[10] Verissimo, always a suggestive commentator, presents an interesting reason for these early national panegyrics. See the essay cited in the preceding notes, pages 50-51. He attributes the swelling chorus of eulogies to what might today be called a national “inferiority complex.” “Having no legitimate cause for glory,--great deeds accomplished or great men produced,--we pride ourselves ingenuously upon our primitive Nature, or upon the opulence,--which we exaggerate--of our soil.” [11] Oliveira Lima, op. cit. pages 45-46, comments interestingly upon Brazil’s lack of a national poet during the sixteenth century. “Brazil did not possess, during the XVIth century a national poet who could express, with all the sincerity of his soul, the passion of the struggle undertaken by culture against nature.… And this absence of a representative poet is evidenced throughout our literature, since, after all, the Indianism of the XIXth century was only a poetic convention grafted upon the trunk of the political break with the Portuguese fatherland.… The fact is that the exploits of yesterday still await the singer who shall chant them. The Indians were idealized by a Romanticism in quest of elevated souls; the Africans found defenders who rose in audacious flight, but the brave pioneers of the conquest, men of epic stature, have not received even the same measure of sympathy.” [12] Ronald de Carvalho. Op. Cit. P. 87-88. [13] De Carvalho. Op. P. 96-97. [14] “I have explained the fruits and the vegetables that cause so much jealousy on Portugal’s part; I have listed those things for which Brazil may be envied. As title to preference over all the rest of the earth it enfolds four A’s. It has the first A in its _arvoredos_ (trees), ever green and fair to gaze upon; it has the second A in its pure atmosphere (_ares_), so pleasant and certain in temperature; it has the third A in its cool waters (_aguas_), that refresh the throat and bring health; the fourth A in its delightful sugar (_assucar_), which is the fairest gift of all the world. The four A’s then, are _arvoredos_, _assucar_, _aguas_, _ares_.” [15] _Estudos, quarta serie._ P. 47-48. [16] _Le Brésil Litteraire. Histoire de la Littérature brésilienne suivie d’un choix de morceaux tirés des meilleurs auteurs b(r)ésiliens par Ferdinand Wolf. Berlin, 1863._ See, for a discussion of this book, the Selective Critical Bibliography at the back of the present work. [17] Op. Cit. P. 109. [18] The Brazilians are beasts, hard at work their lives long, in order to support Portuguese knaves. [19] For a good résumé of Caviedes’ labours, with valuable biographical indications, see Luis Alberto Sánchez, _Historia de la Literatura Peruana, I. Los Poetas de la Colonia_, Pp. 186-200. [20] Ibid. P. 190.