“ The intrigues and moral twists of the courtiers and traders, among whom he was forced to live, hurt his fine sense of honour, and he felt his mental isolation the more, because his friends were few and scattered in that great city which the discoveries and conquests of the Portuguese had made the centre of a world empire. In 1569 a terrible epidemic of carbunculous fever broke out and carried off 50,000 inhabitants of Lisbon, and, on the 29th of November, Ferreira, who had stayed there doing his duty when others fled, fell a victim. ”

“ Her love is the chaste, timid affection of a wife and a vassal rather than the strong passion of a mistress, but Pedro is really the man history describes, the love-fettered prince whom the tragedy of Ignez’s death converted into the cruel tyrant. ”

“ They seem to have been written in Coimbra or during vacations in Lisbon; and if some are dry and stilted, others, like the admirable No. 45, are full of feeling and tears. The Sonnets in the Second Book were inspired by D. Maria Pimentel, whom he afterwards married, and they are marked by that chastity of sentiment, seriousness and ardent patriotism which characterized the man and the writer. Ferreira’s ideal, as a poet, was to win “the applause of the good,” and, in the preface to his poems, he says, “I am content with this glory, that I have loved my land and my people.” ”