A philological treatise in the form of a dictionary, by Antonio Pereita do Figueiredo, on the genius of the Portuguese language, according to the Decades of Barros,[406] though not immediately connected with poetry and rhetoric, is nevertheless worthy of honourable notice, since it is calculated to direct Portuguese writers to the study of Barros, and the spirit of their mother tongue. Another treatise by the same writer, has for its object to recommend Barros as a model for Portuguese eloquence.[407] The analysis of the poetic language and style of Saa de Miranda, Ferreira, Bernardes, Caminha and Camoens, by Francisco Dias, is more useful than most of the treatises of the same kind previously written in Portuguese.[408] The investigations of this intelligent writer are philological rather than critical; but the critical observations which he introduces are dictated by a clear judgment and just feeling. The improvements which Saa de Miranda effected in the poetic language of the Portuguese are here exhibited in their true light. Even the latinisms of Ferreira are placed in an advantageous point of view by the author. He speaks of Camoens in terms of enthusiasm; but in the encomiums which have lately been bestowed on Caminha, Dias does not concur.[409] The treatise is, upon the whole, very well written.[410] An Essay by Antonio das Naves Pereira on the proper use of the language of the Portuguese writers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, abounds in judicious critical remarks.[411] It is written expressly to condemn the gallicizing (_a Francezia_) of modern Portuguese. This learned philologist and critic is likewise the author of a comparative view of the language and manner of the principal Portuguese poets with particular reference to the peculiarities of each style of poetry.[412] The want of a work which might in the strict sense of the term be called a complete theory of criticism, does not appear to have yet been felt by the Portuguese. A compendium of rhetorick by Antonio Teixeira de Magalhaens was published in the year 1782;[413] and a few years after a French art of rhetorick by Gisbert, as translated into Portuguese.[414] CONCLUSION. COMPARISON OF PORTUGUESE AND SPANISH LITERATURE.