differences between the two ancient allies may be peacefully settled, and it may be that some knowledge of how close the friendship of the two nations was for many centuries may make the English people feel more tolerantly inclined towards the claims of the Portuguese to consideration and respect. Within recent years the internal prosperity of Portugal has increased; railways and telegraphs have been constructed; sanitary improvements have been introduced; and a good system of national primary and secondary education has been established, owing mainly to the efforts of the poet, Antonio Feliciano de Castilho. Its financial condition, however, may well give rise to the deepest apprehension; the amount of its national debt is nearly as heavy in proportion to its population as that of England, and the repudiation of loans during the reign of Maria II. has made it difficult to raise money in the more wealthy countries of Europe. Even more serious danger to the prosperity of Portugal is threatened by the continued emigration to Brazil, to which country a large number of the sturdy peasants flock every year, chiefly from the northern provinces of the Tras-os-Montes and the Entre-Minho-e-Douro. This continuous stream of emigration, though prejudicial to Portugal, has been of the greatest service to Brazil, and Greater Portugal, as the mother country and her colony in South America may be termed, though politically divided, is more prosperous than ever. Even more striking than the advance of material prosperity has been the great literary revival, which has marked the era of peaceful parliamentary government. King Luis was an enlightened patron of letters, and translated some of the plays of Shakespeare into Portuguese in a manner which showed him to be well versed in the capabilities of his own language. In the country of Camoens there has been no lack of poets, though none of the modern writers would dare to class themselves with him. Foremost among these poets are Almeida-Garrett and Castilho, who alike sang the ancient glories of Portugal, but among their followers are many whose inspiration is hardly inferior to their own. Such men as José da Silva Mendes Leal, Luis Augusto Palmeirim, and João Soares de Passos, have written poems worthy to rank with the classics of Portuguese literature, and their muse has generally been fostered by a knowledge of ancient writers and of old national lyrical forms. Even more important than the poets are the historians of modern Portugal, for they are the men who have made the Portuguese so proud of their nationality that they still cling closely to their independence and oppose the advocates of “Iberianism.” The founder of the new school of scientific historians was Alexandra Herculano de Carvalho e Araujo, who, after imitating Sir Walter Scott in his historical novels, showed that he had been influenced by Niebuhr and Ranke in his famous history of Portugal, of which the first volume was published in 1848.