an exile in the south of France, where he died (1817) in deep poverty. It is with regret that we have seen the brilliant illusions of this literature vanish in succession from our sight as we have passed through its successive periods, and that we have felt the lively interest excited by illustrious names and chivalrous deeds subsiding into pity and contempt for this once-exalted but now fallen people. The inspiration of the earlier ages is no more, and modern cultivation in Spain has been too imperfect to produce anything to reconcile us to its disappearance. The age of chivalry was indeed, strictly speaking, the one period of Spanish literature; and all the images, adventures, feelings, and opinions that adorned its pages in later times, were drawn from the treasures of its ancient romances. The period introduced by Boscan did but clothe the old ideas in a new dress, and when the drama appeared, its best efforts consisted in producing these beautiful fictions for a third time in a new form. There has never been that freedom of thought, and that intellectual culture that would have given rise to a new set of ideas, and prepared the Spaniards to run a literary career similar to that of the other nations of Europe. During the present century, it is true, there has not only been great attention bestowed in collecting and republishing all the best works that Spain produced in her happiest days, but in almost every department of science and literature there have arisen authors respectable and even eminent in their own country. Few works, however, if any, have appeared of such a character as to command European attention, or demand, even in these days of international intercourse, to be translated into the languages of England, France, or Italy. PORTUGUESE LITERATURE. THE kingdom of Portugal was long considered only as an integral part of Spain, and its inhabitants called themselves Spaniards, conferring on their neighbours the distinctive appellation of Castilians. Their language was originally the same as the Galician; and had Portugal remained a province of Spain, its peculiar dialect would probably, like that of Arragon, have been driven from the fields of literature by the Castilian. But at the close of the eleventh century Alphonso VI., celebrated in Spanish history for his triumphs over the Moors, gave Portugal as the dowry of his daughter on her marriage with Henry of Burgundy, with permission to call his own whatever accessions to it the young prince might be able to conquer from the Moorish territory. Alphonso Henriquez, the son of this pair, was saluted king of Portugal by his soldiers on the battle-field of Castro-Verd in the year 1139, his kingdom comprising all the provinces we now call Portugal, except Algarva. Thenceforward the Portuguese became a separate nation from the Spaniards, and their language asserted for itself an independent existence. Still, however, the Castilian was considered the superior vehicle for literature, and while few Portuguese writers wholly disused it, there were many who employed no other. The Portuguese language is in truth a kind of contracted Spanish; discarding a number of the Latin consonants, it has a softer, but at the same time a truncated and incomplete sound, compared with the sonorous beauty of the Castilian; and it has acquired, no one seems to know how, a predominance of nasal sounds, stronger than even those of the French. The people, as well as the language of Portugal, possessed a distinctive character. The spacious and fertile plains were abandoned T to pasturage, instead of being cultivated by husbandry; and the number of shepherds in proportion to the rest of the population was so great, that the idea of a rural life among them appears always to have been connected with the care of flocks. At the same time, their long extent of sea-coast invited to the pursuits of commerce and navigation; and the nation, thus divided into hardy navigators, soldiers, and shepherds, seemed better calculated for the display of energy, valour, and enterprise, than for laborious and persevering industry. Having been less habituated to the seclusion of castles than to active intercourse with society, they were far less haughty and fanatical than the Castilians; and the greater number of Muzarabians that were incorporated among them, diffused over their feelings and manners a much stronger influence of Orientalism. The passion of love seemed to occupy even a larger share of their existence, and their poetry was more enthusiastic than that of any other people of Europe. However degraded the Portuguese may appear to us, it must be remembered that they once occupied a proud position in the annals of the world. A mere handful of knights had achieved the conquest of territories which, within a century, were deemed worthy of a place among the kingdoms of Europe; and for 800 years afterwards, the frontiers of the Portuguese kingdom were never known to have been encroached upon. Early in the fifteenth century, the same chivalrous spirit led them to cross the Straits of Gibraltar, and display the banner of the five escutcheons on the walls of Ceuta. In the succeeding reigns many other cities of Africa were taken; and it is not improbable that these conquests would have been followed up by the formation of still more extensive dominions on the coast of Barbary, had not another field of enterprise divided their efforts. In 1487 Bartolomeo Diaz doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and immediately another spring was made; the Portuguese under Vasco da Gama pointed out to Europe the hitherto unknown track to India. Within fifteen years after, a Portuguese kingdom was founded in Hindoostan, and the treasures of the East flowed into Portugal, while Spain was enriched by those of the western world. It is easy to imagine the enthusiasm that was thus awakened among the people; the high views of national importance, and the high hopes of national glory that animated their minds; and, as we have had occasion to remark in the case of Spain, the period when each man looks on his native land with pride is the time peculiarly favourable to the development of genius, and especially to the spirit of poetry. But, after all, Portuguese literature is rich in nothing but lyric and bucolic poetry, if we except one splendid specimen of epic. Prose is almost a barren field, presenting here and there a respect able history or biography; so that scarcely anything worth gleaning is found either before or after the sixteenth century. During that age, the happy effects of patriotic valour and hardy enterprise were seen in the expanding blossoms of the nation's genius; but ere they had time to produce anything mature and substantial, the despotism of the monarchy, the horrors of the Inquisition, and the more insidious influence of wealth and luxury, had done their work of destruction, and the prostrate nation has ever since been reaping the bitter fruits. We propose to glance at the most remarkable of the love-sick poets who flourished in the fifteenth century, and then to notice those who, in the sixteenth, improved on their lays by introducing Italian and classical refinements. This will prepare the way for appreciating the merits of Camoens, the great epic poet, after whom we shall introduce Gil Vicente, who made a promising commencement for a national drama. It must, then, be our unpleasant duty to mark the sudden and rapid decline of this country's literature, relieved only by a few successful efforts in prose. MACIAS. At the head of the poetical school of the fifteenth century stands Macias, surnamed the Enamoured; of all poets of the Peninsula most celebrated for the influence of love on his mortal destiny. He distinguished himself as a warrior against the Moors of Granada, and as a poet in the retinue of the Marquis of Villena.* But though this nobleman appreciated the talents of Macias, he did not approve of poetic fancies being interwoven with the affairs of real life. He prohibited an intrigue in which the poet had engaged with a ward of his, who had been married to another gentleman. Macias believed that, as a true and gallant knight, he could not better prove the constancy of his love than by disobeying his patron at all hazards. The marquis, however, was not to be trifled with, and availing himself of his power as grandmaster of the order of Calatrava, he threw the refractory poet into a prison at Arjonilla which was under his control. Here the disconsolate Macias composed his songs on ill-fated love, making little of the hardships of captivity in comparison with the pangs of absence from his mistress. The husband of the lady intercepted one of these effusions, and resolved on a summary and dreadful revenge. He set out immediately for Arjonilla, * See page 117. and hastening to the prison, recognised Macias through the bars of a window, threw his javelin at him, and killed him on the spot. The weapon was suspended over the poet's tomb in the church of St Catherine, with this simple inscription- Aquí yace Macias el Enamorado'' Here lies Macias the Enamoured.' Nearly all the productions of Macias are now lost, but the unfortunate stanzas which were the occasion of his untimely end have been preserved :— I am a captive, yet 'tis not my chains That move to pity every passer-by, And makes him ask what more than mortal pains I aimed at fortune proud and honours high, Now have I learned this lesson to my cost- Oft warned of grief and disappointment sore, RIBEYRO. Between the years 1495 and 1521 appeared Bernardim Ribeyro, who has been called the Ennius of Portugal. He received a literary education, and afterwards obtained an appointment at the court of Emmanuel, surnamed the Great. Here he found an object which enchained his poetic fancy, and gave rise to some of his most exquisite effusions. But his happiness appears to have been blighted by the same means, and he is said to have spent whole nights in the woods, singing to the murmuring brooks the tale of his woes in strains of tenderness and despair. It is supposed by some that the Infanta Beatrice was the lady in question, but the poet studiously veils the secret of his heart. We also know that he was married, and it is said that he was tenderly attached to his consort; but whether his married life was before or after his romantic attachment, or contemporary with it, we |