the introduction of the Inquisition, and the great changes in the language, that we find a Portuguese, Sousa de Macedo, a century after Vicente’s death, speaking of him as one ‘whose style was celebrated of old’,[300] and a Spaniard, Nicolás Antonio, declaring that his works were written in prose and knowing nothing of a collected edition.[301] It was with reasonable misgivings that Vicente just before his death wrote: _Livro meu, que esperas tu?_; ‘my book, what is in store for you?’ We know that it remained in manuscript for a quarter of a century, that a second edition in 1586 was so handled by the Censorship that it contains but thirty-five mutilated plays, and that for two and a half centuries no new edition was printed. FOOTNOTES: [219] _Essais_, 1. XXV. [220] _Nicolai Clenardi Episiolarum libri duo._ Antuerpiae, 1561. [221] Several fine sonnets have been ascribed to him (cf. _Fenix Renascida_, iii. 252, _Horas breves_, and, with more reason, iii. 253. _Á redea solta corre o pensamento_), as was also Gil Vicente’s _Dom Duardos_ and a manuscript _Tratado dos modos, proporções e medidas_. [222] Duarte Nunez de Leam, _Descripção_, 2ᵃ ed. (1785), cap. 80: _Da habilidade das molheres portuguesas para as letras e artes liberaes._ Severim de Faria speaks of her _sancto desejo de saber_. The author of _Dos priuilegios & praerogatiuas q̃ ho genero femenino tem_ (1557) says (p. 9): _se pode estranhar esta hidade na qual as molheres não se aplicam aas letras e sciencias coma faziam as antigas Romanas e Gregas_. [223] Gil Vicente, _Obras_ (1834), ii. 414. [224] Ibid. iii. 350. [225] Cf. João Rodriguez de Sá e Meneses in the _Cancioneiro Geral_: _De Çeita atee os Chijs_. [226] M. Menéndez y Pelayo, _Antología_, vol. vii, p. clxiii. [227] A. Herculano, _Historia da Inquisição_, 3ᵃ ed. (1879), i. 238. Cf. Camillo Castello Branco, _A Viuva do Enforcado_, _ad init._ No one of course thinks of comparing Gil Vicente with Shakespeare, but one may perhaps say that he resembles what Shakespeare might have been had he been born in the fifteenth century. The shipwreck in the _Triunfo do Inverno_ recalls the opening scene of _The Tempest_, as the mad friar recalls poor Tom, and the magnificent fidalgo Falstaff. In the _Farsa de Inés_ Pereira Inés, without being a shrew, is tamed by her husband, who says: Se eu digo: Esto é novello Vos aveis de confirmalo. [228] In 1513 Afonso de Albuquerque writes of ‘the son of Gil Vicente’ in India. [229] It is customary in Portugal to fix the date of his birth in 1470 owing to the statement of the judge in the _Floresta de Enganos_ (1536) that he--the judge--was already sixty-six. It is a method which might lead to comical results if further pressed in the case of Vicente or other dramatists. Was Mello seventy-three when he wrote the _Fidalgo Aprendiz_? [230] ‘A gentleman of good family’ (Ticknor); _hijo de ilustres padres_ (Barrera y Leirado); _na qualidade nobilissimo_ (Pedro de Poyares).