The later epics testified to the perseverance of their authors rather than to their poetical talent. They are perhaps less guilty than the critics, who should have discouraged the kind and recognized that the _Lusiads_ were only an accident in Portuguese literature, the accident of the genius of Camões. As a rule the epic spirit of the Portuguese expressed itself better in prose. GABRIEL PEREIRA DE CASTRO (1571?-1632) forestalled Sousa de Macedo in his choice of a subject. His _Vlyssea, ov Lysboa Edificada, Poema heroyco_ (1636) was published posthumously by his brother Luis, and perhaps the most remarkable thing about it is that it should have run through six editions. The structure of the poem, in ten cantos of _oitavas_, is closely modelled on that of the _Lusiads_, and the gods of Olympus duly take a part in the story. He sings, he says boldly, to his country, to the world and to eternity, but his sails flap sadly for lack of inspiration and enthusiasm, and his daring _enjambements_[611] do not compensate for the dullness of theme and treatment. If, for instance, we compare his storm[612] with that of the _Lusiads_ (vi. 70-91) it must be confessed that the former has much the air of a commotion in a duckpond. Ulysses on his way to Lisbon visits (canto 4) the infernal regions, is astonished to meet kings there, and (canto 6) relates the siege and fall of Troy. The life of BRAS GARCIA DE MASCARENHAS (1596-1656) was more interesting than his verses. He was born at Avó, near the Serra da Estrella, and his adventures began early, for he was arrested on account of a love affair (1616) and made a daring escape from Coimbra prison after wounding his jailer. His careful biographer, Dr. Antonio de Vasconcellos, has shown that there is no record of his having studied at Coimbra University. Subsequently he travelled and fought in Brazil (1623-32), Italy, France, Flanders, and Spain, and in 1641, as captain, raised and commanded a body of horse known as the Company of Lions. As Governor of Alfaiates, the ‘key of Beira’, he was wrongfully accused of having a treasonable understanding with Spain and imprisoned at Sabugal, some ten miles from Alfaiates (1642). He obtained a book (the _Flos Sanctorum_), flour, and scissors and cut out a letter in verse to King João IV, who restored him to his governorship and gave him the habit of Avis. His long epic _Viriato Tragico_ (1699) contains some forcible descriptions and has a pleasantly patriotic and indigenous atmosphere--one feels that he is singing _os patrios montes_ as much as the hero--but in style it differs little from prose. Tedious geographical descriptions, dry catalogues of names, a whole stanza (vii. 39) composed exclusively of nouns, another (iv. 63) of proper names, incline the reader less to praise than sleep, from which he is only gently stirred when the sun is called _a solar embaixadora_. In the prevailing fashion of the time the author works in lines of Camões,