940 



PORTUGAL 



government, very democratic in spirit, in tlie place 

 of tin' prc existing feudal absolutism. Jolm hurried 

 t<> Portugal, and there signed the constitution and 

 ratified the indeiM-ndcnce of Brazil, wliieli pro- 

 claimed his mm Pedro cni]ieror. On the death of 

 John in 1828, Pedro IV., after organising the 

 government of Portugal on the model of the 

 English parliamentary system, renounced the 

 Portuguese crown in favour of bin daughter, 

 Maria da Gloria, a child of seven, on condition 

 that Bhe married her uncle, Miguel. The latter, 

 who had availed himself of every opportunity to 

 thwart the lihcral policy of his father and brother, 

 waited only for the embarkation of the English 

 troop- to break the oath which he had taken to 

 maintain the constitution, and, gathering round 

 him the clergy, the army officers, the old nobility, 

 and all who were in favour of the former order of 

 thinx-. was through their aid declared king by the 

 Cortex in June I - 



Then ensued a period of indewribable confusion 

 and misrule. At length, in 1832, Pedro wax 

 enabled, chiefly by means of a loan from English- 

 men, to r.ii-e an army, and make a landing 

 at Oporto. Charles Napier virtually destroyed 

 Miguel's fleet oil' i 'HI* St Vincent in 1833. 

 Shortly afterwards Queen Maria made her entry 

 into tislmn ; and in the following year Miguel 

 signed the Convention of Evora, by which he 

 renounced all pretensions to the throne, and 

 agreed to quit Portugal. The death of Pedro in 

 the same year, after he had effected several im- 

 portant reforms, including the reintroduction of 

 the constitution of 1826, proved a heavy misfor- 

 tune to Portugal, which suffered severely from the 

 mercenary rule of those who occupied places of 

 trust alniut the person of the young queen. Her 

 marriage, in 1835, with Augustus, Duke of Leuch- 

 tenlierg, and, after his death at the end of a few 

 months, her marriage with Ferdinand of Saxe- 

 Coburg, were followed by grave political disturb- 

 ances. A branch of the democrats, known as the 

 Septemhriste, from the month in which they made 

 their first decisive stand against the government, 

 loudly demanded (1836) the abrogation of the 

 charter promulgated by Pedro (known as the 

 Charter of 1826), and the restoration of the 

 democratic constitution of 1824. This contest of 

 the charters continued through the entire reign 

 of Maria, and party feeling ran so high that it 

 resulted more than once in hostilities. The 

 government was alternately in the hands of 

 neptembrixte and Chartist* ; one Cortes was dis- 

 solved after another; finally, in 1852, a revised 

 charter was drawn up that proved acceptable to 

 all |>arties. Shortly afterwards the queen died, 

 and her eldest son ascended the throne in 1853 

 as Pedro V., under the regency of his father. 

 The latter used his |Kiwer discreetly; and by his 

 judicious management the financial confusion- 

 and embarrassments were partially removed. 

 Upon the sudden death of Pedro in 1861 his 

 brother was proclaimed king as Luis I. He 

 steadily adlim-d to .-oust it utional principles, and 

 laboured at measures of internal improvement ; 

 but ever since the beginning of the century the 

 royal power ha* Iwen growing weaker ami weaker. 

 The financial condition of the country has also 

 gone steadily from bad to worse, in spite of fairly 

 favourable commerce. The rush of the Eurojiean 

 powers to appropriate African soil, and divide 

 It amongst them, since the opening of the in- 

 terior through tln Congo, in some degree awoke 



tl Id colonial enterprise of the Portuguese. Mini 



touched their national pride, making tliem rling 

 all the more tenaciously to the fragment* of 

 colonial t-nitoi\ -till left to them in Africa. Hut 

 the awakening came too late ; the march of events 



and the energy of her rivals have wrested from bet 

 many siinare miles that she claimed as her own, 

 but hail done next to nothing to colonise ami 

 develop. England in the end of 1889 compelled 

 Portugal to abandon her claims to Nyassaland, ami 

 two years later a treaty wa- signed defining the 

 !e-pc<-tive spheres of influence of ill,. two countries 

 in East and \Vest Africa, es|>ecially in the basin 

 of the Zambesi. Further ill-limitations were agreed 

 upon in 1891. In the meantime Charles I. had 

 succeeded his father, October 1889. The action 

 of Britain occasioned an outburst of strong popular 

 feeling in Portugal, which the republicans turned 

 to their own ail vantage; and they were greatly 

 helped bv the successful revolution of the republi- 

 cans in Brazil and the expulsion of the emperor 

 (November 1889). But in the home count iv 

 their advantage proved to lie of only a temporary 

 nature. 



See II one Stephen*, Portugal (' History of Nations' 

 series, 1891); M'Murdo, Hittory of Portugal (18881; 

 Schst-fer, Oadiichtt von Portugal (fi vols. 1836-54); 

 works by the native historians Hcrculano (1848-67), Da 

 SUva (1860-71), C'oelho (1874). and Da Lui Soriano 

 (1866-S2); R. H. Major, Life of Prince Henry of 

 Portiiital (1888); and Carnota, Memoir* of SaldanXm 

 ( 1880 ) ; Salisbury, Portugal and ill People ( 18itt ). 



LANGUAGE AND LITERATI-RE. Portuguese, 

 like every other branch of the Romance family of 

 languages, has grown out of a local form of the 

 Ling mi l!niiina Ilnxlica, and in course of time baa 

 had ingrafted upon it many elements of Arabic from 

 the Saracen invaders, and numerous verbal and 

 idiomatic characteristics of the Prankish and Celtic 

 dialects which were introduced with the Hiirgun- 

 dian founders of the monarchy. The earlier forms 

 of Portuguese bore close affinity to Galician ; and, 

 although Portuguese presented strong resemblance 

 to its sister-language, the Castilinn, in so far as 

 both possessed numerous words of identical origin, 

 it differed so widely from the latter in regard to 

 grammatical structure as almost to merit the 

 designation of an original tongue. The antipathy 

 existing between the I'oitnguesc and Spaniards, 

 and the consequent strenuous efforts of the be-t 

 writers among the former to keep their language 

 distinct, and to resist the introduction of further 

 Castilian element*, had the effect of making Portu- 

 guese still more dissimilar from the sister-tongues 

 of the peninsula, and the result has been a lan- 

 guage that differs from pure Spanish in having 

 an excess of nasal sounds and fewer gutturals, 

 with a softening or lisping of the consonants, and 

 a deepening of the vowels, which renders it the 

 softest, but feeblest, of all the liomance tongues. 

 The earliest specimens of genuine Portuguese lie- 

 long to the beginning of the 13th century, and con- 

 sist for the most part of collections or books of 

 song (see CANCIONKHO), which, lioth in regard to 

 form and rhythm, resemble the troubadour or /.//' 

 wings of the same period. Amongst the writers 

 of these the most outstanding figure is King l>inu, 

 who, Ix-sides lieing the forerunner of the Portii- 

 school of pastoralpoets, also drew inspiration fiom 

 the popular songs of his people. In the 1-tth and 

 15th centuries, whilst the romances of chivali) 

 wie popular and numerous chronicles were written, 

 the best licing that of Fenian 1. opes ( 1380-1 1 

 the court continued to IM- the centre of poetiy 

 and art; but Castilian was in greater vogue t li.-m 

 Portuguese, which was despised by the numerous 

 royal poets who emulated the example of Dini/., 

 and composed love-songs and moral or didactic 

 poems, ruder the culture of these noble haid- 

 the (Hietry of Portugal was weak ami effeminate, 

 without the tenderness and pathos which character 

 ised the Spanish verse 'romances' of that 

 Bat the literature of Portugal acquired new vi 



