Of several prose works written by MARTIM AFONSO DE MIRANDA, of Lisbon, in the first third of the century, the most important is _Tempo de Agora_ (2 pts., 1622, 4). It contains seven dialogues dealing with truth and falsehood, the evils of idleness, temperance, friendship, justice, the evils of dice and cards, and precepts for princes. Much of their matter is interesting and the comments incisive, especially as to the prevailing luxury in food and dress. They tell of the infinite number of curiously bound books at Lisbon, of the soldiers unpaid, ‘eating at the doors of convents’, of the delight in foreign fashions, and the craze for ‘diabolical’ books from Italy to the exclusion of _livros de historias_ and books in Portuguese. The anonymous _Primor e honra da vida soldadesca no Estado da India_ (1630), edited by the Augustinian FREI ANTONIO FREIRE (_c._ 1570-1634), is a different work from Geronimo Ximenez de Urrea’s _Diálogo de la verdadera honra militar_ (1566), which it resembles slightly in title. It is divided into four parts and contains various episodes of the Portuguese in the East and some curious information. MIGUEL LEITÃO DE ANDRADE (1555-1632) went straight from Coimbra University to Africa with King Sebastian. After the battle of Alcacer Kebir he succeeded in escaping from captivity, followed the cause of the Prior of Crato, and was imprisoned under Philip II. In his book, in twenty dialogues, _Miscellanea do Sitio de N. Sᵃ da Lvz do Pedrogão Grande_ (1629), he disclaims any purpose of writing history. It reveals an inquiring and observant but uncritical mind, interested in fossils, inscriptions, astrology, the early history of Portugal, etymology, heraldry, and the ‘infinite wonderful secrets of Nature daily being revealed’. It contains a graphic account of his escape from Fez, but on the whole, in spite of attractive passages and interesting details, scarcely merits its great reputation. _Do Sitio de Lisboa_ (1608), which Mello praises as _aquelle elegantissimo livro_, by the author of _Arte Militar_ (1612), LUIS MENDES DE VASCONCELLOS, is written in the form of a dialogue between a philosopher, a soldier, and a politician, and deserves its place among the minor classics of Portuguese literature.