was partly made good by the king’s munificence, and when in 1568, the year after his resignation, he retired to his _quinta_ near Pombal _sibi ut viveret_ he went as a _fidalgo_ of the king’s household and with a pension over twenty-five times as large as that of Camões.[440] In old age he is described as of a fine presence, although thin and not tall, with pale complexion, keen eyes, aquiline nose, long white beard, grave, pleasant, and fluent in conversation. Before beginning his history he wrote several brief treatises of great interest and importance, _Ropica Pnefma_ (1532), a dialogue written at his country house in 1531 in which Time, Understanding, Will, and Reason discuss their spiritual wares (_mercadoria espiritual_), and incidentally the new heresies; three short works on the Portuguese language, a _Dialogo da Viçiosa Vergonha_ (1540), and a _Dialogo sobre preceptos moraes_ (1540) in which he reduced Aristotle’s _Ethics_ to a game for the benefit of two of his ten children and of the Infanta Maria. He also wrote two excellent _Panegyricos_ (of the Infanta Maria and King João III) which were first published by Severim de Faria in his _Noticias de Portugal_ in 1655. As a historian he chose Livy for his pattern both in style and system. The first _Decada_ of his _Asia_ appeared in 1552, the second in 1553, and the third ten years later (1563). Their success was immediate, especially abroad--in Portugal, like other historians of recent events, he was accused of partiality and unfairness[441]--copies soon became extremely rare, the first two Decads were translated into Italian before the third appeared, and Pope Pius IV is said to have placed Barros’ portrait (or bust) next to the statue of Ptolemy.[442] Barros had prepared himself very thoroughly for his task. His work as Factor seems to have been exacting--he says that it was only by giving up holidays and half the night and all the time spent by other men in sleeping the _sesta_, or walking about the city, or going into the country, playing, shooting, fishing, dining, that he was able to attend to his literary labours. Yet he read everything, pored over maps and chronicles and documents from the East, and even bought a Chinese slave to translate for him. With this enthusiasm, his unfailing sense of order and proportion, and his clear and copious style he necessarily produced a work of permanent value. His manner is lofty, even pompous, worthy of the great events described. If his history is less vivid and interesting than Castanheda’s, that is because he wrote not as an eyewitness[443] or actor in them but as Court historian. He was a true Augustan, and the great edifice that this Portuguese Livy planned and partly built was of eighteenth-century architecture. He was fond of comparing his work to a building in which each stone has its appointed place. The material to his hand must be moulded to suit the symmetry of the whole--Albuquerque had never in his life used so many