But romanticism in Portugal has nine lives, and raised its head at intervals during the second half of the century. In the domain of history JOAQUIM PEDRO DE OLIVEIRA MARTINS (1845-94) always remained more than half a romantic. His life explains the character of his historical writings. Born at Lisbon, obliged to work for a living when he was barely fifteen, he succeeded at the same time in educating himself, supported his mother and her younger children, married before he was twenty-five, had published a dozen works before he was forty, was elected deputy for Viana do Castello in 1886, became Minister of Finance in 1892, and died in his fiftieth year. A career so meteoric could scarcely give scope for that scrupulous research, that careful sifting of evidence which modern ideas associate with the work of the historian; and Oliveira Martins as historian embraced not only the whole of Portuguese but the whole of Iberian history, and that of Greece and Rome to boot. But even had he had more time, the result would only have been more subjects treated, not a different treatment. His whole idea of history was coloured with romance, his work impetuous and personal as that of a lyric poet. His first book, the historical novel _Phebus Moniz_ (1867), passed almost unnoticed. After several pamphlets, appeared his first historical work, _O Hellenismo e a Civilisação Christã_ (1878), and then in marvellous rapidity the _Historia da Civilisação Iberica_ (1879), _Historia de Portugal_ (1879), _Elementos de Anthropologia_ (1880), _Portugal Contemporaneo_ (1881), and a further succession of historical works ending with the _Historia da Republica Romana_ (1885). Although politics now occupied much of his time he continued to publish, and wisely emphasized the biographical side of his work, of which _Os Filhos de D. João I_ (1891) and _A Vida de Nun’ Alvares_ (1893) are not the least valuable part. _O Principe Perfeito_ (1896), dealing with King João II, appeared posthumously and incomplete. A master of psychology and impressionistic character-sketching, all his work is a gallery of pictures--and especially of portraits--from Afonso Henriquez to Herculano, which reveal the artist as well as his subjects. His style, nervous, coloured, insinuating, is a swift and supple implement for his exceptional power of skilfully summarizing a person or a period. He is capable of vulgarity (as in the account of Queen Philippa and the frequent use of colloquialisms perfectly unbefitting the dignity of history) but not of dullness. He uses and abuses epigram and metaphor, and is not free from the pompous rhetorical antitheses of Victor Hugo (e.g. _De Cid transformou-se em Wallenstein_), till the reader suspects him of being ready at all times to sacrifice truth to a phrase. Yet it is surprising, considering the circumstances of his life and the extent of his work, how often he bases his history, if not on documents, on