PORTUGAL (LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE). 



657 



When Henry of Burgundy took up his residence at 

 Guimaraens, many Frenchmen followed him, which 

 caused a number of French expressions to pass into 

 the language of the country. The national spirit 

 of the Lusitaniuns always turned with pleasure to 

 the vernacular tongue, and strove to apply it to 

 every branch of literature ; yet it cannot be denied 

 that patriotism carries the Portuguese too far in his 

 admiration of his mother tongue. Franc. Diaz 

 Gomes, a celebrated Portuguese author and poet, 

 calls it " rich, melodious, impressive, proper for all 

 subjects, and in its pronunciation corresponding to 

 its orthography." Its delicacy and its richness in 

 songs gave it, even in Spain, the name of the flower 

 language. Yets its pronunciation is difficult for 

 the foreigner, particularly its nasal and guttural 

 sounds. In respect to the .;' and ch, in respect to 

 the nasal sounds, and the mute endings, its pronun- 

 ciation is like the French. Sismondi, more wittily 

 than correctly, calls the Portuguese language tin 

 Castilian desosse (a boneless Castilian), because the 

 Portuguese have generally omitted the middle con- 

 sonants, and particularly the /; as, for instance, in 

 dor for dolor, AJonso for Alfonso. The Portuguese 

 was used earlier than the Castilian, and became 

 the language of the country under Alfonso I., son 

 of Henry of Burgundy. Early epic attempts were 

 followed by books of songs, to which succeeded 

 sonnets, and, in the fourteenth century, prose. 

 The best grammar is Pedro Jose de Figueiredo's 

 Arte da Grammatica Portugueza (Lisbon, 1799), 

 and the best dictionary, the revised edition of Blu- 

 teau, by the Brazilian Anthony de Moraes Silva 

 (Lisbon, 1789, 2 vols., 4 to.) Ribeiro dos Santos 

 has done the most towards investigating the spirit 

 of the Portuguese language. As a conversational 

 language, the Portuguese is considered to have 

 advantages over the Spanish. It is more concise, 

 easy, and simple, well adapted for easy conversa- 

 tion ; and the social tone and the spirit of the Por- 

 tuguese are much like what the French probably 

 was in former times, for we still find with the Por- 

 tuguese a kind of good-natured and artless polite- 

 ness. The richness of the language in synonymes, 

 diminutives, and augmentatives renders it expres- 

 sive and very various : at the same time it is con- 

 cise and perspicuous, as almost all the substantives 

 have corresponding adjectives, verbs, and adverbs. 

 A number of them cannot be rendered in other 

 languages without paraphrase. The Portuguese 

 language is almost the only monument of the 

 former greatness of the Portuguese empire, for it is 

 yet the general language of commerce in India 

 and Africa. 



The Portuguese literature is pretty complete 

 without being rich : in all branches we find happy 

 attempts; in none abundance, except in lyric and 

 bucolic poetry. Yet the short period of its bloom 

 has passed. Its poetry has splendour and feeling, 

 much epic dignity, spirit, and dramatic vivacity, 

 but little ideal elevation. It comprises the most 

 important part of the literature, for prose has re- 

 mained in a backward state in this nation, which, 

 fettered by ignorance, and destitute of philosophy 

 and criticism, could not rise to history or eloquence. 

 The chief causes of this imperfect state of its litera- 

 ture have been the Spanish dominion and the in- 

 quisition. It became and remained bombastic and 

 affected : the ancient power, the natural grace, 

 were lost. In the time of Louis XIV., the French 

 were copied, and many Gallicisms were admitted. 

 It was not till the time of Pombal (q. v.) that poets 

 gave elevation to the language. After that time, 

 the prose also became more simple and pure. Pom- 

 bal was the first who banished the scholastic logic 

 r. 



and metaphysics from the lecture-rooms of Coimbra; 

 but the study of the ancient languages continues to 

 be neglected. According to Balbi, there are, in 

 the whole kingdom, not more than eight schools 

 for the Greek language. For their first acquain- 

 tance with philosophy, botany, medicine, astronomy, 

 cosmography, and Hebrew, the Portuguese are in- 

 debted chiefly to the Jews. Scientific studies, espe- 

 cially mathematics and natural history, are not en- 

 tirely uncultivated, but attract little interest ; and 

 it is asserted that, among the 3,000,000 of Portu- 

 guese, there are hardly 500 readers of scientific 

 books. According to Balbi, there were printed, 

 from 1801 to 1819, about 1800 new works, of 

 which 1200 were originals, 430 translations, 57 

 periodical works, 40 new editions. Besides these, 

 the academy of sciences and the university at Coim- 

 bra caused 116 works to be printed in the same 

 period. All Portugal had, in 1827, but sixteen 

 printing-offices ; one in Coimbra, three in Oporto, 

 twelve in Lisbon. Those three places are also the 

 only ones containing considerable libraries and 

 establishments for the sale of books. How much 

 this little may have been lessened of late, since an 

 outrageous tyranny has been plunging that unfor- 

 tunate country deeper and deeper into barbarism, 

 we cannot say. The style of the Portuguese prose 

 writers is often embarrassed, obscure and full of re- 

 petitions. Of late years, however, they have been 

 employed on translations of good English and French 

 prose writers, which will contribute to improve the 

 taste of the nation. These translations have been 

 chiefly of novels. Their own novels and tales con- 

 tinue to be written in the style of the first Portu- 

 guese work of belles-lettres in prose, a tale of pas- 

 toral life and chivalry Menina e Mot}a (the Inno- 

 cent Maiden) by Bernardim Ribeiro (printed with 

 his eclogues, Lisbon, 1559), which gave the tone in 

 Portugal, which Montemayor, a Portuguese, after- 

 wards introduced into Spain, and which, some time 

 later, was imitated in France and Germany. The 

 most popular national romance in Portugal, the His- 

 toria de Carlos Magno e dos doze Pares de Franca 

 par Jeronymo Moreira de Carvalho (Lisbon, 1784. 

 2 vols.), amuses by its comic bombast. Among the 

 best Portuguese original romances are the old Pal- 

 meirim de Ingalterra (exempted by Cervantes from 

 the flames), written by Franc, de Moraes (an edition 

 of it was printed at Lisbon, 1786, in 3 vols., 4to), 

 and the Feliz Independente, which was translated 

 into Spanish, and in that language went through 

 six editions. The treasures of the Portuguese lan- 

 guage may be in some degree judged from the 

 Catalogo dos.Livros, yue se hao de ler para a con- 

 tinucaU do Diccionario da Lingua Portugueza 

 mandado publicar pela Academia real das Sciencias 

 de Lisboa (1799). The oldest works mentioned in 

 it are of 1495 and 1502. The former is the Livro 

 da Vita Christi. por falentim de Moravia, e Nicolao 

 de Saxonia (Lisbon, 4 vols., folio) ; the latter a 

 translation of the travels of Marco Polo and Nicolao 

 Veneto to India, with a map by a Genoese, by Val- 

 entim Fernandes (Lisbon, folio). Only one volume 

 of the dictionary of the academy has appeared (in 

 1793), a thick folio containing A, which letter em- 

 braces the fifth part of the words in the language. 

 Respecting the history of Portuguese literature, 

 Bouterwek's Geschichte der Poesie und Beredtsam- 

 keit sett dem Ende des 13 Jahrhunderts (History of 

 Poetry and Eloquence since the End of the Thir- 

 teenth Century, 11 vols.) is the chief work. Sismondi, 

 in his Literature du Midi de P Europe (4th vol.), 

 has followed this. A short history of the Portu- 

 guese language and literature is also to be found in 

 the preface of Joaquim de Santa Rosa de Viterbo's 



