Chapter 21

[114]"Murieron luego mis padres,Dios en el cielo los tenga,porque no vuelvan acà,y a engendrar mas hijos vuelvan."Musa, VI.—Romance, XVI.

[114]

"Murieron luego mis padres,Dios en el cielo los tenga,porque no vuelvan acà,y a engendrar mas hijos vuelvan."Musa, VI.—Romance, XVI.

"Murieron luego mis padres,Dios en el cielo los tenga,porque no vuelvan acà,y a engendrar mas hijos vuelvan."

Musa, VI.—Romance, XVI.

[115]Cespedes.

[116]"Memoria immortal de D. Pedro Giron, duque de Osuna, muerto en la Prisión." Musa I. Soneto 13.

[117]Musa III. Sonetos 4, 5, 9.

[118]The last three lines of this sonnet would serve admirably for a motto to a time-piece in a library. The whole, from which the above is an extract, runs thus:—"Retirado en la paz de estos desiertos,Con pocos, pero doctos libros juntos,Vivo en conversacion con los difuntos,Y escuchocon mis ojos à los muertos.Sino siempre entendidos, siempre abiertos,O enmiendan, o fecundan mis assuntos,Y en musicos callados contrapuntosAl sueño de la vida hablan despiertos.Las grandes almas, que la Muerte ausentaDe injurias, de los años vengadora,Libra, o gran Don Joseph, docta la emprenta.En fuga irrevocable huye la hora;Pero aquella el mejor calculo cuentaQue en la lección y estudios nos mejora."MusaII.Soneta90.

[118]The last three lines of this sonnet would serve admirably for a motto to a time-piece in a library. The whole, from which the above is an extract, runs thus:—

"Retirado en la paz de estos desiertos,Con pocos, pero doctos libros juntos,Vivo en conversacion con los difuntos,Y escuchocon mis ojos à los muertos.Sino siempre entendidos, siempre abiertos,O enmiendan, o fecundan mis assuntos,Y en musicos callados contrapuntosAl sueño de la vida hablan despiertos.Las grandes almas, que la Muerte ausentaDe injurias, de los años vengadora,Libra, o gran Don Joseph, docta la emprenta.En fuga irrevocable huye la hora;Pero aquella el mejor calculo cuentaQue en la lección y estudios nos mejora."MusaII.Soneta90.

MusaII.Soneta90.

[119]Musa VI., romance XVI.

[120]Vida de Quevedo por Tarsia.

[121]As a specimen of Quevedo's poetry, Quintana quotes a sonnet, which Wiffen has translated, and which has the merit of force and truth."THE RUINS OF ROME."Pilgrim, thou look'st in Rome for Rome divine,And ev'n in Rome no Rome can find! her crowdOf mural wonders is a corse, whose shroudAnd fitting tomb is the lone Aventine.She lies where reigned the kingly Palatine,And Time's worn medals more of ruin showFrom her ten thousand fights than even the blowStruck at the crown of her imperial line,Tiber alone remains, whose rushing tideWaters the town, now sepulchred in stone,And weeps its funeral with fraternal tears:O Rome! in thy wild beauty, power, and pride,The durable is fled; and what aloneIs fugitive, abides the ravening years!"

[121]As a specimen of Quevedo's poetry, Quintana quotes a sonnet, which Wiffen has translated, and which has the merit of force and truth.

"THE RUINS OF ROME."Pilgrim, thou look'st in Rome for Rome divine,And ev'n in Rome no Rome can find! her crowdOf mural wonders is a corse, whose shroudAnd fitting tomb is the lone Aventine.She lies where reigned the kingly Palatine,And Time's worn medals more of ruin showFrom her ten thousand fights than even the blowStruck at the crown of her imperial line,Tiber alone remains, whose rushing tideWaters the town, now sepulchred in stone,And weeps its funeral with fraternal tears:O Rome! in thy wild beauty, power, and pride,The durable is fled; and what aloneIs fugitive, abides the ravening years!"

"THE RUINS OF ROME.

"Pilgrim, thou look'st in Rome for Rome divine,And ev'n in Rome no Rome can find! her crowdOf mural wonders is a corse, whose shroudAnd fitting tomb is the lone Aventine.She lies where reigned the kingly Palatine,And Time's worn medals more of ruin showFrom her ten thousand fights than even the blowStruck at the crown of her imperial line,Tiber alone remains, whose rushing tideWaters the town, now sepulchred in stone,And weeps its funeral with fraternal tears:O Rome! in thy wild beauty, power, and pride,The durable is fled; and what aloneIs fugitive, abides the ravening years!"

We draw to a close. Misrule and oppression had their inevitable results, crushing and destroying the spirit and intellect of Spain; and after, by an extraordinary harvest of writers, the soil had shown what it could do, it became waste and barren. For a long time, the purists, the Gongorists, the partisans of a glittering and false style, exerted their influence. A critic and poet of eminence, Luzan, exerted himself to restore Spanish poetry. He succeeded in exploding the false taste; and Moratin, the author of some excellent dramas, followed in his steps: but, latterly, the state of the country has been too distracted for literature to gain any attention.

Before we close the series of Spanish Lives, however, one more is to be added, and it is that of the greatest poet of Spain. Little, very little, however, is known of him. We regret that we have not fuller accounts of Cervantes. We search the voluminous works of Lope de Vega to acquire knowledge of his character and of the events of his life; while the career of one far greater than he, and, as a poet, infinitely superior to Cervantes himself, is wrapped in such obscurity that we can discern only its bare outline, and no one has endeavoured to fill up the sketch, nor by seeking for letters and other documents, to give us a fuller, and as it were coloured picture, of what Calderon was. This partly arises from the prosperity of his life: adversity presents objects that catch the attention and demand research: an even course of happiness, like a campaign country, eludes description. The only account we have of him proceeds from a friend[122], who commences withblowing a trumpet, as if he were going to tell us much. "How can his limited powers," he says, "describe him who occupies all the tongues of fame? and ill will a short epilogue befit the man whose merits endless ages cannot limit." And then he goes on to tell us that "his swift pen shall comprise a brief sigh in a long regret, and raise an honourable tomb to his sacred ashes; adopting for the purpose one of the many pens which his fame furnishes, until others better cut than his shall publish eulogies worthy of his name."

Don Pedro Calderon de la Barca was born in 1601[123]; thus coming into the world of poetry at the moment when the plays of Lope de Vega were in vogue, and when Cervantes was calling the attention of mankind to his immortal work. His biographer takes the pains to preserve the intelligence that he wept before he was born; "thus to enter the world enshadowed by gloom, which he, like a new sun, was to fill with joy." And he tells us that he collected "this important information from Donna Dorotea Calderon de la Barca, his sister, a nun in the royal convent of St. Clara at Toledo." The family of Calderon was illustrious, and enjoyed an ancient hidalgoship (orsolar) in the valley of Carriedo among the mountains of Burgos; the very place, we may observe, where Lope de Vega's ancestors resided, and whence his father emigrated, when, driven by straitened means, he removed to Madrid. The family of Calderon had migrated many years before, and were settled at Toledo. His mother's name was Donna Ana Maria de Henao y Riaña, and her origin was derived from an ancient family in the Low Countries, descended from the Seigneur de Mons, and which had been settled in Spain for many years.

His childhood was spent under the paternal roof, and even as a hoy he was conspicuous for his intelligence and acquirements. At the age of fourteen he entered the university of Salamanca. He remained there forfive years, and rendered himself conspicuous by his ardour for study, and by the progress he made in the most abstruse and difficult sciences. Already also had he begun to write plays, which were acted with applause in several Spanish theatres.

1620.Ætat.19.

At the age of nineteen he left Salamanca. These dates are given us, but the intermediate spaces are unfilled up. We are not told whether he resided at Madrid or with his family at Toledo. His fame became established as a poet, and began to rival that of Lope, whom indeed he far transcended in the higher gifts of poetry, creative imagination, sublimity, and force.

1626.Ætat.25.

At the age of five and twenty he entered the military service, and served his king first in the Milanese and afterwards in Flanders, the old fields of war for Spain, whereon had fought and fallen so many heroes of both countries, and so many human beings had fallen victims to religious and political persecution. He spent ten years in this manner. Sismondi says, that his life is sprinkled with few events. How do we know this? Throughout these campaigns, during these years of youthful ardour and enterprise, how much may have occurred, what dangers he may have run—what generosity, what valour he may have displayed—how warmly he may have loved, how deeply have suffered! As a poet and a master of the passions he must have felt them all. But a blank meets us when we seek to know more of these things. A poet's life is ever a romance. That Calderon's was such we cannot doubt; but we must find its traces in the loves, the woes, the courage, and the joys of his dramatic personages: he infused his soul into these; what the events might be that called forth his own personal interest and sympathy we are totally ignorant.1637.Ætat.36.An order from his sovereign recalled him to court. Philip IV. was passionately fond of the theatre, and himself wrote plays. Innumerable dramas appeared under his patronage, the names of the authors being utterly unknown; and even of those of acknowledged writers few have been collected and published under the name of their author. Single plays, inpamphlets, we find in plenty, all very similar the one to the other; a better arrangement in the plot, more or less poetry or spirit in the dialogue, being almost all the difference we find among them. Several of the most entertaining are given forth as by a Wit of the Court (un Ingenio de esta Corte), and attributed to Philip IV. himself; though this honour has been disputed him. Moreto also, the gayest and most comic of the Spanish dramatists, flourished at this time. Lope was dead; but his place was filled up, not by one, but by many, who, under royal patronage, were eager to pay the tribute of a play to the theatre of Spain.

Philip IV. saw Calderon's dramas represented. He perceived their merit, and thought he might serve his king much better by residing in Spain and writing for the theatre, than by bearing arms in Flanders, where there were so many men who could not write plays, much more fit to be knocked on the head. He summoned Calderon to court, by a royal order, for the sake of writing a drama for a palace festival; bestowed on him also the habit of Santiago, and excusing him his military duties commanded him, instead, to furnish a play. Calderon wrote the "Certamen de Amor" (the Combat of Love), and "Zelos" (Jealousy), which were acted at the palace of Buen-Retiro. Calderon wrote as he was commanded; but, unwilling to leave the army, he obtained a commission in the company of the count-duke of Olivarez, which he followed to Catalonia, and remained till the peace, when he returned to court; when the king conferred on him the pay of thirty crowns a month in the artillery.

1650.Ætat.49.

On another occasion, while staying in the country with the duke of Alva, the king sent for him to celebrate the festivals that occurred on his marriage with Maria Ana of Austria.

At the age of fifty-one he quitted the military career, to which for many years he had been passionately attached, and, being ordained, he became a priest. The king, who always favoured him, made him chaplain ofa royal chapel at Toledo, of which he took possession on the 19th of June of the same year.1654.Ætat.53.But the king, dissatisfied with his distance from court, and his consequent inability to assist properly at the royal feasts, gave him a royal chaplaincy, and recalled him to Madrid; bestowing on him besides a pension, derived from the revenues of Sicily, besides other presents and rewards, the ever-renewing recompence of his labours. Calderon now wrote a play at each celebration of the king's birth-day, not only for Madrid, but for Toledo, Seville, and Granada. As he advanced in age, he obtained other church preferments.1687.Ætat.86.He died on the 29th of May, 1687, at the age of eighty-six. He left the congregation of St. Peter heir to all he possessed.

In describing his character, his biographer indulges in Spanish hyperbole instead of original traits. He calls him the oracle of the court, the envy of strangers, the father of the Muses, the lynx of learning, the light of the drama. He adds, that his house was ever the shelter of the needy; that his modesty and humility were excessive; attentive in his courtesy; a sure friend, and a good man.

Calderon never collected nor published his plays. The duke of Veragua at one time addressed him a flattering letter, requesting to be furnished with a complete list of his dramas, as the booksellers were in the habit of selling the works of other writers under his name. Calderon, who was then in his eightieth year, supplied the duke with a list only of "Autos Sacramentales." He added, in a letter, that with regard to his temporal dramas, of which he had written an hundred and eleven, he felt offended, that in addition to his own faulty works, those of other authors should be ascribed to him; and besides that his writings were so altered, that he himself could not recognise even their titles. He also expressed his determination of following the example of the booksellers, and to pay as little regard to his plays as they did. He observed, that on religious grounds, he attached more importance to his "Autos."

Several collections of Calderon's plays appeared during his life; one of them being edited by his brother, and another by his friend and biographer, Don Juan de Vera Tassis y Villarroel, who published a hundred and twenty-seven plays, and ninety-five autos; but it is doubted whether all these are really his. This doubt, of course, appertains to the more mediocre ones. In the best, the stamp of Calderon's original genius cannot be doubted.

Bouterwek and Sismondi have both entered into considerable detail with regard to Calderon's plays, but we have no space to indulge in a similar analysis, although, with our admiration for this great poet, we should be glad to enter with minute detail on his merits; but we must confine ourselves to some description of his characteristics.

Schlegel is an enthusiastic admirer of Calderon; and his observations on his works are replete with truth. Other writers—among them the author of an article on the Spanish theatre, in the twenty-fifth volume of the "Quarterly Review"—are less willing to attribute high merit to him. We confess that our opinion more nearly coincides with Schlegel. He carries too far, we allow, his theory of the ideal of Calderon's morality, piety, and honour. It is true, that these are too deeply founded on the bigotry and falsehood of inquisitorial faith, and a false point of honour; but with all this, within the circle which his sentiments and belief prescribe, he is a master of the passions and the imagination. There is a wild and lofty aim in all his more romantic plays, which put barely down, despoiled of the working of the passions and the magic of poetry, seems monstrous, but which, however different from our notions of the present day, strike a chord that vibrates to the depth of the heart. We may give as an instance, that supernatural machinery is introduced into very many of Calderon's plays; and Shakespear himself cannot manage the agency of the spiritual world as Calderon has done. He enlists a sort of belief on his side, which it is difficult to describe,but impossible to withstand. It is not a mere ghost that walks the earth, but an embodying, at the same time, of the conscience and fears of the person thus visited. Thus in the "Purgatory of St. Patrick:" Ludovico Ennio, the villain of the piece, has for many years resolved to assassinate an enemy. He has travelled through many countries, nourishing the idea of vengeance, and returns to Ireland resolved to accomplish it. He wraps himself in his mantle, and thus disguised, he goes for three successive nights to the street where his enemy lives, resolved to stab him: but, at the moment that he fancies that he shall attain his aim, he is met by a man similarly disguised (embozado—muffled up in a cloak) who calls to him; but when he follows, theembozadodisappears so quickly, it seems as if the wind were in his feet. Ludovico enraged, on the fourth night lays in wait again, and takes his servant with him, that the disguised intruder may not escape. He arrives again at the street, resolved on the death of his enemy. At this moment the cloak-wrapped figure appears before him. Exasperated by his appearance, he declares that he will take two vengeances; one on his ancient enemy, the other on the intruder: the figure calls him by his name, and bids him follow. Ludovico draws on him, but pierces only the empty air; at once astonished and indignant, he still pursues till they come to a desert place, when Ludovico exclaims, "Here we are, body to body, alone, but my sword cannot injure thee: tell me, then, who thou art; art thou a man, a vision, or a dæmon! You answer not—then thus I dare throw off your mantle!" But, hidden by the cloak is a skeleton only; and aghast with terror, he exclaims, "Great God! what dreadful spectacle is this! Horrible vision!—Mortal terror! what art thou—stark corse—that crumbled into earth and dust, yet live? The figure replies, "Knowrest thou not thyself?—I am thy portraiture—I am Ludovico Ennio!" These words, this fearful sight, awaken horror and remorse in the criminal's mind; his heart perceives the truths and how his crimes, indeed, had madehim but an image of death itself. He is thus prepared for the purgatory where his sins are to be expiated. Many of the plays thus turn upon visions, portions of the mind itself personified; while, at the same time, the affections and the passions find a voice all truth and poetry, that charms, agitates, and interests.

His autos are conceived in the same spirit. It is true, there is too much theological disquisition and doctrine in them, and that "God the Father plays the school-divine;" but, on the other hand, the poet often appears to open a new world before us, which we view tremblingly at first, till he leads us on by that mastery of the human imagination which he possesses—knowing so well what it can believe, and what it cannot disbelieve—and thus bringing heaven and hell palpably and feelingly before us. The auto of "Life is a dream." (La Vida es Sueño) more than any other, is an instance of that peculiarity, which we imperfectly endeavour to describe, of clothing in sensible and potent imagery, the thoughts of the brain, the feelings of the heart. Yet this is not done in the German style. The Germans subtilise, mystify, and cloud the real and distinct: they dissolve flesh and blood into a dream. Calderon, on the contrary, turns a dream into flesh and blood: he gives a pulse to a skeleton; he breathes passion from the lips of ghosts and spectres. Which is the greater power, others must decide. The influence of Calderon is greatest to us; he is master of a spell to which our souls own obedience.

Calderon, as a poet, is diffuse and exaggerated at times, but he is highly imaginative; and as he gives human sympathies to the impalpable and visionary, so does he inform the visible universe with a soul of beauty and feeling. A poet alone could translate Calderon. The only translation we have, is a few scenes from the "Magico Prodigioso" by Shelley. These breathe at once the Spaniard's peculiarities—his fantastic machinery—his incomparable sweetness. Justina is one of themost beautiful of his creations; a maiden, vowed to chastity, who being in vain tempted by the love of many admirers, is assailed by the seductions of hell itself. Nature—the birds, the leaves, and wandering clouds, breathe of love, and endeavour to soften and corrupt her heart.[124]The "Principe Costante" (the Constant Prince) seems to be the most popular of Calderon's plays with his critics. "La Vida es Sueño" (Life is a Dream)—not the auto, but the play—is another, full of wild strange interest, original and sublime. "The Schism of England" is among the most striking of his plays. One passage, where a cavalier describes how he fell in love with Anna Bullen, is fraught with touching sweetness and tender deep-felt passion.

Calderon is, besides, a great master of comedy. His "Gracioso" (or Clown), is different from Lope's—more poetic and fanciful, more vivacious and humorous. In the "Señora y la Criada" (the Lady and her Maid), where a country girl is carried off in mistake for her mistress, there is a comic mistake, most amusingly wrought.

It will be seen that we consider that, while Schlegel refines too much upon the perfection of the art and the sublimity of the moral of the poet, we think that the critic of the Quarterly Review rates his merits at too low a standard. We do not agree that he "cannot admit us within the gates of horror and thrilling fear." On the contrary, we think that much of his power results from his mastery over these emotions. We can scarcely allow that "the sacred source of sympathetic flows not at his command." The simply pathetic is certainly not his characteristic; but the tears may start forth in sympathy for the grandeur of soul exhibited by the Constant Prince; the heart be charmed and interested by thesweetness of Justina, and he touched by the fatherly sorrows of David, in "Los Cabellos de Absolom."

Calderon is much more readable, much more interesting than Lope. He rises higher. It is not only complexity of plot, endless variety of situations, and well sustained dialogue, there is interest of a higher kind; and, though it is true that perfect harmony is wanting in his compositions, and that he riots too much "without constraint or control," yet the colours of his poetry are so bright, and the music of his verse so grand and enthralling, that we feel as we read that he is one of the master geniuses of the world.

[122]Fama Vida y Escritos de Don Pedro Calderon de la Barca por Don Juan de Vera Tassis y Villarroel.

[123]Bouterwek and Sismondi give 1600 as the date of Calderon's birth.—His Spanish biographer mentions 1601.

[124]Shelley's Posthumous Poems.—Translations. There is a beautiful passage, drawn from the "Purgatorio de San Patricio," introduced into this author's tragedy of the Cenci.

The same spirit that inspired the Spanish Cancionero, and animated the people of Castile with the love of song, spread itself to the western portion of the peninsula; and; from the earliest times, Portuguese poets composed, and the population of Portugal sang, in their native dialect: and thus using it as the medium for conveying their dearest feelings, caused it to be perpetuated as a national language. Originally the Portuguese tongue was the same as the Gallician; and, had Portugal remained a province of Spain, its peculiar dialect had, like that of Arragon and of Gallicia, been driven from the fields of literature by the Castilian, and while (to use an appropriate metaphor) it might creep in tiny rivulets here and there over the country, the Castilian had flowed a mighty river, receiving all minor streams as tributaries. But at quite the close of the eleventh century Alphonso VI., a Spanish sovereign, celebrated for his victories over the Moors, gave the county of Portugal as a dowry to his daughter on her marriage with Henry of Burgundy, a prince of the royal family of France. The son of this prince, Alphonso Henriquez, was the founder of the Portuguese monarchy. He conquered all that portion of the peninsula that forms Portugal, with the exception of the Algarve. He took Lisbon, and thus became possessed of a powerful and rich capital, and he signalised his successes, by changing the appellation of what had hitherto been a province, and by naming his dominions a kingdom. From this time the Portuguese became aseparate nation from the Castilian; their institutions became national, and their language asserted for itself a distinct existence.

The Portuguese were a poetic people, and the Portuguese language adapted to poetry. It is softer than the Castilian, it discards more entirely Latin consonants; but with all, there is something truncated and incomplete in its sounds, very different from the sonorous beauty of the Spanish. It did not adopt the Arabic guttural, but it acquired, no one knows whence, a nasal twang, more decided and obtrusive even than that of the French, which considerably mars its melody. Still it is expressive, it is soft, and it is harmonious; and these qualities rendered it applicable to verse: so that a poet found no difficulty in clothing his ideas and emotions in the language of his native country. Many poets flourished therefore at an early age, though we know little of their productions. Endeavours have been made to find their ancientcancioneiro geral[125], but they were unsuccessful, and a guess only can be made as to the nature of their contents.

The Portuguese nation was as peculiar in its pursuits and character as in its language. They were not an agricultural but a pastoral people; and at the same time, their long extent of sea shore led them to the pursuits of commerce and navigation. While the Italian republics were enriching themselves by the trade of the Mediterranean, and while Spain, under Ferdinand and Isabella was, by conquering the whole of its territory from the Moors, laying the foundation of the brief grandeur of Charles V., and the despotism and national degradation that followed, the sovereigns of Portugal were encouraging their subjects in the maritime discoveries, which in a short time changed the aspect of the civilised globe: for the very expedition of Columbus was the offspring of the Portuguese voyages. It was for the sake of discoveringanotherroute to India, than the hitherto unsuccessful one along the coast of Africa, that he sailed over the illimitable Western Sea. In 1487, Bartolomeo Diaz doubled the Cape of Good Hope: many years had been previously occupied in creeping along the shores of Africa; but the moment this Cape was doubled, the navigators made a spring, and the celebrated Vasco de Gama reached the renowned and unvisited shores of India. In less than fifteen years from this time, Francisco de Almeida, and Alfonso de Albuquerque founded a Portuguese kingdom in Hindostan, of which Goa was the capital. We may imagine the spirit and enthusiasm that animated this people; they found a new world overflowing with all the precious treasures most valued in Europe; they did not content themselves with trading with the people, a people highly civilised, possessed of literature and all the appendages of an advanced state of human political association; but by their valour they conquered them and made a portion of the country their own. High notions of national importance and future national glory filled their souls; it was a period when each man could regard his native country with pride, and such a time is peculiarly favourable to the birth of genius, and, above all, to the developement of the spirit of poetry.

Bernardim Ribeyrois named the Ennius of Portugal. He was a man of an enthusiastic and tender disposition; his poems, full of passion and despair, emanated from an attachment to some unknown lady; some say the infanta Donna Beatrice, the king's daughter. His eclogues are more known than the rest of his works, and are considered the most excellent[126]; yet, though they are feeling, there is a poverty of ideas, and a want of classical correctness and compression, that speaks of the infancy of composition. But his most celebrated work is an unfinished prose romance, in which, under feigned names and obscure allusions, he narrates his own history and loves. We have not seen this work, andborrow the account of it from Bouterwek, who observes, that "such is the obscurity of the whole, that nothing can be comprehended of the circumstances without the utmost effort of attention. The monotony of incessant love complaints, renders the prolixity of the narrative still more tedious; but even amidst that monotony and prolixity, it is easy to recognise a spirit truly poetic, more remarkable however for susceptibility than energy."

Other poets succeeded to Ribeyro, who also sang of love and pastoral themes, and the poetry of Portugal as well as that of Spain, confined itself to the language of sentiment and description—instead of assuming an heroic and epic measure.

The reformation of Castilian poetry introduced into Spain by Boscan and Garcilaso, penetrated into Portugal; and, singularly enough, the poets who followed, quitted their native idiom to adopt that of the rival country. The cause of so unpatriotic an adoption can only be guessed at. Bouterwek attributes it to the more sonorous and complete sound of the Castilian. Spain, it may be observed, was the larger country and in more immediate connection with Italy; when, therefore, Italian forms of poetic composition were introduced into the peninsula, they flowed, as it were, through Spain, and arrived at the West clothed in a Spanish garb. Perceiving the superior power and charm of the Petrarchist compositions, their imitators at once adopted the very language in which they were clothed.Saa de Mirandawrote his best works, his eclogues, in Spanish, though the same spirit that led him to desert Latin, so long the favourite of educated men, also induced him to write in his native language, and Francisco Diaz names him the real founder of Portuguese poetry. Saa de Miranda was a man of strong feelings, with something too of an eccentric turn of mind. He insisted on marrying a lady neither young nor handsome, whom he had never seen; but whose reputation for discretion and goodness charmed him. He became so attached to her, that when she died some years after, he remained that most rare of all men, an inconsolable widower; giving up all the pursuits and purposes oflife—neither shaving his beard nor paring his nails—and three years after following her to the grave. And Jorge de Montemayor altogether cast aside his native language, and enriched the Castilian by a new form of composition, the pastoral romance, which became a general favourite throughout Spain, imitated by every writer, but not excelled by any.

In this brief summary of the predecessors of Camoens, introduced chiefly to shew the state of national poetry when he appeared, we are unable to do full justice to any of these writers, and are obliged to omit the names of many. But we must not pass overGil Vicente, who is styled the Portuguese Plautus. Very little is known of him—the very period of his birth only guessed at; it is supposed that he was born at the close ofthe fifteenth century. He was an indefatigable writer, and furnished the royal family and public with dramatic entertainments suited to the taste of the age. He wrote entirely in the old national manner. He appears to have been the inventor ofAutos, or spiritual dramas, which raised into a regular and poetic style of play the monkish or buffoonish festive representations.

Doctor Bowring has introduced translations of several of this poet's songs; these were written in Spanish, they are characterised by a charming simplicity, and are peculiarly short; one chord of a lyre struck, as it were, one emotion of the heart breathed forth in words; without elaborate display or any attempt at imagery or metaphor beyond the one single feeling that dictates the poem.

Antonio Ferreiramust be mentioned as a classic poet of Portugal. He is styled the Portuguese Horace. He was of noble family, and destined by his parents to fill some high public office in the state. He took the degree of doctor in the university of Coimbra, where he studied civil law. He was an enthusiastic lover of his native language, and resolved never to write in any other, at the same time that he founded his taste and style on the study of Horace. He admired alsothe excellencies of Italian poetry, and introduced the measure and structure of its verse into the Portuguese. It was the object of his ambition at once to be himself a classic poet; and to give to his native Portugal a classic style of poetry. Ferreira was nine and twenty when he published the first collection of his poetic works. He had friends who admired his genius and joined him in his pursuits. He quitted the university for the court, and filled a high place as judge, and was also appointed gentleman of the royal household; he became an oracle of criticism, and looked forward to brilliant prospects through life, when he died of the plague which raged in Lisbon in 1569, at the age of forty-one.

Ferreira, without possessing the originality of Gil Vicente, his sweetness or his genius, was eminently useful to the art of poetry in Portugal. He taught the writers of that country to aim at correctness, and to enrich their compositions by the knowledge acquired from the writings of other countries; but not, for that purpose, to adopt a foreign tongue, but to raise the Portuguese to the level of other languages, and gift it with the purest and noblest poetic measures. He is, himself, novel, however, rather in his style than in his ideas. His epistles are his best work; the sentiments he expresses are elevated, and his fancy and poetic verve graced them with a diction and imagery which raises them in the class of such compositions. The distinctive feeling however to be found in Ferreira, animating all he wrote, was patriotism. The glory, the advancement and the civilisation of Portugal, were the themes of his praise, and the objects which he furthered with his utmost endeavours. He exhorts his friends not to permit the Muses in Portugal to speak any thing but Portuguese. Of himself, he says, in very beautiful verses, that "he shall be content with the glory of loving his native land, and his countrymen." It was this enthusiasm that elevated Ferreira into a great man. He is a little misplaced here, as he was a few years younger than Camoens; but it shows the spirit that wasabroad in Camoens' time—a patriotic spirit that loved to express its genuine sentiments in language warm from the heart and familiar to the tongue. In this Camoens and Ferreira were alike; they loved their native country, and were eager to adorn its literature with native flowers. In other respects they were different. Ferreira's classic pages bear no resemblance to the fire, passion, and rich fancy of Camoens, to whom we now turn as to one of the favourites of fame, though he was the neglected child of his country, and the victim of an adverse fate.

[125]In Castiliancancioneros generalor general song books.VideBouterwek; Sismondi.

[126]Bouterwek.

Camoens and Cervantes encountered, in several respects, a similar destiny. They were both men of genius, both men of military valour; both were disregarded by their contemporaries, and suffered extreme misfortune. Camoens, indeed, has in this a sad advantage over Cervantes. The latter lived in poverty, but the former died in want. Posterity endeavoured to repair the injuries inflicted by ungrateful contemporaries. The circumstances of the life of Camoens were carefully collected. Several able native commentators wrote elaborate notes on the "Lusiad," and lastly a magnificent edition of that poem was published in 1817. Nor have the English been unmindful of the great Portuguese poet. Sir Richard Fanshaw translated the "Lusiad" as far back as Cromwell's time; but the present popular translation is by Mickle. He bestowed great pains on the work, and accompanied it by various essays relative to its subject, and a life of Camoens. His version has great merit, as will be hereafter mentioned, notwithstanding its want of fidelity and the signal defect of being written in heroic couplets, instead of eight-line stanzas, like the original. Lord Strangford appended a sketch of Camoens' life to his translation of a portion of his "Rimas;" and, lastly, Mr. Adamson has presented the English reader with an elaborate biography, attended by all sorts of valuable collateral information and embellishments.

The family of Camoens was originally of Gallicia, and possessed extensive demesnes in that province. The old Spanish name of the family was Caamaños—the etymology of which has occupied the commentators. Weare told, among others, that it was derived from Cadmus. There is nothing extraordinary in this. All readers conversant with old national annals, are aware that they usually derive their immediate origin either from a son of Noah, or some well known Grecian hero: Ulysses, it was said, founded Lisbon. It was probably adopted from the castle of Cadmon, where they resided. The poet himself, however, refers it to a more imaginative source. In ancient times, in Gallicia, there existed a bird named the Camaõ, which never survived the infidelity of the wife of its lord. The moment the lady went astray, the bird sought its master, and expired at his feet. A matron of the house of Cadmon was unjustly accused of ill faith—she entrusted her defence to the cadmaõ, and the success of her appeal caused her husband, grateful for this restoration to honour and domestic felicity, to adopt the name of the saviour bird. This is a tale of romance and barbarism, of the days of ordeal and degrading suspicion; but Camoens himself alludes to it, and it derives interest from his mention.[127]

The family of Caamaños possessed asolaror ancestral inheritance in Gallicia, and reigned over seventeen villages near the promontory of Finisterre. One of the lords of this family having killed a cavalier de Castros, they were obliged to migrate, and settled at a fortress called Rubianes; where Faria y Sousa tells us the family still remain, great in birth, but of diminished means.[128]

Vasco Perez de Camoens, either brother or son of this Ruy, made a second migration to Portugal in 1370. Faria y Sousa conjectures that it might be from some such same cause as occasioned the first exile, while Southey attributes it to his having sided with Pedro the Cruel againsthis more infamous brother Henriquez II. However that may be, Fernando, king of Portugal, received him with distinction, and gifted him with the "villas" of Sardoal, Punhete, Maraõ, and Amendao, besides making him one of the principal fidalgos of his court. Nor did the favours of Fernando stop here. Vasco Perez received various other estates in gift, and filled places of political and military importance.

After the death of Fernando, Vasco Perez became involved in a dispute for succession, and he upheld the cause of the queen of Fernando, Leonor, and his daughter, the queen of Castile. His power was great, and his aid was held of importance, whichever side he espoused. Camoens considered that his ancestor assisted the wrong cause, that of Castile against Portugal. The latter was destined to triumph, and Vasco was the sufferer. He lost all command, but retained a considerable portion of his estates. A letter has been discovered by Sarmiento, written by the marquis of Santillana, which intimates that Vasco Perez was a poet as well as a warrior.

The descendants of Vasco Perez were of account, and married into the richest and most powerful families of Portugal. His second son, Joaõ Vaz, was the great-grandfather of the poet. He acquired glory by his military services under Alfonso V., and was named hisvassal—a title of distinction in those days. He built a house at Coimbra, and there is a marble monument erected to his memory in the chapel of the cloister of the cathedral at Coimbra. Simaõ Vaz, the grandson of Joaõ Vaz, married Dona Ana de Sa e Macedo, of noble descent, and sprung from the Macedos of Santarem. Thus, in every way, Camoens was highly descended from nobles and warriors; but, springing from the younger branch, he inherited the blood and name without the estates of his family. As he never married this branch of the family became extinct.

Coimbra and Santarem have both contended for the glory of having beenhis birth-place, but without foundation; for he was born at Lisbon, most probably in the district "da Mouraria," in the parish of San Sebastiaõ, where his parents resided. The date of his birth has been disputed. A friend and contemporary, Manoel Correa, gave that of 1517; but a register, in the Portuguese India House, proves that he was really born in 1524.[129]This entry also is conclusive on another point. It was long believed that Camoens lost his father while a mere child. Simon Vaz de Camoens was a mariner; nearly all the biographers of the poet agree in stating that he lost a ship, of which he was commander, on the coast of Goa, and, escaping from the wreck, died soon afterwards in that city; though some aver that he fell in the combat in which his son lost an eye. Camoens himself does not mention his father as being with him on that occasion, nor during any of his adventures. This point, therefore, is left in obscurity.

Camoens was born at Lisbon; he celebrates with fondness the parental Tagus: "My Tagus," as he sometimes names the river. But most of his early years were spent at Coimbra, where, as has been mentioned, his father had a house. He often mentions the river Mondego in his verses. To a poet, there is something in a river that engages his affections and enlivens his imagination. Water is indeed the soul, the smile, the beaming eye of a landscape; and as Camoens' only happy days were those when he nourished hopes—hopes, as he says in a letter, which he afterwards cast aside as coiners of false money—in his youth, he might well record with fondness the hours he spent in the beautiful environs of Coimbra on the banks of its lovely river. Thus, in his poems, the nymphs of Tagus and of Mondego are both addressed; and in oneremarkable and most beautiful passage of the "Lusiad" he exclaims, "What, insane and rash, am I about to do without ye, O nymphs of Tagus and Mondego, through so arduous, long, and various a way? I invoke your favour, as I navigate the deep sea with so contrary a wind, that, unless ye aid me, I fear that my fragile bark must sink!" and then he goes on to describe his misfortunes in India, turning to those streams that watered his native land, and whose very names were full of blessed recollections of life's prime, to give him fortitude and help.[130]

Camoens studied in the university at Coimbra. This university was founded by king Diniz, in 1308. Camoens introduces mention of this monarch in the "Lusiad," and alludes to the establishment of the university under his fosterage:—

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