Of more enduring, more appealing stuff is the famous lover Thomas Antonio Gonzaga, termed by Wolf a “modern Petrarch” (for all these Arcadians must have each his Laura) and enshrined in the hearts of his countrymen as the writer of their Song of Songs. For that, in a sense, is what Gonzaga’s poems to _Marilia_ suggest. No other book of love poems has so appealed to the Portuguese reader; the number of editions through which the _Marilia de Dirceu_ has gone is second only to the printings of _Os Lusiadas_, and has, since the original issue in 1792, reached to thirty-four. Gonzaga’s Marilia (in real life D. Maria Joaquina Dorothea de Seixas Brandão) rises from the verses of these _lyras_ into flesh and blood reality; the poet’s love, however much redolent of Petrarchian conventions, is no imagined passion. His heart, as he told her in one of his most popular stanzas, was vaster than the world and it was her abode. Gonzaga, like Claudio, was one of the _Inconfidencia_; he fell in love with his lady at the age of forty, when she was eighteen, and sentimental Brazilians have never forgiven her for having lived on to a very ripe old age after her Dirceu, as he was known in Arcadian circles, died in exile. Yet she may have felt the loss deeply, for a story which Verissimo believes authentic tells of D. Maria, once asked how old she was, replying: “When _he_ was arrested, I was eighteen.…” It is sweet enough not to be true. As Antonio José, despite his Brazilian birth, is virtually Portuguese in culture and style, so Gonzaga, despite his Portuguese birth, is Brazilian by virtue of his poetic sources and his peculiar lyrism,--a blend of the classic form with a passion which, though admirably restrained, tends to overleap its barriers. If, as time goes on, he surrenders his sway to the more sensuous lyrics of later poets, he is none the less a fixed star in the poetic constellation. He sings a type of constant love that pleases even amid today’s half maddened and half maddening erotic deliquescence. Some poets’ gods bring them belief in women; his lady brings him a belief in God: Noto, gentil Marilia, os teus cabellos; E noto as faces de jasmins e rosas: Noto os teus olhos bellos; Os brancos dentes e as feições mimosas: Quem fez uma obra tão perfeita e linda, Minha bella Marilia, tambem pôde Fazer o céo e mais, si ha mais ainda.[8] The famous book is divided into two parts, the first written before, the second, after his exile. As might be expected; the first is primaveral, aglow with beauty, love, joy. Too, it lacks the depth of the more sincere second, which is more close to the personal life of the suffering artist. He began in glad hope; he ends in dark doubt. “The fate of all things changes,” runs one of his refrains. “Must only mine not alter?” One unconscious testimony of his sincerity is the frequent change of rhythm in his lines, which achieve now and then a sweet music of thought.