poems, mostly of a religious character and written in Spanish--books 9 and 15 contain some Portuguese poems, and among them the fine mystic sonnet _Apetece minha alma_ (Bk. ix, f. 199 v.). Among those who welcomed and acclimatized the new style none was a more talented or truer poet than DIOGO BERNARDEZ (_c._ 1530-_c._ 1600),[331] who confessed that he owed everything to Sá de Miranda and Antonio Ferreira.[332] Born of a distinguished family[333] at Ponte da Barca on the river Lima, he would ride over to visit Sá de Miranda or send him letters in verse, and he mourned his death in sonnet, letter, and eclogue with unaffected grief. He himself continued to sing by the banks of his beloved Lima, endeared to him all the more by disillusion at Lisbon and captivity in Africa. In a letter to Miranda he alludes to an apparently unhappy love affair at Lisbon. Later the retirement of his poet brother, Frei Agostinho, into a convent, the deaths of Miranda and Ferreira, the great plague of 1569, and the misfortunes of his country were all deeply felt by his affectionate nature. In 1576 he went as secretary of Embassy to Madrid, but otherwise he seems to have been disappointed in hopes of lucrative employment, and he was always ready to exchange the mud of the streets and the ‘bought meals’ of Lisbon, with its penurious, importunate _moços_,[334] for the dewy golden dawns, the hills and streams of Minho, _entre simples e humildes lavradores_ (_Carta_ 27). In 1578, however, he who had lamented that no Maecenas encouraged those eager to sing the deeds of Portuguese heroes was chosen to accompany as official poet[335] the Portuguese expedition which ended disastrously in _aquelle funeral e turvo dia_--the battle of Alcacer Kebir. It was not till 1581 that Bernardez returned from captivity. Whether he was ransomed by King Philip, or by the Trinitarians or Jesuits, or by himself or his friends, is not known. After his return and his marriage he frequently laments his poverty: not, he says, that he wishes to be the Pope in Rome, but merely to have enough to eat (_Carta_ 31). Yet apparently he had no cause to regret the change of dynasty so far as his personal fortunes were concerned. Whereas he had merely held the post of _servidor de toalha_ at the palace under King Sebastian, he was now (1582) appointed a knight of the Order of Christ with a pension of 20,000 _réis_ and was granted 500 _cruzados_ (‘in property and goods’) in the same year. In 1593 his yearly pension was 40,000 _réis_, of which one-half was to revert to his wife and children. Either these moneys remained unpaid or the new _cavaleiro fidalgo’s_ ideas had changed greatly since he had sung of the joys of rustic poverty and the vanity of riches. Bernardez found his inspiration in the Portuguese and Spanish poets of the new school (_cantigas strangeiras_, _strañas_),[336] and through them in the great Italians. Dante’s name does not occur in his letters, written