in the polite world. He declares that he is not ambitious of the honour of writing verses extempore. He sought to steer clear of dulness and bombast, the Scylla and Charybdis of the wide ocean of eloquence; and in all his digressions never to lose sight of the haven of clearness, as its entrance is difficult. “But deliver us from metaphor,” he adds in latin, and in the words of the Lord’s Prayer.[327] A man who, at this period, could so express himself in Portugal, deserves, were it on that account only, to be distinguished in the history of polite literature. Castanheira’s language, too, is, upon the whole, as natural according to the manner of its cultivation, as is his lively descriptive art. It is singular, however, that occasionally in the course of his work, and sometimes in those very passages, the superiority of which would otherwise be unquestionable, he falls into the very faults which he himself ridicules.[328] On the novel style, which is discussed in the first evening party, Cervantes appears, by that time, to have exercised a favourable influence. The severe criticism on the _Poesia Incuravel_ (Incurable Poetry), in the second evening’s conversation, is certainly the best theoretical disquisition on Gongorism and Marinism, to be found in the Portuguese literature of the seventeenth century. It ought, also, to be stated, that the sonnets and other poems which are scattered through the work, exhibit some very successful passages. Occasion is taken to introduce a _Discurso Academico_, which towards the conclusion refers to the Italian academic system, which had long been imitated in Portugal, but which proved of as little advantage to Portuguese as to Italian literature.[329] Among the poems comprised in this book, there are many in the Spanish language. HISTORICAL PROSE--FREIRE DE ANDRADA.