PORTUGAL.

LETTER I.

Detained at Falmouth.—Navigation at a stop.—An evening ramble.

Falmouth, March 6, 1787.

THE glass is sinking; the west wind gently breathing upon the water, the smoke softly descending into the room, and sailors yawning dismally at the door of every ale-house.

Navigation seems at a full stop. The captains lounging about with their hands in their pockets, and passengers idling at billiards. Dr. V—— has scraped acquaintance with a quaker, and went last night to one of their assemblies, where he kept jingling his fine Genevan watch-chains to their sober and silent dismay.

In the intervals of the mild showers with which we are blessed, I ramble about some fields already springing with fresh herbage, which slope down to the harbour: the immediate environs of Falmouth are not unpleasant upon better acquaintance. Just out of the town, in a sheltered recess of the bay, lies a grove of tall elms, forming several avenues carpeted with turf. In the central point rises a stone pyramid about thirty feet high, well designed and constructed, but quite plain without any inscription; between the stems of the trees one discovers a low white house, built in and out in a very capricious manner, with oriel windows and porches, shaded by bushes of prosperous bay. Several rose-coloured cabbages, with leaves as crisped and curled as those of the acanthus, decorate a little grass-plat, neatly swept, before the door. Over the roof of this snug habitation I spied the skeleton of a gothic mansion, so completely robed with thick ivy, as to appear like one of those castles of clipped box I have often seen in a Dutch garden.

Yesterday evening, the winds being still, and the sun gleaming warm for a moment or two, I visited this spot to examine the ruin, hear birds chirp, and scent wall-flowers.

Two young girls, beautifully shaped, and dressed with a sort of romantic provincial elegance, were walking up and down the grove by the pyramid. There was something so love-lorn in their gestures, that I have no doubt they were sighing out their souls to each other. As a decided amateur of this sort of confidential promenade, I would have given my ears to have heard their confessions.

LETTER II.

Mines in the parish of Gwynnap.—Piety and gin.—Rapid progress of Methodism.—Freaks of fortune.—Pernicious extravagance.—Minerals.—Mr. Beauchamp’s mansion.—Beautiful lake.—The wind still contrary.

Falmouth, March 7, 1787.

SCOTT came this morning and took me to see the consolidated mines in the parish of Gwynnap; they are situated in a bleak desert, rendered still more doleful by the unhealthy appearance of its inhabitants. At every step one stumbles upon ladders that lead into utter darkness, or funnels that exhale warm copperous vapours. All around these openings the ore is piled up in heaps waiting for purchasers. I saw it drawn reeking out of the mine by the help of a machine called a whim, put in motion by mules, which in their turn are stimulated by impish children hanging over the poor brutes, and flogging them round without respite. This dismal scene of whims, suffering mules, and hillocks of cinders, extends for miles. Huge iron engines creaking and groaning, invented by Watt, and tall chimneys smoking and flaming, that seem to belong to old Nicholas’s abode, diversify the prospect.

Two strange-looking Cornish beings, dressed in ghostly white, conducted me about, and very kindly proposed a descent into the bowels of the earth, but I declined initiation. These mystagogues occupy a tolerable house, with fair sash windows, where the inspectors of the mine hold their meetings, and regale upon beef, pudding, and brandy.

While I was standing at the door of this habitation, several woful figures in tattered garments, with pickaxes on their shoulders, crawled out of a dark fissure and repaired to a hovel, which I learnt was a gin-shop. There they pass the few hours allotted them above ground, and drink, it is to be hoped, an oblivion of their subterraneous existence. Piety as well as gin helps to fill up their leisure moments, and I was told that Wesley, who came apostolising into Cornwall a few years ago, preached on this very spot to above seven thousand followers.

Since this period Methodism has made a very rapid progress, and has been of no trifling service in diverting the attention of these sons of darkness from then present condition to the glories of the life to come. However, some people inform me their actual state is not so much to be lamented, and that, notwithstanding their pale looks and tattered raiment, they are far from being poor or unhealthy. Fortune often throws a considerable sum into their laps when they least expect it, and many a common miner has been known to gain a hundred pounds in the space of a month or two. Like sailors in the first effusion of prize-money, they have no notion of turning their good-luck to advantage; but squander the fruits of their toil in the silliest species of extravagance. Their wives are dressed out in tawdry silks, and flaunt away in ale-houses between rows of obedient fiddlers. The money spent, down they sink again into damps and darkness.

Having passed about an hour in collecting minerals, stopping engines with my finger, and performing all the functions of a diligent young man desirous of information, I turned my back on smokes, flames, and coal-holes, with great pleasure.

Not above a mile-and-a-half from this black bustling scene, in a sheltered valley, lies the mansion of Mr. Beauchamp, wrapped up in shrubberies of laurel and laurustine. Copses of hazel and holly terminate the prospect on almost every side, and in the midst of the glen a broad clear stream reflects the impending vegetation. This transparent water, after performing the part of a mirror before the house, forms a succession of waterfalls which glitter between slopes of the smoothest turf, sprinkled with daffodils: numerous flights of widgeon and Muscovy ducks, were sprucing themselves on the edge of the stream, and two grave swans seemed highly to approve of its woody retired banks for the education of their progeny.

Very glad was I to disport on its “margent green,” after crushing cinders at every step all the morning; had not the sun hid himself, and the air grown chill, I might have fooled away three or four hours with the swans and the widgeons, and lost my dinner. Upon my return home, I found the wind as contrary as ever, and all thoughts of sailing abandoned.

LETTER III.

A lovely morning.—Antiquated mansion.—Its lady.—Ancestral effigies.—Collection of animals.—Serene evening.—Owls.—Expected dreams.

Falmouth, March 8, 1787.

WHAT a lovely morning! how glassy the sea, how busy the fishing-boats, and how fast asleep the wind in its old quarter! Towards evening, however, it freshened, and I took a toss in a boat with Mr. Trefusis, whose territories extend half round the bay. His green hanging downs spotted with sheep, and intersected by rocky gullies, shaded by tall straight oaks and ashes, form a romantic prospect, very much in the style of Mount Edgcumbe.

We drank tea at the capital of these dominions, an antiquated mansion, which is placed in a hollow on the summit of a lofty hill, and contains many ruinous halls and never-ending passages: they cannot, however, be said to lead to nothing, like those celebrated by Gray in his Long Story, for Mrs. Trefusis terminated the perspective. She is a native of Lausanne, and was quite happy to see her countryman Verdeil.

We should have very much enjoyed her conversation, but the moment tea was over, the squire could not resist leading us round his improvements in kennel, stable, and oxstall: though it was pitch-dark, and we were obliged to be escorted by grooms and groomlings with candles and lanterns; a very necessary precaution, as the winds blew not more violently without the house than within.

In the course of our peregrination through halls, pantries, and antechambers, we passed a staircase with heavy walnut-railing, lined from top to bottom with effigies of ancestors that looked quite formidable by the horny glow of our lanterns; which illumination, dull as it was, occasioned much alarm amongst a collection of animals, both furred and feathered, the delight of Mr. Trefusis’s existence.

Every corner of his house contains some strange and stinking inhabitant; one can hardly move without stumbling over a basket of puppies, or rolling along a mealy tub, with ferrets in the bottom of it; rap went my head against a wire cage, and behold a squirrel twirled out of its sleep in sad confusion: a little further on, I was very near being the destruction of some new-born dormice—their feeble squeak haunts my ears at this moment!

Beyond this nursery, a door opened and admitted us into a large saloon, in the days of Mr. Trefusis’s father very splendidly decorated, but at present exhibiting nothing, save damp plastered walls, mouldering floors, and cracked windows. A well-known perfume issuing from this apartment, proclaimed the neighbourhood of those fragrant animals, which you perfectly recollect were the joy of my infancy, and presently three or four couple of spanking yellow rabbits made their appearance. A racoon poked his head out of a coop, whilst an owl lifted up the gloom of his countenance, and gave us his malediction.

My nose having lost all relish for rabbitish odours, took refuge in my handkerchief; there did I keep it snug till it pleased our conductors to light us through two or three closets, all of a flutter with Virginia nightingales, goldfinches, and canary-birds, into the stable. Several game-cocks fell a crowing with most triumphant shrillness upon our approach; and a monkey—the image of poor Brandoin—expanded his jaws in so woful a manner, that I grew melancholy, and paid the hunters not half the attention they merited.

At length we got into the open air again, made our bows and departed. The evening was become serene and pleasant, the moon beamed brilliantly on the sea; but the owls, who are never to be pleased, hooted most ruefully.

Good night: I expect to dream of closed-up doors,[12] and haunted passages; rats, puppies, racoons, game-cocks, rabbits, and dormice.

LETTER IV.

A blustering night.—Tedium of the language of the compass.—Another excursion to Trefusis.

Falmouth, March 10, 1787.

I THOUGHT last night our thin pasteboard habitation would have been blown into the sea, for never in my life did I hear such dreadful blusterings. Perhaps the winds are celebrating the approach of the equinox, or some high festival in Æolus’s calendar, with which we poor mortals are unacquainted. How tired I am of the language of the compass, of wind shifting to this point and veering to the other; of gales springing up, and breezes freshening; of rough seas, clear berths, ships driving, and anchors lifting. Oh! that I was rooted like a tree, in some sheltered corner of an inland valley, where I might never hear more of saltwater or sailing.

You cannot wonder at my becoming impatient, after eleven days’ captivity, nor at my wishing myself anywhere but where I am: I should almost prefer a quarantine party at the new elegant Lazaretto off Marseilles, to this smoky residence; at least, I might there learn some curious particulars of the Levant, enjoy bright sunshine, and perfect myself in Arabic. But what can a being of my turn do at Falmouth? I have little taste for the explanation of fire-engines, Mr. Scott; the pursuit of hares under the auspices of young Trefusis; or the gliding of billiard-balls in the society of Barbadoes Creoles and packet-boat captains. The Lord have mercy upon me! now, indeed, do I perform penance.

Our dinner yesterday went off tolerably well. We had on the table a savoury pig, right worthy of Otaheite, and some of the finest poultry I ever tasted; and round the table two or three brace of odd Cornish gentlefolks, not deficient in humour and originality.

About eight in the evening, six game-cocks were ushered into the eating-room by two limber lads in scarlet jackets; and, after a flourish of crowing, the noble birds set-to with surprising keenness. Tufts of brilliant feathers soon flew about the apartment; but the carpet was not stained with the blood of the combatants: for, to do Trefusis justice, he has a generous heart, and takes no pleasure in cruelty. The cocks were unarmed, had their spurs cut short, and may live to fight fifty such harmless battles.

LETTER V.

Regrets produced by Contrasts.

Falmouth, March 11, 1787.

WHAT a fool was I to leave my beloved retirement at Evian! Instead of viewing innumerable transparent rills falling over the amber-coloured rocks of Melierie, I am chained down to contemplate an oozy beach, deserted by the sea, and becrawled with worms tracking their way in the slime that harbours them. Instead of the cheerful crackling of a wood-fire in the old baron’s great hall, I hear the bellowing of winds in narrow chimneys. You must allow the aromatic fragrance of fir-cones, such heaps of which I used to burn in Savoy, is greatly preferable to the exhalations of Welsh coal, and that to a person wrapped up in musical devotion, high mass must be a good deal superior to the hummings and hawings of a Quaker assembly. Colett swears he had rather be boarded at the Inquisition than remain at the mercy of the confounded keeper of this hotel, the worst and the dearest in Christendom. We are all tired to death, and know not what to do with ourselves.

As I look upon ennui to be very catching, I shall break off before I give you a share of it.

LETTER VI.

Still no prospect of embarkation.—Pen-dennis Castle.—Luxuriant vegetation.—A serene day.—Anticipations of the voyage.

Falmouth, March 13, 1787.

NO prospect of launching this day upon the ocean. Every breeze is subsided, and a profound calm established. I walk up and down the path which leads to Pen-dennis Castle with folded arms, in a most listless desponding mood. Vast brakes of furze, much stouter and loftier than any with which I am acquainted, scent the air with the perfume of apricots. Primroses, violets, and fresh herbs innumerable expand on every bank. Larks, poised in the soft blue sky, warble delightfully. The sea, far and wide, is covered with fishing-boats; and such a stillness prevails, that I hear the voices of the fishermen.

You will be rambling in sheltered alleys, whilst winds and currents drive me furiously along craggy shores, under the scowl of a tempestuous sky. You will be angling for perch, whilst sharks are whetting their teeth at me. Methinks I hear the voracious gluttons disputing the first snap, and pointing upwards their cold slimy noses. Out upon them! I have no desire to invade their element, or (using poetical language) to plough those plains of waves which brings them rich harvests of carcasses, and had much rather cling fast to the green banks of Pen-dennis. I even prefer mining to sailing; and of the two, had rather be swallowed up by the earth than the ocean.

I wish some “swart fairy of the mine” would snatch me to her concealments. Rather than pass a month in the qualms of sea-sickness, I would consent to live three by candlelight, in the deepest den you could discover, stuck close to a foul midnight hag as mouldy as a rotten apple.

This, you will tell me, is being very energetic in my aversions, that I allow; but such, you know, is my trim, and I cannot help it.

LETTER VII.

Portugal.—Excursion to Pagliavam.—The villa.—Dismal labyrinths in the Dutch style.—Roses.—Anglo-Portuguese Master of the Horse.—Interior of the Palace.—Furniture in petticoats.—Force of education.—Royalty without power.—Return from the Palace.

30th May, 1787.

HORNE persuaded me much against my will to accompany him in his Portuguese chaise to Pagliavam, the residence of John the Fifth’s bastards, instead of following my usual track along the sea-shore. The roads to this stately garden are abominable, and more infested by beggars, dogs, flies, and musquitoes, than any I am acquainted with. The villa itself, which belongs to the Marquis of Lourical, is placed in a hollow, and the tufted groves which surround it admit not a breath of air; so I was half suffocated the moment I entered their shade.

A great flat space before the garden-front of the villa is laid out in dismal labyrinths of clipped myrtle, with lofty pyramids rising from them, in the style of that vile Dutch maze planted by King William at Kensington, and rooted up some years ago by King George the Third. Beyond this puzzling ground are several long alleys of stiff dark verdure, called ruas, i. e. literally streets, with great propriety, being more close, more formal, and not less dusty than High-Holborn. I deviated from them into plats of well-watered vegetables and aromatic herbs, enclosed by neat fences of cane, covered with an embroidery of the freshest and most perfect roses, quite free from insects and cankers, worthy to have strewn the couches and graced the bosom of Lais, Aspasia, or Lady——. You know how warmly every mortal of taste delights in these lovely flowers; how frequently, and in what harmonious numbers, Ariosto has celebrated them. Has not Lady —— a whole apartment painted over with roses? Does she not fill her bath with their leaves, and deck her idols with garlands of no other flowers? and is she not quite in the right of it?

Whilst I was poetically engaged with the roses, Horne entered into conversation with a sort of Anglo-Portuguese Master of the Horse to their bastard highnesses. He had a snug well-powdered wig, a bright silver-hilted sword, a crimson full-dress suit, and a gently bulging paunch. With one hand in his bosom and the other in the act of taking snuff, he harangued emphatically upon the holiness, temperance, and chastity of his august masters, who live sequestered from the world in dingy silent state, abhor profane company, and never cast a look upon females.

Being curious to see the abode of these semi-royal sober personages, I entered the palace. Not an insect stirred, not a whisper was audible. The principal apartments consist in a suite of lofty-coved saloons, nobly proportioned, and uniformly hung with damask of the deepest crimson. The upper end of each room is doubly shaded by a ponderous canopy of cut velvet. To the right and left appear rows of huge elbow-chairs of the same materials. No glasses, no pictures, no gilding, no decoration, but heavy drapery; even the tables are concealed by cut velvet flounces, in the style of those with which our dowagers used formerly to array their toilets. The very sight of such close tables is enough to make one perspire; and I cannot imagine what demon prompted the Portuguese to invent such a fusty fashion.

This taste for putting commodes and tables into petticoats is pretty general here, at least in royal apartments. At Queluz, not a card or dining-table has escaped; and many an old court-dress, I should suspect, has been cut up to furnish these accoutrements, which are of all colours, plain and flowered, pastorally sprigged or gorgeously embroidered. Not so at Pagliavam. Crimson alone prevails, and casts its royal gloom unrivalled on every object. Stuck fast to the wall, between two of the aforementioned tables, are two fauteuils for their highnesses; and opposite, a rank of chairs for those reverend fathers in God who from time to time are honoured with admittance.

How mighty is the force of Education!—What pains it must require on the part of nurses, equerries, and chamberlains, to stifle every lively and generous sensation in the princelings they educate,—to break a human being into the habits of impotent royalty! Dignity without command is one of the heaviest of burthens. A sovereign may employ himself; he has the choice of good or evil; but princes, like those of Pagliavam, without power or influence, who have nothing to feed on but imaginary greatness, must yawn their souls out, and become in process of time as formal and inanimate as the pyramids of stunted myrtle in their gardens. Happier were those babies King John did not think proper to recognize, and they are not few in number, for that pious monarch,

They, perhaps, whilst their brothers are gaping under rusty canopies, tinkle their guitars in careless moonlight rambles, wriggle in gay fandangos, or enjoy sound sleep, rural fare, and merriment, in the character of jolly village curates.

I was glad to get out of the palace; its stillness and gloom depressed my spirits, and a confined atmosphere, impregnated with the smell of burnt lavender, almost overcame me. I am just returned gasping for air. No wonder; one might as well be in bed with a warming-pan as in a Portuguese cariole with the portly Horne, who carries a noble protuberance, set off in this season with a satin waistcoat richly spangled.

I must go to Cintra, or I shall expire!

LETTER VIII.

Glare of the climate in Portugal.—Apish luxury.—Botanic Gardens.—Açafatas.—Description of the Gardens and Terraces.

May 31, 1787.

IT is in vain I call upon clouds to cover me and fogs to wrap me up. You can form no adequate idea of the continual glare of this renowned climate. Lisbon is the place in the world best calculated to make one cry out

but where to hide is not so easy. Here are no thickets of pine as in the classic Italian villas, none of those quivering poplars and leafy chestnuts which cover the plains of Lombardy. The groves in the immediate environs of this capital are composed of—with, alas! but few exceptions—dwarfish orange-trees and cinder-coloured olives. Under their branches repose neither shepherds nor shepherdesses, but whitening bones, scraps of leather, broken pantiles, and passengers not unfrequently attended by monkeys, who, I have been told, are let out for the purpose of picking up a livelihood. Those who cannot afford this apish luxury, have their bushy poles untenanted by affectionate relations, for yesterday just under my window I saw two blessed babies rendering this good office to their aged parent.

I had determined not to have stirred beyond the shade of my awning; however, towards eve, the extreme fervour of the sun being a little abated, old Horne (who has yet a colt’s-tooth) prevailed upon me to walk in the Botanic Gardens, where not unfrequently are to be found certain youthful animals of the female gender called Açafatas, in Portuguese; a species between a bedchamber woman and a maid of honour. The Queen has kindly taken the ugliest with her to the Caldas: those who remain have large black eyes sparkling with the true spirit of adventure, an exuberant flow of dark hair, and pouting lips of the colour and size of full-blown roses.

All this, you will tell me, does not compose a perfect beauty. I never meant to convey such a notion: I only wish you to understand that the nymphs we have just quitted are the flowers of the Queen’s flock, and that she has, at least, four or five dozen more in attendance upon her sacred person, with larger mouths, smaller eyes, and swarthier complexions.

Not being in sufficient spirits to flourish away in Portuguese, my conversation was chiefly addressed to a lovely blue-eyed Irish girl of fifteen or sixteen, lately married to an officer of her Majesty’s customs. Spouse goes a pilgrimaging to Nossa Senhora do Cabo—little madam whisks about the Botanic Garden with the ladies of the palace and a troop of sopranos, who teach her to warble and speak Italian. She is well worth teaching everything in their power. Her hair of the loveliest auburn, her straight Grecian eyebrows and fair complexion, form a striking contrast to the gipsy-coloured skins and jetty tresses of her companions. She looked like a visionary being skimming along the alleys, and leaving the pot-bellied sopranos and dowdy Açafatas far behind, wondering at her agility.

The garden is pleasant enough, situated upon an eminence, planted with light flowering trees clustered with blossoms. Above their topmost branches rises a broad majestic terrace, with marble balustrades of shining whiteness and strange Oriental pattern. They design indifferently in this country, but execute with great neatness and precision. I never saw balustrades better hewn or chiseled than those bordering the steps which lead up to the grand terrace. Its ample surface is laid out in oblong compartments of marble, containing no very great variety of heliotropes, aloes, geraniums, china-roses, and the commonest plants of our green-houses. Such ponderous divisions have a dismal effect; they reminded one of a place of interment, and it struck me as if the deceased inhabitants of the adjoining palace were sprouting up in the shape of prickly-pears, Indian-figs, gaudy holly-oaks, and peppery capsicums.

The terrace is about fifteen hundred paces in length. Three copious fountains give it an air of coolness, much increased by the waving of tall acacias, exposed by their lofty situation to every breeze which blows from the entrance of the Tagus, whose lovely azure appears to great advantage between the quivering foliage.

The Irish girl and your faithful correspondent coursed each other like children along the terrace, and when tired reposed under a group of gigantic Brazilian aloes by one of the fountains. The swarthy party detached its principal guardian, a gawky young priest, to observe all the wanderings and riposos of us white people.

It was late, and the sun had set several minutes before I took my departure. Black eyes and blue eyes seem horridly jealous of each other. I fear my youthful and lively companion will suffer for having more alertness than the Açafatas: she will be pinched, if I am not mistaken, as the party return through the dark and intricate passages which join the palace of the Ajuda to the gardens. Sad thought, the leaving such a fair little being in the hands of fiery, despotic females, so greatly her inferiors in complexion and delicacy.

They will take especial care, I warrant them, to fill the husband’s head with suspicions less charitable than those inspired by Nossa Senhora do Cabo.

LETTER IX.

Consecration of the Bishop of Algarve.—Pathetic Music.—Valley of Alcantara.—Enormous Aqueduct.—Visit to the Marialva Palace.—Its much revered Masters.—Collection of Rarities.—The Viceroy of Algarve.—Polyglottery.—A Night-scene.—Modinhas.—Extraordinary Procession.—Blessings of Patriarchal Government.

3 June, 1787.

WE went by special invitation to the royal Convent of the Necessidades, belonging to the Oratorians, to see the ceremony of consecrating a father of that order Bishop of Algarve, and were placed fronting the altar in a gallery crowded with important personages in shining raiment, the relations of the new prelate. The floor being spread with rich Persian carpets and velvet cushions, it was pretty good kneeling; but, notwithstanding this comfortable accommodation, I thought the ceremony would never finish. There was a mighty glitter of crosses, censers, mitres, and crosiers, continually in motion, as several bishops assisted in all their pomp.

The music, which was extremely simple and pathetic, appeared to affect the grandees in my neighbourhood very profoundly, for they put on woful contrite countenances, thumped their breasts, and seemed to think themselves, as most of them are, miserable sinners. Feeling oppressed by the heat and the sermon, I made my retreat slyly and silently from the splendid gallery, and passed through some narrow corridors, as warm as flues, into the garden.

But this was only exchanging one scene of formality and closeness for another. I panted after air, and to obtain that blessing escaped through a little narrow door into the wild free valley of Alcantara. Here all was solitude and humming of bees, and fresh gales blowing from the entrance of the Tagus over the tufted tops of orange gardens. The refreshing sound of water-wheels seemed to give me new life.

I set the sun at defiance, and advanced towards that part of the valley across which stretches the enormous aqueduct you have heard so often mentioned as the most colossal edifice of its kind in Europe. It has only one row of pointed openings, and the principal arch, which crosses a rapid brook, measures above two hundred and fifty feet in height. The Pont de Garde and Caserta have several rows of arches one above the other, which, by dividing the attention, take off from the size of the whole. There is a vastness in this single range that strikes with astonishment. I sat down on a fragment of rock, under the great arch, and looked up to the vaulted stone-work so high above me with a sensation of awe not unallied to fear; as if the building I gazed upon was the performance of some immeasurable being endued with gigantic strength, who might perhaps take a fancy to saunter about his works this morning, and, in mere awkwardness, crush me to atoms.

Hard by the spot where I sat are several inclosures filled with canes, eleven or twelve feet high: their fresh green leaves, agitated by the feeblest wind, form a perpetual murmur. I am fond of this rustling, and suffered myself to be lulled by it into a state of very necessary repose after the fatigues of scrambling over crags and precipices.

As soon as I returned from my walk, Horne took me to dine with him, and afterwards to the Marialva Palace to pay the Grand Prior a visit. The court-yard, filled with shabby two-wheeled chaises, put me in mind of the entrance of a French post-house; a recollection not weakened by the sight of several ample heaps of manure, between which we made the best of our way up the great staircase, and had near tumbled over a swingeing sow and her numerous progeny, which escaped from under our legs with bitter squeakings.

This hubbub announced our arrival, so out came the Grand Prior, his nephew, the old Abade, and a troop of domestics. All great Portuguese families are infested with herds of these, in general, ill-favoured dependants; and none more than the Marialvas, who dole out every day three hundred portions, at least, of rice and other eatables to as many greedy devourers.

The Grand Prior had shed his pontifical garments and did the honours of the house, and conducted us with much agility all over the apartments, and through the manège, where the old Marquis, his brother, though at a very advanced age, displays feats of the most consummate horsemanship. He seems to have a decided taste for clocks, compasses, and time-keepers. I counted no less than ten in his bedchamber; four or five in full swing, making a loud hissing: they were chiming and striking away (for it was exactly six) when I followed my conductor up and down half-a-dozen staircases into a saloon hung with rusty damask.

A table in the centre of this antiquated apartment was covered with rarities brought forth for our inspection; curious shell-work, ivory crucifixes, models of ships, housings embroidered with feathers, and the Lord knows what besides, stinking of camphor enough to knock one down.

Whilst we were staring with all our eyes and holding our handkerchiefs to our noses, the Count of V——, Viceroy of Algarve, made his appearance, in grand pea-green and pink and silver gala, straddling and making wry faces as if some disagreeable accident had befallen him. He was, however, in a most gracious mood, and received our eulogiums upon his relation, the new bishop, with much complacency. Our conversation was limpingly carried on in a great variety of broken languages. Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, French, and English, had each their turn in rapid succession. The subject of all this polyglottery was the glories and piety of John the Fifth, regret for the extinction of the Jesuits, and the reverse for the death of Pombal, whose memory he holds in something not distantly removed from execration. This flow of eloquence was accompanied by the strangest, most buffoonical grimaces and slobberings I ever beheld, for the Viceroy having a perennial moistness of mouth, drivels at every syllable.

One must not, however, decide too hastily upon outward appearances. This slobbering, canting personage, is a distinguished statesman and good officer, pre-eminent amongst the few who have seen service and given proofs of prowess and capacity.

To escape the long-winded narrations which were pouring warm into my ear, I took refuge near a harpsichord, where Policarpio, one of the first tenors in the Queen’s chapel, was singing and accompanying himself. The curtains of the door of an adjoining dark apartment being half drawn, gave me a transient glimpse of Donna Henriquetta de L——, Don Pedro’s sister, advancing one moment and retiring the next, eager to approach and examine us exotic beings, but not venturing to enter the saloon during her mother’s absence. She appeared to me a most interesting girl, with eyes full of bewitching languor;—but of what do I talk? I only saw her pale and evanescent, as one fancies one sees objects in a dream. A group of lovely children (her sisters, I believe) sat at her feet upon the ground, resembling genii partially concealed by folds of drapery in some grand allegorical picture by Rubens or Paul Veronese.

Night approaching, lights glimmered on the turrets, terraces, and every part of the strange huddle of buildings of which this morisco-looking palace is composed; half the family were engaged in reciting the litanies of saints, the other in freaks and frolics, perhaps of no very edifying nature: the monotonous staccato of the guitar, accompanied by the low soothing murmur of female voices singing modinhas, formed altogether a strange though not unpleasant combination of sounds.

I was listening to them with avidity, when a glare of flambeaus, and the noise of a splashing and dashing of water, called us out upon the verandas, in time to witness a procession scarcely equalled since the days of Noah. I doubt whether his ark contained a more heterogeneous collection of animals than issued from a scalera with fifty oars, which had just landed the old Marquis of M. and his son Don Josè, attended by a swarm of musicians, poets, bullfighters, grooms, monks, dwarfs, and children of both sexes, fantastically dressed.

The whole party, it seems, were returned from a pilgrimage to some saint’s nest or other on the opposite shore of the Tagus. First jumped out a hump-backed dwarf, blowing a little squeaking trumpet three or four inches long; then a pair of led captains, apparently commanded by a strange, old, swaggering fellow in a showy uniform, who, I was told, had acted the part of a sort of brigadier-general in some sort of an island. Had it been Barataria, Sancho would soon have sent him about his business, for, if we believe the scandalous chronicle of Lisbon, a more impudent buffoon, parasite, and pilferer seldom existed.

Close at his heels stalked a savage-looking monk, as tall as Samson, and two Capuchin friars, heavily laden, but with what sort of provision I am ignorant; next came a very slim and sallow-faced apothecary, in deep sables, completely answering in gait and costume the figure one fancies to one’s self of Senhor Apuntador, in Gil Blas, followed by a half-crazed improvisatore, spouting verses at us as he passed under the balustrades against which we were leaning.

He was hardly out of hearing before a confused rabble of watermen and servants with bird-cages, lanterns, baskets of fruit, and chaplets of flowers, came gamboling along to the great delight of a bevy of children; who, to look more like the inhabitants of Heaven than even Nature designed, had light fluttering wings attached to their rose-coloured shoulders. Some of these little theatrical angels were extremely beautiful, and had their hair most coquettishly arranged in ringlets.

The old Marquis is doatingly fond of them; night and day they remain with him, imparting all the advantages that can possibly be derived from fresh and innocent breath to a declining constitution. The patriarch of the Marialvas has followed this regimen many years, and also some others which are scarcely credible. Having a more than Roman facility of swallowing an immense profusion of dainties, and making room continually for a fresh supply, he dines alone every day between two silver canteens of extraordinary magnitude. Nobody in England would believe me if I detailed the enormous repast I saw spread out for him; but let your imagination loose upon all that was ever conceived in the way of gormandizing, and it will not in this case exceed the reality.

As soon as the contents, animal and vegetable, of the principal scalera, and three or four other barges in its train, had been deposited in their respective holes, corners, and roosting-places, I received an invitation from the old Marquis to partake of a collation in his apartment. Not less, I am certain, than fifty servants were in waiting, and exclusive of half-a-dozen wax-torches, which were borne in state before us, above a hundred tapers of different sizes were lighted up in the range of rooms, intermingled with silver braziers and cassolettes diffusing a very pleasant perfume. I found the master of all this magnificence most courteous, affable, and engaging. There is an urbanity and good-humour in his looks, gestures, and tone of voice, that prepossesses instantaneously in his favour, and justifies the universal popularity he enjoys, and the affectionate name of Father, by which the Queen and Royal Family often address him. All the favours of the crown have been heaped upon him by the present and preceding sovereigns, a tide of prosperity uninterrupted even during the grand vizariat of Pombal. “Act as you judge wisest with the rest of my nobility,” used to say the King Don Joseph to this redoubted minister; “but beware how you interfere with the Marquis of Marialva.”

In consequence of this decided predilection, the Marialva Palace became in many cases a sort of rallying point, an asylum for the oppressed; and its master, in more than one instance, a shield against the thunderbolts of a too powerful minister. The recollections of these times seem still to be kept alive; for the heart-felt respect, the filial adoration, I saw paid the old Marquis, was indeed most remarkable; his slightest glances were obeyed, and the person on whom they fell seemed gratified and animated; his sons, the Marquis of Tancos and Don Josè de Meneses, never approached to offer him anything without bending the knee; and the Conde de Villaverde, the heir of the great house of Anjeja, as well as the Viceroy of Algarve, stood in the circle which was formed around him, receiving a kind or gracious word with the same thankful earnestness as courtiers who hang upon the smiles and favour of their sovereign. I shall long remember the grateful sensations with which this scene of reciprocal kindness filled me; it appeared an interchange of amiable sentiments; beneficence diffused without guile or affectation, and protection received without sullen or abject servility.

How preferable is patriarchal government of this nature to the cold theories pedantic sophists would establish, and which, should success attend their selfish atheistical ravings, bid fair to undermine the best and surest props of society! When parents cease to be honoured by their children, and the feelings of grateful subordination in those of helpless age or condition are unknown, kings will soon cease to reign, and republics to be governed by the councils of experience; anarchy, rapine, and massacre will walk the earth, and the abode of dæmons be transferred from hell to our unfortunate planet.

LETTER X.

Festival of the Corpo de Deos.—Striking decoration of the streets.—The Patriarchal Cathedral.—Coming forth of the Sacrament in awful state.—Gorgeous Procession.—Bewildering confusion of sounds.

7th June.

A MOST sonorous peal of bells, an alarming rattle of drums, and a piercing flourish of trumpets, roused me at daybreak. You are too piously disposed to be ignorant that this day is the festival of the Corpo de Deos. I had half a mind to have stayed at home, turning over a curious collection of Portuguese chronicles the Prior of Avis has just sent to me; but I was told such wonders of the expected procession that I could not refuse giving myself a little trouble in order to witness them.

Everybody was gone before I set out, and the streets of the suburb I inhabit, as well as those in the city through which I passed in my way to the patriarchal cathedral, were entirely deserted. A pestilence seemed to have swept the Great Square and the busy environs of the Exchange and India House; for even vagrants, scavengers, and beggars, in the last state of decrepitude, had all hobbled away to the scene of action. A few miserable curs sniffing at offals alone remained in the deserted streets, and I saw no human being at any of the windows, except half-a-dozen scabby children blubbering at being kept at home.

The murmur of the crowds, assembled round the patriarchale, reached us a long while before we got into the midst of them, for we advanced with difficulty between rows of soldiers drawn up in battle array. Upon turning a dark angle, overshadowed by the high buildings of the seminary adjoining the patriarchale, we discovered houses, shops, and palaces, all metamorphosed into tents, and hung from top to bottom with red damask, tapestry, satin coverlids, and fringed counterpanes glittering with gold. I thought myself in the midst of the Mogul’s encampment, so pompously described by Bernier.

The front of the Great Church in particular was most magnificently curtained; it rises from a vast flight of steps, which were covered to-day with the yeomen of the Queen’s guard in their rich party-coloured velvet dresses, and a multitude of priests bearing a gorgeous variety of painted and silken banners; flocks of sallow monks, white, brown, and black, kept pouring in continually, like turkeys driving to market.

This part of the holy display lasting a tiresome while, I grew weary, and left the balcony, where we were placed most advantageously, and got into the church. High mass was performing with awful pomp, incense ascending in clouds, and the light of innumerable tapers blazing on the diamonds of the ostensory, just elevated by the patriarch with trembling devout hands to receive the mysterious wafer.

Before the close of the ceremony, I regained my window, to have a full view of the coming forth of the Sacrament. All was expectation and silence in the people. The guards had ranged them on each side of the steps before the entrance of the church. At length a shower of aromatic herbs and flowers announced the approach of the patriarch, bearing the host under a regal canopy, surrounded by grandees, and preceded by a long train of mitred figures, their hands joined in prayer, their scarlet and purple vestments sweeping the ground, their attendants bearing croziers, crosses, and other insignia of pontifical grandeur.

The procession slowly descending the flights of stairs to the sound of choirs and the distant thunder of artillery, lost itself in a winding street decorated with embroidered hangings, and left me with my senses in a whirl, and my eyes dazzled, as if awakened from a vision of celestial splendour.... My head swims at this moment, and my ears tingle with a confusion of sounds, bells, voices, and the echoes of cannon, prolonged by mountains and wafted over waters.

LETTER XI.

Dinner at the country-house of Mr. S——.—His Brazilian wife.—Magnificent repast.—A tragic damsel.

11th June, 1787.

TO-DAY we were engaged to dine in the country at a villa belonging to a gentleman, whose volley of names, when pronounced with the true Portuguese twang, sounds like an expectoration—Josè Street-Arriaga-Brum da Silveira. Our hospitable host is of Irish extraction, boasts a stature of six feet, proportionable breadth, a ruddy countenance, herculean legs, and all the exterior attributes, at least, of that enterprising race, who often have the luck of marrying great fortunes. About a year or two ago he bore off a wealthy Brazilian heiress, and is now master of a large estate and a fubsical, squat wife, with a head not unlike that of Holofernes in old tapestry, and shoulders that act the part of a platter with rather too much exactitude. Poor soul! to be sure, she is neither a Venus nor a Hebe, has a rough lip, and a manly voice, and I fear is somewhat inclined to be dropsical; but her smiles are frequent and fondling, and she cleaves to her husband with great perseverance.

He is an odd character, will accept of no employment, civil or military, and affects a bullying frankness, that I should think must displease very much in this country, where independence either in fortune or sentiment is a crime seldom if ever tolerated.

Mr. S—— likes a display, and the repast he gave us was magnificent; sixty dishes at least, eight smoking roasts, and every ragout, French, English, and Portuguese, that could be thought of. The dessert appeared like the model of a fortification. The principal cake-tower measured, I dare say, three feet perpendicular in height. The company was not equal either in number or consequence to the splendour of the entertainment.

Had not Miss Sill and Bezerra been luckily in my neighbourhood, I should have perished with ennui. One stately damsel, with portentous eyebrows, and looks that reproached the male part of the assembly with inattention, was the only lady of the palace Mr. S—— had invited.

I expected to have met the whole troop of my Botanic Garden acquaintance, and to have escorted them about the vineyards and citron-orchards which surround this villa; but, alas! I was not destined to any such amusing excursion. The tragic damsel, who I am told has been unhappy in her tender attachments, took my arm, and never quitted it during a long walk through Mr. S——’s ample possessions. We conversed in Italian, and paid the birds that were singing, and the rills that were murmuring, many fine compliments in a sort of prose run mad, borrowed from operas and serenatas, the Aminto of Tasso, and the Adone of Marini.

The sun was just diffusing his last rays over the distant rocks of Cintra, the air balsamic, and the paths amongst the vines springing with fresh herbage and a thousand flowers revived by last night’s rain. Giving up the narrow tract which leads through these rural regions to the signora, I stalked by her side in a furrow well garnished with nettles, acanthus, and dwarf aloes, stinging and scratching myself at every step. This penance, and the disappointment I was feeling most acutely, put me not a little out of humour; I regretted so delicious an evening should pass away in such forlorn company, and lacerating my legs to so little purpose. How should I have enjoyed rambling with the young Irish girl about these pleasant clover paths, between festoons of luxuriant leaves and tendrils, not fastened to stiff poles and stumpy stakes as in France and Switzerland, but climbing up light canes eight or ten feet in height!

Pinioned as I was, you may imagine I felt no inclination to prolong a walk which already had been prolonged unconscionably. I escaped tea and playing at voltarete, made a solemn bow to the solemn damsel, and got home before it was quite dark.

LETTER XII.

Pass the day at Belem.—Visit the neighbouring Monastery.—Habitation of King Emanuel.—A gold Custodium of exquisite workmanship.—The Church.—Bonfires on the edge of the Tagus.—Fire-works.—Images of the Holy One of Lisbon.

June 12th, 1787.

WE passed the day quite en famille at Belem with a whole legion of Marialvas. Some reverend fathers, of I know not what community, had sent them immense messes of soup, very thick, slab, and oily; a portion which, it seems, the faithful are accustomed to swallow on the eve of St. Anthony’s festival.

As soon as I decently could, after a collation which was served under an awning stretched over one of the terraces, I stole out of the circle of lords, ladies, dwarfs, monks, buffoons, bullies, and almoners, to visit the neighbouring monastery. I ascended the great stairs, constructed at the expense of the Infanta Catherine, King Charles the Second’s dowager, and after walking in the cloisters of Emanuel, looked into the library, which is far from being in the cleanest or best ordered condition. The spacious and lofty cloisters present a striking spread of arches, which, though not in the purest style, attract the eye by their delicately-carved arabesque ornament, and the warm reddish hue of the marble. The corridor, into which open an almost endless range of cells, is full five hundred feet in length. Each window has a commodious resting-place, where the monks loll at their ease and enjoy the view of the river.

In a little dark treasury communicating by winding-stairs with that part of the edifice tradition points out as the habitation of King Emanuel, when at certain holy seasons he retired within these precincts, I was shown by candlelight some extremely curious plate, particularly a custodium, made in the year 1506, of the pure gold of Quiloa. Nothing can be more beautiful as a specimen of elaborate gothic sculpture, than this complicated enamelled mass of flying buttresses and fretted pinnacles, with the twelve Apostles in their niches, under canopies formed of ten thousand wreaths and ramifications.

From this gloomy recess, I was conducted to the church, one of the largest in Portugal, vast, solemn, and fantastic, like the interior of the Temple of Jerusalem, as I have seen it figured in some old German Bibles. There was little, however, in the altars or monuments worth any very minute investigation.

It fell dark before I went out at the great porch, and found the wide space before it beginning to catch a vivid gleam from a line of bonfires on the edge of the Tagus. I could hardly reach my carriage without being singed by squibs and crackers, and wished myself out the moment I got into it, a rocket having shot up just under the noses of my mules and scared them terribly.

Unless St. Anthony lulls me asleep by a miracle, I must expect no rest to-night, there is such a whizzing of fireworks, blazing of bonfires and flourishing of French horns in honour of to-morrow, the five hundred and fifty-fifth anniversary of that memorable day, when the Holy One of Lisbon passed by a soft transition to the joys of Paradise. I saw his image at the door of almost every house and even hovel of this populous capital, placed on an altar, and decked with a profusion of wax-lights and flowers.

LETTER XIII.

The New Church of St. Anthony.—Sprightly Music.—Enthusiastic Sermon.—The good Prior of Avis.—Visit to the Carthusian Convent of Cachiez.—Spectres of the Order.—Striking effigy of the Saviour.—A young and melancholy Carthusian.—The Cemetery.

June 13th, 1787.

I SLEPT better than I expected: the Saint was propitious, and during the night cooled the ardour of his votaries and the flames of their bonfires by a vernal shower, which pattered agreeably this morning amongst the vineleaves of my garden. The clouds dispersed about eight o’clock, and at nine, just as I ascended the steps of the new church built over the identical house where St. Anthony was born, the sun shone out in all its splendour.

I cannot say this edifice recalled to my mind the magnificent sanctuary of Padua, which five years ago on this very day impressed my imagination so forcibly. Here are no constellations of golden lamps depending by glittering chains from a mysterious vaulted ceiling, no arcades of alabaster, no sculptured marbles. The church is supported by two rows of pillars neatly carved in stone, but wretchedly proportioned. Over the high altar, where stands the revered image in the midst of a bright illumination, was stretched a canopy of flowered velvet. This drapery, richly fringed and tasseled, marks out the spot formerly occupied by the chamber of the saint, and receives an amber-light from a row of tall casement windows, the woodwork gleaming with burnished gold.

A great many broad English faces burst forth from amongst the crowd of profane vulgar at the portal of the church, and all their eyes were directed to their enthusiastic countryman, but he was not to be stared out of a decent countenance.

The ceremony was extremely pompous. A prelate of the first rank, with a considerable detachment of priests from the royal chapel, officiated to the sounds of lively jigs and ranting minuets, better calculated to set a parcel of water-drinkers a dancing in a pump-room, than to direct the movements of a pontiff and his assistants.

After much indifferent music, vocal and instrumental, performed full gallop in the most rapid allegro, Frè Joaô Jacinto, a famous preacher, mounted the pulpit, lifted up hands and eyes, and poured forth a torrent of sounding phrases in honour of St. Anthony. What would I not give for such a voice?—it would almost have reached from Dan unto Beersheba!

The Father has undoubtedly great powers of elocution, and none of that canting, nasal whine so common in the delivery of monkish sermons. He treated kings, tetrarchs, and conquerors, the heroes and sages of antiquity, with ineffable contempt; reduced their palaces and fortifications to dust, their armies to pismires, their imperial vestments to cobwebs, and impressed all his audience, except the heretical squinters at the door, with the most thorough conviction of St. Anthony’s superiority over these objects of an erring and impious admiration.

“Happy,” exclaimed the preacher, “were those gothic ages, falsely called ages of barbarism and ignorance, when the hearts of men, uncorrupted by the delusive beverage of philosophy, were open to the words of truth falling like honey from the mouths of saints and confessors, such words as distilled from the lips of Anthony, yet a suckling hanging at the breast in this very spot. It was here the spirit of the Most High descended upon him, here that he conceived the sublime intention of penetrating into the most turbulent parts of Europe, setting the inclemency of seasons and the malice of men at defiance, and sprinkling amongst lawless nations the seeds of grace and repentance. There, my brethren, is the door out of which he issued. Do you not see him in the habit of a Menino de Coro, smiling with all the graces of innocence, and dispensing with his infant hands to a group of squalid children the portion of nourishment he has just received from his mother?

“But Anthony, from the first dawn of his existence, lived for others, and not for himself: he forewent even the luxury of meditation, and instead of retiring into a peaceful cell, rushed into the world, helpless and unprotected, lifting high the banner of the Cross amidst perils and uproar, appeasing wars, settling differences both public and domestic, exhorting at the risk of his life ruffians and plunderers to make restitution, and armed misers, guarding their coffers with bloody swords, to open their hearts and their hands to the distresses of the widow and the fatherless.

“Anthony ever sighed after the crown of martyrdom, and had long entertained an ardent desire of passing over into Morocco, and exposing himself to the fury of its bigoted and cruel sovereign; but the commands of his superior retain him on the point of embarkation; he makes a sacrifice of even this most laudable and glorious ambition; he traverses Spain, repairs to Assisi, embraces the rigid order of the great St. Francis, and continues to his last hour administering consolation to the dejected, fortifying their hopes of heaven, and confirming the faith of such as were wavering or deluded by a succession of prodigies. The dead are raised, the sick are healed, the sea is calmed by a glance of St Anthony; even the lowest ranks of the creation are attracted by eloquence more than human, and give marks of sensibility. Fish swim in shoals to hear the word of the Lord; and to convince the obdurate and those accursed whose hearts the false reasoning of the world had hardened, mules and animals the most perversely obstinate humble themselves to the earth when Anthony holds forth the Sacrament, and acknowledge the presence of the Divinity.”

The sermon ended, fiddling began anew with redoubled vigour, and I, disgusted with such unseasonable levity, retired home in dudgeon. This little cloud of peevishness was soon dissipated by the cheering presence of the good Prior of Avis, than whom there exists not, perhaps, in this world a more benign, evangelical character; one who gives glory to God with less ostentation, or bears a more unaffected goodwill towards men. This excellent prelate had been passing his morning, not in attending pompous ceremonies, but in consoling the sick and relieving the indigent; climbing up to their miserable chambers to afford assistance in the name of the saint whose festival was celebrating, and whose fame, for every charitable beneficent act, had been handed down by the inhabitants of Lisbon from father to child, through a long series of generations.

Our discourse was not of a nature to incline me to relish pomps and vanities. I waved seeing the procession which was expected to pass through the principal streets of the city, and, accompanied by my reverend friend, enjoyed the serenity of the evening on the shore of Belem. We stopped as we passed by the Marialva palace, and took up Don Pedro and his nursing father, the old Abade, who proposed a visit to the Carthusian convent of Cachiez.

In about half an hour we were set down before the church, which fronts the royal gardens, and were ushered into a solemn, silent quadrangle. Several spectres of the order were gliding about the cloisters, which branch off from this court. In the middle is a marble fountain, shaded by pyramids of clipped box; around are seven or eight small chapels; one of which contains a coloured image of the Saviour in the last dreadful agonies of his passion, covered with livid bruises and corrupted gore.

Whilst we were examining this too faithful effigy, some of the monks, by leave of their superior, gathered around us; one of them, a tall interesting figure, attracted my attention by the deep melancholy which sat upon his features. Upon inquiry, I learned he was only two-and-twenty years of age, of illustrious parentage, and lively talents; but the immediate cause of his having sought these mansions of stillness and mortification, the Grand Prior seemed loth to communicate.

I could not help observing, as this young victim stood before me, and I contemplated the evening light thrown on the arcades of the quadrangle, how many setting suns he was likely to behold wasting their gleams upon these walls, and what a wearisome succession of years he had in all probability devoted himself to consume within their precincts. The eyes of the good prior filled with tears, Verdeil shuddered, and the Abade, forgetting the superstitious part he generally acts in religious places, exclaimed loudly against the toleration of human sacrifices, and the folly of permitting those to renounce the world, whose youth incapacitates them from making a due estimate of its sorrows or advantages. As for Don Pedro, his serious disposition received additional gloom from the objects with which we were environed.

The chill gust that blew from an arched hall where the fathers are interred, and whose pavement returned a hollow sound as we walked over it, struck him with horror. It was the first time of his entering a Carthusian convent, and, to my surprise, he appeared ignorant of the severities of the order.

The sun set before we regained our carriage, and our conversation the whole way home partook of the impression which the scenery we had been contemplating inspired.

LETTER XIV.

Curious succession of visiters.—A Seraphic Doctor.—Monsenhor Aguilar.—Mob of old hags, children, and ragamuffins.—Visit to the Theatre in the Rua d’os Condes.—The Archbishop Confessor.—Brazilian Modinhas.—Bewitching nature of that music.—Nocturnal processions.—Enthusiasm of the young Conde de Villanova.—No accounting for fancies.

14th June, 1787.

IT was my lot this afternoon to receive a curious succession of visitors. First came Pombal, who looked worn down with gay living and late hours; but there is an ease and fashion in his address not common in this country. Though he possesses one of the largest landed estates in the kingdom, (about one hundred and twenty thousand crowns a-year,) he wished me to understand that his dread father, the scourge and terror of the noblest houses in Portugal, the sole dispenser during so many years of the royal treasure, died, notwithstanding, in distressed circumstances, loaded with debts contracted in supporting the dignity of his post.

The next who did me the honour of a visit was the Judge Conservator of the English factory, Joaô Telles, a relation, legitimate or illegitimate (I know not exactly which), of the Penalvas. This man, who has risen to one of the highest posts of the law by the sole strength of his abilities, has a nervous, original style of expression, which put me in mind of Lord Thurlow; but to all this vigour of character and diction, he joins the pliability and subtleness of a serpent; and those he cannot take by storm, he is sure of overcoming by every soothing art of flattery and insinuation.

As soon as he was departed, entered a pair of monks with a basket of sweetmeats in cut paper, from a good lady abbess, beseeching me to portion out two sweet virgins as God’s spouses in some neighbouring monastery.

They were scarcely dismissed, before Father Theodore d’Almeida and another of his brethren were ushered in. The whites of their eyes alone were visible, nor could Whitfield himself, the original Doctor Squintum of Foote, have squinted more scientifically.

I was all attention to Father Theodore’s seraphic discourse; so excellent an opportunity of hearing a first-rate specimen of hypocritical cant was not to be neglected. No sooner had the fathers been conducted to the stairshead with due ceremony, than Monsenhor Aguilar, one of the prelates of the Patriarchal Cathedral, was announced. He confirmed me in the opinion I entertained of Father Theodore. No person can accuse Aguilar of being a hypocrite. He lays himself but too much open, and treats the church from which he derives a handsome maintenance, not as a patroness, but as an humble companion; the constant butt and object of his sarcasms. In Portugal, even in the year 1787, such conduct is madness, and I fear will expose him one day or other to severe persecution.

We were roused from a peaceful dish of tea by a loud hubbub in the street, and running to the balcony, found a beastly mob of old hags, children, and ragamuffins assembled, headed by half-a-dozen drummers, and as many negroes in scarlet jackets, blowing French-horns with unusual vehemence, and pointing them directly at the house. I was wondering at this Jericho fashion of besieging one’s door, and drawing back to avoid being singed by a rocket which whizzed along within an inch of my nose, when one of the servants entered with a crucifix on a silver salver, and a mighty kind message from the nuns of the Convent of the Sacrament, who had sent their musicians with trimbrels and fireworks, to invite us to some grand doings at their convent, in honour of the Festival of the Heart of Jesus. Really, these church parties begin to lose in my eyes great part of the charm which novelty gave them. I have had pretty nearly my fill of motets, and Kyrie eleisons, and incense, and sweetmeats, and sermons.

That heretic Verdeil, who would almost as soon be in hell at once as in such a cloying heaven, would not let me rest till I went with him to the theatre in the Rua d’os Condes, in order to dissipate by a little profane air the fumes of so much holiness. The play afforded me more disgust than amusement; the theatre is low and narrow, and the actors, for there are no actresses, below criticism. Her Majesty’s absolute commands having swept females off the stage, their parts are acted by calvish young fellows. Judge what a pleasing effect this metamorphosis must produce, especially in the dancers, where one sees a stout shepherdess in virgin white, with a soft blue beard, and a prominent collar-bone, clenching a nosegay in a fist that would almost have knocked down Goliah, and a train of milk-maids attending her enormous foot-steps, tossing their petticoats over their heads at every step. Such sprawling, jerking, and ogling I never saw before, and hope never to see again.

We were heartily sick of the performance before it was half finished, and the night being serene and pleasant, were tempted to take a ramble in the Great Square, which received a faint gleam from the lights in the apartments of the palace, every window being thrown open to catch the breeze. The Archbishop Confessor displayed his goodly person at one of the balconies; from a clown, this now most important personage became a common soldier, from a common soldier a corporal, from a corporal a monk, in which station he gave so many proofs of toleration and good-humour, that Pombal, who happened to stumble upon him by one of those chances which set all calculation at defiance, judged him sufficiently shrewd, jovial, and ignorant, to make a very harmless and comfortable confessor to her Majesty, then Princess of Brazil: since her accession to the throne, he is become Archbishop, in partibus, Grand Inquisitor, and the first spring in the present Government of Portugal. I never saw a sturdier fellow. He seems to anoint himself with the oil of gladness, to laugh and grow fat in spite of the critical situation of affairs in this kingdom, and the just fears all its true patriots entertain of seeing it once more relapse into a Spanish province.

At a window immediately over his right reverence’s shining forehead, we spied out the Lacerdas, two handsome sisters, maids of honour to the Queen, waving their hands to us very invitingly. This was encouragement enough for us to run up a vast many flights of stairs to their apartment, which was crowded with nephews and nieces and cousins clustering round two very elegant young women, who, accompanied by their singing-master, a little square friar, with greenish eyes, were warbling Brazilian modinhas.

Those who have never heard this original sort of music, must and will remain ignorant of the most bewitching melodies that ever existed since the days of the Sybarites. They consist of languid interrupted measures, as if the breath was gone with excess of rapture, and the soul panting to meet the kindred soul of some beloved object. With a childish carelessness they steal into the heart, before it has time to arm itself against their enervating influence; you fancy you are swallowing milk, and are admitting the poison of voluptuousness into the closest recesses of your existence. At least, such beings as feel the power of harmonious sounds are doing so; I won’t answer for hard-eared, phlegmatic northern animals.

An hour or two passed away almost imperceptibly in the pleasing delirium these syren notes inspired, and it was not without regret I saw the company disperse and the spell dissolve. The ladies of the apartment having received a summons to attend her Majesty’s supper, curtsied us off very gracefully, and vanished.

In our way home we met the Sacrament, enveloped in a glare of light, marching in state to pay some sick person a farewell visit; and that hopeful young nobleman, the Conde de Villa Nova,[13] preceding the canopy in a scarlet mantle, and tinkling a silver bell. He is always in close attendance upon the Host, and passes the flower of his days in this singular species of danglement. No lover was ever more jealous of his mistress than this ingenuous youth of his bell. He cannot endure any other person should give it vibration. The parish officers of the extensive and populous district in which his palace is situated, from respect to his birth and opulence, indulge him in this caprice, and indeed a more perseverant bell-bearer they could not have chosen. At all hours and in all weathers he is ready to perform this holy office. In the dead of the night, or in the most intense heat of the day, out he issues and down he dives, or up he climbs, to any dungeon or garret where spiritual assistance of this nature is demanded.

It has been again and again observed, that there is no accounting for fancies. Every person has his own, which he follows to the best of his means and abilities. The old Marialva’s delights are centered between his two silver recipiendaries; the Marquis his son in dancing attendance with the Queen; and Villa Nova, in announcing with his bell to all true believers the approach of celestial majesty. The present rage of the scribbler of all these extravagances is modinhas, and under its prevalence he feels half-tempted to set sail for the Brazils, the native land of these enchanting compositions, to live in tents, such as the Chevalier de Parny describes in his agreeable little voyage, and swing in hammocks, or glide over smooth mats surrounded by bands of youthful minstrels, diffusing at every step the perfume of jasmine and roses.

LETTER XV.

Excessive sultriness of Lisbon.—Night sounds of the city.—Public gala in the garden of the Conde de Villa Nova.—Visit to the Anjeja Palace.—The heir of the family.—Marvellous narrations of a young priest.—Convent of Savoyard nuns.—Father Theodore’s chickens.—Sequestered group of beauties.—Singing of the Scarlati.

29th June, 1787.

THE bright sunshine which has lately been our portion, glorious as it is, begins to tire me. Twenty times a day I cannot help wishing myself extended at full-length upon the fresh herbage of some shady English valley, where fairies gambol in the twilights of Midsummer, whispering in the ears of their sleeping favourites the good or evil fortunes which await them. It is too hot for these oracular little elvish beings in Portugal, one must not here expect their inspirations; but would to Heaven some revelation of this or any other nature had warned me off in time, from the blinding dust and excessive sultriness of Lisbon and its neighbourhood. How silly, when one is well and cool, to gad abroad, in the vain hope of making what is really best, better. Depend upon it, there is more vernal delight and joy in our green hills and copses, than in all these stunted olive fields and sun-burnt promontories.

We have a homely saying, that what is poison to one man is meat to another, and true enough; for these days and nights of glowing temperature, which oppress me beyond endurance, are the delight and boast of the inhabitants of this capital. The heat seems not only to have new venomed the stings of the fleas and the musquitoes, but to have drawn out, the whole night long, all the human ephemera of Lisbon. They frisk, and dance, and tinkle their guitars from sunset to sunrise. The dogs, too, keep yelping and howling without intermission; and what with the bellowing of litanies by parochial processions, the whizzing of fireworks, which devotees are perpetually letting off in honour of some member or other of the celestial hierarchy, and the squabbles of bullying rake-hells, who scour the streets in search of adventures, there is no getting a wink of sleep, even if the heat would allow it.

As to those quiet nocturnal parties, where ingenuous youths rest their heads, not on the lap of earth, but on that of their mistresses, who are soothingly employed in delivering the jetty locks of their lovers from too abundant a population, I have nothing to say against them, nor am I much disturbed by the dashing sound of a few downfalls[14] from the windows; but these dog-howlings exceed every annoyance of the kind I ever endured, and give no slight foretaste of the infernal regions.

Nothing but amusement and racket being thought of here at this season (when to celebrate St. Peter’s festival with all the noise and extravagance in your power, is not more a profane inclination than a pious duty,) that simpleton, the Conde de Villa Nova, opened his garden last night to the nob and mob-ility of Lisbon. There was a dull illumination of paper lanterns, and a sort of pavilion awkwardly constructed for dancing, beneath which the prettiest French and English mantua-makers, milliners, and abigails of the metropolis, figured away in cotillons with the Duke of Cadaval and some other young men of the first distinction, who, like many as hopeful in our own capital, are never at their ease but in low company. Two or three of my servants accompanied my tailor to the fête, and returned enraptured with the affable pleasing manners of the foreign milliners and native nobility.

I should have been most happy to remain at home, in the shade of my green blinds, giving ear, through mere laziness, to any nonsense that anybody chose to say to me; but we had been long engaged to dine with Don Diego de Noronha, at the Anjeja Palace.

When we arrived at our destination, we found the heir of the family surrounded by priests and tutors, learning to look out at the window, the chief employment of Portuguese fidalgo life. Oh what a precious collection of stories did I hear at this attic banquet! There happened to be amongst the company a young oaf of a priest, from I forget what university (I hope not Coimbra), who kept on during the whole dinner favouring us with marvellous narrations, such as the late Queen’s pounding a pearl of inestimable value, to swallow in medical potions; and that one of the nuns of the Convent of the Sacrament, having intrigued with old Beelzebub in propria persona, had been sent to the Inquisition, and the window through which his infernal majesty had entered upon this gallant exploit, walled up and painted over with red crosses. The same precautionary decoration, continued he, has been bestowed upon every opening in the façade, so that no demon, however sharp-set, can get in again. He would fain also have made us believe, that a woman very fair and plump to the eye, with an overflowing breast of milk, who took in sucklings to nurse cheaper than anybody else, regularly made away with them, and was now in the dungeons of the holy office, accused of having minced up above a score of innocents!

Heaven forbid I should detail any further particulars of our table-talk; if I did, you would be finely surfeited.

After dinner the company dispersed, some to their couches, some to hear a sonata on the dulcimer, accompanied on the jew’s harp by a couple of dwarfs; the heir-apparent to his beloved window; and Verdeil and I to a convent of Savoyard nuns, at Belem, the coolest, cleanest retirement in the whole neighbourhood, and blessed into the bargain by the especial patronage and inspection of Father Theodore d’Almeida. His reverence, it seems, had been the principal instrument, under Providence, of transplanting these blessed sprouts of holiness from the Convent of the Visitation at Annecy to the glowing climate of Portugal.

As I had just received a sugary epistle from this paragon of piety, recommending his favourite establishment in several pages of ardent panegyric, he could do no less than come forth from his interior nest, and bid us welcome with a countenance arrayed in the sweetest smiles, though I dare say he wished us at old scratch for our intrusion.

“Poor things,” said he, speaking of the chickens under education in this coop, “we do all we can to improve their tender minds and their guileless tongues in foreign languages. Sister Theresa has an admirable knack for teaching arithmetic; our venerable mother is remarkably well-bottomed in grammar, and Sister Francisca Salesia, whom I had the happiness to bring over from Lyons, is not only a most pure and persuasive moralist, but is acknowledged to be one of the first needles in Christendom, so we do tolerably well in embroidery. In music we are no great proficients. We allow of no modinhas, no opera airs; a plain hymn is all you must expect here; in short, we are ill-fitted to receive such distinguished visiters, and have nothing the world would call interesting to recommend us; but then, I, their unworthy confessor, must allow that such sweet, clean consciences as I meet with in this asylum are treasures beyond all that the Indies can furnish.”

Both Verdeil and myself, conscious of our own extreme unworthiness, were quite abashed by this sublime declamation, poured forth with hands crossed on the bosom, and eyes turned up to the ceiling, like some images one has seen of St. Ignatius or St. Francis Xavier.

It was a minute at least before his reverence relaxed from this attitude, and, drawing a curtain, condescended to admit us into a spacious parlour, delightfully cool, perfumed with jasmine, and filled with little Brazilian doves, parroquets, and canary birds. Such a cooing and chirping was never heard in greater perfection, except in Mahomet’s Paradise; nor were the houries wanting, for in a deep recess, behind a tolerably wide lattice, sat a row of the loveliest young creatures I ever beheld. A daughter of my friend Don Josè de Brito was amongst the number, and her eyes, of the most bewitching softness, seemed to acquire new fascination in this mysterious sort of twilight, beaming from behind a double grating of iron.

Every now and then the birds, not in the least intimidated by the predatory glances of Father Theodore, violated the sanctuary, and pitched upon ivory necks, and were received with ten thousand endearments by the angels of this little sequestered heaven, which looked so refreshing, and formed by its sacred calm so inviting a contrast to the turbulent world without, and its glaring atmosphere, that I could not resist exclaiming, “O that I had wings like a dove, that I might fly through those bars and be at rest!”

I need not tell you we passed half-an-hour most delightfully in talking of music, gardens, roses, and devotion, with the meninas, and had almost forgotten we were engaged to hear the Scarlati sing. Her father, an old captain of horse, of Italian extraction, lives not far from the Convent of the Visitation, so we had not much time during our transit to experience the woful difference between the cool parlour of the nuns and the suffocating exterior air.

A numerous group of the young ladies’ kindred stood ready at the street-door, with all that hospitable courtesy for which the Portuguese are so remarkably distinguished, to usher the strangers up-stairs into a gallery hung with arras and sconces, not unlike the great room of an Italian inn, once the palace of a nobleman. To keep up these post-house ideas, we scented a strong effluvia of the stable, and heard certain stampings and neighings, as if a party of hounnyms had arrived to partake of the concert.

Many strange, aboriginal figures of both sexes were assembled, an uncouth collection enough, I am apt to conjecture; however, I soon ceased giving them any notice. The young lady of the house charmed me at first sight by her graceful, modest manner; but when she sang some airs, composed by the famous Perez, I was not less delighted than surprised. Her voice modulates with unaffected carelessness into the most pathetic tones.[15] Though she has adopted the masterly and scientific style of Ferracuti, one of the first singers in the Queen’s service, she gives a simplicity of expression to the most difficult passages, that makes them appear the effusions of a young romantic girl warbling to herself in the secret recesses of a forest.

I sat in a dark corner, unconscious of every thing that passed in the apartment, of the singular figures that entered, or those that went away; the starings, whisperings, and fan-flirtings of the assembly were lost upon me: I could not utter a syllable, and was vexed when an arbitrary old aunt insisted upon no more singing, and proposed a faro-table and a dance.

Most eagerly did I wish all the kindred and their friends petrified for the time being by some obliging necromancer, and would have done any thing, short of engaging my own dear self to the devil, to have obtained an uninterrupted audience of the syren till morning.

LETTER XVI.

Ups-and-downs of Lisbon.—Negro Beldames.—Quinta of Marvilla.—Moonlight view of Lisbon.—Illuminated windows of the Palace.—The old Marquis of Penalva.—Padre Duarte, a famous Jesuit.—Conversation between him and a conceited Physician.—Their ludicrous blunders.—Toad-eaters.—Sonatas.—Portuguese minuets.

30th June, 1787.

...WE sallied out after dinner to pay visits. Never did I behold such cursed ups-and-downs, such shelving descents and sudden rises, as occur at every step one takes in going about Lisbon. I thought myself fifty times on the point of being overturned into the Tagus, or tumbled into sandy ditches, among rotten shoes, dead cats, and negro beldames, who retire into such dens and burrows for the purpose of telling fortunes and selling charms for the ague.

The Inquisition too often lays hold of these wretched sibyls, and works them confoundedly. I saw one dragging into light as I passed by the ruins of a palace thrown down by the earthquake. Whether a familiar of the Inquisition was griping her in his clutches, or whether she was being taken to account by some disappointed votary, I will not pretend to answer. Be that as it may, I was happy to be driven out of sight of this hideous object, whose contortions and howlings were truly horrible.

The more one is acquainted with Lisbon, the less it answers the expectations raised by its magnificent appearance from the river. Could a traveller be suddenly transported without preparation or prejudice to many parts of this city, he would reasonably conclude himself traversing a succession of villages awkwardly tacked together, and overpowered by massive convents. The churches in general are in a woful taste of architecture, the taste of Borromini, with crinkled pediments, furbelowed cornices and turrets, somewhat in the style of old-fashioned French clock-cases, such as Boucher designed with many a scrawl and flourish to adorn the apartments of Madame de Pompadour.

We traversed the city this evening in all its extent in our way to the Duke d’Alafoens’s villa, and gave vast numbers of her most faithful Majesty’s subjects an opportunity of staring at the height of the coach-box, the short jacket of the postilion, and other Anglicisms of the equipage. The Duke had been summoned to a council of state; but we found the Marquis of Marialva, who went with us round the apartments of the villa, which have nothing remarkable except one or two large saloons of excellent and striking proportions.

He afterwards proposed accompanying us about half-a-mile farther to the quinta of Marvilla, which belongs to his father. This spot has great picturesque beauties. The trees are old and fantastic, bending over ruined fountains and mutilated statues of heroes in armour, variegated by the lapse of years with innumerable tints of purple, green, and yellow. In the centre of almost impenetrable thickets of bay and myrtle, rise strange pyramids of rock-work surrounded by marble lions, that have a magic, symbolical appearance. M—— has feeling enough to respect these uncouth monuments of an age when his ancestors performed so many heroic achievements, and readily promised me never to sacrifice them and the venerable shades in which they are embowered, to the pert, gaudy taste of modern Portuguese gardening.

We walked part of the way home by the serene light of the full moon rising from behind the mountains on the opposite shore of the Tagus, at this extremity of the metropolis above nine miles broad. Lisbon, which appeared to me so uninteresting a few hours ago, assumed a very different aspect by these soft gleams. The flights of steps, terraces, chapels, and porticos of several convents and palaces on the brink of the river, shone forth like edifices of white marble, whilst the rough cliffs and miserable sheds rising above them were lost in dark shadows. The great square through which we passed was filled with idlers of all sorts and sexes, staring up at the illuminated windows of the palace in hopes of catching a glimpse of her Majesty, the Prince, the Infantas, the Confessor, or Maids of Honour, whisking about from one apartment to the other, and giving ample scope to amusing conjectures. I am told the Confessor, though somewhat advanced in his career, is far from being insensible to the allurements of beauty, and pursues the young nymphs of the palace from window to window with juvenile alacrity.

It was nine before we got home, and I had not been long reposing myself after my walk, and arranging some plants I had gathered in the thickets of Marvilla, before three distinct ringings of the bell at my door announced the arrival of some distinguished personage; nor was I disappointed, for in came the old Marquis of Penalva and his son, who till a year ago, when the Queen granted him the same title as his father, was called Conde de Tarouca.

You must have heard frequently of that name. A grandfather of the old Marquis rendered it very illustrious by several important and successful embassies: the splendid entertainments he gave at the Congress of Utrecht, are amply described in Madame du Noyers and several other books of memoirs.

The Penalvas brought this evening in their suite a famous Jesuit, Padre Duarte, whom Pombal thought of sufficient consequence to be imprisoned for eighteen years, and a tall, knock-kneed, rhubarb-faced physician, in a gorgeous suit of glistening satin, one of the most ungain, conceited professors of the art of murdering I ever met with. Between the Jesuit and the doctor I had enough to do to keep my temper or countenance. They prated incessantly, pretended to have the most implicit admiration for everything that came from England, either in the way of furniture or poetry, and confounding dates, names, and subjects in one strange jumble, asked whether Sir Peter Lely was not the actual President of our Royal Academy, and launched forth into a warm encomium of my countryman Hans Holbein. I begged leave to assure these complaisant sages, that the last-mentioned artist was born at Basle, and that Sir Peter Lely had been dead a century. They stared a little at this information, but continued, nevertheless, in full song, playing off a sounding peal of compliments upon our national proficiency in painting, watch-making, the stocking-manufactory, &c. when General Forbes came in and made a diversion in my favour. We had some conversation upon the present state of Portugal, and the risks it runs of being swallowed up by the negotiations, not by the arms of Spain, ere many years are elapsed....

Our discourse was interrupted by the arrival of a fiddler, a priest, and an Italian musician, humble servants and toad-eaters to my illustrious guests. They fell a thumping my poor piano-forte, and playing sonatas whether I would or not. You are aware I am no great friend to sonatas, and that certain chromatic, squeaking tones of a fiddle, when the performer turns up the whites of his eyes, waggles a greasy chin, and affects ecstasies, set my teeth on edge. The griping countenance of the doctor was enough to produce that effect already, without the assistance of his fellow parasites, the priest and musician. Padre Duarte seemed to like them no better than myself; General Forbes had wisely withdrawn; and the old Marquis, inspired by a pathetic adagio, glided suddenly across the room in a step which I took for the beginning of a ballet heroique, but which turned out a minuet in the Portuguese style, with all its kicks and flourishes, in which Miss S——, who had come in to tea, was persuaded to join much against her inclination. It was no sooner ended, than the doctor displayed his rueful length of person in such a twitching angular minuet, as I want words to describe; so, between the sister-arts of music and dancing, I passed a delectable evening. This set shan’t catch me at home again in a hurry.

LETTER XVII.

Dog-howlings.—Visit to the Convent of San Josè di Ribamar.—Breakfast at the Marquis of Penalvas.—Magnificent and hospitable reception.—Whispering in the shade of mysterious chambers.—The Bishop of Algarve.—Evening scene in the garden of Marvilla.

July 2nd, 1787.

I WAS awakened in the night by a horrid cry of dogs; not that infernal pack which Dryden tells us in his divine tale of Theodore and Honoria went regularly a ghost-hunting every Friday, howled half so dreadfully: Lisbon is more infested than any other capital I ever inhabited by herds of these half-famished animals, making themselves of use and importance by ridding the streets of some part, at least, of their unsavoury incumbrances.

Verdeil, who could not sleep any more than myself, on account of a furious and long protracted battle between two parties of these hell-hounds, persuaded me to rise with the sun, and proceed on horseback along the shore of Belem, which appeared in all its morning glory; the sky diversified by streaming clouds of purple edged with gold, and the sea by innumerable vessels of different sizes shooting along in various directions, whilst the waves at the entrance of the harbour were in violent agitation, all froth and foam.

To vary our excursion a little, we struck out of the common track, and visited the convent of San Josè di Ribamar. The building is irregular and picturesque, rising from a craggy eminence, and backed by a thicket of elm, bay, and arbor judæ. We were shown by simple, smiling friars, into a small court with cloisters, supported by low Tuscan columns. A fountain playing in the middle and sprinkling a profusion of flowers, gave an oriental air to this little court that pleased me exceedingly. The monks seem sensible of its merits, for they keep it tolerably clean, which is more than I will say for their garden. Bindweed and dwarf-aloes almost prevented our crossing it in our way to the thicket; a delicious retreat, the refuge and comfort of half the birds in the country. Thanks to monkish laziness, the underwood remains unclipped, and intrudes wherever it pleases upon the alleys, which hang over the sea, in a bold romantic manner.

The fathers would show me their flower-garden, and a very pleasant terrace it is; neatly paved with chequered tiles, and interspersed with knots of carnations, in a style as ancient, I should conjecture, as the dominion of the Moors in Portugal. Espaliers of citron and orange cover the walls, and have almost gotten the better of some glaring shell-work, with which a reverend father encrusted them ten or twelve years ago. Shining beads, china plates and saucers turned inside out, compose the chief ornaments of this decoration; I observed the same propensity to shell-work and broken china in a Mr. de Visme, whose quinta at Bemfica eclipses our Clapham and Islington villas in all the attractions of leaden statues, Chinese temples, serpentine rivers, and dusty hermitages.

We returned home before the heat grew quite intolerable, and just in time to go to a breakfast at the Marquis of Penalva’s, to which we had been invited the day before yesterday. When once a Portuguese of the first class determines to admit a stranger into the penetralia of his family, he spares no pains to set off all he possesses to the most striking advantage, and offer it to his guest with the most liberal hospitality; you appear to command him, and he everything. Our reception, therefore, was most sumptuous and most cordial.

If we had wished for a concert, the best musicians of the royal chapel were in waiting to perform it; if to examine early editions of the classics or scarce Portuguese authors, the library was open, and the librarian ready to hand and explain to us any article that happened to attract our attention; if to see pictures, the walls of several apartments displayed an interesting collection, both of the Italian and Flemish schools; if conversation, almost every person of literary note in this capital, academicians and artists, were assembled. Supposing the rarest botanical specimens and flowers had been our peculiar taste, some of the most perfect I ever beheld were presented to us; and that nothing in any line might be wanting, the rich grated folding-doors of a chapel were expanded, and an altar splendidly lighted up, seemed to invite those who felt spiritual calls, to indulge themselves.

For my part, the sea breezes having sharpened my temporal appetite, I sat down with great alacrity to breakfast. It was magnificent and well served. I could not help noticing the extreme fineness of the linen, curiously embroidered with arms and flowers, red on a white ground. Superb embossed gilt salvers supported plates of iced fruit, particularly scarlet strawberries, which are uncommon in Portugal, and filled the apartment with fragrance; the more grateful, as it excited, by the strong power of associated ideas, recollections of home and of England.

Much whispering and giggling was going forward in the cool shade of several mysterious chambers, which opened into the saloon where we were at table. These sounds proceeded from the ladies of the family, who, had they been natives of Bagdad or Constantinople, could hardly have remained in a more Asiatic state of seclusion. I was allowed, however, to make my bow to them in their harem itself, which, I was given to understand, I ought to look upon as a most flattering mark of distinction. Who should I find in the midst of the group of senhoras, and seated like them upon the ground à la façon de Barbarie, but the newly-consecrated, and very young-looking Bishop of Algarve, whose small, black, sleek, schoolboyish head and sallow countenance, was overshadowed by an enormous pair of green spectacles. Truth obliges me to confess that the expression which beamed from the eyes under these formidable glasses, did not absolutely partake of the most decent, mild, or apostolic character. In process of time, perhaps, he may acquire that varnish, without which the least holy intentions often miss their aim, the varnish of hypocrisy. I wonder he has not already attained a more conspicuous degree of perfection in this style, having studied under a complete tartuffe and Jansenistical bigot as ever existed, one of the cock-birds of a nest of imaginary philosophers, who are working hard to undo what little good has been done in this country, and laying a mine of ten thousand intrigues to blow up, if they can but contrive it, all genuine sentiments of religion and morality.

The old Marquis of Penalva pressed us to stay dinner, which was set out in high order, in a pleasant, shady apartment. Verdeil could not resist the temptation; but I was fatigued with the howlings of the night, and the sultriness and bustle of the day, and went home to a quieter party with the Grand Prior and Don Pedro.

In the evening we drove to Marvilla, the neglected garden I have before mentioned, and which commands the broadest expanse of the Tagus, a prospect which recalled to my mind the lake of Geneva, and all that befel me on its banks. You may imagine, then, it tended much more to depress than exhilarate my spirits. I consented, however, to accompany the Grand Prior about the alleys and terraces of this romantic enclosure, the scene of his childhood, and of which he is peculiarly fond. The palace, courts, and fountains are almost in ruins, the parterres of myrtle have shot up into wild bushes covered with blossoms, and the statues are half concealed by jasmine.