No literary figure in Portugal of the seventeenth century, few in the Peninsula,[583] can rank with D. FRANCISCO MANUEL DE MELLO (1608-66). Born at Lisbon,[584] he belonged to the highest Portuguese nobility and began both his military and literary career in his seventeenth year. He wrote in Spanish, although, in verse at least, he felt it to be a hindrance,[585] and it was not till he was over forty that he published a work in Portuguese: _Carta de Guia de Casados_ (1651).[586] Few men have accomplished more, and towards the end of his life he could say with pride that it would be difficult to find an idle hour in it. He was shipwrecked near St. Jean de Luz in 1627 and fought in the battle of the Downs in 1639. He was sent with the Conde de Linhares to quell the Evora insurrection in 1637, and took part in the campaign against revolted Catalonia (1640), which he described in his _Guerra de Cataluña_[587] (1645), written _em varias fortunas_ and recognized as a classic of Spanish literature. A man frankly outspoken like Mello must have made many enemies, enemies dangerous in a time of natural distrust. During the Catalan campaign he was sent under arrest to Madrid, apparently on suspicion of favouring the cause of an independent Portugal,[588] and a little later, when he was in the service of the King of Portugal, the suspicion as to his loyalty recurred. On November 19, 1644, he was arrested at Lisbon on a different charge. It appears that a servant dismissed by Mello revenged himself by implicating his former master in a murder that he had committed (of a man as obscure as himself). Whether he did this of his own initiative or at the bidding of Mello’s enemies is uncertain, but they saw to it that Mello once in prison should not be soon released. They might, probably did, assure the king that this was the best place for one ‘devoted to the cause of Castile’. There are other theories to account for Mello’s long imprisonment, the most romantic of which--that he and the king were rivals in the affections of the Condessa de Villa Nova, and, meeting disguised and by accident at the entrance of her house, drew their swords, the king recognizing Mello by his voice--is now generally abandoned. Although no evidence of Mello’s participation in the murder was forthcoming, he was condemned to be deported for life to Africa, for which Brazil was later substituted. It was only in 1655, after eleven years of more or less[589] strict confinement, that he sailed for Brazil. João IV died in 1656 and two years later Mello returned to Portugal: he was formally pardoned[590] and spent the last years of his life in important diplomatic missions to London, Rome, and Paris. The unfaltering courage and gaiety with which he faced his adventures and misfortunes win our admiration, but his life can strike no one as literary. Yet it is probable that but for his long imprisonment he would never have found leisure to write many of his