the loss too highly, to suppose, that in this contest, two millions of Spaniards have been sacrificed, in the field, by famine and by other privations! Towns and villages burnt-a country unculti vated—a population of ten millions starving-roads neglected--robbers and banditti covering the country-one army succeeding another, and avenging them selves on the opposing partizans-all industry, education, and social prospects destroyed! Such have been the effects of the war in Spain-a country, no party whatever in the origin of the war between France and England!

In PORTUGAL, we view a ruined country and an expatriated Royal Family! The genius of Wellington, and the policy of Napoleon, in allowing England to waste its blood and treasure on profitless objects, have rescued this country for the present from French domination; but with the loss of fifty thousand lives to the Portuguese.

And, at the other extremity of Europe, must be noticed the hapless fate of NAPLES, and of the unfortunate family of the surviving sister of Marie Antoinette! Naples has fallen a victim to its fidelity to England. Its overthrow was marked by blood, and its occupation by the French has destroyed its trade, and driven into exile its nobles and Royal Family!

Nor are the ravages of this contest confined to one quarter of the world! AMERICA has felt its sad effects, from La Plata to the St. Lawrence. A hun dred thousand lives have been sacrificed in Paraguay, Chili, Peru, and Mexico, in the horrors of civil contests, between partizans of the English and French interests! The Republic of the United States, and the rude Indian nations of the Back Settlements, who scarcely know the names of France and England, are also embarked in a war of mutual extermination! Tens of thousands of peaceful habitations are thus rendered wretched, and their implements of husbandry converted into instruments of war and bloodshed!

Thus have I rapidly, but I believe truly, drawn a sketch of the notorious calamities of this destructive and overwhelming war! It remains for the tragic muse, for historians, topographers, and biographers, to present its details to incredulous and wondering posterity! Taken in round numbers, it may be said to have wasted the lives, limbs, and per

3

sonal enjoyment of FOUR MILLIONS of human beings-English, French, Germans, Russians, Poles, Dutch, Portuguese, Italians, Spaniards, and Ameri cans! It has moreover blighted the industry and prospects of a HUNDRED MILLIONS of the human race! It has thrown Europe back in arts, and the means of happiness, more than a century! It has overthrown establishments and states which had been growing to maturity for above a thousand years! It has destroyed all the ancient relations of European power and policy! In a word, it has disorganized and shaken to the foundation the whole fabric of civilized society!

Such have been its terrible and destructive effects! What was the MIGHTY CAUSE that led to such CONSEQUENCES, will be an inquiry better adapted to the independent reasonings of posterity, than to the fettered state of discussion in the age in which the events themselves blind the reason, and stimulate the passions of contemporaries? It is contemporaries, however, who perpetrate the mischief!— On their conduct alone rests the blood and happiness of millions, and they are responsible to God and to posterity!—It behoves them, therefore, SOLEMNLY to inquire WHY? WHEREFORE? for WHAT? for wuOM? and to PLEASE whom, are they parties to this War? And, in the course of their inquiry, to be governed by PROVEN FACTS ONLY, and not by groundless assumptions, hypothetical reasonings, and imaginary dangers! The infliction of such enormous Evils can only be justified by some FACTS of corresponding importance; and by FACTS ALONE, can such a question be fairly tried and decided!

Let those conscientious persons who wish to amend their recollections, and those who have grown up during the war, and seek information, trace its origin and causes by perusing the conferences at Paris in 1803 and 1806; and the correspondence from Tilsit, in 1807; from Erfurt, in 1808; and from Paris, in April 1312; all to be found in the series of the Monthly Magazine, and in the other Journals and Newspapers of the several periods.

Would to God that a dispassionate view of the past, may prevent a repetition and continuance of similar horrors for the future; and lead to REPENTANCE, JUSTICE, FORGIVENESS, and PEACE!

Common Sense. To

was several times offered to him, and de. voted himself entirely to the study of philosophy.

For the better cultivation of this science, he resolved to travel, and set out for Italy, visiting, in his route, the most celebrated places in Spain. Having viewed, with loitering step and observing eye, the curiosities of Rome, Venice, Naples, Milan, Florence, and Sicily, he returned to Portugal, and resided some time at the court of Joao III. where his engaging manners and brilliant abilities procured him much attention, and he was esteemned one of the greatest courtiers of the age.

His hopes of advancement were, how. ever, blasted by the influence of a lady of high rank, who supposed herself ridiculed by some expressions introduced into his Eclogue Aleixo; and, for which imagined affront, he refused to make reparation. He had been presented by the King with a commandery of the order of Christ, near Ponte de Lima, and possessed also the Quinta of Tapada, which Jay contiguous thereto. Thither he be took himself, forsaking the luxuries of the court, the converse of his friends, and the preferment, of which the peculiar favour of the Prince Dom. Joaō, and the Cardinal Dom. Henrique, had given him sufficient reason to entertain hopes.

Enjoying in quiet the fruits of his studies and travels, he married Dona Briolanja d' Azevedo, the daughter of Francisco Machado, Lord of Lousaō de Crasto d'Arega, and other seigniorios; and of Doua Isauna d'Azevedo, his wife. The following singular circumstance is recorded as having preceded the marriage. Dona Briolauja had neither the recommendation of beauty or youth; and, when Francisco de Sá made overtures to her brothers Manoel and Bernaldim, her father being dead, they refused to conclude the contract, until he should have been introduced to his intended bride. An interview was accordingly arranged, and the following was the first salutation which he made use of, "Chastise ine, lady, with this staff, for having come so late." Her amiable mind, however, fully compensated for her defect of personal charms, and endeared her to her husband. She conformed herself to his habits, watched with care the education

"Castigay-me, Senhora! com esse burdaō,

"Porque vim taō tarde!"

of her children, and attended the ma nagement of her domestic establishment.

Dona Briolanja died in 1555, and her husband, sorrowing, survived her three years. After the event of her death, he relinquished all his former pursuits; never left his house except to hear mass at a neighbouring convent; never shaved his beard; never pared his nails; never answered the letters of his friends; and only composed the following sonnet to celebrate the mournful occasion: in it we are informed, that virtuous actions, and not ex. tensive wealth, were the characteristics of that period, by the ancients denominated the golden age; and that, in his opinion, whilst the cities of Lisbon and Oporto, from their commercial intercourse, were the seats of opulence and luxury, it was impossible that the golden age could be restored in Portugal.

Sá de Miranda was strong, though not tall; pale in his countenance; his hair black and lank; his beard very long; his nose prominent; his deportment grave, his appearance melancholy; yet in conversation he was free, and in his demeanour placid. He is represented to have been attached to the chace of the wolf, the game of drafts, and the science of music. He performed on the guitar, and, even when his funds were low, entertained masters in his house to instruct his son, Heironymo, in the art. He died in 1558, aged sixty-three, after receiving the Sacraments, and was interred near his wife and her brothers, in the chapel of Santa Margarida, in the church of Sam Martinho de Carragedo, in the archbishopric of Braga. A Latin epitaph was written for him, by Martim Gonçalves

da

da Camara, a monk of the society of Sam Roque, in Lisbon.

By Dona Briolanjas, Francisco de Sá had two sons. The elder, Gonçalo Mendez de Sá, was sent, when a boy, to Africa; whither most of the Portuguese youth resorted to commence their military career. On his arrival at Ceuta, he succeeded Dom Pedro de Menezes, the son of the Conde de Linhares, who was captain of the place. He shortly afterwards fell, with many brave companions, amongst whom was Dom Antonio de Noronha, the nephew of the captain, and son of the Conde Dom Francisco, to whose memory Camoens wrote his pathetic Eclogue of Umbrano and Fron delio, and some beautiful sonnets. The virtuous qualities which this youth possessed, and the great expectations which his father had conceived of him, made his loss very sensibly felt. The poet Antonio Ferreira wrote a letter to the disconsolate parent, which so pleased him, that he dedicated to him the elegant Elegy, which he wrote on his son's death, wherein he says,

The

E mais em tal sasao, tempo taō avaro De louvores alheios, em tal dano Dos engenhos, que se alhaō sem emparo, &c." His other son, Hieronymo de Sá d' Azevedo, married, after the death of his father, Dona Maria de Menczes, a lady of good family and connections. issue of this marriage was a daughter, who became the wife of Dom Fernando Cores de Sottomayor, of Salvaterra, in Gallicia, and received, as her marriage dowry, the original manuscript of her grandfather's poems; a memorable proof

of the attachment of Dom Fernando Cores to literature.

Francisco de Sá de Miranda, besides having considerable merit as a poet, is entitled to praise for the peculiar services which he rendered to his country, in purifying and fixing its language. Francisco Dias, in his Analysis of the Portuguese language, thus compliments the poet: "When I entered upon this composition, I judged that I ought to fix some point, from which to deduce this Analysis; and that Sá de Miranda ought undoubtedly to form that epoch, being the real founder of Portuguese poetry*.' He found the language rude and uncultivated; the necessity of refinement being superseded by the prevailing practice of the times in using Latin as the language

Memorias da Literatura Portugueza pela academia Real de Lisboa; 4to. 1793, tom. 4. MONTHLY MAG, No. 234.

of poetry in Portugal. This custom, considered as invincible, he overcame; and, as Miguel Leite Ferreira says, in his Preface to his father's poems, "with the singular softness of his Portuguese verses, began to expose the negligence of past ages, and to shew that the language was sufficiently harmonious for the writings of ladies, heroes, and emperors. By which example, my father, then a student, endeavoured, by the variety of his compositions, to manifest that the Portuguese language was not inferior to any other, in copiousness of diction, or gravity of style*."

Miranda was particularly skilled in the language of the bar, to acquire which, he had used great endeavours. The mo◄ rality of his Apophthegms, which pervade his whole writings, and which were even quoted from the pulpit, gained him universal admirationf.”

His works, printed at Lisbon, in 1784, in 2 vols. 8vo. consist of Sonnets, Elegies, Redondilhas, in which latter are comprised many of the smaller pieces of poetry; and two comedies, "Os Estrangeiros" and "Os Vilhalpandos."

Sá de Miranda never introduced an immoral phrase into his works; as a proof of which assertion, his comedies were, at the request of the Cardinal sitor-General, and a zealous advocate for Dom Henrique, afterwards King, Inquivirtue, represented before him.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. SIR,

As private correspondence may someinduced to send for insertion in your vatimes tend to public utility, I am Juable miscellany a letter received from Paris on the subject of the so-much-talkedof Eau Médicinale.

A friend, having occasion for a quantity of this medicine, applied to a physician at Paris to procure it, and received the following answer. T. C.

"Quelle que fut, Monsieur, l'occasion de faire quelque chose qui vous fut agreable. J'ai saisie avec plaisir et empressement; J'ai fait, mais sans succès, toutes les recherches possibles pour décou vrir l'auteur et le dépot de l'Eau Médicinale d'Huson que vous desirez pour votre ami gouteur. Soit discredit bien motive du remede, soit par suite des disposi tions du gouvernement sur les remcdés se

Obras de Ferreira. 4to. 1598.

+ Mappa de Port. de Castro, tom. ii.