The other poetic works of Camoens, appeared even in the eyes of the poet himself, when compared with the Lusiad, merely secondary effusions of his feelings and his imagination. It appears, as far as the point can be ascertained, that he never collected them himself, and many may therefore be lost. Among those productions which were collected and published after the death of Camoens, by his admirer Lobo de Soropita, under the affected title of _Rhythmas_, there are several which were not printed from the best and latest copies. Some other poems which escaped the notice of the first collectors, and which have only been included by modern writers among the miscellaneous productions of Camoens, may be found in a somewhat different form among the poems of the pious Diogo Bernardes. This writer, who was a contemporary and admirer of Camoens, and who was the first among the celebrated Portuguese poets of that age, to render justice to the preponderating genius of the author of the Lusiad, is now, in spite of all his piety, accused of gross plagiarism on that author. The writer of a general history of modern poetry and eloquence has, however, no occasion to take part in the controversy respecting these problematic works; for none of the disputed poems are of a kind which was new in Portuguese literature; and among the miscellaneous remains of Camoens are many pieces of similar species, the authenticity of which is undisputed.[167] But the miscellaneous poems of Camoens, are calculated to involve the literary historian in another kind of embarrassment. They are, if not extremely numerous, at least sufficiently various; and among the number are many so poetically conceived, and admirably executed, that to give merely to one of each class of these minor poems that kind of detailed consideration which it has been thought necessary to bestow on the Lusiad, would be to incur the risk of converting the history of Portuguese poetry into a compendium of the history of the poetic works of Camoens. In every species of poetic composition then practised in Portugal, Camoens has left specimens of no common merit; and in some of those species his example has formed and fixed the favourite style for his native country. Indeed a careful perusal of the various productions of the author of the Lusiad, is alone sufficient to afford a summary notion of the whole range of Portuguese poetry in the sixteenth century. This will account for the preponderating authority still conceded to the works of this poet in the polite literature of his country. To that authority Portuguese critics and writers are always disposed to defer in discussing the merits of any poem; and when they wish to select a model in any particular kind of poetic composition, they invariably turn first to the works of Camoens. The predilection of the Portuguese for the greatest of their poets, has rendered them unjust towards the merits of others who have not chosen to compose in his manner.