NO. 60. — 1908.] LIFE OF BAKROS. 



3 



accuracy, by consulting persons who had been to India and 

 beyond, and by procuring and having translated chronicles in 

 various oriental languages. Barros intended to complete the 

 history of Portugal by writing similar books on Europe, Africa, 

 and Santa Cruz (Brazil), and he also projected a Universal 

 Geography and a Natural History of the East, its Commerce, 

 &c. ; but these and other works that he had in view remained 

 unwritten owing to his arduous official duties. 



At the end of 1567, in consequence of the infirmities of age, 

 Barros retired from active work, and King D. Sebastiao 

 conferred upon him various privileges and emoluments calcu- 

 lated to free his last years from care. In this retirement, in 

 bis country-house near Pombal, Barros died on 20 October 

 1570, over seventy years of age. His body was interred in a 

 hermitage in the district of Leira, whence it was removed in 

 1610 to the monastery of Alcobaca by the bishop D. Jorge de 

 Ataide, who caused a monument to be erected over the 

 historian's remains. 



Diogo do Couto, like Joao de Barros, came of noble parent- 

 age. He was born in Lisbon in 1543 1 , his father, Gaspar do 

 Couto, being in the service of the infante Dom Luiz. Hence it 

 was that Diogo, while still a boy, entered the service of the 

 infante 2 , and, like Barros, Couto received a careful education 

 in the various branches of learning. But the death of his 

 father, following shortly after that of the infante 3 , obliged him 

 to abandon his studies and take to the profession of arms. In 

 1559 4 he sailed for India, where he served as a soldier for the 

 space of nine 5 years, taking part in a number of engagements 

 which he describes in his Decades. Early in 156,9 he left India 



1 Man. Sev. de Faria has 1542 ; but in Dec. VII. vm. ii. Couto says 

 hat he was fifteen years old when he went to India in 1559. 



2 Couto says in VII. vm. ii. that he served the king for two years ; 

 but in VII. in. vi. he states that he began to serve the prince Dom 

 Luiz at the age of ten. 



3 Dom Luiz died in 1554. 



4 Man. Sev. de Faria has 1556. 



5 Man.J3ev. de Faria says " eight." 



B 2 



