seaport-town of Spain, province of Oviedo in Asturias, on the Bay of Biscay, and 20 miles from Oviedo. The town is built on a slope, of which the upper part is occupied by the old town, partly surrounded by ancient walls; the more modern portion extends to the beach, and both are defended by a fortress and several batteries. In general the houses are good and commodious; the streets are wide, paved, and clean. There are in the town a parish church, many chapels, several primary schools, nautical school; a town-house, a prison, hospital, economic society, custom-house, triumphal arch; a glass and bottle manufactory, and a cigar manufactory employing 1400 hands. Besides, there is some coasting trade in coals, paving-stones, grain, cider, and colonial produce. Fishing and fish-curing are carried on to a considerable extent. The harbour is safe, with good anchorage, though rather difficult of access. The number of vessels visiting the port yearly is about 1000, aggregating 60,000 tons burthen. The coal existing in the vicinity is not wrought. Pop. nearly 7000.

Gil, San, or St Giles, a town of New Granada, province of Scorro, 64 miles S.W. of Pamplona, on an affluent of the Suarez, here crossed by a stone bridge. San Gil was founded in 1690, and has manufactures of cotton fabrics and tobacco, with an extensive trade in agricultural produce. It contains several schools and a college. Pop. nearly 7000.

Gil, Vicente, the Portuguese Plautus, was born about the year 1482. It is known that he belonged to a family of rank, and that he studied law at the university of Lisbon, in compliance with the wish of his family; but his legal studies he soon relinquished, and devoted himself entirely to the dramatic art. We know not whether he was pensioned as a writer to the court; but he was most indefatigable in furnishing the royal family, as well as the public, with dramatic entertainments suited to the taste of the age. He constantly resided at court, where his poetic talents were held in permanent requisition for the celebration of spiritual as well as temporal festivals; and no dramatic writer in Europe was more admired and esteemed than Gil Vicente. The success of Juan de la Encina, who had recently produced before distinguished audiences in Spain a style of pastoral dialogue till then altogether unknown in the peninsula, excited Gil Vicente to his first attempts in the dramatic art.

In the reign of Emmanuel the Great, his first productions were performed with approbation at court; but additional lustre was added to his fame in the reign of John III., who did not scruple in his youth to perform characters in the dramas of his favourite author. Not only was Vicente a great dramatic writer, but he seems also to have possessed all the requisite qualifications for a theatrical manager. He was himself an actor, and the tutor of the most brilliant actress of his age—his own daughter Paula, maid of honour to the Infanta Maria, a poetess, an amateur performer on several instruments, and celebrated for every accomplishment except beauty.

Gil Vicente's diction, as well as his poetic style, belongs to the fifteenth century; and to the latest period of his life he continued faithful to the old national manner. In the conflict with the new style introduced by Saa de Miranda's school, Gil Vicente appeared as the representative of the yet enduring national taste, which even at court preserved an authority equal to that of the party whose adherents were most honourably distinguished.

At the command of the king, Gil Vicente was engaged during his declining years in the collection of his works for publication. But he did not live to complete the task. Barbosa states that he died before the year 1557 at Evora, where he was in attendance upon the court. This was the year in which John III. died. Hence we may conclude that Barbosa's date is a misprint for 1537. For when Gil Vicente wrote from Santarem to the king, in 1531, he thought himself at death's door (meu visinho da morte), and the Garden of Errors, his last composition, bears the date 1536. It is not then unreasonable to suppose that he died in 1537, not 1557. Besides, this is much strengthened when we find that Barros in his Dialogue, a pamphlet which forms part of a miscellaneous volume, printed in 1539-40, seems to speak of him as of one already dead. He was buried in the cloisters of St Francis, and an epitaph written by himself was engraved on his tomb, but without a date. Whatever may have been the date of his death, however, we know for certain that the license for the first impression of his collected writings was granted by Queen Catharine, as regent for her grandson Sebastian, to the poet's daughter Paula so late as Sept. 3, 1561, and that they were first published in 1562 by his son Luiz, and dedicated to king Sebastian, who was then only eight years old, and though so young, took particular pleasure in the works of Gil Vicente—"He read them and delighted to see them performed."

The dramatic pieces of Gil Vicente which have been preserved are 42 in number. In the first volume of the Obras de Gil Vicente (published by J. V. Barreto Feio e Jose Gomez Monteiro, Hamburgo, 1834) are contained twelve "Devotional Autos," called Obras de Dervocao. The second volume contains four comedies, and ten tragi-comedies; the third, twelve farces, besides a few miscellaneous addenda in prose and verse. This classification to modern taste seems capricious; for, more than one of the Autos might with equal propriety be placed among the farces, so much more does the humour appear than the devotion. But however questionable, or even indefensible, may be the taste of dramatizing sacred subjects, it is not our business here to discuss the morals of ancient moralities, or the religion of miracle-plays. We take Gil Vicente's as we find them, and as they were exhibited in the sixteenth century to a splendid court—one of the most orthodox in Europe, in a country whose pride it was to be the "most faithful" champion of Christianity, and even in the presence of that zealous boy-king who was nurtured up to be the very "knights-errant of the Faith," and who was so early to perish, with all his chivalry, on the battle-field of Alkácer-Kebir.

About one-fourth of these plays are in the Spanish language, about one-half of them in the Portuguese, and the remainder in Portuguese and Spanish intermixed. The first three religious "autos" already noticed are in Spanish. In the Auto da Fe—a title suggestive of the horrors of the Inquisition, but literally meaning "an act of faith," for the Inquisition, so long before established in Spain and France, was not yet admitted into Portugal—the awkward swains who receive instructions in the rudiments of the creed, and are most obtuse learners, express their admiration and perplexity in low Spanish; while the Faith alone, their teacher, speaks good Portuguese—a capital stroke of patriotism in the author. Though this piece, as well as some others, has no date attached, it may be supplied from the Auto itself; for one of the peasants asks how many years ago the Messiah was born, and Faith answers, "fifteen hundred and ten years."

The best critical account of Gil Vicente and his works yet published is that contained in the Quarterly Review, vol. lxix., pp. 166-202; and the best edition of his works is that already mentioned—Obras de Gil Vicente, Hamburgo, 1834. A copy of the 1562 edition of Gil Vicente's plays is still preserved in the university library of Göttingen. It is entitled: Complacencias de todas las obras de Gil Vicente, &c.—Empremido en uma nobre e sempre leal cidade de Lisboa, anno 1562, in folio. In p. 87 of Diogo Velasquez, the complete title may be found. In this edition the text of the dramas is printed in Gothic characters; but the introduction which precedes each piece is printed in modern Roman type, and is written chiefly in the Portuguese language. A reprint in 4to appeared also at Lisbon in 1586, but much disfigured by the Inquisition. These are among the rarest and most curious books in modern literature. The Hamburg edition of 1834 is in 3 vols. 8vo, and particularly valuable as being chiefly according to the Göttingen folio. Consult also Crónica de Don Manuel, parte I, cap. 62, from which it appears that the first secular dramatic exhibition in Portugal took place June 8, 1562.