[1] On returning to Lisbon for a short visit, he found the Arcádia a prey to the internal dissensions that caused its dissolution in 1774, but succeeded in composing them, and in 1764 he went to Elvas to act as auditor of one of the regiments stationed there.
[1] In 1768 a quarrel arose between the bishop, a proud, pretentious prelate, and the dean, as to the right of the former to receive holy water from the latter at a private side door of the cathedral, instead of at the principal entrance.
The matter being one of principle, neither party would yield what he considered his rights, and it led to a lawsuit, dividing the town into two sections, which eagerly debated the arguments on both sides and enjoyed the ridiculous incidents which accompanied the dispute.
The pressure of absolutism left open only one form of expression, satire, and in this poem Diniz produced an original work which ridicules the clergy and the prevailing Gallomania, and contains episodes full of humour.
[1] Returning to Lisbon in 1774, Diniz endeavoured once more to resuscitate the Arcádia, but his long absence, had withdrawn its chief support, its most talented members Garção and Quita were no more, and he only assisted at its demise.
[1] Diniz possessed a poetic temperament, but his love of imitating the classics, whose spirit he failed to understand, fettered his muse, and he seems never to have perceived that mythological comparisons and pastoral allegories were poor substitutes for the expression of natural feeling.