remain in doubt. After much solicitation, his wife obtained from the king an order for her husband's release on November 10, 1772, but it came too late. Broken by infirmities and the hardships of prison life, Garção expired that very day in the Limoeiro, at the age of forty-eight. Works and style Taking Horace as his model, supported by his own background of scholarship and wide reading, Garção set out to raise and purify the standard of poetic taste. His verses are characterized by a classical simplicity of form and expression. His sonnets and sodales reveal his personality; his odes and epistles reveal an inspired poet and a man chastened by suffering. His two comedies in hendecasyllables, the Theatro Novo (played in January 1766) amid the Assemblea, are satires on the social life of the capital; and in the Cantata de Dido, included in the latter piece, the spirit of Greek art is allied to perfection of form, making this composition much-admired among Portuguese 18th century poetry. Garção wrote little and spent much time on the labor limae. His works were published posthumously in 1778, and the most complete and accessible edition is that of António José Saraiva, Obras completas, 2 vols. (Lisbon, 1957–58; reprinted 1982). An English version of the Cantata de Dido appeared in the academy (January 19, 1895). See Innocencio da Silva, Diccionario bibliographico Portuguez, vol. vi. pp. 386–393, and vol. xvii. pp. 182–184; also Teófilo Braga, A Arcadia Lusitana (Porto, 1899). External links GeneAll.net Pedro António Correia Garção References 18th-century Portuguese poets Portuguese male poets 1724 births 1772 deaths University of Coimbra alumni People from Lisbon 18th-century male writers