Portugal,

Portugal, a kingdom of Europe, on the west side of the Iberian Peninsula, stretches 350 miles between 36° 59' and 42° 8' N. lat., and varies in width from 70 to 140 miles between 6° 10' and 9° 31' W. long. Its eastern and northern boundaries are Spain, its western and southern the Atlantic

Ocean. Details of provincial areas and populations are given in the subjoined table.

The population increases steadily but slowly: in 1851 it numbered 3,487,000; in 1874, 4,160,315; and in 1881, 4,708,178. But fully 16,500 persons emigrate every year, the majority going to America, chiefly to Brazil.

Physical Aspects.—In respect of its physical structure and conformation, Portugal forms an integral part of the Iberian Peninsula (see SPAIN). The coast is low and flat, and sandy, except for one or two short distances, as immediately north and south of the mouth of the Tagus, and at Cape St Vincent^o in the extreme south-west. The two northern provinces are diversified by spurs (5000 feet) of the mountains of Spanish Galicia. The most important mountain-range of Portugal is the Sierra da Estrella (6540 feet), a westward continuation of the Spanish Sierra Guadarrama system. The Sierra Morena is continued westwards in southern Portugal. In like manner, the principal rivers of the country—the Guadiana in the south, the Tagus in the centre, and the Douro and Minho in the north—are simply the lower courses of what are geographically Spanish rivers. The Mondego, which reaches the sea about half-way between the Tagus mouth and that of the Douro, is the longest river that has its sources in the country. Portugal has numerous mineral springs, a large proportion being impregnated with sulphur. Minerals exist in fairly rich abundance, but are not worked to the extent they could be, chiefly from want of fuel and cheap means of transit. Salt is prepared in large quantities in the salt marshes; copper, iron, lead, manganese, antimony, gypsum, lime, and marble are extracted and in part exported. About 5500 persons in all are engaged in mining, the yield of which reaches the total value of £224,000 per annum.

Climate.—The vicinity to the ocean tempers the climate of Portugal, and exempts it from the dry heat by which Spain is visited. The inequalities of the surface produce, however, diversities of climate; for, while snow falls abundantly on the mountains in the northern provinces, it is never seen in the lowlands of the southern districts, where spring begins with the new year and harvest is over by midsummer. Rain falls abundantly all the year round, especially on the coast, and from October to March. As a general rule, the climate is healthy in the elevated districts, even of the southern provinces; but malaria and fever prevail in the low flat lands and near the salt marshes. The mean annual temperature ranges from 60° F. at Oporto to 63° 5 at Lagos on the south coast.

The animal life and plant life do not differ from those of Spain (q.v.).

Occupations.—The soil is generally rich, except in the mountainous parts; but agriculture is everywhere in a backward state, little more than half the area of the country being put to profitable use. Arable land occupies only 15½ per cent.; grass-land, 24 per cent.; orchards, 7 per cent.; forest, 3 per cent.; vineyards, 2½; and olive-groves, about the same extent. The cereals chiefly grown are maize, wheat, rye, barley, and rice, but not in sufficient quantity for the wants of the people. Potatoes, vegetables (especially onions), flax, fruits (oranges, lemons, chestnuts, almonds, &c.) are grown in large quantities. But the cultivation of the vine and of the olive are the most prosperous branches of industry; from the former is derived the rich red wine familiarly known as Port, from its being shipped at O Porto, 'the port.' The total quantity of wine annually produced in Portugal amounts to 88,000,000 gallons. Cattle are reared in the north, sheep and goats in the centre, and swine in the oak forests of the south. In the vine districts of the north and centre the soil is mostly owned by peasant proprietors; in other parts of the country great estates are owned by the nobles and let to tenants to cultivate. The rearing of silkworms and the keeping of bees are pursued with some energy. Fish is abundant in all the rivers and off the coasts. Tunny and sardines are exported; and of late attention has been given to the rearing of oysters.

Commerce, &c.—Portugal is not a manufacturing country; what industry there is is principally concentrated in the two chief towns, Lisbon and Oporto. In all, some 91,000 persons are engaged in industrial pursuits, and of these nearly 40,000 are employed in weaving wool. The rest cut cork, manufacture cotton, linen, silk, leather, glass and porcelain, paper, and gold and silver filigree, and carry on various other industries. In 1889 the mercantile marine of Portugal comprised 443 vessels (43 steam), measuring in all 77,906 tons. During the four years ending 1887 the Portuguese ports were entered by an average of 5565 ocean-going vessels of 3,404,500 tons, but in 1893 by 5873 of 5,793,000 tons; of these totals, nearly half in number and more than half in tonnage were British. In 1893, 1450 miles of railway were open, and 300 more in course of construction. The exports, consisting principally of wine, copper, salt, cork, fish, oxen, fruits, vegetables, and wool, average 5½ millions sterling in value annually. More than one-half of this total is for wine, the actual value ranging between £1,580,200 (in 1879) and £3,751,770 (in 1886). Of this again the greater part is for port wine, exported to Britain, 3 to 4 million gallons annually, valued at 1 to 1¼ million sterling; and to Brazil, to an annual average of £608,000. France takes every year about £868,000 worth of the common wine of the country. The value of all the exports sent to Great Britain every year ranges from 2½ to nearly 4 millions sterling. Apart from wine, the principal items are cork, copper, live oxen, and wool. From Great Britain Portugal imports chiefly cottons (½ to ¾ million sterling), woollens, coal, metals, machinery, and butter, to the annual value of 1¼ to 2½ millions sterling. Her total imports, which, in addition to the articles mentioned, embrace bullion, flour and wheat (more than £1,000,000 annually), glass, live-stock, silk, timber, linen, &c., reached the value of 11¼ millions in 1889, a steady increase from 7¼ millions in 1885. Germany, France, and the United States rank next after Great Britain as sources whence Portugal draws her imports.

Finance.—In spite of her commercial prosperity, Portugal cuts a bad figure in her financial arrangements. For years there has been an annual deficit, which is mostly met by loans, so that the national debt is rapidly increasing. Whereas in 1878 the national income was £5,673,000, the expenditure was £7,629,500; ten years later the income had increased to £8,468,000, but the expenditure was £10,000,000. The national debt has increased from £20,974,000 in 1856 to £64,333,000 in 1871, and £148,490,103 in 1893, besides £4,784,777 of floating debt. The interest for the country's loans is accordingly some £5,000,000, by a long way the heaviest item in the national expenditure.

Defence.—Every Portuguese above twenty-one years of age is liable for service in the army. Twelve years is the period of service, three years with the colours and nine in the reserve. On the peace footing the army embraces in all about 33,000 men; the war strength is about 150,000 men of all arms. The fleet consists of 1 ironclad, 10 corvettes and screw-steamers, 21 gunboats and transports, 5 torpedo boats, 13 sailing-vessels, and 7 training and coastguard ships, the whole manned by 2850 sailors and 250 officers.

Religion, Education.—The state religion is that of the Church of Rome, but toleration is extended to all other creeds. There are three ecclesiastical provinces presided over by the Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon, the Archbishop of Braga, who is primate of the kingdom, and the Archbishop of Evora; these dignitaries rule over fourteen bishops. The monasteries were dissolved in 1834, their properties, yielding about one million sterling annually, being appropriated by the state. Education is superintended by a council, at the head of which is the minister of the Interior, and is entirely free from the supervision and control of the church. Compulsory education was enacted in 1844, but is far from being fully enforced, consequently Portugal lags behind in education and general intelligence. There are nearly 4000 elementary schools, with 180,000 pupils; 22 lycéums, with 8260 pupils; numerous private schools; polytechnic academies at Lisbon and Oporto; and clerical, medical, agricultural, naval, and military training-schools. The one university at Coimbra (1300), one of the oldest in Europe, has five faculties, 75 professors, and about 900 students. Schools for training in the industrial arts are in great favour; there are 28 in the country, headed by larger institutes at Lisbon and Oporto. Lisbon has a learned society (the Academy of Sciences), and a public library (1796) of 200,000 volumes. There are other libraries at Coimbra (1591), with 84,000 vols., and at Oporto (1833), with 100,000 vols.

Constitution.—Portugal is a constitutional monarchy, the crown being hereditary alike in the female and the male line. The parliament, or Cortes, consists of the House of Peers and the House of Deputies. By a law of 1885 the former will, when the necessary changes have been made, eventually consist of one hundred life members elected by the king and fifty elected indirectly, five by the university and scientific societies and forty-five by popular electors. The House of Deputies consists of 149 members, elected directly by all citizens above twenty-one years of age who possess certain qualifications of property or status. Parliaments are elected every four years; sessions last three months in the year. The deputies are paid 11s. a day. The executive is wielded by a cabinet of seven ministers, chosen by the premier (one of the seven), who himself is selected by the king. The departments are Interior, Justice, Public Works, Finance, Marine and Colonies, War, and Foreign Affairs. The sovereign also consults a council of state, of not more than sixteen members, nominated for life, and generally including ex-ministers and present ministers. Justice is administered by rural magistrates in 146 district courts, in 3 courts of appeal (at Oporto, Lisbon, and Azores), and in the supreme tribunal of the kingdom at Lisbon.

People.—The Portuguese are a mixed race—originally Iberian or Basque, with later Celtic admixture. Galician blood (derived from the ancient Gallaici, presumably Gallic invaders) predominates in the north; Jewish and Arabic blood are strongly present in the centre, and African in the south. The Portuguese differ essentially from their Spanish brethren, whom they regard with inveterate hatred and jealousy, mainly on account of their past attempts to subvert the independence of Portugal. The opinions of observers differ as to the national traits of the people. They seem, however, to be generally sober, good-natured, obliging, and patriotic, but shiftless and dirty. Both Lisbon and Oporto have a population exceeding 100,000; no other town reaches 30,000. Lisbon is the capital, Oporto the centre of the port-wine trade, and the chief town of northern Portugal.

The colonial possessions of Portugal are enumerated in the subjoined list:

See Crawfurd, Portugal, Old and New (1880); and Round the Calendar in Portugal (1890); Aldama-Ayala's Compendio; Murray's Handbook; G. B. Loring, A Year in Portugal (1892); D. Quillinan, Journal of a Residence in Portugal (1895); Vasconcellos, As Colonias Portuguezas (1897).

HISTORY.—Romans followed Carthaginians as conquerors (138 B.C.) of the western Iberians and Celts. Under Augustus the peninsula was divided into three provinces, one of which, Lusitania, has, until quite recent times, been regarded as nearly identical with the present kingdom of Portugal; but the Augustan province of Lusitania lay wholly on the south side of the Tagus. The history of Portugal was in early times coincident with that of the Iberian Peninsula as a whole; and, along with the rest of the peninsula, Portugal was thoroughly Romanised in the days of the empire. After the Romans withdrew, the peninsula was overrun by Visigoths from the north, and at a later period by Saracens from the south. Under Roman, Visigothic, and Saracenic rule the people were prosperous and well governed, but became enervated by luxury and unwarlike ease. About the middle of the 11th century northern Portugal fell under the sway of Ferdinand I. of Castile. In 1094 Henry of Burgundy, who had married a natural daughter of Alfonso VI., son and successor of Ferdinand, received from that monarch the county of Portugal (from the Minho to the Tagus) as a dependent fief. Under his widow, Theresa (1114–28) the country acquired a sense of national unity and a certain measure of independence. Their son, Alfonso I., made Portugal an independent kingdom (1143)—through the victory of a picked body of Portuguese knights over a picked body of Castilian knights in a tournament—and gained signal advantages over the Arabs, whom he fought for twenty-five years, his greatest exploits being the victory in the plain of Ourique, in Alemtejo, in 1139, the capture (with the help of English crusaders) of Lisbon in 1147, and of Alcacer do Sal in 1158. The Burgundian House, which continued in possession of the throne for 440 years, gave to Portugal some of its best kings. The immediate successors of Alfonso I. were engaged in incessant wars against the Moslems and in severe struggles with the clergy and nobles, who were always ready to combine against the sovereign; but, although often baffled in their attempts to uphold the independence of the crown, the dignity of the kingdom was, on the whole, well maintained by the representatives of this family, who were, moreover, distinguished as the promoters and champions of the maritime glory of Portugal. Sancio (died 1211), the 'builder of cities,' especially distinguished himself by his care for the material welfare of his kingdom, and by his bold fight against the claims of Pope Innocent III. and that pope's supporters, the Portuguese bishops. His son, Alfonso II., summoned the first Portuguese Cortes. Alfonso III. (1248-79) conquered the southern province of the kingdom in 1250, and made Portugal what it practically is in area at the present time. His son Diniz (Denis) must be regarded as the founder of Portuguese commerce and mercantile enterprise. He likewise encouraged agriculture and the industrial arts, and protected learning, in furtherance of which he founded in 1300 a university at Lisbon, subsequently transferred to Coimbra. Diniz was succeeded in 1325 by his son, Alfonso IV., surnamed the Brave, whose reign was almost wholly occupied in wars with the Castilians and the Moslems (see CASTRO, INEZ DE). It was during his reign that the friendly commercial relations with England began. With Alfonso's grandson, Ferdinand I., the legitimate branch of the Burgundian House became extinct in 1383. After some disturbances Ferdinand's illegitimate brother, John, was recognised by the Cortes as king in 1385; four months later the allied Portuguese and English army won at Aljubarrota a glorious victory over the Castilians, who had invaded the country. John's reign (he died in 1433) was eventful, not merely on account of the internal reforms which he introduced, and of his steady maintenance of the prerogatives of the crown, but chiefly as being associated with the first of those important geographical discoveries and commercial enterprises which made Portugal for a while the greatest maritime power of Europe. During this reign, on May 9, 1386, the treaty of Windsor cemented the firm alliance and national friendship between Portugal and England, that was further confirmed by the marriage of King John to the daughter of John of Gaunt (1387). To John's son, Henry the Navigator (died 1460), is due the merit of having organised several voyages of discovery, which culminated in the acquisition of the Azores, Madeira, Cape de Verde, and other islands. At this time, too, the slave-trade began, the Portuguese bringing captive negroes to cultivate the large estates of their southern provinces. During the reign of John II. (1481-95), who broke the power of the feudal nobles, Bartholomeo Diaz doubled (1486) the Cape of Good Hope; and Vasco da Gama, in the reign of John's successor, Manoel, successfully achieved the passage by sea to India in 1497. The discovery of Brazil (1500), and the settlements made there and on the western coast of India by Albuquerque (q.v.), increased the maritime power and fame of Portugal, which were further extended under Manoel's son, John III., who ascended the throne in 1521.

At this period Portugal ranked as one of the most powerful monarchies in Europe, and Lisbon, the great distributing centre of the products of the East, as one of its most important commercial cities. Sudden as this prosperity had been, its decline was almost more abrupt, and may in a great measure be accounted for by the destruction of the old nobility, the extensive emigration that went on to the new colonies, the expulsion of the numerous wealthy and industrious Jews, on whose able financial management the commercial interests of the Portuguese were largely dependent, and the introduction of the Inquisition (1536), and of the Jesuits (1540), whose baneful supremacy gave rise to much tyranny and oppression, both in the colonies and at home, and in various ways stamped out the old spirit of the people, and crippled the resources of the nation. The influence of the Jesuits over John's grandson, Sebastian (1557), was responsible for the defeat of the Portuguese, and the capture and death of their young king, at the battle of Alcazar al-Kebir in Africa in 1578. And the extinction of the old Burgundian line in 1580, after the brief reign of Sebastian's uncle, Cardinal Henry, plunged the country into difficulties and misfortunes. After a struggle for the throne between half-a-dozen candidates, none of whom found favour with the nation at large—they clung to the delusive hope that Sebastian was still alive, and would return from the hands of his Moorish captors—Philip II. of Spain succeeded in securing to himself the crown of Portugal and annexing the kingdom to the Spanish monarchy. This involved it in the ruinous wars of Spain against England, in the Low Countries, and in Germany, while the Dutch and English, in retaliation for Spanish aggressions at home, attacked and seized the Portuguese possessions in the Indian Archipelago and in South America. At length the insolence of Philip IV.'s minister, Olivarez, brought matters to a crisis; and in December 1640, after a forced union of sixty years, Portugal was freed, by a bold and successful rising of the nobles, from all connection with Spain, and the Duke of Braganza, a descendant of the old royal family, was placed on the throne (1641), under the title of John IV. The war with Spain, which was the natural result of this act, turned out, under the guidance of the famous Count Schomberg (who fell at Boyne battle, 1690), and with the assistance of 3000 English troops, favourable to Portugal, and was terminated in 1668 by the treaty of Lisbon, by which the independence of Portugal was formally recognised by the Spanish government. But her ancient glory had departed; she had lost many of her colonies, and of those she still retained Brazil alone was prosperous; the nation was steeped in ignorance and bigotry; and the Portuguese, from having been one of the greatest maritime powers of Europe became virtually a commercial dependent, rather than ally, of Great Britain, especially after the Methuen (q.v.) Treaty of 1703. Under the reign of Joseph I. (1750-77) the genius and resolution of the minister Pombal (q.v.) infused temporary vigour into the administration, and checked for a time the downward tendency of the national credit. But Pombal's efforts to rouse the people from their sloth, and infuse vigour into the government, were checked by the accession of Joseph's daughter, Maria, who, with her uncle-husband, Pedro III., allowed things to turn back into their old channels. The mental alienation of Maria led, in 1799, to the nomination of a regency under her eldest son, John. This prince, who showed considerable capacity in early life, on the outbreak of the war between Spain and France threw himself wholly on the protection of England; and finally, when he learned that Napoleon had determined on the destruction of his dynasty, left Portugal in 1807 and transferred the seat of government to Rio de Janeiro, the capital of Brazil (q.v.).

This act was immediately followed by the occupation and annexation of Portugal by the French—a measure which gave rise to the Peninsular War (q.v.). The victory of Vimeira, gained by the combined English and Portuguese army in 1808, freed the land from its French assailants; and in 1816, on the death of Queen Maria, the regent succeeded to the joint crowns of Portugal and Brazil. But even after the French were driven out of the Peninsula and Napoleon's power was broken for ever, the new king, John VI., still continued to reside at Rio de Janeiro, leaving Portugal to be governed by English officers, Marshal Beresford and others. This gave occasion to abuses and discontent, which resulted, in 1820, in a revolution at Lisbon, and in the proclamation of a constitutional form of government, very democratic in spirit, in the place of the pre-existing feudal absolutism. John hurried to Portugal, and there signed the constitution and ratified the independence of Brazil, which proclaimed his son Pedro emperor. On the death of John in 1826, Pedro IV., after organising the government of Portugal on the model of the English parliamentary system, renounced the Portuguese crown in favour of his daughter, Maria da Gloria, a child of seven, on condition that she married her uncle, Miguel. The latter, who had availed himself of every opportunity to thwart the liberal policy of his father and brother, waited only for the embarkation of the English troops 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 things, was through their aid declared king by the Cortes in June 1828.

Then ensued a period of indescribable confusion and misrule. At length, in 1832, Pedro was enabled, chiefly by means of a loan from Englishmen, to raise an army, and make a landing at Oporto. Charles Napier virtually destroyed Miguel's fleet off Cape St Vincent in 1833. Shortly afterwards Queen Maria made her entry into Lisbon; 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 important reforms, including the reintroduction of the constitution of 1826, proved a heavy misfortune to Portugal, which suffered severely from the mercenary rule of those who occupied places of trust about the person of the young queen. Her marriage, in 1835, with Augustus, Duke of Leuchtenberg, and, after his death at the end of a few months, her marriage with Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, were followed by grave political disturbances. A branch of the democrats, known as the Septembrists, 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 Septembrists and Chartists; one Cortes was dissolved after another; finally, in 1852, a revised charter was drawn up that proved acceptable to all parties. 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 power discreetly; and by his judicious management the financial confusions and embarrassments were partially removed. Upon the sudden death of Pedro in 1861 his brother was proclaimed king as Luis I. He steadily adhered to constitutional principles, and laboured at measures of internal improvement; but ever since the beginning of the century the royal power has been growing weaker and 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 European powers to appropriate African soil, and divide it amongst them, since the opening of the interior through the Congo, in some degree awoke the old colonial enterprise of the Portuguese, and touched their national pride, making them cling all the more tenaciously to the fragments of colonial territory still left to them in Africa. But the awakening came too late; the march of events and the energy of her rivals have wrested from her many square miles that she claimed as her own, but had done next to nothing to colonise and develop. England in the end of 1889 compelled Portugal to abandon her claims to Nyassaland, and two years later a treaty was signed defining the respective spheres of influence of the two countries in East and West Africa, especially in the basin of the Zambezi. Further delimitations 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 advantage; and they were greatly helped by the successful revolution of the republicans in Brazil and the expulsion of the emperor (November 1889). But in the home country their advantage proved to be of only a temporary nature.

See Morse Stephens, Portugal ('History of Nations' series, 1891); M'Murdo, History of Portugal (1888); Schaefer, Geschichte von Portugal (5 vols. 1836-54); works by the native historians Hereulano (1848-57), Da Silva (1860-71), Coelho (1874), and Da Luz Soriano (1866-82); R. H. Major, Life of Prince Henry of Portugal (1868); and Carnota, Memoirs of Saldanha (1880); Salisbury, Portugal and its People (1893).

LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. — Portuguese, like every other branch of the Romance family of languages, has grown out of a local form of the Lingua Romana Rustica, and in course of time has had ingrafted upon it many elements of Arabic from the Saracen invaders, and numerous verbal and idiomatic characteristics of the Frankish and Celtic dialects which were introduced with the Burgundian 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 Castilian, 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 Portuguese and Spaniards, and the consequent strenuous efforts of the best writers among the former to keep their language distinct, and to resist the introduction of further Castilian elements, had the effect of making Portuguese still more dissimilar from the sister-tongues of the peninsula, and the result has been a language that differs from pure Spanish in having an excess of nasal sounds and fewer gutturals, with a softening or lisp of the consonants, and a deepening of the vowels, which renders it the softest, but feeblest, of all the Romance tongues. The earliest specimens of genuine Portuguese belong to the beginning of the 13th century, and consist for the most part of collections or books of song (see CANCIONERO), which, both in regard to form and rhythm, resemble the troubadour or minne songs of the same period. Amongst the writers of these the most outstanding figure is King Diniz, who, besides being the forerunner of the Portuguese school of pastoral poets, also drew inspiration from the popular songs of his people. In the 14th and 15th centuries, whilst the romances of chivalry were popular and numerous chronicles were written, the best being that of Fernan Lopes (1380-1459), the court continued to be the centre of poetry and art; but Castilian was in greater vogue than Portuguese, which was despised by the numerous royal poets who emulated the example of Diniz, and composed love-songs and moral or didactic poems. Under the culture of these noble bards the poetry of Portugal was weak and effeminate, without the tenderness and pathos which characterised the Spanish verse 'romances' of that age. But the literature of Portugal acquired new vigour with the growth of her maritime and commercial prosperity. The Cancioneiro Geral (1516) of Garcia de Resende (1470-1554), which gives a general summary and extracts of the Portuguese poets of the later half of the 15th and beginning of the 16th century, is the first evidence of the change, which is most strongly exemplified in the dramas of Gil Vicente (1470-1536), and in the pastorals and eclogues of Ribeiro (c. 1500) and Sá de Miranda (1495-1558; q.v.), whose dramatic imitations of Horace and Terence mark the transition period between the mediæval lyrical and the later classical style. These first attempts at the drama were followed by Antonio de Ferreira's (1528-69) Ignez de Castro, the oldest, and still the finest, Portuguese tragedy. But the classical school, whose chief cultivators were the courtiers of Lisbon and the professors of Coimbra, found little favour among the people at large, whose enthusiasm and patriotism were deeply stirred by the discoveries and conquests of the nation in Asia, Africa, and America. The national pride and glory found expression in the works of Portugal's one really great poet, Camoens (1524-80; q.v.), who, in The Lusians (1572), struck out a new path in the domain of epic poetry; while his numerous sonnets, his songs, his dramas, and other poetic productions exhibit a versatility of genius and graceful tenderness which place him in the foremost rank of European poets. Next after Camoens come the epic poets Córte-Real (1540-93), Mousinho de Quebedo, F. de Andrade (1540-1614), Pereira de Castro (1571-1632), and Sá de Menezes (died 1664). To the same period belongs the dramatist Ferreira de Vasconcellos (died 1585).

With Camoens the language and poetry of Portugal reached the culminating point of their development. During the dominion of Spain the Portuguese so far lost all feeling of national independence that they at length renounced their native tongue, and adopted the language of their rulers. With the restoration of political independence, under the sway of the House of Braganza, a reaction took place; but the 17th and 18th centuries produced few Portuguese writers who attained more than an ephemeral and purely local reputation—bombast, or slavish imitation of Spanish and Italian writers, being the predominant characteristics of the Portuguese school of light literature. Some good historical writers belong, however, to this period, as Jacinto Freire de Andrade (1597-1657), whose life of Joao de Castro, Viceroy of India, still holds its place as a monument of classical Portuguese prose; the great Indian missionary, the Jesuit Father Antonio Vieira (1608-97), whose sermons and letters are regarded as models of style and diction; De Barros (1496-1570), the historian of The Conquest of the Indies; Da Faria e Sousa (1590-1649), De Brito (1569-1617), and Brandão (1584-1637), who wrote Monarchia Lusitana; A. de Resende (1498-1573); and F. X. de Menezes (1673-1743). During the 18th century French literary canons and models were slavishly followed by most Portuguese writers of verse, of whom the best known is Da Cruz e Silva (1731-1800). But in the beginning of the 19th century Portuguese poetry was partially elevated from its previous low grade by two men, who, although they professed to observe a strictly classical style, possessed a delicacy of taste, and a genial creative power, which saved them from falling into the absurdities that had generally characterised the school in Portugal. The elder of these, F. M. do Nascimento (1734-1819), although specially noted as an elegant lyric poet, deserves notice for his graceful miscellanies; while Manoel du Bocage (1766-1806), his less cultivated rival and contemporary, must be regarded as the most original and truly national of the modern poets of Portugal. His sonnets rank as the finest in the language, and these, with his numerous idylls, epigrams, and occasional poems, composed in various styles and modes of versification, have had a host of imitators, among the best of whom are the dramatist, J. B. Gomes (died 1803); De Macedo (1761-1831), the epic poet; and the satirist, T. da Almeida (1741-1811). The best of the recent Portuguese poets are A. de Castillo (1800-75) and D'Almeida Garrett (1799-1854). The last named was the most versatile and popular writer of his time in Portugal. Next to them come Herculano (1810-79), who is also one of Portugal's best historians; Da Silva Mendes Leal; De Lemos, founder of the Coimbra school; Palmeirim, De Passos, De Deus, Braga, and Do Quental. Other modern writers who deserve mention are the historians Da Luz Soriano and Latino Coelho; Branco and Biester, playwrights; the novelists Rebello da Silva (who ranks after Herculano as a scientific historian) and De Queiroz; and Lobo (1763-1844), as a general man of letters.—Portuguese literature is also cultivated in Brazil, and, of late years, with considerable independence and success. The principal names in poetry are F. V. Barboza, De Barros, Da Cunha Barboza, A. T. de Macedo, Gonçalves Diaz, Port-Alegre, M. de Macedo, Teixeira e Souza, and Magelhaens, the most national of them all; in history, Varnhagen, author of the Historia Geral de Brazil, and P. da Silva, author of the Brazilian Plutarch; and the epigrammatist Fonseca.

See T. Braga's Historia da Litteratura Portugueza (14 vols. 1870-80), his Curso (1886) and his Antologia (1876); F. da Silva and Acanha's Dicionario Bibliografico Portuguez (12 vols. 1858-85); Bouterwek, History of Spanish and Portuguese Literature (Lond. 1823); and French works by P. da Silva (1866) and Loiseau (1885).