The first is by Gerónimo Bermudez, a native of Galicia, who is supposed to have been born about 1530, and to have lived as late as 1589. He was a learned Professor of Theology at Salamanca, and published, at Madrid, in 1577, two dramas which he somewhat boldly called “the first Spanish tragedies.”[53] They are both on the subject of Inez de Castro; both are in five acts, and in various verse; and both have choruses in the manner of the ancients. But there is a great difference in their respective merits. The first, “Nise Lastimosa,” or Inez to be Compassionated,--Nise being a poor anagram of Inez,--is hardly more than a skilful translation of the Portuguese tragedy of “Inez de Castro,” by Ferreira, which, with considerable defects in its structure, is yet full of tenderness and poetical beauty. The last, “Nise Laureada,” or Inez Triumphant, takes up the tradition where the first left it, after the violent and cruel death of the princess, and gives an account of the coronation of her ghastly remains above twenty years after their interment, and of the renewed marriage of the prince to them;--the closing scene exhibiting the execution of her murderers with a coarseness, both in the incidents and in the language, as revolting as can well be conceived. Neither probably produced any perceptible effect on the Spanish drama; and yet the “Nise Lastimosa” contains passages of no little poetical merit; such as the beautiful chorus on Love at the end of the first act, the dream of Inez in the third, and the truly Greek dialogue between the princess and the women of Coimbra; for the last two of which, however, Bermudez was directly indebted to Ferreira.[54] [53] Sedano’s “Parnaso Español” (Tom. VI., 1772) contains both the dramas of Bermudez, with notices of his life. [54] The “Castro” of Ferreira, one of the most pure and beautiful compositions in the Portuguese language, is found in his “Poemas” (Lisboa, 1771, 12mo, Tom. I. pp. 123, etc.). Its author died of the plague at Lisbon, in 1569, only forty-one years old.