LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. 



155 



years in that place, he wrote his great epic of 

 The Lusiad, devoted to celebrating the passage 

 of the Cape of Good Hope by Vasco de Gama, 

 and the triumph of Portuguese arms and com- 

 merce in the Orient. On his return to Por- 

 tugal he was shipwrecked on the coast of Cam- 

 bodia, and escaped by swimming, with The 

 Lusiad in his hand, held above the waves. He 

 died in great poverty in 1759. He left behind 

 him many sonnets, songs, and pastorals, but 

 most of them are penetrated with a vein of 

 deep and settled melancholy. Among the suc- 

 cessors of Camoens, the most noted are Gil 

 Vicente, a dramatic writer, who is supposed 

 to have served as a model to Lope de Vega and 

 Calderon ; and Rodriguez Lobo, who was at 

 one time considered a rival of Camoens. He 

 wrote the Winter Nights, a series of philo- 

 sophical conversations, Spring, a romance, and 

 numberless pastorals. Cortereal also described 

 in a ponderous epic the adventures of Manuel 

 de Sousa Sepulveda, a distinguished Portu- 

 guese. 



The age of Camoens also gave rise to a new 

 branch of literature. John de Barros, born 

 in 1496, is esteemed* by his countrymen as the 

 Livy of Portugal. He commenced his career 

 by a romance entitled, The Emperor Clarimond, 

 but after his return from service on the coast 

 of Guinea, he devoted himself to the prepara- 

 tion of a grand historical work on the Portu- 

 guese empire. Only one-fourth of this, en- 

 titled Portuguese Asia, which was published 

 in 1552, appeared. This is one of the most 

 comprehensive, accurate, and interesting his- 

 torical works of that age. Alfonso d' Albuquer- 

 que, one of the most distinguished contem- 

 poraries of Barros, wrote a series of Commen- 

 taries, and Couto and Castanheda undertook to 

 complete the work which Barros had left un- 

 finished. Bernardo de Brito, born in 1570, 

 designed to give a universal history of Portugal, 

 but, commencing with the Creation, he died 

 by the time he reached the Christian Era. 

 Osorio, Bishop of Sylvez, who died in 1580, 

 wrote the History of King Emmanuel, de- 

 scribing the religious troubles of that time in a 

 most liberal and enlightened spirit. Manuel 

 de Faria, born in 1590, almost rivaled Lope de 

 Vega in the amount of his works ; his disserta- 

 tions on the art of poetry are held in most 

 value. He also wrote a History of Portugal 

 and a Commentary on Camoens. After the 

 subjugation of Portugal by Philip II. of Spain, 

 the literature of the country declined, and 

 presents no distinguished name for nearly a 

 century following. The first author of the 

 last century is the Count of Ericeyra, born in 

 1673. He was a general in the army, and a 

 scholar of splendid attainments!. His chief 



work was the Henrique'ide, an epic poem de- 

 scribing the adventures of Henry of Burgundy, 

 the founder of the Portuguese monarchy. To- 

 wards the close of the last century, Antonio 

 Garcao and the Countess de Vimieiro acquired 

 some celebrity by their dramatic productions. 

 The only Portuguese authors of note whom 

 the present century has brought forth are 

 Antonio da Cruz e Silva, who imitated Pope 

 and other English poets, and J. A. da Cunha, 

 an eminent mathematician and elegiac poet. 

 The Portuguese colonies have produced a few 

 writers, the most noted of whom are Vascen. 

 cellos and Claudio Manuel da Costa. 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 



The literature of France was later in its de. 

 velopment than that of the other nations of 

 Southern Europe. It was necessary to wait 

 the decline of the two romance-tongues of 

 Normandy and Provence before the language 

 could take a settled form, and a still further 

 time elapsed before it was sufficiently matured 

 for the purpose of the scholar and the author. 

 During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries 

 the kingdom produced many romances, in 

 which the influence of the literature of the 

 Trouveres and Troubadours was manifest. 

 Gilbert de Montreuil, Castellan de Coucy, and 

 some others were noted for this species of 

 composition ; many sacred dramas and mys- 

 teries were written in the north of France, and 

 about the middle of the fifteenth century, sev- 

 eral romantic epics appeared. The only re- 

 markable name of this early period is ths re- 

 nowned chronicler, Froissart, who was born in 

 1337, and in the course of his travels and so- 

 journ at all the courts of Europe, was witness 

 of many of the chivalrous events he describes 

 in his " Chronicles of France, Spain, Italy, 

 England, and Germany." Philip de Comines, 

 who died in 1509, passed his life in the service 

 of Louis IX., and left behind him the " Mem- 

 oirs " of his time. The latter part of the 

 fifteenth century produced many small writers 

 of satires, odes, songs, etc., among whom, 

 Charles, Duke of Orleans, takes the first rank. 

 The sacred mysteries, the first attempt at 

 theatrical representation, gradually gave place 

 to a rude form of drama and comedy, and a 

 very successful comedy of French life appeared 

 in 1475. 



With the reign of Francis I. the study of 

 the classics became popular in France, and from 

 that time until the age of Louis XIV. the prog- 

 ress of French literature was rapid and un- 

 interrupted. The sixteenth century produced 

 a few gseat names. Scaliger and Casaubon 

 were renowned for their scholastic acquire- 

 ments; Clement Marot a*d TUeodore 



