tion and melodious versification.
Belonging to the didactic and descriptive school, Castilho saw nature as
all sweetness, pleasure and beauty, and he lived in a dreamland of his
imagination. A fulsome epic on the succession of King John VI. brought
him an office of profit at Coimbra. On his return from a stay in
Madeira, he founded the _Revista Universal Lisbonense_, in imitation of
Herculano's _Panorama_, and his profound knowledge of the Portuguese
classics served him well in the introduction and notes to a very useful
publication, the _Livraria Classica Portugueza_ (1845-1847, 25 vols.),
while two years later he established the "Society of the Friends of
Letters and the Arts." A study on Camoens and treatises on metrification
and mnemonics followed from his pen. His praiseworthy zeal for popular
instruction led him to take up the study of pedagogy, and in 1850 he
brought out his _Leitura Repentina_, a method of reading which was named
after him, and he became government commissary of the schools which were
destined to put it into practice. Going to Brazil in 1854, he there
wrote his famous "Letter to the Empress." Though Castilho's lack of
strong individuality and his over-great respect for authority prevented
him from achieving original work of real merit, yet his translations of
Anacreon, Ovid and Virgil and the _Chave do Enigma_, explaining the
romantic incidents that led to his first marriage with D. Maria de
Baena, a niece of the satirical poet Tolentino, and a descendant of
Antonio Ferreira, reveal him as a master of form and a purist in
language. His versions of Goethe's _Faust_ and Shakespeare's _Midsummer
Night's Dream_, made without a knowledge of German and English, scarcely
added to his reputation. When the Coimbra question arose in 1865,
Garrett was dead and Herculano had ceased to write, leaving Castilho
supreme, for the moment, in the realm of letters. But the youthful
Anthero de Quental withstood his claim to direct the rising generation
and attacked his superannuated leadership, and after a fierce war of
pamphlets Castilho was dethroned. The rise of Joao de Deus reduced him
to a secondary position in the Portuguese Parnassus, and when he died
ten years later much of his former fame had preceded him to the tomb.

See also "Memorias de Castilho" in the _Instituto_ of Coimbra;
Innocencio da Silva in _Diccionario bibliographico Portuguez_, i. 130
and viii. 132: Latino Coelho's study in the _Revista