Antonio Ferreira, the second leader of the Portuguese classicist school, was like Sá de Miranda, a slavish adherent to classical forms, but he was at the same time a genuine patriot and a lover of his country, and a student of its past history. He, like Sá de Miranda, was of a noble family, and he was born at Lisbon in 1528. He was sent to the University of Coimbra, and studied there in the days of its greatness. His favourite teacher was Diogo de Tieve, the friend of George Buchanan, and professor of classical literature, from whom he obtained a knowledge of the classics, not inferior to that possessed by Sá de Miranda. Even in his youth, Ferreira determined to devote his poetical talent to works in his own language, and he refused to write Latin or Spanish verses. He formed round him at Coimbra, a school of young poets, of whom the chief were Andrade Caminha, Jeronymo Corte-Real, and Diogo Bernardes; and in 1557 he published his first volume of poems. This book established his fame, and on coming to Lisbon, he was appointed a judge of the Court of Appeal, and a gentleman of the Royal Household. He continued to write and publish until his death from the plague in 1569, the year before Camoens returned from India. Ferreira, like Sá de Miranda, was an imitator of the great classical poets, but he differed from his predecessor, in that he combined with this predilection, an appreciation of the national greatness. He wrote sonnets after the manner of Petrarch, elegies after Ariosto, eclogues after Virgil, and odes and epistles after Horace; but his greatest work was a drama founded on the model of the ancient Greek tragedies. He selected for his subject the touching story of Ines de Castro, and the characters in his play are Ines and her nurse, Dom Pedro and his secretary, King Affonso and his three counsellors, a messenger, and a chorus of women of Coimbra. Ferreira's tragedy, though more fit for the study than the stage, remains to this day the finest drama in the Portuguese language, and stands almost as far as above other dramatic attempts of subsequent ages, as Camoens's great epic towers above all imitations.
The history of the development of the revival of learning, as illustrated by the classicist school of Sá de Miranda and Ferreira, is of great importance to the right understanding of the course of Portuguese literature, but to the world at large its chief interest lies in its share in forming the taste of the one man, whom Portugal has contributed to the small roll of supreme poets, Camoens. His name is more famous than that of any other Portuguese, whether king or captain; his great epic has been translated into every civilized European language, and is a greater subject of pride to his countrymen than their conquests in the East; and no "Story of Portugal" could be complete which did not give some account of the poet who has given immortal fame to the heroic deeds of the great age of Portugal.