Part 34

[656] The name of the first Earl of Desmond (cr. 1328) was Maurice fitzThomas (†135) not Gerald, Gerod, Gerott, Garrett, or Garrt (see Lord Walter FitzGerald, _Notes on the FitzGeralds of Ireland_). The forms Garret and Gareth existed in Catalonia in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, e. g. the Catalan poet Bernardo Garret, born at Barcelona, who wrote in Italian and became known as Chariteo (_c._ 1450-_c._ 1512).

[657] Amorim, _Memorias_, i. 28.

[658] Of _O Magriço_, a still longer epic, only fragments remain; it went down in manuscript in the _Amelia_, sunk by the Miguelists off the Portuguese coast.

[659] Preface to 4th ed. (1845) of _Catão_.

[660] The ‘tyranny’ of the day was that of General Beresford. Some scenes of _Catão_ (derived from the _Cato_ (1713) of Addison), of which a Portuguese version by Manuel de Figueiredo (_Theatro_, vol. viii) had appeared in Garrett’s boyhood, were directed against this English despot. A few years later Garrett learned to enjoy English society, as his Anglophobe biographer, Amorim, admits.

[661] Published in 1841.

[662] Written ten years earlier.

[663] These two plays were published in vol. vii of his _Obras_ (1847) with _D. Philippa de Vilhena_.

[664] A contemporary novel, _Helena_ (1871), remained unfinished at his death.

[665] It was, however, no sudden decision. As early as 1851 he wrote, in a letter to Garrett, ‘... _me ver entre quatro serras com algumas geiras de terra proprias, umas botas grossas e um chapeu de Braga, bello ideal de todas as minhas ambições mundanas_’.

[666] The second edition with additional poems was entitled _Poesias_ (1850).

[667] _Cronica, poema, lenda ou o que quer que seja_, he says.

[668] The late Dr. Gonçalvez Viana considered Herculano ‘the most vernacular, scrupulous and perfect writer of the nineteenth century’ (_Palestras Filolójicas_, 1910, p. 116).

[669] _O Alliciador_ (1859), _O Astrologo_ (1860).

[670] The last novel to appear in Rebello da Silva’s lifetime was _A Casa dos Phantasmas_ (1865). _De Noite todos os gatos são pardos_ was published posthumously.

[671] After Camillo, as he is always called in Portugal, had been created Visconde de Corrêa Botelho in 1885, his descent was traced back to Fruela, son of Pelayo.

[672] That is, a year before the novel _Memorias de um Doudo_ (1849) by Antonio Pedro Lopes de Mendonça (1826-65).

[673] Cf. also _Carlota Angela_ (1858), _O que fazem mulheres_ (1858), _Annos de Prosa_ (1863), _O Sangue_ (1868), _Estrellas Propicias_ (1863), _Estrellas Funestas_ (1869).

[674] e. g. _Lagrimas Abençoadas_ (1857), _Carlota Angela_ (1858), _O Santo da Montanha_ (1865), _A Engeitada_ (1866), _O Judeu_ (2 vols., 1866), _O Regicida_ (1874), _A Filha do Regicida_ (1875).

[675] That it is not impeccable such a phrase as _confortar o palacio_ (_O Livro Negro do Padre Diniz_, 1896 ed., p. 135) well shows.

[676] M. A. Vaz de Carvalho, _Serões no Campo_ (1877), p. 171.

[677] Part 2 is entitled _A Festa de Maio_ (two cantos).

[678] Written in 1830.

[679] This ‘collection of contemporary poems’ contains verses of considerable merit. Of some 200 poems by twenty-one poets twenty-eight are by João de Lemos, thirty by José Freire de Serpa Pimentel (1814-70), second Visconde de Gouvêa, author of _Solaos_ (1839), thirty-four by Antonio Xavier Rodrigues Cordeiro (1819-1900), and thirty-six by Augusto José Gonçalves Lima (1823-67), who reprinted his contributions in _Murmurios_ (1851). A similar collection of verse was _A Grinalda_ (Porto, 1857).

§ 2

_The Reaction and After_

It was in 1865 that Castilho, the acknowledged high-priest of literary aspirants, wrote a long letter which was published as introduction (pp. 181-243) to Pinheiro Chagas’ _O Poema da Mocidade_ (1865), in which he deprecated the pretentious affectations of the younger poets. For while Castilho was dispensing his patronage to the acolytes of romanticism a new school of writers had grown up at Coimbra, who refused to know Joseph. They turned to Germany as well as to France, professed to replace sentiment by science, and in the name of philosophy chafed unphilosophically at the old commonplaces and unrealities. Castilho stood not only for romanticism but for the classical style of the eighteenth century, and in some respects the secession from his school may be described as the revolt of the Philistine against Filinto. Anthero de Quental now voiced the cause against the aged Castilho’s preface in an article entitled _Bom Senso e Bom Gosto_ (1865). For the next few months it rained pamphlets.[680] Snr. Julio de Castilho, subsequently second Visconde de Castilho (1840-1919), and author of many well-known works, including the drama _D. Ignez de Castro_ (1875) and the eight volumes of _Lisboa Antiga_ (1879-90), took up the cudgels on behalf of his father. The high principles at stake, good sense and good taste, were sometimes forgotten in personal bitterness; a duel was even fought between Quental and Ramalho Ortigão, in which both the poet and his critic were happily spared to literature.

But romanticism in Portugal has nine lives, and raised its head at intervals during the second half of the century. In the domain of history JOAQUIM PEDRO DE OLIVEIRA MARTINS (1845-94) always remained more than half a romantic. His life explains the character of his historical writings. Born at Lisbon, obliged to work for a living when he was barely fifteen, he succeeded at the same time in educating himself, supported his mother and her younger children, married before he was twenty-five, had published a dozen works before he was forty, was elected deputy for Viana do Castello in 1886, became Minister of Finance in 1892, and died in his fiftieth year. A career so meteoric could scarcely give scope for that scrupulous research, that careful sifting of evidence which modern ideas associate with the work of the historian; and Oliveira Martins as historian embraced not only the whole of Portuguese but the whole of Iberian history, and that of Greece and Rome to boot. But even had he had more time, the result would only have been more subjects treated, not a different treatment. His whole idea of history was coloured with romance, his work impetuous and personal as that of a lyric poet. His first book, the historical novel _Phebus Moniz_ (1867), passed almost unnoticed. After several pamphlets, appeared his first historical work, _O Hellenismo e a Civilisação Christã_ (1878), and then in marvellous rapidity the _Historia da Civilisação Iberica_ (1879), _Historia de Portugal_ (1879), _Elementos de Anthropologia_ (1880), _Portugal Contemporaneo_ (1881), and a further succession of historical works ending with the _Historia da Republica Romana_ (1885). Although politics now occupied much of his time he continued to publish, and wisely emphasized the biographical side of his work, of which _Os Filhos de D. João I_ (1891) and _A Vida de Nun’ Alvares_ (1893) are not the least valuable part. _O Principe Perfeito_ (1896), dealing with King João II, appeared posthumously and incomplete. A master of psychology and impressionistic character-sketching, all his work is a gallery of pictures--and especially of portraits--from Afonso Henriquez to Herculano, which reveal the artist as well as his subjects. His style, nervous, coloured, insinuating, is a swift and supple implement for his exceptional power of skilfully summarizing a person or a period. He is capable of vulgarity (as in the account of Queen Philippa and the frequent use of colloquialisms perfectly unbefitting the dignity of history) but not of dullness. He uses and abuses epigram and metaphor, and is not free from the pompous rhetorical antitheses of Victor Hugo (e.g. _De Cid transformou-se em Wallenstein_), till the reader suspects him of being ready at all times to sacrifice truth to a phrase. Yet it is surprising, considering the circumstances of his life and the extent of his work, how often he bases his history, if not on documents, on the work of reliable earlier historians, Portuguese and foreign. If he fills in the gaps with pure romance or an uncritical use of texts (for instance, in _A Vida de Nun’ Alvares_ he incorporates as authentic those charming ‘letters of Nun’ Alvarez’ which a mere glance at their style shows to be apocryphal) these are but the poet’s arabesques, the main structure is often sound enough. Were there no other history of Portugal it might be necessary to consider his work not only fascinating but dangerous, nor would _Portugal Contemporaneo_ alone convey an impartial or complete idea of Portuguese history in the first two-thirds of the nineteenth century. We may deny him the title of great historian, we cannot deny him a foremost place in the literature of the century as a writer of brilliant intellect and feverish energy and a powerful re-constructor of characters and scenes in their picturesqueness and their passions.

The work of MANUEL PINHEIRO CHAGAS (1842-95), poet, playwright, critic, novelist, historian, was even more abundant and for the most part of a more popular character and more commonplace. He is also more Portuguese, and his works deserve to be read if only for their pure and easily flowing style. Many of his novels are historical. _A Corte de D. João V_ (1867) has an account of an _outeiro_[681] in which figures the _Camões do Rocio_ as the poet Caetano José da Silva Souto-Maior (_c._ 1695-1739) was called. The subject of the earlier novel _Tristezas á beira-mar_ (1866) is that which Amorim in his _A Abnegação_ derived from an English novel, but is here more naturally treated. _A Mascara Velha_ (continued in _O Juramento da Duqueza_) appeared in 1873. _As Duas Flores de Sangue_ (1875) is concerned with revolution in France and at Naples. _A Flor Secca_ (1866) treats of more everyday scenes and contains some amusing if rather obvious character-sketches, as the old servant Maria do Rosario (a rustic Juliana), or the devout and vixenish old maid D. Antonia. His _Novelas Historicas_ (1869) contains six historical tales dealing with Afonso I, Nun’ Alvarez, Prince Henry the Navigator, King Sebastian, Pombal, and the French Revolution. His _Historia de Portugal_ (8 vols., 1867), begun on a plan originally laid down by Ferdinand Denis, contains lengthy and frequent quotations from previous historians but is coloured by later political ideas. The two shorter works _Historia alegre de Portugal_ (1880) and _Portugueses illustres_ (1869) are admirably suited for their purpose--to interest the people in the history and heroes of their country.

The chief work of the able and industrious critic and historian JOSÉ MARIA LATINO COELHO (1825-91) was his _Historia Politica e Militar de Portugal desde os fins do seculo XVIII até 1814_ (3 vols., 1874-91). ANTONIO COSTA LOBO (1840-1913), editor of the instructive _Memorias de um Soldado da India_, in his _Historia da Sociedade em Portugal no seculo XV_ (1904) began a meticulous and well thought-out study of an earlier period of Portuguese history. JOSÉ RAMOS COELHO (1832-1914) is chiefly known for his elaborate romantic biography of the brother of King João V: _Historia do Infante D. Duarte_ (2 vols., 1889, 90). Dr. HENRIQUE DA GAMA BARROS (born in 1833) in the invaluable _Historia da Administração Publica em Portugal nos seculos XII a XV_ (3 vols., 1885, 96, 1914) has collected an abundance of concrete, carefully verified details, and thrown a searching light on the early history of Portugal.[682]

In literary criticism as well as in historical research the nineteenth century worthily continued the traditions of the eighteenth. FRANCISCO MARQUES DE SOUSA VITERBO (1845-1910) after first appearing in print as a poet in _O Anjo do Pudor_ (1870) rendered excellent service in both those fields; the best-known work of LUCIANO CORDEIRO (1844-1900) is his study _Soror Marianna_ (1890); ZOPHIMO CONSIGLIERI PEDROSO (1851-1910) and ANTONIO THOMAZ PIRES (†1913) were celebrated for their studies in folk-lore[683]; the VISCONDE DE JUROMENHA (1807-87) for his edition of the works of Camões; the CONDE DE FICALHO (1837-1903) for several remarkable studies and his edition of Garcia da Orta; ANNIBAL FERNANDES THOMAZ (1840-1912) as a bibliographer; AUGUSTO EPIPHANIO DA SILVA DIAS (1841-1916) as scholar and critic; JOSÉ PEREIRA DE SAMPAIO (1857-1915), who used the pseudonym _Bruno_, as a critic; ANICETO DOS REIS GONÇALVEZ VIANA (1840-1914) and JULIO MOREIRA (1854-1911) as philologists; LUIZ GARRIDO (1841-82) as critic and classical scholar in his _Ensaios historicos e criticos_ (1871) and _Estudos de historia e litteratura_ (1879). After the death of the diligent and enthusiastic but sadly unmethodical bibliographer INNOCENCIO DA SILVA (1810-76), his celebrated _Diccionario Bibliographico Portuguez_ was carried on by BRITO ARANHA (1833-1914), and the task of continuing it is now entrusted to Snr. GOMES DE BRITO. To the eminent folk-lorist FRANCISCO ADOLPHO COELHO (1847-1919) the language, literature, and folklore are indebted for many works of permanent value. Notable among living scholars, apart from D. Carolina Michaëlis de Vasconcellos and Mr. Edgar Prestage, who both write in Portuguese, are Colonel FRANCISCO MARIA ESTEVES PEREIRA, whose editions of early works are invaluable; Dr. JOSÉ JOAQUIM NUNES, who has devoted his careful scholarship to the early poetry and prose; the Camões scholar, Dr. JOSÉ MARIA RODRIGUES; Snr. PEDRO DE AZEVEDO, archaeologist and historian; Snr. DAVID LOPES, a scholar equally versed in literature and history; Snr. CANDIDO DE FIGUEIREDO (born in 1846), enthusiastic student and exponent of the Portuguese language; while Dr. FIDELINO DE FIGUEIREDO has a wide and growing reputation as critic and as editor of the _Revista de Historia_. Snr. ANSELMO BRAAMCAMP FREIRE (born in 1849), founder and editor of the _Archivo Historico Portugues_ and a most sagacious critic and keen investigator, is the author of attractive and important historical studies and editions, which have become more frequent since he has been able to spare more time from public affairs. Dr. JOSÉ LEITE DE VASCONCELLOS (born in 1858) has a European reputation as archaeologist, folk-lorist, philologist, and founder and editor of the _Revista Lusitana_. Ethnology, numismatics, and poetry are among his other subjects, and he maintains the renown of the Portuguese as polyglots, since he writes in Portuguese, Spanish, French, Latin, and Galician. His untiring enthusiasm for all that is popular or genuinely Portuguese is reflected in his numerous books and pamphlets, and he happily infects younger scholars. The gift and training of exact scholarship were denied to Dr. THEOPHILO BRAGA (born in 1843), but his exceptional ardour, industry, and ingenuity have been of inestimable value to Portuguese literature, which will always venerate his name even though his works perish. More than thirty years ago they numbered over sixty, and that was, as it were, only a beginning. His volumes of verse, _Folhas Verdes_ (1859), _Visão dos Tempos_ (1864), _Tempestades Sonoras_ (1864), _Ondina do Lago_ (1866), _Torrentes_ (1869), _Miragens Seculares_ (1884), which was intended to succeed where Victor Hugo’s _Légende des Siècles_ had failed through lack of a _plano fundamental_, have been variously judged, some regarding them as real works of genius, others as a step removed from the sublime; his works on the Portuguese people are always full of interesting matter. His important _Historia da Litteratura Portuguesa_ was to have been completed in thirty-two volumes, but his energies have been spent in many directions, and he has further written works of history, including that of Coimbra University in four volumes, positivist philosophy, and sociology, as well as short stories and plays.

The Portuguese novelists in the nineteenth century showed an increasing tendency to write plays, while authors whose reputation belonged more exclusively to the drama rarely rose above mediocrity. The success of Garrett’s plays was bound to fire a crowd of dramatists. Gomes de Amorim’s _Ghigi_ (1852), on a fifteenth-century theme, was followed by plays with a thesis, such as _A Viuva_ (1852), _Odio de Raça_ (1854), written on the slavery question at Garrett’s request, and _Figados de Tigre_ (1857), which entitles itself a parody of melodramas. Having emigrated as a boy to Brazil, he was able to use his knowledge of South America, sometimes with more zeal than discretion, as in _O Cedro Vermelho_, an exotic play in five acts and seventy-nine scenes, which the unfamiliar dresses and hybrid dialogue helped to make popular at Lisbon.[684]

The notable success of more recent playwrights has perhaps developed in proportion as the drama has ceased to be drama in order to become a series of isolated scenes, a novel or _conto_ in green-room attire. They are at their happiest when they abandon formal drama for the lighter _revista_. Pathos is theirs and a deft handling of social themes; they can reproduce the peasant or _bourgeois_ or noble as a class in thought and action and external conditions. Some of them possess technical skill, choose indigenous subjects and an atmosphere of chastened romanticism. But individual psychology and dramatic action are scarcely to be found. A reader with the patience to peruse the hundreds of plays acted and published in Lisbon during the last fifty years would be rewarded by many delicate half-tones, polished and impeccable verse, excellent prose, admirable sentiments, and poignant scenes, but could with difficulty afterwards recall a striking character or situation. FERNANDO CALDEIRA (1841-94) was a poet, and his plays, _O Sapatinho de Setim, A Mantilha de Renda_ (1880), _Nadadoras, A Madrugada_ (1894), are read less for the plot than for his carefully limned verse. His volume of poems, _Mocidades_, appeared in 1882. ANTONIO ENNES (1848-1901), journalist, librarian, politician, diplomatist, Minister of Marine, showed command of pathos and humour as well as of style in his plays _O Saltimbanco_ (1885), the tragedy of the noble devotion of a mountebank, Falla-Só, descendant of Jean Valjean, for his daughter, who has been brought up in ignorance of her birth, _Os Lazaristas_ (1875), and _Os Engeitados_ (1876), which insists throughout on its thesis, the wickedness and cruelty of exposing children, but has some good scenes and living characters, and the notable one-act piece _Um Divorcio_ (1877). The principal play of MAXIMILIANO DE AZEVEDO (1850-1911), author of many light and commonplace comedies, as _Por Força_ (1900), was the drama _Ignez de Castro_ (1894). The scene in which Inés, full of foreboding, takes leave of Pedro before he goes hunting, and that at the end of Act IV, in which Pedro returns to find Inés, in the words of their little son, _ali a dormir_, are effective. A fifth act six years later [1361] comes as an anti-climax. _O Auto dos Esquecidos_ (1898) is the work not of a dramatist but of a poet, JOSÉ DE SOUSA MONTEIRO (1846-1909), whose poems were published under the title _Poemas: Mysticos, Antigos, Modernos_ (1883). The _auto_, written in the old _redondilhas_ of which another modern poet has sung the praises, necessarily suffers by comparison with plays in which Gil Vicente touched upon the subject--the humbler forgotten heroes of the Portuguese discoveries--but it has its own charm and pathos.

But the most noteworthy of the dramatists of the latter part of the century was D. JOÃO DA CAMARA (1852-1908), son of the first Marques and eighth Conde da Ribeira Grande and grandson of the third Duque de Lafões. He early began writing for the stage one-act pieces such as _Nobreza_ (1873). His work is various, for it includes elaborate historical dramas in heroic couplets, as _Affonso VI_ (1890), in which the king is treated with a sympathy denied to Cardinal Henrique in _Alcacer-Kibir_ (1891), slight pieces in verse, as _O Poeta e a Saudade_ or the _Auto do Menino Jesus_ (1903); and prose plays of contemporary Lisbon society: _O Pantano_ (a series of scenes of madness and murder), _A Rosa Engeitada_, _A Toutinegra Real_, _A Triste Viuvinha_, _Casamento e Mortalha_. In these he is lifelike and natural, but many may prefer him in his more fanciful pieces, portraying the old Canon who lives up under the roof of Lisbon Cathedral, in _Meia Noite_ (1900), or the _prior_ and other rustic worthies of Alentejo, in _Os Velhos_ (1893), or the ancient mariner of _O Beijo do Infante_ (1898). The mad José of _O Pantano_, the scatterbrained Clytemnestra in _A Toutinegra Real_, the _parvenu_ Arroiolos and select Dona Placida in _A Rosa Engeitada_ give little idea of the essential mellow humanity of his work, enhanced by a prose style carefully chosen and at times slightly archaic. Snr. Abel Botelho is more peculiarly concerned with the novel, and his plays _Germano_ (1886), _Os Vencidos da Vida_ (1892), _Jucunda_ (1895) derive their interest from the description of certain phases of Lisbon life which could have been presented equally well in novel form. MARCELLINO MESQUITA (1856-1919), doctor and deputy, wrote historical dramas, _O Regente_ [1440] in prose, _Leonor Telles_ (1889, published in 1893) in verse, _O Sonho da India_ (1898) (scenes from the discoveries of Gama and ten other famous Portuguese navigators), and _Pedro O Cruel_ (1916). If these historical tragedies are somewhat ponderous, he has a lighter touch in the _redondilhas_ of _Margarida do Monte_ (1910) and in the charming sketch _Peraltas e Secias_, and displays psychological insight in prose plays dealing with more modern problems: the comedy _Perola_ (1889), _Os Castros_ (1893), _O Velho Thema_ (1896), _Sempre Noiva_ (1900), _Almas Doentes_ (1905), which treats of hereditary madness and suicide, and in the moving tragedy _Envelhecer_ (1909), although it is perhaps out of keeping with the finely portrayed character of Eduardo de Mello that he should so end who had endured so nobly. His prose style has great merit (a few words require excision, e. g. _restaurante_, _rewolver_, _desconforto_), and he wrote many shorter problem pieces or episodes in prose: _Fim de Penitencia_ (1895), _O Auto do Busto_ (1899), _O Tio Pedro_ (1902), _A Noite do Calvario, A Mentira_ (in which a wife lies to her husband by the life of their child, who dies). The monotony of the rhymed couplets in _Leonor Telles_ is intensified in the work of Snr. HENRIQUE LOPES DE MENDONÇA (born in 1856). His verse is more declamatory, the use of strained _esdruxulo_ endings is carried so far that it becomes a mannerism and the verse often resembles a hurdle-race, the line running on smoothly to the obstacle at its end (_thalamo_--_cala-m’o_; _silencio_--_recompense-o_; _phantasma_--_faz-m’a_). This no doubt helps to increase the effect of hollow resonance. Nor is there a compensating skill in psychology. There is nothing subtle, for instance, in the characters of _O Duque de Vizeu_ (1886): the cruel João II, the timid Manuel, the high-minded Duke, and self-sacrificing Margarida. _A Morta_ (1891) deals with Pedro I’s justice and _saudade_ for the dead Inés. _Affonso d’Albuquerque_ (1898) has a tempting subject (handled previously by Costa Lobo in his play--also in verse--_Affonso d’Albuquerque_, 1886), but it is embarrassing to find the most unrhetorical of heroes, will of iron but not as here tongue of gold, solemnly haranguing in couplet after couplet, (although here, as in the other plays, the atmosphere of Portugal’s spacious days is well maintained):

E em psalmos de christão se ha de mudar o cantico De Brahma, confundindo o Indico no Atlantico.