That gift was denied to ANTONIO FERREIRA (1528-69), who combined enthusiasm for the new style--_a lira nova_--and for classical antiquity with a rooted antipathy against the use of a foreign language or foreign subjects. His uneventful life as judge, courtier, and poet was cut short by the plague of 1569. His poetry is not that of a poet but of the Coimbra law student who had become a busy magistrate.[339] It is thus at its best when it does not attempt to be lyrical, for instance in his excellent letters in _tercetos_. His odes are closely modelled on those of Horace (_o meu Horacio_). Nor did he claim originality: indeed, his plan of introducing certain new forms was a little too deliberate for a great poet,[340] and his best sonnet is a translation from Petrarca. For bucolic poetry neither the grave doctor’s style nor his inclinations were well suited. Not only is the smooth flow of the verse which charms us in Diogo Bernardez here absent but the metre often actually halts,[341] and throughout his work we have sincerity, lofty aims, a stiff unbending severity, but not poetical genius. Ferreira was a true patriot, and it was his boast and is his enduring fame that he devoted himself to exalt the Portuguese language.[342] It was most fortunate for Portuguese literature that at this time of changing taste a poet of Ferreira’s great influence should have forsworn foreign intrusions in the language with the exception of Latin (in the introduction of which, however, his characteristic restraint forbade excess), and left both in prose and verse abiding monuments of pure Portuguese. This was the more remarkable in a poet who disdained the old popular metres (_a antiga trova deixo ao povo_) and had no thought apparently for popular customs or traditions. His _Poemas Lusitanos_, published posthumously, contain over a hundred sonnets, besides his odes, eclogues, elegies, epigrams (which are but fragments of sonnets), and letters, and he also wrote a _Historia de Santa Comba_ in fifty-seven _oitavas_.