As an historian he had an unbounded respect for authority, on his own confession, and the speeches he puts in the mouths of his heroes remind the reader at times of Livy, and make it clear that he was writing under the immediate influence of classical models.80 The historical importance of his Chronicles is of the first order. They are contemporary with the events they relate, and contain the history of the Portuguese expeditions to and rule in Mauritania from the reign of João I down to that of Affonso V, and furnish a complete account of all the voyages of discovery along the African Coast, due to the initiative of D. Henrique, until 1448. True, the Chronica de Guiné omits to mention some other voyages that were the result of private enterprise, for Azurara wrote it in the capacity of Chronicler to the King and as a panegyric of the Prince, and never intended to relate discoveries unconnected with his hero and with the land that gives his book its title. The Chronica de Guiné must, of course, always take rank as Azurara's masterpiece. It was the first book written by a European on the lands south of Cape Bojador, and it restores to us, in great part, the lost work of Cerveira entitled a History of the Portuguese Conquests on the Coast of Africa, on which it is founded, besides making up for the regrettable disappearance of the naval archives of the early period of modern discovery.
Azurara's credibility as a narrator is both unquestioned and unquestionable, for his position enabled him to get at the truth, and he took pains to record nothing but the truth, thereby proving himself a genuine disciple of his master, Fernão Lopes. He was moved, as a rule, neither by human respect nor by petty jealousies, and accuracy seems with him to have amounted to a passion.81 So truthful was he that he preferred to leave the relation of facts incomplete rather than tell of them without having received exact information from eye-witnesses. He was quite conscious of what he calls his "want of polish and small knowledge", and his humility is shown by the declaration that he only regarded the Chronica de Guiné as material for some future historian who would perpetuate the great deeds of D. Henrique in "a loftier and clearer style".82
His attitude towards the Moors, those hereditary enemies of Portugal, was only what we should expect, for, while he is strictly impartial in distributing praise and blame to them equally with Christians, he leaves us in no doubt on which side his sympathies lay. In the Chronica de Guiné, for example, after descanting on the universal praise of the Infant's life and work, he admits that a discordant note in the general chorus was struck by the Moors whom the Prince had warred with and slain, or, to quote his own words, "Some other voices, very contrary to those I have until now described, sounded in my ears, for which I should have felt a great pity, had I not seen them to come from men outside our Law".83
It has been already noted that Azurara, though he wrote under the very shadow of the Palace, was anything but a flatterer of the great; indeed, he has been accused by some of insisting too much on the defects in his heroes.84 On the other hand, it must be confessed that he shows a marked partiality, if not a blind admiration, for D. Henrique in the Chronica de Ceuta as well as in the Chronica de Guiné. In the former he attributes to the Prince the chief part in the capture of the city, while in the latter he shows himself ever ready to defend him from his dispraisers, and to convict of foolishness out of their own mouths the opponents of the voyages of discovery. Nay, more, he even finds an explanation for D. Henrique's neglect to defend his brother Pedro from being done to death at Alfarrobeira, a neglect which is hard to explain satisfactorily and must remain a blot on the Prince's fair fame. But this bias may readily be accounted for by the fact that Azurara passed much of his time in close intimacy with D. Henrique, and drew a great part of the information for his Chronicles of Ceuta and Guinea from that source, besides which he can hardly be blamed for the love he felt and displayed for a great and good man, the initiator and hero of modern discovery.
Finally, while no serious critic would admit Azurara within the circle of great historians, few would dispute his title to be named a great Chronicler. That he was a laborious and truthful writer his pages make clear; that he could tell a simple story vividly—nay, dramatically—and that he had at times flashes of inspiration, the Chronica de Guiné attests, though, even bearing this work in mind, it is easy to perceive his inferiority in the matter of style to Fernào Lopes, a point constantly insisted on by Portuguese critics. In a word, if, as Southey said, Lopes is "beyond all comparison the best Chronicler of any age or nation", it may well be that Azurara, "notwithstanding an occasional display of pedantry, is equal in merit to any Chronicler, except his unequalled predecessor".85
74 Chronica de D. Pedro de Menezes, ch. 63, and Chronica de Ceuta, ch. 38.
75 Chronica de Guiné, chs. 61 and 62.
76 Chronica de Guiné, chs. 7 and 28; Chronica de Ceuta chs. 34, 52, and 57; Chronica de D. Duarte de Menezes, ch. 34.
77 Chronica do Principe D. João, ch. 6, and Asia, Dec. 1, liv. ch. 2.
78 Ineditos, vol. ii, p. 210.
79 Compare the remarks on Azurara's style by Sotero dos Reis in his Curso da litteratura Portugueza e Brazileira. Maranhão, 1866, vol. I, lição xiv.
80 Cf. Chronica de Ceuta, ch. 1.
81 Many passages from his Chronicles might be cited to prove this, but the following will suffice: Chronica de Ceuta, chs. 1, 2, 12, 51, 83, 91, and 95; Chronica de Guiné, ch. 30; Chronica de D. Pedro de Menezes, ch. 1, and Bk. II, ch. 18; Chronica de D. Duarte de Menezes, chs. 2 and 60.
82 Chronica de Guiné, ch. 6.
83 Ibid., ch. 2.
84 The Azorean scholar, Dr. J. T. Soares de Sousa, calls Azurara "a clever courtier rather than a severe and impartial historian" (quoted by Dr. Theophilo Braga, in his Historia da Universidade de Coimbra, vol. i, p. 138); but this is certainly unjust and even untrue. K. Manoel de Mello gives a fairer estimate in the witty phrase, "Chronista antigo, tão candido de penna, como de barba."—Apologos Dialogaes, p. 455, ed. Lisbon, 1721.
85 Quarterly Review, May