Ecloga de Durindo, e Floro, por João Xavier de Matos, entre os pastores da Arcadia Portuense Albano Erythreo.

Lisbon, Na Officina de Antonio Rodrigues Galhardo, 1781.. 4°, disbound. Woodcut vignette on title page. Some browning. Dampstain on final 2 leaves. Overall in near-good condition. Old ink signature (illegible) dated 1789 on blank verso of p. 21; same hand has energetically corrected errors in quire signatures on the third through sixth leaves (original signatures illegible). 21 pp., (1 blank l.). *** Second of at least 3 separate editions of this pastoral poem in 55 stanzas. The first was Lisbon: Na Officina Luisiana, 1780, and the third Lisbon: Na Offic. de Francisco Borges de Sousa, 1789.João Xavier de Mattos was quite a popular writer of poetry in his time (praised even by Bocage), although he has been mostly forgotten since. He favored the Italian style and took Camões as his model. Innocêncio, in a tone almost parental in its severe disapproval, says that Mattos gave up a decent career as a magistrate (ouvidor in Vidigueira) to devote himself to writing: his name "foi n'outro tempo tão applaudido, e popular, quanto são hoje ignoradas as circumstancias da sua vida e profissão." According to Innocêncio's sources, which he notes are unverified, Mattos was born in Lisbon and studied law at Coimbra University; he died in Frades (Alemtejo) in 1789. Mattos's earliest poems were gathered together in Rimas, which appeared in 1770 and in several later editions, with added volumes.*** Innocêncio IV, 55 (the 1789 edition); XI, 310 (the 1780 and 1781 editions); on the author, see also IV, 54-56; X, 376; Aditamentos p. 206. Coimbra, Miscelâneas 124, 2320. Porbase locates a single copy, at Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal; also the Lisbon, 1780 edition in two copies at Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal and one at Biblioteca João Paulo II-Universidade Católica Portuguesa. No edition located in Jisc. KVK (51 databases searched) locates a copy of the present edition at Österreichische Nationalbibliothek as well as the copy cited by Porbase, and in addition to the copies of the 1780 edition cited by Porbase, a single copy at Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut.