CHAP. II. HISTORY OF PORTUGUESE POETRY DURING THIS PERIOD. THE CONDE DA ERICEYRA. The first Portuguese poet remarkable for paying homage to the French taste, was the ingenious and meritorious Francisco Xavier de Menezes, Conde da Ericeyra, born in 1673. The family rank of this writer doubtless added to the celebrity of the talents by which he distinguished himself at an early period of life. This will account for the extraordinary circumstance, that while yet in the twentieth year of his age he was elected president of one of the academies which were founded in Lisbon, on the model of those of Italy. He is said to have spoken the Latin, Spanish, Italian and French languages with facility. He made, however, no progress in Greek. At an early age he translated which have been published by that academy since the year 1792. These last Memorias consist partly of philological and critical treatises on the Portuguese language and literature, and partly investigations relating to the ancient history and constitution of Portugal. The singular union of two departments so essentially distinct, arose out of the French idea of littérature, which had been adopted in Portugal. The worthy members of the academy well might, as indeed they intimate they did, find it difficult to determine what was to be called literature. To reconcile all opinions, therefore, they included under that title national history. Germans, however, are by no means entitled to make this mistake, a subject of reproach, while they continue to employ the comprehensive word literature to designate merely the knowledge of books.-I have seen as yet only six volumes of the Memorias de Litteratura Portugueza. The sixth was published in the year 1796. Boileau's Art of Poetry into Portuguese octaves; and from that period he maintained a friendly intercourse with the French critic. Literary and more particularly poetical studies continued to occupy him even during the Spanish war of succession, in which he made several campaigns. He rose in the Portuguese army to the rank of mestre do campo (major general.) The consideration and influence which the Count da Ericeyra enjoyed in Portuguese literature, were rapidly augmented by the authority attached to the offices which he filled; for in the year 1714, he was appointed rector and secretary of the Portuguese academy which was then founded; and in the year 1721, co-director of the new academy of history. His literary reputation soon extended beyond the narrow limits of Portugal; and during the latter half of his life, he held a conspicuous place among the men of his age, whose talents had given them a general celebrity. He maintained a correspondence with learned foreigners both in the south and north of Europe. The Pope and the King of France bestowed on him particular marks of their esteem; and the transactions of the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences were formally transmitted to him by that learned body. In his old age this diligent writer bestowed the greatest share of his attention on an epic poem, entitled, the Henriqueida, in which he endeavoured, as far as possible, to fulfil all the conditions of poetic art, according to the principles of the most celebrated critics. It would appear that he completed his task in the year 1738, and at the age of sixty-nine he enjoyed the satisfaction of seeing his work printed. He died two years after wards. The number of his works, both in verse and prose, is considerable; and it seems that many of them still remain unprinted.* The poetical works of the Count da Ericeyra, among which are several in the Spanish language, are distinguished by a degree of polish in which it is impossible not to recognise the disciple and admirer of Boileau. But this nobleman was not destined to mark an epoch in Portuguese poetry. To regard him as a mere Gallicist would be extremely unjust, and to rank him among poets in the highest and strictest sense of the term, would be to form an equally erroneous judgment of poetic art. Ericeyra certainly was not a slavish imitator of the French style. He endeavoured to form his talent by the study of all the works which he conceived fitted to serve as models whatever might be the language in which they were written; and this spirit of liberality in literary cultivation was a peculiarly estimable trait in his character. In the metrical structure, as well as in the style of his poems, he remained faithful to the forms and spirit of the old Portuguese national poetry, and to the school of the sixteenth century. But with all his plastic capabilities, he was wanting in creative fancy; and with all his endeavours to attain classic correctness, * Barbosa Machado, in his dictionary of learned men, gives a catalogue of the writings of the Count da Ericeyra, including those which remained unprinted up to the year 1747. None of these unprinted works have, it seems, been submitted to the press since that period, though they comprise a whole collection of the minor Obras Poeticas of the author, together with several prose works, on subjects of general utility; as for example, a Methodo dos Estudos (Plan of Study.) he did not avoid faults, which are readily pardoned in the works of the older Portuguese poets, in consideration of the poetic energy which is manifest in those very faults. In that poetic energy all the writings of the Count da Ericeyra are deficient. His imagination, which never of itself took a lofty flight, was much more inclined to enlarge artificially upon any pleasing subject, than to seize with inspiration and freely fashion a subject of its own; and the rules of French criticism doubtless contributed to allure him to the cultivated occasional style, as that style may justly be denominated, which, whenever the opportunity for an occasional poem offers, is always at the command of a writer possessing no common share of descriptive talent. Accordingly not a few occasional poems are to be found in the works of the Count da Ericeyra. In compliance with the old Portuguese custom, he sometimes made choice of the eclogue form, to record in a pleasing strain of verse, certain events which occurred in the Royal family. In this form, for example, he deplores, through the medium of shepherds and shepherdesses, the death of the Infante Dom Miguel, which took place in the year 1724. After what has already been said respecting other works of this kind, to dwell longer on the eclogues of the Count da Ericeyra would be a superfluous labour; but in the history of Portuguese poetry, the Henriqueida claims a more particular notice.* *Henriqueida, poema heroico, &c. composto pelo illustrissimo e excellentissimo Conde da Ericeyra D. Francisco Xavier de Menezes, &c. (including all the titles of the Count), Lisboa occidental, 1741, in 4to. The distinction of Lisboa oriental The Henriqueida may unquestionably be called an epic poem with far more propriety than the Condestabre de Portugal of Rodriguez Lobo.* It is the work of an industrious talent, which occasionally seizes, with happy effect, a poetic situation, and by poetic handling elevates a series of historical events, somewhat above the sphere of prosaic nature. But this tedious and laboured poem possesses no other merit. Neither in the invention, highly as it has been esteemed, nor in the execution, which is not wanting in incidental beauties, is there displayed any thing like the captivating energy of the epic poetry of Camoens; and even in correctness of ideas and images, Ericeyra's Henriqueida is very deficient. The subject is patriotically chosen. Henry of Burgundy, the founder of the Portuguese monarchy, is the hero of the poem. The action is not destitute of intrinsic interest, and the epic unity belonging to it has been happily caught by Ericeyra. The poem is divided into twelve cantos. Henry of Burgundy, the son-in-law of Alphonso VI. King of Castile, receives the county of Portugal as a fief, but on conditition of first conquering that dowry, and afterwards securing it by further conquests. At the commencement of the poem the prince is waging war against the Moorish King Muley; but there appears little probability of the conquest of Lisbon, which is still in the hands of the Moors. Henry is informed that a Portuguese sybil lives somewhere in the vicinity of the camp in a concealed cavern, which he determines and Lisboa occidental is founded on an ecclesiastical division of the |