos_ (1690) or his _Obras Espirituaes_ (1684). The very titles of some of his shorter treatises, _Vozes do Ceo e Tremores da Terra, Espelho do Espelho_, show that he had not even now altogether escaped the false taste of the time, and artificial flowers of speech, plays on words, laboured metaphors and antitheses appear in his prose. But if it has not the simple severity of a Bernardes, it possesses so persuasive, so passionate an energy, and is of so clear a fervour and harmony that its eloquence is felt to be genuine.

The Jesuit FREI JOÃO DA FONSECA (1632-1701), in the preface to one of his works, _Sylva Moral e Historica_ (1696), which may have given Bernardes the idea of his _Nova Floresta_, rejects affected periods and new phrases, and there is no false rhetoric in his _Espelho de Penitentes_ (1687), _Satisfaçam de Aggravos_ (1700), which takes the form of dialogues between a hermit and a soldier, and other devotional works. Another Jesuit, ALEXANDRE DE GUSMÃO (1629-1724), although born at Lisbon, spent most (eighty-five years) of his long life in Brazil. He wrote, among other works, _Rosa de Nazareth nas Montanhas de Hebron_ (1715), compiled from various histories of the Company of Jesus, and _Historia do Predestinado Peregrino e seu Irmão Precito_ (1682). The latter is an allegory in six books which lacks the human interest of Bunyan’s _Pilgrim’s Progress_, which it preceded. It describes the journey of two brothers, _Predestinado_ and _Precito_, out of Egypt to Jerusalem (Heaven) and Babylon (Hell). The style is simpler and more direct than might be inferred from the inflated title, and often has an effective if studied eloquence.[577]

Vieira dying is reported to have said that the Portuguese language was safe in the keeping of Padre Manuel Bernardes. The aged Jesuit, who maintained his interest in literature to the end, may have received Bernardes’ _Luz e Calor_[578] (1696) in the last year of his life, and the _Exercicios Espirituaes_ (2 vols., 1686) had appeared ten years earlier. Other works, _Sermões e Praticas_ (1711),[579] _Nova Floresta_ (5 vols., 1706-28), _Os Ultimos Fins do Homem_ (1727), _Varios Tratados_ (2 vols., 1737), were soon forthcoming to justify the prophecy. MANUEL BERNARDES (1644-1710), the son of João Antunes and Maria Bernardes, was born at Lisbon, studied law and philosophy at Coimbra University, and at the age of thirty entered the Lisbon Oratory, where he spent thirty-six years. That was all his life, yet through his books this modest, humorous, austere priest has exercised a profound influence not only, as Barbosa Machado declares, in guiding souls to Heaven, but in moulding and protecting the Portuguese language. His style is marked in an equal degree by grace and concision, intensity and restraint, smoothness and vigour.[580] With him the florid cloak, in which many recent writers had wrapped Portuguese, falls away, leaving the pith and kernel of the language; the conceits of the _culteranos_ disappear, and the most striking effects are attained without apparent artifice. In his hands the pinchbeck and tinsel are transmuted into delicate pieces of ivory. The charm of his style is difficult to analyse, but it may be remarked that his vocabulary is inexhaustible, his precision unfailing, that he is not afraid to employ the commonest words, and that the construction of his sentences is of a transparent simplicity, as bare of rhetoric as is the poetry of João de Deus. His reputation as a lord of language has survived every test. His works are not merely the _deliciae_ of a few distant scholars but an acknowledged glory of the nation, praised by that literary iconoclast Macedo, and quoted as an authority in the Republican Parliament of 1915. The most popular of his works are _Luz e Calor_, and especially the _Nova Floresta_, in which moral and familiar anecdote go quaintly hand in hand, but if one must choose between excellence and excellence his masterpiece is the _Exercicios Espirituaes_, in which thought and expression often rise to sublime heights. One may perhaps compare him with Fray Juan de los Ángeles (†1609). His simple doctrines spring from the heart and, winged by shrewd knowledge of men, touch the heart of his readers. One of his more immediate followers was Padre MANUEL CONSCIENCIA (_c._ 1669-1739), author of a large number of works on moral and religious subjects, the best known of which is _A Mocidade enganada e desenganada_ (6 vols., 1729-38).

FOOTNOTES:

[553] _Dial._ x. 4.

[554] The dates given by Barbosa Machado are Rector 1565, Provincial 1571.

[555] He introduces himself as a theologian in his dialogues, and one may infer several facts concerning his life, e. g. that he had been in Rome (_Imagem_, Pt. 2, 1593 ed., f. 351 v.), Montserrat (f. 88), Marseilles (f. 88), Savoy (f. 295), Madrid (f. 190), that he kept a diary (f. 190), that he was _curioso de antigualhas_ (f. 352).

[556] Macedo, quoted by Innocencio da Silva (iii. 176), alleged this to be a ‘faithful translation’ from Petrarca. Why Petrarca (1304-74) should praise Belem Convent and Coimbra University, refer to the recent death (1557) of King João III, or speak of ‘our’ Francisco de Hollanda we are not told. Pinto in a later dialogue, _Da Tranquillidade da Vida_, refers to Petrarca’s _Vita Solitaria_ (Pt. 2, 1593 ed., f. 47 v.).

[557] Since 1590 is implied as the date of this dialogue on f. 290 of the 1593 edition it must be emphasized that the _Segunda Parte_ appeared originally in 1572.

[558] Pt. 2, 1593 ed., f. 366 v.: _eu revolvo os livros ... com grandes trabalhos & vigilias_.

[559] Cf. _Dialogos_, 1604 ed., f. 346: _Coimbra, onde gastei a flor de minha adolescencia._ (This edition really has but 344 ff. since f. 29 follows f. 22.)

[560] _Dialogos de Dom Frey Amador Arraiz_, Coimbra, 1604. The idea of the work belonged to his brother, Jeronimo Arraez, who did not live to complete what he had begun.

[561] The same variety occurs in _Poderes de Amor em geral e horas de conversaçam particular_ (1657), by Frei Cristovam Godinho (_c._ 1600-71) of Evora.

[562] He wrote the life of the prior, Frei Luis de Montoia, whose _Vida de Christo_ he completed.

[563] _Tendo elle sua mãi e irmãos muito ricos e a Condessa de Linhares sua irmãa, todos offerecidos a pagar o grosso resgate que os Mouros pediam, por saberem a qualidade de sua pessoa_ (_Cronica do Cardeal Rei D. Henrique_, p. 38).

[564] See his prefatory letter in the _Trabalhos_. Cf. Antonio, _Bib. Nova_, ii. 307. Barbosa Machado speaks of _hũa horrivel masmorra_.

[565] Cf. p. 39 (1666 ed.): _Ó, ó, ó amor; ó, ó, ó amor, cale a lingua e o entendimento, dilatai-vos vos por toda esta alma_, &c.; or p. 54: _Ah, ah, ah bondade; ah, ah amor sem lei, sem regra, sem medida, adoro-te, louvo-te, desejo-te, por ti suspiro._

[566] He also wrote _Oratorio sacra de soliloquios do amor divino_ (1628) and various works in Latin. Manuel Godinho refers to his _Estimulo das Missões_ (_Relação_, 1842 ed., p. 47).

[567] C. Castello Branco, _Estrellas propicias_, 2ᵃ ed., p. 204. Its only fault, artistically, is the detailed description of the commemoration festivities, which come as an anticlimax.

[568] Other works of the period are similarly read rather for their style than as history, as the _Historia Ecclesiastica da Igreja de Lisboa_ (1642) and the _Historia Ecclesiastica dos Arcebispos de Braga_ (2 pts., 1634, 1635) by D. RODRIGO DA CUNHA (1577-1643), the Archbishop of Lisbon who had an active share in the liberation of Portugal from the yoke of Spain in 1640.

[569] Another renowned Court preacher was D. ANTONIO PINHEIRO (†1582?), Bishop of Miranda, whose works were collected by Sousa Farinha: _Collecção das obras portuguesas do sabio Bispo de Miranda e de Leiria_, 2 vols., 1785, 6.

[570] e. g. _officio e dignidade, gritos e brados, boca e lingoa, cuidão e imaginão_. Macedo (_O Couto_, p. 82) rightly calls Ceita _um dos principaes textos em lingua portugueza_.

[571] Other noted preachers were the Jesuits FRANCISCO DO AMARAL (1593-1647), who published the first (and only) volume of his _Sermões_ (1641) in the year in which Vieira came to Portugal, and FRANCISCO DE MENDONÇA (1573-1626), a master of clear and vigorous prose in his two volumes of _Sermões_ (1636, 9); and the Trinitarian BALTASAR PAEZ (1570-1638), whose _Sermões de Quaresma_ (2 pts., 1631, 3), _Sermões da Semana Santa_ (1630), _Marial de Sermões_ (1649), may still be read with profit.

[572] _Ha poucos annos que he arribado_ (the Inquisition in Portugal), Pt. 3, 1908 ed., f. xxxii.

[573] See p. 5 of _Prologo_: Portuguese is _a lingoa que mamei_, but his _passados_ are from Castile.

[574] The inhabitants of the Peninsula are _astutos e maliciosos_, Spain is ‘a hypocritical and cruel wolf’, the Portuguese are _fortes e quasi barbaros_, the English _maliciosos_, the Italians, since the book was to appear in their country, merely ‘warlike and ungrateful’.

[575] If, for instance, the bracketed words in the following sentence (p. 3, § 5) be omitted it gains in vigour and loses little in the sense: _Este poder se não deo aos Reys para extorsoens_ [_& violencias_] _mas para amparar_ [_& defender_] _os vassallos porque até o propria Deos parece que tem as mãos atadas a rigores_ [_& castigos_] _& livres a clemencias_ [_& misericordias_].

[576] He had been fortunate, for, says Antonio Vieira in 1640, _não ha guerra no mundo onde se morra tão frequentemente como na do Brazil_.

[577] e. g. in the following passage (p. 47), in which Calderon and João de Deus join hands: ‘The world and its glory is a passing comedy, a farce that ends in laughter, a shadow that disappears, a thinning mist, a fading flower, a blinding smoke, a dream that is not true.’

[578] _Estimulos de amor divino_ (1758) is an extract from this, as the _Tratado breve da oraçam mental_ (5th ed., 1757) is extracted from the _Exercicios Espirituaes_.

[579] Pt. 2 appeared in 1733.

[580] He often deliberately links a soft and a hard word, as _caça e cão_, _candores da celestial graça_, _licita a guerra_. Thus his style becomes _crespo sem aspereza_.

IV

1580-1706

_The Seiscentistas_

Philip II entered his new capital under triumphal arches on June 29, 1581, and the subjection of Portugal to Spain during the next sixty years in part accounts for the fact that nowhere was the decadence of literature in the seventeenth century more marked than at Lisbon. For Spain in her sturdy independence and reaction from rigid classicism had led the way in those precious affectations which invaded the literatures of Europe, and the universal malady, gongorism with its Lylyan conceits and cultured style, now found a ready welcome in Portugal. The literary style which corresponded to the Churriguerresque in architecture naturally proved congenial to the land of the _estilo manuelino_. King Philip was glad to conciliate and provide for Portuguese men of letters,[581] but if in the preceding centuries many of them wrote in Spanish, that tendency was now necessarily strengthened. Another cause of decadence was no doubt the Inquisition, although its influence in this respect has been greatly exaggerated. It required no immense tact on the part of an author to prevent his works from being placed on the Index. An examination, for instance, of the differences between the 1616 edition of _Eufrosina_ and the condemned 1561 edition shows that the parts excised were chiefly coarse passages or unsuitable references to the Bible (this was also the charge against the letters of Clenardus). That remarkable mathematician, Pedro Nunez, pays a tribute to the enlightened patronage of letters by Cardinal Henrique, the most ardent promoter of the Inquisition in Portugal: _qui cum nullum_ _tempus intermittat quin semper aut animarum saluti prospiciat aut optimos quosque auctores evolvat aut literatorum hominum colloquia audiat_.[582]

No literary figure in Portugal of the seventeenth century, few in the Peninsula,[583] can rank with D. FRANCISCO MANUEL DE MELLO (1608-66). Born at Lisbon,[584] he belonged to the highest Portuguese nobility and began both his military and literary career in his seventeenth year. He wrote in Spanish, although, in verse at least, he felt it to be a hindrance,[585] and it was not till he was over forty that he published a work in Portuguese: _Carta de Guia de Casados_ (1651).[586] Few men have accomplished more, and towards the end of his life he could say with pride that it would be difficult to find an idle hour in it. He was shipwrecked near St. Jean de Luz in 1627 and fought in the battle of the Downs in 1639. He was sent with the Conde de Linhares to quell the Evora insurrection in 1637, and took part in the campaign against revolted Catalonia (1640), which he described in his _Guerra de Cataluña_[587] (1645), written _em varias fortunas_ and recognized as a classic of Spanish literature. A man frankly outspoken like Mello must have made many enemies, enemies dangerous in a time of natural distrust. During the Catalan campaign he was sent under arrest to Madrid, apparently on suspicion of favouring the cause of an independent Portugal,[588] and a little later, when he was in the service of the King of Portugal, the suspicion as to his loyalty recurred. On November 19, 1644, he was arrested at Lisbon on a different charge. It appears that a servant dismissed by Mello revenged himself by implicating his former master in a murder that he had committed (of a man as obscure as himself). Whether he did this of his own initiative or at the bidding of Mello’s enemies is uncertain, but they saw to it that Mello once in prison should not be soon released. They might, probably did, assure the king that this was the best place for one ‘devoted to the cause of Castile’. There are other theories to account for Mello’s long imprisonment, the most romantic of which--that he and the king were rivals in the affections of the Condessa de Villa Nova, and, meeting disguised and by accident at the entrance of her house, drew their swords, the king recognizing Mello by his voice--is now generally abandoned. Although no evidence of Mello’s participation in the murder was forthcoming, he was condemned to be deported for life to Africa, for which Brazil was later substituted. It was only in 1655, after eleven years of more or less[589] strict confinement, that he sailed for Brazil. João IV died in 1656 and two years later Mello returned to Portugal: he was formally pardoned[590] and spent the last years of his life in important diplomatic missions to London, Rome, and Paris. The unfaltering courage and gaiety with which he faced his adventures and misfortunes win our admiration, but his life can strike no one as literary. Yet it is probable that but for his long imprisonment he would never have found leisure to write many of his best works, and prosperity might have dimmed his insight and dulled his style--that style (influenced no doubt by Quevedo and Gracián) which is hard and clear as the glitter of steel or the silver chiming of a clock, with _concinnitas quaedam venusta et felix verborum_.[591] Even when full of points and conceits it retains its clearness and trenchancy, and in his more familiar works he is unrivalled, as the _Carta de Guia de Casados_, in which, _innuptus ipse_, he brings freshness and originality to the theme already treated in Fray Luis de Leon’s _La Perfecta Casada_ (1583), Diogo Paiva de Andrade’s sensible but less caustic _Casamento Perfeito_ (1631), and Dr. João de Barros’ _Espelho de Casados_ (1540),[592] or the pithy and delightful _Cartas Familiares_, of which five centuries--a mere fragment--were published at Rome in 1664, with a rapier-thrust of his wit and a maxim of good sense on every page, preserving for us some vestige of what Frei Manuel Godinho described as his ‘admirable conversation’ when he met him at Marseilles in 1633.[593] The _Epanaphoras de varia Historia Portugueza_ (1660) are unequal and often excessively detailed.[594] Three of the five are, however, the accounts of an eyewitness and as such are full of interest: the _Alteraçoens de Evora_ (i), the _Naufragio da Armada Portuguesa em França_ (ii), and the _Conflito do Canal de Inglaterra_ (iv).[595]

Mello’s knowledge of men was as wide as his knowledge of books, and both appear to great advantage in his _Apologos Dialogaes_ (1721). An individualist in religion[596] and politics,[597] an acute thinker and a keen student of men and manners, he found no dullness in life even at its worst and no solitude, for, if alone, his fancy instilled wit and wisdom into clocks[598] and coins[599] and fountains.[600] The first three _Apologos_ contain incisive portraits in which types and persons are sharply etched in a few lines: the poor _escudeiro_, the _beata_, the Lisbon market-woman, the litigious _ratinho_, the _fidalgo_ from the provinces,[601] the ambitious priest, the shabby grammarian,, the worldly monk, political place-hunter, _miles gloriosus_, or melancholy author, a tinselled nobody boiling down the good sayings of past writers. The fourth _Apologo_ entitled _Hospital das Lettras_ (1657) is devoted more especially to literary criticism; Mello with Quevedo, Justus Lipsius, and Traiano Boccalini (who died when Mello was five) makes a notable scrutiny of Spanish and Portuguese literature. As a literary critic Mello is excellent within limits. Himself an artificial writer, although as it were naturally artificial, bred at Court, versed in social and political affairs, he considered that the proper study of mankind was man, and, like Henry Fielding a century later, admired ‘the wondrous power of art in improving Nature’.[602] For him the country and Nature, the bucolic poetry and prose of Fernam Alvarez do Oriente, the ingenuous narratives of the early chroniclers, had no charm; he preferred Rodrigo Mendez Silva’s _Vida y hechos del gran Condestable_ (Madrid, 1640) to the _Cronica do Condestabre_.[603] But all that was vernacular and indigenous attracted him, as is proved in his letters, in his lively farce _Auto do Fidalgo Aprendiz_ (1676), and in the _Feira dos Anexins_, which is a long string of popular maxims and of those plays upon words in which Mello delighted. His poetry--_Las Tres Musas del Melodino_ (1649), _Obras Metricas_ (1665)--is marred by the conceits which in his prose often serve effectively to point a moral or drive home an argument. It is far too clever. When in a poem ‘On the death of a great lady’ we find the line _contigo o sepultara a sepultura_ we do not know whether to laugh or weep, but we suspect the sincerity of the author’s grief, and although he wrote some excellent _quintilhas_, most of his poems, which are, as might be expected, always vigorous, are too sharp and thin, stalks without flowers, the very skeletons of poetry. It is to his prose in its wit and grace, its shrewd thought, its revelation of a sincere and lofty but unassuming character, its directness,[604] its _bom portugues velho e relho_, that he owes his place among the greatest writers of the Peninsula.

The taste in poetry in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is seen in two collections, partly Spanish, partly Portuguese: _Fenix Renascida_ (5 vols., 1716-28) and _Eccos que o Clarim da Fama dá_ (2 vols., 1761, 2). The latter is sufficiently characterized by its title, too long to quote in full. As to the former the Phoenix seems to have given real pleasure to contemporary readers, but for us the bird and song are flown and only the ashes remain, from which a sixteenth-century poem such as the sonnet _Horas breves_ stands out conspicuously. The subjects are often as trivial as those of the _Cancioneiro_ published two centuries earlier and more domestic: to a cousin sewing, to an overdressed man, to a large mouth, a sonnet to two market-women fighting, another to the prancing horse of the Conde de Sabugal, on a present of roses, two long _romances_ on a goldfinch killed by a cat, verses sent with a gift of handkerchiefs or eggs or melons, or to thank for sugar-plums--the _Fenix_ rarely soars above such themes. The magistrate ANTONIO BARBOSA BACELLAR (1610-63) figures largely, with glosses on poems by Camões, a _romance_ _A umas saudades_, a satirical poem _A umas beatas_. His _romances varios_ are mostly in Spanish, but a few of his sonnets in Portuguese have some merit. The fifth volume opens (pp. 1-37) with a far more elaborate satire by DIOGO CAMACHO (or Diogo de Sousa): _Jornada que Diogo Camacho fez ás Cortes do Parnaso_, the best burlesque poem of the century, in which the author did not spare contemporary Lisbon poets.[605] The poems of JERONIMO BAHIA likewise cover many pages. He it is who bewails at length the sad fate of a goldfinch. In _oitavas_ he wrote a _Fabula de Polyfemo a Galatea_,[606] and in octosyllabic _redondilhas_ jocular accounts of journeys from Lisbon to Coimbra and from Lisbon into Alentejo (on a very lean mule) which are sometimes amusing. His sonnet _Fallando com Deos_ shows a deeper nature, and the collection contains other religious verse, notably that of Violante Montesino, better known as SOROR VIOLANTE DO CEO (1601-93). Here,[607] as in her _Rythmas varias_ (Rouen, 1646) and _Parnaso Lusitano de divinos e humanos versos_ (2 vols., 1733), this nun, who spent over sixty years in the Dominican Convento da Rosa at Lisbon, and who from an early age was known for her skill upon the harp and in poetry--admiring contemporaries called her the tenth Muse--showed that she could write with simple fervour, as in the Portuguese _deprecações devotas_ of the _Meditações da Missa_ (1689) or her Spanish _villancicos_. But she could also be the most gongorical of writers, her very real native talent being too often spoilt by the taste of the time.[608] BERNARDA FERREIRA DE LACERDA (1595-1644), another _femina incomparabilis_, like Soror Violante and Dercylis considered the tenth Muse and fourth Grace, wrote almost exclusively in Spanish, nor can her _Soledades de Buçaco_ (1634) or her epic _Hespaña Libertada_ (2 pts., 1618, 73) be considered a heavy loss to Portuguese literature. SOROR MARIA MAGDALENA EUPHEMIA DA GLORIA (1672-? _c._ 1760), in the world Leonarda Gil da Gama, in _Brados do Desengano_ (1739), _Orbe Celeste_ (1742), and _Reino de Babylonia_ (1749), rarely descends from the high-flown style indicated in these titles. On the other hand, the Franciscan nun of Lisbon, SOROR MARIA DO CEO (1658-1753), or Maria de Eça, in _A Preciosa_ (2 pts., 1731, 3) and _Enganos do Bosque, Desenganos do Rio_ (1741), among much verse of the same kind has some poems of real charm and an almost rustic simplicity.

By reason of a certain intensity and a vigorous style D. FRANCISCO CHILD ROLIM DE MOURA (1572-1640), Lord of the towns of Azambuja and Montargil, although more versed in arms than in letters, wrote in _Os Novissimos do Homem_ (1623) a poem quite as readable as the longer epics of his contemporaries, despite its duller subject (man’s first disobedience and all our woe). The four cantos in _oitavas_ are headed Death, Judgement, Hell, Paradise.[609] Of the life of MANUEL DA VEIGA TAGARRO we know little or nothing, but his volume of eclogues and odes, _Lavra de Anfriso_ (1627), stands conspicuous in the seventeenth century for its simplicity and true lyrical vein. There is nothing original in these four eclogues, but the verse is of a harmonious softness. In the odes he succeeds in combining fervent thought with a classical restraint of expression. He aimed high; Horace, Lope de Vega, and Luis de Leon seem to have been his models. Some measure of the latter’s deliberate tranquillity he occasionally attained. The works of the ‘discreet and accomplished’, keen-eyed and graceful D. FRANCISCO DE PORTUGAL (1585-1632) appeared posthumously[610]: _Divinos e humanos versos_ (1652) and (without separate title-page) _Prisões e solturas de hũa alma_, consisting of mystic poems mostly in Spanish in a setting of Portuguese prose, and, in Spanish, _Arte de Galanteria_ (1670), of which a second edition was published in 1682. Lope de Vega praised the ‘elegant verses’ of the _Gigantomachia_ (1628) written by MANUEL DE GALHEGOS (1597-1665). That he could write good Portuguese poetry the author showed in the 732 verses of his _Templo da Memoria_ (1635), in the preface of which he declares that it had become a rash act to publish poems written in Portuguese but quotes the example of Pereira de Castro and of Góngora as having used the language of everyday life and plebeian words without indignity.

The later epics testified to the perseverance of their authors rather than to their poetical talent. They are perhaps less guilty than the critics, who should have discouraged the kind and recognized that the _Lusiads_ were only an accident in Portuguese literature, the accident of the genius of Camões. As a rule the epic spirit of the Portuguese expressed itself better in prose. GABRIEL PEREIRA DE CASTRO (1571?-1632) forestalled Sousa de Macedo in his choice of a subject. His _Vlyssea, ov Lysboa Edificada, Poema heroyco_ (1636) was published posthumously by his brother Luis, and perhaps the most remarkable thing about it is that it should have run through six editions. The structure of the poem, in ten cantos of _oitavas_, is closely modelled on that of the _Lusiads_, and the gods of Olympus duly take a part in the story. He sings, he says boldly, to his country, to the world and to eternity, but his sails flap sadly for lack of inspiration and enthusiasm, and his daring _enjambements_[611] do not compensate for the dullness of theme and treatment. If, for instance, we compare his storm[612] with that of the _Lusiads_ (vi. 70-91) it must be confessed that the former has much the air of a commotion in a duckpond. Ulysses on his way to Lisbon visits (canto 4) the infernal regions, is astonished to meet kings there, and (canto 6) relates the siege and fall of Troy.

The life of BRAS GARCIA DE MASCARENHAS (1596-1656) was more interesting than his verses. He was born at Avó, near the Serra da Estrella, and his adventures began early, for he was arrested on account of a love affair (1616) and made a daring escape from Coimbra prison after wounding his jailer. His careful biographer, Dr. Antonio de Vasconcellos, has shown that there is no record of his having studied at Coimbra University. Subsequently he travelled and fought in Brazil (1623-32), Italy, France, Flanders, and Spain, and in 1641, as captain, raised and commanded a body of horse known as the Company of Lions. As Governor of Alfaiates, the ‘key of Beira’, he was wrongfully accused of having a treasonable understanding with Spain and imprisoned at Sabugal, some ten miles from Alfaiates (1642). He obtained a book (the _Flos Sanctorum_), flour, and scissors and cut out a letter in verse to King João IV, who restored him to his governorship and gave him the habit of Avis. His long epic _Viriato Tragico_ (1699) contains some forcible descriptions and has a pleasantly patriotic and indigenous atmosphere--one feels that he is singing _os patrios montes_ as much as the hero--but in style it differs little from prose. Tedious geographical descriptions, dry catalogues of names, a whole stanza (vii. 39) composed exclusively of nouns, another (iv. 63) of proper names, incline the reader less to praise than sleep, from which he is only gently stirred when the sun is called _a solar embaixadora_. In the prevailing fashion of the time the author works in lines of Camões, Sá de Miranda, Garci Lasso, Ariosto, and other poets. While the work was still in manuscript another poet, and perhaps a relation, Andre da Silva Mascarenhas, helped himself liberally to its stanzas (they number 2,287) for his epic _A Destruição de Hespanha_ (1671). He could have given no better proof of the poverty of his genius. FRANCISCO DE SÁ DE MENESES (_c._ 1600-1664?), although less true a poet than his cousin and namesake the Conde de Mattosinhos, won a far wider fame by his epic poem _Malaca Conqvistada_ (1634), in which he recounts _a heroica historia dos feitos de Albuquerque_. The reader who accompanies his frail bark[613] through twelve cantos of _oitavas_ feels that he has well earned the fall of Malacca at the end. For although the author is not incapable of vigorous and succinct description he too often decks out the pure gold of Camões’ style[614] with periphrases and Manueline ornaments which delay the action. The sun is ‘the lover of Clytie’ or ‘the rubicund son of Latona’. He stops to tell us that a diamond won by Albuquerque had been ‘cut by skilled hand in Milan’, and some of his more elaborate similes are not without charm. Canto 7 tells of the future deeds of the Portuguese in India. The gods interfere less than in the _Lusiads_ (Asmodeus plays a part in canto 6), but the general effect is that of a great theme badly handled. After the death of his wife, the author spent the last twenty years of his life (from 1641) in the Dominican convent of Bemfica as Frei Francisco de Jesus.

ANTONIO DE SOUSA DE MACEDO (1606-82), _moço fidalgo_ of Philip IV and later Secretary of Embassy and Minister (_Residente_) in London (1642-6) and Secretary of State to the weak and unlettered Afonso VI, wrote at the age of twenty-two _Flores de España, Excelencias de Portugal_ (1631). This historical work of considerable interest and importance was written in Spanish por ser mais universal, but he returned to Portuguese presently in a curious prose miscellany, _Eva e Ave_ (1676), and in the epic poem _Vlyssippo_ (1640) in fourteen cantos of _oitavas_. He seems to have felt that interest could not easily be sustained by the subject, the foundation of Lisbon by Ulysses. Accordingly, following the example of Camões, he inset various episodes. Canto 6 summarizes the events of the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_, canto 10 describes a tapestry adorned with future Portuguese victories, in canto 11 the Delphic Sibyl foretells the deeds of Portugal’s kings, down to Sebastian, in canto 12 the wise Chiron prophesies of her _famosos varões_. The style is correct, but the poem as a whole is commonplace. VASCO MOUSINHO DE QUEVEDO, of Setubal, although no records of his life remain, won high fame by his epic poem in _oitavas_ (twelve cantos) _Afonso Africano_ (1611), in which ‘the marvellous prowess of King Afonso V in Africa’ is described. The poem, admired by Almeida Garrett, is particularly wearisome because it is largely allegorical. The king conquering Arzila represents the strong man subduing the city of his own soul, the Moors are the spirits of the damned, and seven of their knights representing the seven deadly sins are defeated by seven Christian knights who stand for the virtues.

The poverty of profane prose, compared with its flourishing condition in the preceding century, is also remarkable. A few historians of the seventeenth century have already been mentioned. The literary academies, of which the most famous were the _Academia dos Generosos_ (1649-68) and the _Academia dos Singulares_ (1663-5),[615] existed rather for the interchange of wit and complimentary or satiric verses than for the encouragement of historical and scientific research. The Conde da Ericeira’s _Portugal Restaurado_ and Freire de Andrade’s Life bear no comparison with works of the _Quinhentistas_. Yet it was the second golden age of Portuguese prose, as the names of Manuel Bernardes and Vieira prove. The latter’s letters, with those of Frei Antonio das Chagas and Mello, are in three different kinds--the political, religious, and familiar--the most notable written in the century. GASPAR PIRES DE REBELLO in the preface to his _Infortvnios tragicos da Constante Florinda_ (1625) excuses himself for its publication on the ground that ‘not spiritual and divine books only benefit our intelligence’. The book, which records the love of Arnaldo and Florinda, of Zaragoza, shows the modern novel growing through _Don Quixote_ out of the _Celestina_ plays and the romances of chivalry, but has little other interest. A second part was published in 1633, and _Novellas Exemplares_, six stories by the same author, in 1650. Numerous other works appeared with more or less alluring or sensational titles but contents disappointingly dull. MATTHEUS DE RIBEIRO (_c._ 1620-95), in his _Alivio de Tristes e Consolação de Queixosos_ (1672, 4), shows greater skill than Pires de Rebello in the invention of the story, but it is marred by the diffuse and pedantic style--April becomes an ‘academy in which Flora was opening the doors for the study of flowers’. The pastoral novel ended in sad contortions with the _Desmayos de Mayo em sombras de Mondego_ (1635) by DIOGO FERREIRA DE FIGUEIROA (1604-74). Its title and the three involved sentences which cover the first three pages (ff. 10, 11) convey an adequate idea of its character and contents.

Of several prose works written by MARTIM AFONSO DE MIRANDA, of Lisbon, in the first third of the century, the most important is _Tempo de Agora_ (2 pts., 1622, 4). It contains seven dialogues dealing with truth and falsehood, the evils of idleness, temperance, friendship, justice, the evils of dice and cards, and precepts for princes. Much of their matter is interesting and the comments incisive, especially as to the prevailing luxury in food and dress. They tell of the infinite number of curiously bound books at Lisbon, of the soldiers unpaid, ‘eating at the doors of convents’, of the delight in foreign fashions, and the craze for ‘diabolical’ books from Italy to the exclusion of _livros de historias_ and books in Portuguese. The anonymous _Primor e honra da vida soldadesca no Estado da India_ (1630), edited by the Augustinian FREI ANTONIO FREIRE (_c._ 1570-1634), is a different work from Geronimo Ximenez de Urrea’s _Diálogo de la verdadera honra militar_ (1566), which it resembles slightly in title. It is divided into four parts and contains various episodes of the Portuguese in the East and some curious information. MIGUEL LEITÃO DE ANDRADE (1555-1632) went straight from Coimbra University to Africa with King Sebastian. After the battle of Alcacer Kebir he succeeded in escaping from captivity, followed the cause of the Prior of Crato, and was imprisoned under Philip II. In his book, in twenty dialogues, _Miscellanea do Sitio de N. Sᵃ da Lvz do Pedrogão Grande_ (1629), he disclaims any purpose of writing history. It reveals an inquiring and observant but uncritical mind, interested in fossils, inscriptions, astrology, the early history of Portugal, etymology, heraldry, and the ‘infinite wonderful secrets of Nature daily being revealed’. It contains a graphic account of his escape from Fez, but on the whole, in spite of attractive passages and interesting details, scarcely merits its great reputation. _Do Sitio de Lisboa_ (1608), which Mello praises as _aquelle elegantissimo livro_, by the author of _Arte Militar_ (1612), LUIS MENDES DE VASCONCELLOS, is written in the form of a dialogue between a philosopher, a soldier, and a politician, and deserves its place among the minor classics of Portuguese literature.

The famous love letters of the Portuguese nun MARIANNA ALCOFORADO (1640-1723), which bring a breath of life and nature into the stilted writing of that day, only belong to Portuguese literature in the sense that Osorio’s history belongs to it--by translation. They first appeared in indifferent French (_Lettres Portvgaises_, Paris, 1669) and were not retranslated, or, if we accept the theory that the nun originally wrote them in French[616]--French _suranné et dénué d’élégance_--translated into Portuguese for a century and a half: _Cartas de uma Religiosa Portugueza_ (1819).[617] Meanwhile, even before their obscure author died in the remote and beautiful city of Beja, they had been translated into English and Italian and had received over fifty French editions. Colonel (later Marshal) Noël Bouton, Comte de Saint-Léger, afterwards Marquis de Chamilly (1636-1715), accompanied the French troops sent to help Portugal against Spain, and was in Portugal from 1665 to 1667. Marianna Alcoforado, belonging to an old Alentejan family, was a nun in the convent of Nossa Senhora da Conceição at Beja. Her five letters, written between the end of 1667 and the middle of 1668 after her desertion, in their artlessness, contradictions, and disorder, vibrate with emotion. They are a succession of intense cries like the popular quatrain:

Por te amar deixei a Deus:
Ve lá que gloria perdi!
E agora vejo-me só,
Sem Deus, sem gloria, sem ti.

Sometimes, it is true, a trace of French reason seems to mingle with the ingenuous Portuguese sentiment, and it is almost incredible, although of course not impossible, since _omnia vincit amor_, that the nun should have written certain passages. From these and not on the amazing assumption of Rousseau that a mere woman could not write so passionately--he was ready to wager that the letters were the work of a man[618]--one may suspect that the lover, who did not scruple to hand over the letters to a publisher (unless he was merely guilty of showing them to his friends), sank a little lower and edited them, adding a phrase here and there more peculiarly pleasing to his vanity.[619] In that case the nun actually wrote these letters, full of passion and despair, and perhaps in French, to her French lover; but we only read them as they were touched up for publication by another hand.