Didactic poet, critic and pamphleteer notable for his acerbity.
He took vows as an Augustinian in 1778.
Because of his turbulent character he spent much time in prison and wasconstantly transferred from one community to another.
In 1792 he was unfrocked but obtained a papal brief that gave him the status of a secular priest. He was soon recognized as the leading pulpit orator of the day and in 1802 was appointed one of the royal preachers.
The best of his didactic poetry are A Meditaçao (The Meditation) and Newton (1813).
In 1814 he produced O Oriente an insipid epic dealing with Vasco da Gama´s discovery of the sea route to India.
He also fouded and wrote for a large number of journals and the tone and temper of these and of his political pamphlets caused one of his biographers to call him the "chief libeller" of Portugal.
His malignity reached its height in a satirical poem Os Burros (1812-14, The Asses) in which he pilloried, by name, men and women of all grades of society, living and dead.
From c. 1823 onward he was the virulent champion of the absolutist reaction.
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