“I have never seen the name of Nicola Luiz, except in Murphy; and the title of the Portuguese
Plautus which he gives him, being
generally applied to Gil Vicente,
thought it not unlikely that he might have written Richard
for Robert, as he is apt to do so. Barbosa’s great Bibliotheca is not in my possession, and I have referred in vain to
Nicolas Antonio, to the Mappa de
Portugal, which contains a
| Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 159 |
“It is possible that Antonio Ferreira’s play may have been originally published under this fictitious name. I have no other reason for supposing so than that it seems almost certain if the name of Nicola Luiz were a real one, it would have been included in one or all of the works which I have consulted; and Ferreira did in one instance practise an artifice of this kind, yet I think you must have seen his play. It begins:—
‘Colhey, colhey alegres,
Donzellas minhas, mil cheirosas flores.’
|
“The tragedy of Domingos dos Reis Quita, upon the same story, has been Englished by Benjamin Thompson. There are two Spanish ones by Geronimo Bermudez (published originally under the name of Antonio de Silva), in the sixth volume of the Parnaso Español. Henry K. White had merely begun the first scene of his projected play, and that, as was evident from the handwriting, at a very early age.
| 160 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“The Portuguese have two poems upon the same story, the Penasco de las Lagrimas, written in Spanish by Francisco de França da Costa, and the Saudades de D. Ignes de Castro, by Manoel de Azevedo. This latter I have myself planned a play upon, The Revenge of Pedro: whether it will ever be executed, is very doubtful, but this part of the story is far fitter for dramatic poetry than the foregoing.
