It is not necessary to enter into particular details respecting other Portuguese sonneteers. Some who enjoyed celebrity lived until the commencement of the eighteenth century, among whom the names of Diogo de Monroy e Vasconcellos, Thomas de Sousa, and Luis Simoes de Azavedo, deserve to be mentioned. About the same period lived Diogo Camacho, who was the author of a lively poem, entitled a Journey to Parnassus; the idea of which was doubtless taken from the work of Cervantes of the same name, but which when compared with that master-piece, possesses no great merit. On comparing the Portuguese sonnets, the authors of which lived till the eighteenth century, with those of a somewhat older date, an obvious, though certainly not a striking tendency of Portuguese taste, to a more correct direction of the imagination, is, upon the whole, perceptible. But how far this change in Portuguese literature was effected by the increasing influence of French taste, which about this time commenced its universal sway; or whether it is at all attributable to the introduction of that taste, are questions not easy to be decided. This, however, is certain, that the incorrect, silly, and fantastic style of writing and judging poetry, still maintained its ground in the Portuguese literature of the eighteenth century long after the Count de Ericeira, who will soon be further noticed, had drawn from the school of Boileau those principles by which he wished to improve the literary taste of his countrymen. Of the Portuguese sonneteers, who more or less contributed to transfuse the style of the seventeenth into the eighteenth century, there was none who did not, according to the custom of the age, pride himself in his facility of composing verses in the Spanish language. The recent separation of Portugal from the Spanish monarchy, had not, in the least, diminished this old custom of the Portuguese poets. They addressed complimentary verses in Spanish to the Queen of Portugal. Spanish comedies were still represented in Lisbon; and even the _loas_, or prologues, were recited in the same language. It was not until the esteem for Spanish literature had declined throughout Europe, that the literature of Portugal became entirely Portuguese.[324] It is proper to observe here, that the collections of Portuguese poems of the seventeenth century, likewise contain sonnets by a Prince Don Pedro, and by several anonymous ladies. PORTUGUESE ELOQUENCE DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. All that need be said respecting the Portuguese eloquence of the seventeenth century, may be related within the compass of a few pages. The obstacles which had hitherto impeded the free cultivation of energetic and reasoning prose in Portuguese literature, operated still more fatally, when the restraints on conscience became more oppressive, and when there was no longer any feeling of political greatness to give excitement to the thinking mind. ROMANTIC PROSE--MATHEUS RIBEYRO--CASTANHEIRA TURACEM.