The permanent Secretary of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences, Colonel CRISTOVAM AYRES (born in 1853), has won distinction in many fields. Well known as an historian of the army (_Historia Organica e Politica do Exercito Portuguez_, 8 vols., 1896-1908) and as a critic, he has also written short stories and volumes of verse which have placed him in the front rank of the living Parnassian poets of Portugal. In _Indianas_ (1878), _Intimas_ (1884), _Anoitecer_ (1914), and _Cinzas ao Vento_ (1921), he displays great technical skill, especially in the reproduction of still scenes as in the sonnets _Paizagem_, _Aguarella_, or _Ao luar_. The Parnassian verse of JOAQUIM DE ARAUJO (1858-1917) in _Lyra Intima_ (1881), _Occidentaes_ (1888), and _Flores da Noite_ (1894) has a narcotic spell, a slow lulling music. And there is real opium in the pliant melodies of ANTONIO FEIJÓ (1862-1917), during sixteen years Portuguese Minister at Stockholm, in _Lyricas e Bucolicas_ (1884) and _Ilha dos Amores_ (1897). The words are heavy with sleep like cistus flowers: _Astros das noites limpidas velae-vos_ or _A neve cae na terra lentamente_ (_les lourds flocons des neigeuses années_). This perfection of metre is seen at its highest in his _Cancioneiro Chinez_ (1890), translations from the French _Livre de Jade_ (1867), itself a translation by Judith Gautier from various Chinese poets. The poems of JOÃO DINIZ, in _Aquarellas_ (1889); MANUEL DUARTE DE ALMEIDA (1844-1914), in _Estancias ao Infante Henrique_ (1889), _Ramo de Lilazes_ (1887), and _Terra e Azul_; Snr. Manuel da Silva Gayo, in _Novos Poemas_ (1906); Snr. Julio Brandão, in _Saudades_ (1893), in which he weaves the _linho luarento das saudades_, _O Jardim da Morte_ (1898) and _Nuvem de Oiro_ (1912); Snr. FAUSTO GUEDES TEIXEIRA (born in 1872), in his remarkable _O Meu Livro, 1896-1906_ (1908); Snr. LUIZ OSORIO, in _Neblinas_ (1884), _Poemas Portuguezes_ (1890), and _Alma lyrica_ (1891); Snr. GUILHERME DE SANTA RITA in _Vacillantes_ (1884) and _O Poema de um Morto_ (1897), and indeed of a great _caterva vatum_,[697] belong to this school. The chiselling of faultless sonnets has become a mannerism, but the critic who recalls the vague and often slipshod diffuseness of earlier romantic poems pauses before condemning. Perhaps it may be possible in time to combine the cunning artifice of the verse-cutter with thought and a breath of life and Nature.