DEUS, JOÃO DE (1830-1896), the greatest Portuguese poet of his generation, was born at San Bartholomeu de Messines in the province of Algarve on the 8th of March 1830. Matriculating in the faculty of law at the university of Coimbra, he did not proceed to his degree but settled in the city, dedicating himself wholly to the composition of verses, which circulated among professors and undergraduates in manuscript copies. In the volume of his art, as in the conduct of life, he practised a rigorous self-control. He printed nothing previous to 1855, and the first of his poems to appear in a separate form was _La Lata_, in 1860. In 1862 he left Coimbra for Beja, where he was appointed editor of _O Bejense_, the chief newspaper in the province of Alemtejo, and four years later he edited the _Folha do Sul_. As the pungent satirical verses entitled _Eleições_ prove, he was not an ardent politician, and, though he was returned as Liberal deputy for the constituency of Silves in 1869, he acted independently of all political parties and promptly resigned his mandate. The renunciation implied in the act, which cut him off from all advancement, is in accord with nearly all that is known of his lofty character. In the year of his election as deputy, his friend José Antonio Garcia Blanco collected from local journals the series of poems, _Flores do campo_, which is supplemented by the _Ramo de flores_ (1869). This is João de Deus's masterpiece. _Pires de Marmalada_ (1869) is an improvisation of no great merit. The four theatrical pieces--_Amemos o nosso proximo_, _Ser apresentado_, _Ensaio de Casamento_, and _A Viúva inconsolavel_--are prose translations from Méry, cleverly done, but not worth the doing. _Horacio e Lydia_ (1872), a translation from Ronsard, is a good example of artifice in manipulating that dangerously monotonous measure, the Portuguese couplet. As an indication of a strong spiritual reaction three prose fragments (1873)--_Anna, Mãe de Maria_, _A Virgem Maria_ and _A Mulher do Levita de Ephrain_--translated from Darboy's _Femmes de la Bible_, are full of significance. The _Folhas soltas_ (1876) is a collection of verse in the manner of _Flores do campo_, brilliantly effective and exquisitely refined. Within the next few years the writer turned his attention to educational problems, and in his _Cartilha maternal_ (1876) first expressed the conclusions to which his study of Pestalozzi and Fröbel had led him. This patriotic, pedagogical apostolate was a misfortune for Portuguese literature; his educational mission absorbed João de Deus completely, and is responsible for numerous controversial letters, for a translation of Théodore-Henri Barrau's treatise, _Des devoirs des enfants envers leurs parents_, for a prosodic dictionary and for many other publications of no literary value. A copy of verses in Antonio Vieira's _Grinalda de Maria_ (1877), the _Loas á Virgem_ (1878) and the _Proverbios de Salomão_ are evidence of a complete return to orthodoxy during the poet's last years. By a lamentable error of judgment some worthless pornographic verses entitled _Cryptinas_ have been inserted in the completest edition of João de Deus's poems--_Campo de Flores_ (Lisbon, 1893). He died at Lisbon on the 11th of January 1896, was accorded a public funeral and was buried in the National Pantheon, the Jeronymite church at Belem, where repose the remains of Camoens, Herculano and Garrett. His scattered minor prose writings and correspondence have been posthumously published by Dr Theophilo Braga (Lisbon, 1898).