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THIS volume is written on a different plan to that adopted in most of the volumes in the same Series which have preceded it, and attempts to give a short chronological history of Portugal. An episodical history, though more interesting than a consecutive narrative, in that it treats only of the most striking events, demands from the reader a groundwork of accurate knowledge. This is not given with regard to the history of Portugal in any book in the English language with which the author is acquainted. Dunham, who combined a history of Portugal with that of Spain, in five volumes published in Lardner’s Cabinet Cyclopædia between 1838 and 1843, based his account on Vertot’s Révolutions de Portugal, first printed at Paris in 1678, and modern English standard books of reference still make use of Dunham, and contain the old blunders of identifying Portugal with Lusitania, recognizing the fictitious Cortes of Lamego in 1143, regarding the victory of Ourique as a “prodigious” victory, &c., &c. Since the time of Dunham, a few books have been published in England bearing on special periods of Portuguese history, such as the lives of the Marquis of Pombal and the Duke of Saldanha, published by John Smith, Count of Carnota, and two volumes of a History of Portugal, by E. MacMurdo, and which is still in progress; but there exists no book containing a complete and trustworthy history to which students may be referred.

Yet within the last fifty years the history of Portugal has been entirely rewritten. The modern school of historians, which derived its first impulsion from Niebuhr and Ranke, found a brilliant representative in Alexandra Herculano, who saw that history could only be written after a careful examination of contemporary documents, and who in his Historia de Portugal, published between 1848 and 1853, swept away much of the cobweb of legend which had enveloped the early history of his country. Herculano undoubtedly owed much to Heinrich Schäfer, who wrote the history of Portugal in the Geschichte der Europäischen Staaten edited by Heeren and Ukert; but he went much further than Schäfer, and the history of the latter is now quite out of date. The works of Herculano and his followers have quite superseded the histories of Lemos, Sousa Monteiro, and J. F. Pereira, which are mentioned here only as books to be avoided by the historical student.

It is not intended to give a complete bibliography of the works of the modern Portuguese school of historians, but the author thinks it worth while to refer to some of the books which he has used, and which can be recommended as trustworthy guides to those who may wish to examine further into the history of Portugal. First with regard to documents, the Colleccão de Livros ineditos de Historia Portugueza, edited by Correa da Serra, and the Colleccão dos principaes Auctores da Historia Portugueza, and the Portugalliæ Monumenta Historica, edited by Herculano, contain the best editions of the old chroniclers; while perpetual reference must be made to the Quadro elementar das Relacões politicas e diplomaticas de Portugal of the Viscount of Santarem, which was continued by Rebello da Silva as the Corpo diplomatico Portuguez, and contains in thirty-six volumes, published between 1856 and 1878, the “fœdera” of Portugal up to 1640, and to the Colleccão dos Actos publicos celebrados entre a Coroa de Portugal e as mais Potencias desde 1640 até o Presente, edited by J. Ferreira Borges de Castro and J. Judice Biker. As consecutive narratives, the short history of J. P. Oliveira Martins, and the illustrated popular history, which is the joint work of Antonio Ennes, B. Ribeiro, E. Vidal, G. Lobato, L. Cordeiro and Pinheiro Chagas may be read; but it would be far better to study the more scientific works of Alexander Herculano, Historia de Portugal, 4 vols., 1848-53, which goes to 1279, and Da Origem e Estabelecimento da Inquisicão em Portugal, 2 vols., 1854-57; the Historia de Portugal pendente XVI. e XVII. Seculos, 5 vols., 1860-71, by L. A. Rebello da Silva; Historia de Portugal desde os Fins do XVII. Seculo até 1814, 1874, by J. M. Latino Coelho; and Historia da Guerra civil e do Estabelecimento do Governo Parlamentar em Portugal, 6 vols., 1866-1881, by S. J. da Luz Soriano. Among special books of interest in different languages may be noted Memorias para a Historia e Theoria das Cortes, by the Viscount of Santarem, 1828; Las Rainhas de Portugal, by F. da Fonseca Benevides, 1878; History of the Revolutions of Portugal from the Foundation of that Kingdom to the year 1677, with the Letters of Sir R. Southwell during his Embassy there to the Duke of Ormond, by R. Carte, 1740; Les Faux Don Sébastien, by Miguel Martins d’Antas, Paris, 1866; Le Chevalier de Jant; Rélations de la France avec le Portugal au temps de Mazarin, by Jules Tessier, Paris, 1877; and Life of Prince Henry the Navigator, by R. H. Major, 1868. Coming to the history of the present century, the great History of the Peninsular War, by Gen. Sir W. F. P. Napier, is justly famous in all countries, and it is so well known that only a very few pages have been devoted to the subject in the present volume; but reference has also been made to the Historia geral da Invasão dos Francezes em Portugal, by Accursio das Neves; to the Excerptos Historicos relativos a Guerra denominada da Peninsula, e as anteriores de 1801, de Roussillon e Cataluna, by Claudio de Chaby; and to the Wellington Despatches. On the history of the civil wars the best authorities are Memorias para a Historia do Tempo que duron a Usurpacão de Dom Miguel, by J. L. Freire de Carvalho, 1841-43; Historia de Liberdade em Portugal, by J. G. de Barros e Cunha, 1869; Despachos e Correspondencia do Duque de Palmella, 1851-54; Correspondencia Official de Conde de Carneira com o Duque de Palmella, 1874; Memoirs of the Duke of Saldanha, by the Count of Carnota; The Wars of Succession in France and Portugal, by William Bollaert, vol. i., 1870, and The Civil War in Portugal, and the Siege of Oporto, by a British Officer of Hussars [Colonel Badcock], 1835. Much valuable historical material is also buried in magazines and the transactions of learned societies, and special reference may be made to two particularly interesting essays in the Annaes des Sciencias Moraes e Politicas, Dom João II. e a Nobreza, by Rebello da Silva, and Apontamentos para a Historia da Conquista de Portugal por Filippe II., by A. P. Lopes de Mendonça.

Apart from Portuguese history, Portuguese literature deserves to be studied. Several pages have been devoted to it in the present volume, and with regard to the early poetry of the troubadour epoch, the author desires to express his obligations to the learned introductions of Theophilo Braga, himself a poet of no mean rank, to his Antologia Portugueza, 1876, and his Cancioneiro Portuguez, 1878. The glory of Portuguese literature is Camoens, and it is fortunate that his great poem, The Lusiads, has found an adequate translator at last. I know of no translation of any classic which can compare with Sir Richard Burton’s translation of The Lusiads. By his profound knowledge of the Portuguese character no less than of the Portuguese language, by his intimate acquaintance with the places which Camoens describes, and, above all, by his temperament, which resembled that of the conquistador-poet, Sir Richard Burton was fitted to reproduce for the English people the thoughts and words of the greatest Portuguese poet. Every lover of Camoens, like every lover of Homer, has been tempted to translate his mighty poem; but, at last, so it seems to me, the work of translation has been done once for all for Camoens by the loving labour of Sir Richard Burton, and Englishmen may read The Lusiads, reproduced faithfully into their own language, alike in spirit and in words. That the life-poem of a hero of the sixteenth century should have been worthily translated by a hero of the nineteenth, seems to me a circumstance of which all lovers of literature in both England and Portugal should be glad and proud.

In conclusion, the writing of this volume has been to the author a labour of love. In the intervals of a minute study of the history of another period, that of the French Revolution, he has turned with pleasure to the task of writing this “Story of Portugal.” He has not been able to work at original authorities as thoroughly as he might wish, owing to the absorbing nature of his more important work, but he hopes the time may come when he will be enabled to spend a few years among the Archives at the Torre del Tombo, and investigate more thoroughly the history of the early relations of England and Portugal, and of the Portuguese in the East. Is he too presumptuous also in hoping that a clearer knowledge of the old and tried friendship of the English nation with the Portuguese may influence in some degree the attitude taken by a portion of the English people towards their ancient ally in the dispute with regard to the extent of the Portuguese possessions in Africa?

H. MORSE STEPHENS.

Oxford,

March 1, 1891.