Portuguese literature
least probably belongs to the seventeenth century. It is a curious
and amusing treatise on the noble art of thieving in all kinds,
private and official, civil and military. Its anecdotes are racy if
not original. Two of the happiest incidents (in caps. 6 and 41) are
copied without acknowledgement from _Lazarillo de Tormes_.[620] The
author seems to have had misgivings that he had presented his subject
in too favourable a light, for he ends by assuring his reader thieves
that many tons of worldly glory are not worth an ounce of eternal
blessedness, and promises them before long another ‘more liberal
treatise on the art of acquiring true glory’. These tardy qualms did
not save his book from the Index. The first edition, purporting to
be printed at Amsterdam, bears the date 1652[621] and attributes the
work to Antonio Vieira. That attribution may be set aside. Were there
no other reasons for its rejection it would suffice to read the book
or even its title in order to be convinced that it is not from the
_veneravel penna_ of that great statesman and preacher. He might dabble
in Bandarra prophecies, but would scarcely have sunk to the picaresque
familiarities of the _Arte de Furtar_ or occupy himself with the sad
habits of innkeepers, the long stitches of tailors, or the price of
straw. It has also been attributed, without adequate ground, to Thomé
Pinheiro da Veiga (1570?-1656), the author of a lively account of the
festivities at the Spanish Court and description of Valladolid in
1605, entitled _Fastigimia_ (it mentions Don Quixote and Sancho (p.
119) but says nothing of Cervantes), and to João Pinto Ribeiro (_c._
1590-1649), the magistrate who played a notable part in the Restoration
of 1640 and wrote various short treatises such as _Preferencia das
Letras ás Armas_ (1645); and even less plausibly to DUARTE RIBEIRO
DE MACEDO (1618?-80), statesman and diplomatist, an indifferent poet
but an excellent writer of prose and a careful although not original
historian. His halting verses and his treatises were collected in his
_Obras_ (2 vols., 1743). Of the latter the _Summa Politica_ has been
shown by Snr. Solidonio Leite[622] to be copied almost word for word
from the work of identical title by D. SEBASTIÃO CESAR DE MENESES
(†1672), Bishop of Oporto and Archbishop of Braga. Both author and book
were too well known for Ribeiro de Macedo to claim it as his own. He
seems merely to have translated it from the original Latin published at
Amsterdam in 1650, a year after the first Portuguese edition. The work
is remarkable for acute thought and clear and concise expression. A
work of a similar character is the well-written _Arte de Reinar_ (1643)
by P. ANTONIO CARVALHO DE PARADA (1595-1655). The _Tratado Analytico_
(1715), by MANUEL RODRIGUEZ LEITÃO (_c._ 1620-91), a controversial
treatise written to prove the right of Portugal to appoint bishops, is
also the work of a good stylist. Some would say the same of one of the
best-known books of the seventeenth century, the _Vida de Dom João de
Castro_ (1651), by JACINTO FREIRE DE ANDRADE (1597-1657). The author,
born at Beja, was suspected at Madrid of nationalist inclinations, and
retired to his cure in the diocese of Viseu; after the Restoration
he refused the bishopric of Viseu. His book has often been regarded
as a model of Portuguese prose. Pompous and emphatic,[623] it may be
described as inflated Tacitus, or rather a mixture of Tacitean phrases,
conceits, and rhetorical affectation. But if as a whole it is more akin
to Castro’s garish triumph at Goa than to the scientific spirit of his
letters, it scarcely deserves the severe strictures which followed
excessive praise[624]: it might even become excellent if judiciously
pruned of antitheses and artifice.[625] The second Conde da Ericeira,
D. FERNANDO DE MENESES (1614-99), wrote a _Historia de Tangere_ (1732)
and the _Vida e Acçoens d’El Rei D. João I_ (1677), which ends with
an elaborate parallel between Julius Caesar and the Master of Avis.
Equally clear but far more artificial is the style of the third Count,
D. LUIS DE MENESES (1632-90), in the best-known historical work of the
century in Portuguese: _Historia de Portugal Restaurado_ (2 pts., 1679,
98). Its author ended his life by leaping from an upper window into the
garden of his palace on a May morning in a fit of melancholy.
The great prose-writer of the century, ANTONIO VIEIRA (1608-97), was
born in the same year and city as D. Francisco Manuel de Mello and
spent a life as unquiet. He was not literary in the same sense as
Mello, but he has always been considered one of the great classics
of the Portuguese language. He was the son of Cristovam Vieira
Ravasco, _escrivão das devassas_ at Lisbon, but at the age of seven
he accompanied his parents to Brazil (1615) and began his education
in the Jesuit college at Bahia. In 1623, by his own ardent wish,
long opposed by his parents, he became a Jesuit novice and professed
in the following year. Before he was thirty he was Professor of
Theology in the Bahia college and a celebrated preacher, the sermons
in which he encouraged the citizens of Bahia in the war against the
Dutch being especially eloquent. In 1641 he was chosen with Padre
Simão de Vasconcellos to accompany D. Fernando de Mascarenhas, son
of the viceroy, to Europe in order to congratulate King João IV on
his accession. Vieira preached in the Royal Chapel on New Year’s
Day, 1642. Both his sermons and his conversation greatly impressed
the king, and from 1641 to the end of the reign (1656) his influence
was great although not unchallenged. They were critical years in
Portugal’s foreign policy, and Vieira, who refused a bishopric but
was appointed Court preacher, was entrusted with several important
missions--to Paris and The Hague (February-July 1646), London, Paris,
and The Hague (1647-8), and Rome (1650). In 1652 he returned to
Brazil as a missionary in Maranhão, and during two years roused the
bitter hostility of the settlers by his protection of the slaves or
rather by his opposition to slavery. In 1655 he again left Lisbon for
Maranhão,[626] and during five arduous years showed unfailing courage
and energy in dealing with natives and settlers. The latter in 1661
attacked the mission-house and arrested and expelled the Jesuits. At
home King João, Vieira’s friend, was dead. Differences arose between
the Queen Regent supported by Vieira, and her son, and one of the first
acts of the latter on taking power into his own hands was to banish
Vieira to Oporto and later to Coimbra. Here in the spring of 1665[627]
he wrote that curious work _Historia do Futuro_ (1718), which was to
interpret Portugal’s destiny by the light of old prophecies, but of
which only the introduction (_livro anteprimeiro_) was printed. An even
stranger book, in which he had paid serious attention politically to
the prophecies of Bandarra, was denounced in 1663, and in October 1665
Vieira was consigned to the prison of the Inquisition at Coimbra. His
sentence was not read till 1667 (December 24), and it condemned him to
seclusion in a college or convent of his Order and to perpetual silence
in matters of religion. The deposition of King Afonso VI (1667) and the
accession of his brother Pedro II altered Vieira’s prospects, and his
eloquent voice was again heard in the pulpit. After preaching before
the Court in Lent 1669 he proceeded to Rome on business of the Company
and spent six years there. He preached several times in Italian, and
Queen Christina of Sweden, who had settled in Rome in 1655, offered
him the post of preacher and confessor, which he refused. In August
1675 he returned to Lisbon, where he was coldly received by the Prince
Regent, and in 1681 retired to Brazil. In the same year he was burnt
in effigy by the mob at Coimbra. A special brief given to him by the
Pope secured his person from the attacks of the Inquisition. But even
at Bahia he was not free from troubles and intrigues. His activity
continued to the end of his long life. In 1688 he preached in Bahia
Cathedral, and was Visitor of the Province of Brazil from 1688 to 1691.
Even in 1695 we find him, although feeble and broken, writing letters
and eager to finish his _Clavis Prophetica_[628] (or _Prophetarum_),
which now lies in manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris and
elsewhere. Seventy years earlier he had been entrusted by the Jesuits
with the composition of the annual Latin letters of the Company.
Vieira’s vein of caustic satire no doubt made him numerous enemies and
increased the difficulties which his advocacy of the Jews and slaves
and his fearless stand against injustice and oppression were certain to
produce. Ambitious and fond of power, he could devote himself to causes
which entailed a life of toil and poverty. An energetic if unsuccessful
diplomatist, an ingenious thinker, a statesman of far-reaching views,
he was also a fantastic dreamer, but his dreams and restlessness rarely
affected the sanity of his judgement. The works of this great writer
and extraordinary man are an inexhaustible mine of pure and vigorous
prose, at its best in his numerous _Cartas_, written in _selecta et
propria dictio, nusquam verbis indulgens sed rebus inhaerens_. A
Portuguese critic, Dias Gomes, notes his ’sustained elegance’, and
we may sometimes sigh for an interval of Mello’s familiarity or Frei
Luis de Sousa’s charm. In his famous _Sermões_ he bowed intermittently
to the taste of the time for conceit and artifice. He condemned
the practice in a celebrated sermon, but indeed a certain humorous
quaintness was not foreign to his temperament, and in the obscurity, at
least, of the _cultos_ he never indulged. When inspired by patriotism
or indignation his words soar beyond cold reason and colder conceits to
a fiery eloquence. Among writers whom he influenced was the Benedictine
FREI JOÃO DOS PRAZERES (1648-1709), of whose principal work, _O
Principe dos Patriarchas S. Bento_, or _Empresas de S. Bento_, only
the first two volumes were published. Closer imitators of Vieira were
FREI FRANCISCO DE SANTA MARIA (1653-1713), author of _O Ceo Aberto na
Terra_ (1697) and many sermons, and the Jesuit preacher ANTONIO DE SÁ
(1620-78), whose _Sermões Varios_ appeared in 1750.
FOOTNOTES:
[581] Bernardo de Brito, no lover of Spain, bears witness to _o favor e
benevolencia com que trata os homens doutos_.
[582] _De Crepusculis_, Preface. Martim Afonso de Miranda later (_Tempo
de Agora_, _prologo_ to Pt. 2, 1624) writes of _a pouca curiosidade que
hoje ha acerca da lição dos liuros, como tambem o risco a que se expõem
os que escreuem_.
[583] Menéndez y Pelayo set Mello above all except his friend Quevedo.
[584] Mr. Edgar Prestage discovered his baptismal certificate and
established the date (1608) beyond doubt, though it is still often
given as 1611. On his mother’s side Mello was great-grandson of the
historian Duarte Nunez de Leam.
[585] Prefatory letter to _Las tres Mvsas del Melodino_ (1649): _el
lenguaje estrangero tan poco es favorable al que compone_.
[586] He was writing it in January 1650.
[587] _Historia de los movimientos y separacion de Cataluña y de la
guerra_, &c. Lisboa, 1645.
[588] On his release after four months of imprisonment the Count-Duke
Olivares said to him: _Ea, caballero, ha sido un erro, pero erro con
causa._
[589] The first five years were, in his own words, rigorous. In 1650
he was removed from the _Torre Velha_ to the Lisbon _Castello_, and
thenceforth enjoyed greater liberty. He had been transferred from the
Torre de Belem to the _Torre Velha_ on the left bank of the Tagus in
1646.
[590] The document was discovered by Dr. Braga and published in his _Os
Seiscentistas_ (1916), p. 339.
[591] _Approbatio of Cartas_, Roma, 1664.