dialogue with the object of his affections, or ever attempting to avert her fate. It would be unjust, however, not to consider the extreme disadvantage under which the author laboured, in producing a tragedy without having any acquaintance with a theatre, or with the feelings of the public.

The classical school, instituted by Saa de Miranda, and in particular by Antonio Ferreira, in Portugal, obtained a considerable number of followers. Pedro de Andrade Caminha, one of the most celebrated of these, was a zealous friend and imitator of Ferreira. His writings possess the same degree of chaste elegance and purity of style; but they are more deficient in poetic spirit than their original. His eclogues are cold and languid in the extreme. His epistles have more merit; they have much of the animation requisite in didactic compositions, joined to an agreeable variety of style. They are not, however, so full of matter and reflection as those of Ferreira, who was himself, indeed, deficient in originality and power. Throughout twenty tedious elegies, there is not found a single one in which the author leads us to sympathise with the imaginary sorrows of his muse. More than eighty epitaphs, and above two hundred and fifty epigrams, will complete the catalogue of Andrade's works. The author's correct taste and perspicuity of style,

have conferred on these effusions all the merit of which they were susceptible; but in these, as in the rest of his works, we trace the labours of the critic and the man of taste, endeavouring to supply the want of genius and inspiration. We may applaud his exertions, but we reap neither pleasure nor profit from their perusal.

Diego Bernardes was the friend of Andrade Caminha, and another disciple of Ferreira. He was some time employed as secretary to the embassy from the court of Lisbon to Philip II. of Spain. He afterwards followed King Sebastian to the African war, and was made prisoner by the Moors, in the disastrous battle of Alcacer, in which that monarch fell. On recovering his liberty, he returned and resided in his own country, where he died in 1596. He labours under the imputation of a flagrant plagiarism, in having wished to appropriate to himself some of the lesser productions of Camoens. works, collected under the title of O Lyma, the name of a river celebrated by him, and on whose banks the scene of his pastorals is laid, contain no less than twenty long eclogues, and thirty-three epistles. We may frequently trace in the charm of the language, and in the elegance and native sweetness of the verse, a degree of resemblance to the poems of Camoens; but the spirit of the compositions is by no means the

His

same. We are no where affected by powerful touches of truth and nature; the poet always appears in a studied character, and not as the interpreter of the irresistible dictates of the heart. He attempts, by force of conceit, and a play of words, to acquire a degree of brilliancy foreign to his subject; and the monotony of pastoral life is but poorly relieved by sallies of wit and fancy inconsistent with genuine taste. The first eclogue is a lament for the death of a shepherd, Adonis, who appears, however, to have no sort of relation to the fabulous lover of old. The following specimen of it may not be unacceptable:

SERRANO.*

O, bright Adonis! brightest of our train !

For thee our mountain pastures greenest sprung,
Transparent fountains water'd every plain,

And lavish nature pour'd, as once when young,
Spontaneous fruits, that ask'd no fostering care;
With thee our flocks from dangers wander'd free
Along the hills, nor did the fierce wolf dare

To snatch by stealth thy timorous charge from thee!

SERRANO. O Adonis, pastor fermoso e charo,
Contigo nos crecia herva na serra,

E das fontes corria crystal claro.

Os fruitos sem trabalho dava a terra,
Seguro andava o gado nas montanhas,
Nao lhe fazia o lobo cruel guerra.

SYLVIO.

Come pour with me your never-ceasing tears;
Come, every nation, join our sad lament,
For woes that fill our souls with pains and fears;
Woes, at which savage natures might relent.
SERRANO.

Let every living thing that walks the earth,
Or wings the heavens, or sails the oozy deep,
Unite their sighs to ours. Adieu to mirth,
Pleasures, and joys, adieu, for we must weep.

SYLVIO.

Oh, ill-starr'd day! oh day that brought our woe,
Sacred to grief! that saw those bright eyes close,
And Death's cold hand, from the unsullied snow
Of thy fair cheek, pluck forth the blooming rose.
SERRANO.

Faint and more faint, the tender colours died,
Like the sweet lily of the summer day,
Found by the plough-share in its fragrant pride,
And torn, unsparing, from its stem away.

SYLVIO.

SERRANO.

SYLVIO.

SERRANO.

Dai lagrimas sem fim, varias naçoes
A dor qu'enche de dor, enche d'espanto,
A dor, de tygres magoa e de Leones.
Naō negue cousa viva vivo pranto,
De quantas o ceo vé, a terra cria,
As qu'o mar cobre façao outro tanto.
Escuro torne sempre aquelle dia,
Em que da branca neve andou roubando
A morte as frescas rosas cō maō fria.
Assi se foi teu rosto descórando,
Como o lyrio no campo, ou a bonina,
A quem o arado talha em trespassando.

We might suppose from the conceited turns of the original, that we were here presented with the brilliant flights of Marini. The colours are, in part, so vivid, as almost to conceal the design itself from our view; the imagery is far more striking than correct; and the expressions of regret are so fantastic as to relieve the reader from any apprehension of the author feeling the wretchedness which he so ingeniously describes. We are now only just entering on the history of Portuguese poetry; yet we already seem, in Bernardes, to have attained its opposite limits. The mistaken admiration which the poets of this nation indulged for pastoral compositions, induced them to lavish the whole of their poetical resources, far sooner than the poets of any other nation, and carried them prematurely to the termination of their career.

Many other writers might yet be mentioned, who likewise shed a lustre on the same period. Amongst these are Jorge Ferreira de Vasconcellos, the author of several comedies, and of a romance founded on the Round Table; Estevan Rodriguez de Castro, a lyric poet and a physician; Fernando Rodriguez Lobo de Soropita, who edited the poems of Camoens, which he also very happily imitated; and Miguel de Cabedo de Vasconcellos, particularly celebrated for the beauty of his Latin

verses.

But there is one man who stands alone;