Gomes and Portuguese Poetry [pp. 655-665]

1883.] COMES AND PORTUGUESE POET~Y. 66S
parent, but they would give her the skin and the complexion
and the features."
Greater confusion was caused by drawing from another
source more alien to the Portuguese language than Latin. In
the days of Gomes and just before-in fact, throughout the
eighteenth century-the French predominated intellectually in
Europe, and as much so in Portugal as elsewhere. The French
language is straightforward, a direct phraseology; while the
syntax of the Portuguese is inverted, not perplexed with difficulties, but infinitely varied. Hence it will be seen at a glance that
transplantations from one tongue to the other would be simply
ruinous. Nevertheless French was the fashion; everybody had
French words and phrases on his lips; and finally the foreign
idioms became so great in number that they brought a multitude
of vernacular words into disuse. The puppies of the day, grimly
added Gomes, called the legitimate words of the old authorsthe "well undefiled" of Portuguese-Gothic and rusty and obsolete. A French dictionary was more necessary than a Portuguese to enable the youth of Portugal to understand their native tongue.
NOTE.-Since the above was wntten, a scholar has pointed
out to me that in treating of the origin of the Portuguese tongue
it is a mistake to ignore the influence of the Gaelic language, as
`Gaelic was at one time the language of all those so-called Celtic
tribes who inhabited the north of the Italian peninsula, all of the
Iberian peninsula, and all of what is now France; that, in fact,
wherever nasal sounds are found in a dialect spoken in the south
or west of Europe the existence of these is to be interpreted as a
survival from the Gaelic. Anyhow, the attention which of late
scholars are giving to the study of that purest form of Gaelic,
the Irish, will throw light on many obscure subjects. Portugal
(Port na ghaeidheal-i.e., the haven of the Gaels) ought, as it
did-being the mountain refuge of the Gaels-retain the strongest traces of those people in its language. To the Gaels, too, is
attributed the origin`of rhyme, and a plausible series of arguments is used for this.