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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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,
“Wide as his command,
“Scattered his Maker’s image through the land.”
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!
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
“Hide me from day’s garish eye;”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Here is a small theatre for operas, and a chapel, not unlike a mosque in
shape, and arabesque ornaments, darkly shadowed by Spanish banners, the
trophies of the battle of Elvas, gained by an ancestor of the Marialvas.
A long bower of vines, supported by marble pillars, leads from the
palace to the chapel. There is something majestic in this verdant
gallery, and the glow of sun-set piercing its foliage, lighted up the
wan features of several superannuated servants of the family, who
crawled out of their decayed chambers and threw themselves on their
knees before the Grand Prior and Don Pedro.
We wandered about this forlorn, abandoned garden, whose stillness
equalled that of a Carthusian convent, till dusk, when a refreshing wind
having risen, waved the cypresses and scattered the white jasmine
flowers over the parterres of myrtle in clouds like snow. Don Pedro
filled the carriage with flowery sprays pulled from mutilated statues,
and we were all half intoxicated before we reached my habitation with
the delicious but overcoming perfume.
Excursion to Cintra.—Villa of Ramalhaô.—The
Garden.—Collares.—Pavilion designed by Pillement.—A convulsive
gallop.—Cold weather in July.
July 9th, 1787.
I WAS at the Marialva Palace by nine, and set off from thence with the
Marquis for Cintra. Having the command of the Queen’s stables, in which
are four thousand mules and two thousand horses, he orders as many
relays as he pleases, and we changed mules four times in the space of an
hour.
A few minutes after ten we were landed at Ramalhaô, a villa, under the
pyramidical rocks of Cintra, Signor S. Arriaga was so kind as to lend me
a month or two ago, and which I have not had time to visit till to-day.
The suite of apartments are spacious and airy, and the views they
command of sea and arid country boundless; but unless the heat becomes
more violent, I shall be cooler than I wish in them, as they contain
not a chimney except in the kitchen.
I found the garden in excellent order, and flourishing crops of
vegetables springing up between rows of orange and citron. Such is the
power of the climate, that the gardenias and Cape plants I brought with
me from England, mere stumps, are covered with beautiful blossoms. The
curled mallows, and some varieties of Indian-corn, sown by my English
gardener, have shot up to a strange elevation, and begin already to form
shady avenues and fairy forests, where children might play in perfection
at landscape-gardening.
After I had passed half-an-hour in looking about me, the Marquis and I
got into our chair and drove to his own villa; a new creation, which has
cost him a great many thousand pounds sterling. Five years ago it was a
wild hill bestrewn with flints and rocky fragments. At present you find
a gay pavilion designed by Pillement, and elegantly decorated; a
parterre with statues and fountains, thick alleys of laurel, bay, and
laurustine, cascades, arbours, clipped box-trees, and every ornament the
Portuguese taste in gardening renders desirable.
We dined at a clean snug inn, situated towards the middle of the village
of Cintra. The Queen has lately bestowed this house and a large tract of
ground adjoining it, upon the Marquis. From its windows and loggias you
look down deep ravines and bold slopes of woods and copses, variegated
with mossy stones and ancient decayed chesnuts.
As soon as the sun grew low we went to Collares, and walked on a terrace
belonging to M. la Roche, a French merchant, who has shown some
glimmering of taste in the laying out of his villa. The groves of pine
and chesnut starting from the crevices of rock, and rising one above
another to a considerable elevation, give Collares the air of an Alpine
village. Innumerable rills, overhung by cork-trees and branching lemons,
burst out of ruined walls by the wayside, and dash into marble basins. A
favourite attendant of the late king’s, who has a very large property in
these environs, invited us with much civility and obsequiousness into
his garden. I thought myself entering the orchards of Alcinous. The
boughs literally bent under loads of fruit; the slightest shake strewed
the ground with plums, oranges, and apricots.
This villa boasts a grand artificial cascade, with tritons and dolphins
vomiting torrents of water; but I paid it not half the attention its
proprietor expected, and retiring under the shade of the fruit-trees,
feasted on the golden apples and purple plums that were rolling about me
in such profusion. The Marquis, who shares with most of the Portuguese a
remarkable predilection for flowers, filled his carriage with carnations
and jasmine. I never saw plants more conspicuous for size and vigour
than those which have the luck of being sown in this fortunate soil. The
exposition likewise is singularly happy; skreened by sloping hills, and
defended from the sea-airs by several miles of thickets and orchards. I
felt unwilling to quit a spot so favoured by nature, and M—— flatters
himself I shall be tempted to purchase it.
The wind became troublesome as we ascended the hill, crowned by the
Marialva villa. The sky was clear and the sun set fiery. The distant
convent of Mafra, glowing with ruddy light, looked like the enchanted
palace of a giant, and the surrounding country bleak and barren as if
the monster had eaten it desolate. To repose ourselves a little after
our rapid excursion we entered the pavilion I told you just now
Pillement had designed. It represents a bower of fantastic Indian trees
mingling their branches, and discovering between them peeps of a summer
sky. From the mouth of a flying dragon depends a magnificent lustre for
fifty lights, hung with festoons of brilliant glass, that twinkle like
strings of diamonds.
We loitered in this saloon till it was pitch-dark. The pages riding full
speed before us with flaming torches, and the wind driving back sparks
and smoke full in our faces, I was stunned and bewildered, and
experienced, perhaps, the sensations of a novice in sorcery, mounted for
the first time behind a witch on a broomstick. In less than an hour we
had rattled over twelve miles of rough, disjoined pavement, going up and
down the steepest hills in a convulsive gallop, so that I expected every
instant to be thrown flat on my nose; but, happily, the mules were
picked from perhaps a hundred, and never stumbled. I found the air on
the heights above the Ajueda very keen and piercing.
It sounds strange to be complaining of cold at Lisbon on the ninth of
July.
Sympathy between Toads and Old Women.—Palace of Cintra.—Reservoir
of Gold and Silver Fish.—Parterre on the summit of a lofty
terrace.—Place of confinement of Alphonso the Sixth.—The
Chapel.—Barbaric profusion of Gold.—Altar at which Don Sebastian
knelt when he received a supernatural warning.—Rooms in
preparation for the Queen and the Infantas.—Return to Ramalhaô.
July 24th, 1787.
THERE exists, I am convinced, a decided sympathy between toads and
witch-like old women. Mother Morgan[16] descended this morning, not into
the infernal regions, but into the cellar, and immediately five or six
spanking reptiles of this mysterious species waddled around her. She
rewarded the confidence the poor things placed in her rather scurvily,
and laid three of the fattest sprawling. I saw them lying breathless in
the court as I got on horseback; the largest measured seven inches in
diameter. Portuguese toads may be more distinguished for size, but are
not half so amiably speckled as those we have the happiness to harbour
in England.
I was some time hesitating which way I should turn my horse’s steps,
whether to the Pedra d’os Ovos, or on the other side of the rock to the
Peninha, a cell belonging to the Hieronimites, and dependent upon their
principal eyry, Nossa Senhora da Penha. Marialva, whom I met with all
his train of equerries and picadors coming forth from his villa, decided
me not to take a clambering ride, but to accompany him to the palace,
the interior of which I had not yet visited.
The Alhambra itself is scarcely more morisco in point of architecture
than this confused pile, which seems to grow out of the summit of a
rocky eminence, and is broken into a variety of picturesque recesses and
projections. It is a thousand pities that they have whitened its
venerable walls, stopped up a range of bold arcades, and sliced out one
end of the great hall into two or three mean apartments like the
dressing-rooms of a theatre. From the windows, which are all in a
fantastic oriental style, crinkled and crankled, and supported by
twisted pillars of smooth marble, striking, romantic views of the cliffs
and village of Cintra are commanded. Several irregular courts and
loggias, formed by the angles of square towers, are enlivened by
fountains of marble and gilt bronze, continually pouring forth abundant
streams of the purest water.
A sort of reservoir, almost long enough to be styled a canal, is
continued the whole length of the great hall, and serves as a paradise
for shoals of the largest and most brilliant gold and silver fish I ever
set eyes upon. The murmur of the jets-d’eau which rise from this canal,
the ripple of the water undulating against steps and slabs of polished
marble, the glancing and gleaming of the fish, and the striking contrast
of light and shade produced by the intricate labyrinth of arches and
columns, combine altogether to form a scene of enchantment such as we
sometimes dream of, but hardly suppose is ever realized. There is a
sobriety in the hues of the marble, a mysteriousness in the dark
recesses seen in perspective, and a solemnity in the deep colour,
approaching to blackness, of the water in that part of the reservoir
which is overshadowed by lofty buildings, I cannot help thinking
superior to all the flutter and glitter of the most famous Moorish
edifices at Granada or Seville.
The flat summit of one of the loftiest terraces, not less than one
hundred and fifty feet from the ground, is laid out as a neat parterre,
which is spread like an embroidered carpet before the entrance of a huge
square tower, almost entirely occupied by a hall encrusted with
glistening tiles, and crowned by a most singularly-shaped dome. Amidst
the scrolls of arabesque foliage which adorn it, appear the arms of the
principal Portuguese nobility. The achievement of the unfortunate house
of Tavora is blotted out, and the panel it occupied left bare.
We had climbed up to this terrace and tower by one of those steep,
cork-screw staircases, of which there are numbers in the palace, and
which connect with vaulted passages in a secret and suspicious manner.
The Marquis pointed out to me the mosaic pavement of a small chamber,
fretted and worn away in several places by the steps of Alphonso the
Sixth, who was confined to this narrow space a long series of years.
Descending from it, we looked into the chapel, not less singular in form
and construction than the rest of the edifice. The low flat cupola, as
well as the intersections of the arches, are much in the style of a
mosque; but the barbaric profusion of gold, and still more barbaric
paintings with which every soffite and panel are covered, might almost
be supposed the work of Cingalese or Hindostanee artists, and reminded
me of those subterraneous pagodas where his Satanic Majesty receives
homage under the form of Gumputy or of Boodh.
The original glare of all this strange scenery is greatly subdued by the
smoke of lamps, which have been burning for ages before the altar: a
mysterious pile of carved work and imagery, in perfect consonance, as to
gloom and uncouthness, with every other object in the place. It was
whilst kneeling before this very altar that the young, the ardent, the
chivalrous Don Sebastian is said to have received a supernatural warning
to renounce that fatal African expedition which cost him his crown and
his life, and what an heroic mind holds in far higher estimation, that
immortal fame which follows successful achievements.
A something I can hardly describe, an oppressive gloom, seemed to hang
over this chapel, which remains very nearly, I should imagine, in the
same style it was left by the ill-fated Sebastian. The want of a free
circulation of air, and a heavy cloud of incense, affected the nerves of
my head so disagreeably that I was glad to move on, and follow the
Marquis into the rooms preparing for the Queen and the Infantas. These
are airy and well ventilated; but instead of hanging them with rich
arras, representing the adventures of knights and worthies, her
Majesty’s upholsterers are hard at work covering the stout walls with
bright silks and satins of the palest and most delicate colours. I saw
no furniture worth notice, not a picture or a cabinet: our stay,
therefore, as we had nothing to see, was not protracted.
As soon as the Marquis had given some orders, with which his royal
mistress had charged him, we returned to Ramalhaô, where Horne and
Guildermeester, the Dutch Consul, were waiting our arrival, and
squabbling about insurances, percentages, commissions, and other
commercial speculations.
I have been persuading the Marquis to accompany me to-morrow to
Guildermeester’s: it is the old man’s birthday, and he opens his new
house with dancing and suppering. We shall have a pretty sample of the
factory misses, clerks, and apprentices, some underlings of the corps
diplomatique, and God knows how many thousand pound weight of Dutch and
Hambro merchants.
Grand gala at Court.—Festival in honour of the birthday of
Guildermeester.—Mad freaks of a Frenchman.—Unwelcome lights of
Truth.—Invective against the English.
July 25th, 1787.
GRAND gala at Court, and the Marquis gone to attend it; for this blessed
day not only gave birth to Guildermeester, but to the Princess of
Brazil. We went to dine with the Marchioness. A band of regimental
music, on their march to Guildermeester, began playing in the court, and
drew forth one of those curious swarms of all sexes, ages, and colours,
which this beneficent family are so fond of harbouring. Donna
Henriquetta was seated on the steps, which lead up to the great
pavilion, whispering to some of her favourite attendants, who, like the
chorus in an ancient Greek tragedy, were continually giving their
opinion of whatever was going forward.
Just as Don Pedro and I were preparing to set off together for the ball
at the old consul’s, we were agreeably surprised by the arrival of the
Marquis, who had escaped from the palace much earlier than he expected.
I carried him in my chaise to Horne’s, where we drank tea on his
terrace, which commands the most romantic view in Cintra; vast sweeps of
varied foliage, banks with twisted roots, and trunks of enormous
chesnuts, mingled with weeping-willows of the freshest verdure, and
citrons clustered with fruit. Above this sylvan scene tower three
shattered pinnacles of rock, the middle one diversified by the turrets
and walls of Nossa Senhora da Penha, a convent of Jeronimites,
frequently concealed in clouds. I leaned against a cork-tree, which
spreads its branches almost entirely over the veranda, enjoying the
view, and staring idly at the grotesque figures, Dutch, English, and
Portuguese, passing along to Guildermeester’s; a series sufficiently
diversified to have amused me for some time, had not M—— grown
impatient and uneasy. His brother-in-law, S—— V——, to whom he has a
mortal aversion, having made his appearance, the powers of light and
darkness, if personified, could not exhibit a stronger contrast than
these two personages; M—— looking all benignity, and S—— V—— all
malevolence. Indeed, if one half of the atrocities[17] public report
attributes to this notorious nobleman be true, I should not wonder at
the blackness of revenge and tyranny being so deeply marked in every
line of his countenance.
Moving off the first opportunity, we passed through dark and gloomy
lanes, admirably calculated for such exploits as I have just alluded to,
and were near being jerked into a ditch as we drove to the old consul’s
door. The space before this new building is in sad disorder. The house
has little more than bare walls, and was not very splendidly lighted up.
As for the company, they turned out just what I expected. Madame G——,
who is a woman of spirit and discernment, did the honours with the
greatest ease, and paid her principal guests the most marked attentions.
There is a something pointedly original in all her observations, which
pleased me very much. She is not, however, of the merciful tribe, and
joined forces with Verdeil (no foe to a little slashing conversation) in
cutting up the factory. M—— handed her in to supper. This part of the
entertainment was magnificent. There was a bright illumination, an
immense profusion of plate, a striking breadth of table, every delicacy
that could be procured, and a dessert-frame, fifty or sixty feet in
length, gleaming with burnished figures and vases of silver flowers. I
felt no inclination to dance after supper; the music was not inspiring,
and the company thrown into the utmost confusion by the mad freaks of a
Frenchman, upon whom one of the principal ladies present is supposed for
two or three years past to have placed her affections. A coup de
soleil and a quarrel with his ambassador, Monsieur de Bombelles, it
seems had turned the poor fellow’s brain: there was no preventing his
rushing from room to room with the sputter and eccentricity of a
fire-work, now abusing one person, now another, confessing publicly the
universal kindness he had received from the lady above hinted at, and
the many marks of tender affection a certain Miss W—— had bestowed on
him. “Why,” said he to the two heroines, who I am told are not upon the
best terms imaginable, “should you squabble and scratch? You are both
equally indulgent, and have both rendered me in your turns the happiest
mortal in the universe.”
Whilst the light of truth was shining upon the bystanders in this very
singular manner, I leave you to imagine the awkward surprise of the
worthy old husband, and the angry blushes of his spouse and her fair
associate. I never beheld a more capital scene. In some of our
pantomimes, if I recollect rightly, harlequin applies a touchstone to
his adversaries, and by its magic influence draws truth from their
mouths in spite of propriety or interest. The lawyer confesses having
fingered a bribe, the soldier his flight in the day of battle, and the
whining methodistical dowager her frequent recourse to the bottle of
inspiration. This wondrous effect seems to have been here realized, and
some malicious demon to have possessed the talkative Frenchman, and to
have compelled him to disclose the mysteries to which he owes his
subsistence. Amongst the harsh truths poured out by this flow of
sincerity was a vehement apostrophe to the English canaille, as he
styled them, upon their rank intolerance of all customs except their
own, and their ten thousand starch uncharitable prejudices. Mrs.——,
become dauntless through despair, took up the cudgels in this cause most
vigorously, compared the chief part of the company to a swarm of
venomous insects, unworthy to crawl upon the hem of her really pure,
though calumniated garments, and fit to be shaken off with a vengeance
the first opportunity.
The Marquis, Don Pedro, and I enjoyed the scene so much, that we stayed
later than we intended.
The Queen of Portugal’s Chapel.—The Orchestra.—Rehearsal of a
Council.—Proposal to visit Mafra.
Ramalhaô, near Cintra, 26th August, 1787.
THE Queen of Portugal’s chapel is still the first in Europe; in point of
vocal and instrumental excellence, no other establishment of the kind,
the papal not excepted, can boast such an assemblage of admirable
musicians. Wherever her Majesty moves they follow; when she goes a
hawking to Salvaterra, or a health-hunting to the baths of the Caldas.
Even in the midst of these wild rocks and mountains, she is surrounded
by a bevy of delicate warblers, as plump as quails, and as gurgling and
melodious as nightingales. The violins and violoncellos at her Majesty’s
beck are all of the first order, and in oboe and flute-players her
musical menagerie is unrivalled.
The Marquis of M——, as first Lord of the Bedchamber, Master of the
Horse, and, as it were, hereditary prime favourite, enjoys a decided
influence over this empire of sweet sounds; and having been so friendly
as to impart a share of these musical blessings to me, I have been
permitted to avail myself, whenever I please, of a selection from this
wonderful band of performers. This very morning, to my shame be it
recorded, I remained hour after hour in my newly-arranged pavilion,
without reading a word, writing a line, or entering into any
conversation. All my faculties were absorbed by the harmony of the wind
instruments, stationed at a distance in a thicket of orange and bay
trees. It was to no purpose that I tried several times to retire out of
the sound—I was as often drawn back as I attempted to snatch myself
away. Did I consult the health of my mind, I should dismiss these
musicians; their plaintive affecting tones are sure to awaken in my
bosom a long train of mournful recollections, and by the force of
associated ideas to plunge me into a state of languor and gloom.
*
*
*
*
*
*
My excellent friend, the Prior of Aviz, performed a real act of
friendship, by breaking in almost by force upon my seclusion, and
rousing me from my reveries. He insisted upon my accompanying him to the
Archbishop’s, where the rehearsal of a council to be held in the Queen’s
presence was going forward, and all the ministers with their assistant
under-secretaries assembled. Such congregations are new to the good old
Confessor, who has been just pressed into the supreme direction, I might
say control, of the Cabinet, much against his will. He knows too well
the value of ease and tranquillity not to regret so violent an inroad
upon his usual habits of life. We found him, therefore, as might be
expected, in a state of turmoil and irritation, flushed up to the very
forehead with a ruddy tint, which was highly contrasted by his flowing
white flannel garments. These garments he frequently shook and crumpled,
and more than once did he strike with vehemence against his portly
paunch, which, though he declared it had waited an hour longer than
customary for its wonted replenishment, sounded by no means so hollow as
an empty tub. The old saying, that “fat paunches make lean pates,”
could not, however, be applied to him; he was so gracious and
confidential as to give me a summary of what had been represented to him
from the different departments of state, with great perspicuity and
acuteness.
Notwithstanding the interest this singular communication ought to have
excited, I paid it not half the attention it deserved. The impression I
had received in the morning, from the music of Haydn and Jomelli, still
lingered about me. The Grand Prior, finding politics could not shake
them off, consulted with his nephew, who happened to be just by in the
Queen’s apartment, and returned with a proposal, that as I had long
expressed a wish to see Mafra, we should put this scheme in execution
to-morrow. It was settled, therefore, that to-morrow we should set off.
Road to Mafra.—Distant view of the Convent.—Its vast
fronts.—General magnificence of the Edifice.—The Church.—The
High Altar.—Eve of the Festival of St. Augustine.—The collateral
Chapels.—The Sacristy.—The Abbot of the Convent.—The
Library.—View from the Convent-roof.—Chime of Bells.—House of
the Capitan Mor.—Dinner.—Vespers.—Awful sound of the
Organs.—The Palace.—Return to the Convent.—Inquisitive
crowd.—The Garden.—Matins.—A Procession.—The Hall de
Profundis.—Solemn Repast.—Supper at the Capitan Mor’s.
August 27th, 1787.
WE got into the carriage at nine, in spite of the wind, which blew full
in our faces. The distance from the villa I inhabit to this stupendous
convent is about fourteen English miles, and the road, which by
good-luck has been lately mended, conducted across a parched, open
country, thinly scattered with windmills and villages. The retrospect on
the woody slopes and pointed rocks of Cintra is pleasant enough; but
when you look forward, nothing can be more bleak or barren than the
prospect. Thanks to relays of mules, we advanced, full speed, and in
less than an hour and a quarter found ourselves under a strong wall
which winds boldly across the hills, and incloses the park of Mafra.
We now caught a glimpse of the marble towers and dome of the convent,
relieved by an azure expanse of ocean, rising above the brow of heathy
eminences, diversified here and there by the bushy heads of Italian
pines and the tall spires of cypress. The roofs of the edifice were not
yet visible, and we continued some time winding about the undulating
acclivities in the park before they were discovered. A detachment of
lay-brothers were waiting to open the gates of the royal inclosure,
sadly blackened by a fire, which about a month ago consumed a great part
of its wood and verdure. Our approach spread a terrible alarm among the
herds of deer, which were peacefully browsing on a slope rather greener
than those in its neighbourhood. Off they scudded and took refuge in a
thicket of half-burnt pines.
After coasting the wall of the great garden, we turned suddenly the
corner, and discovered one of the vast fronts of the convent, appearing
like a street of palaces. I cannot pretend that the style of the
building is such as a lover of pure Grecian architecture would approve;
the windows and doors are many of them fantastically shaped, but at
least well proportioned.
I was admiring their ample range as we drove rapidly along, when, upon
wheeling round the lofty square pavilion which flanks the edifice, the
grand façade, extending above eight hundred feet, opened to my view. The
centre is formed by the porticos of the church richly adorned with
columns, niches, and bass-reliefs of marble. On each side two towers,
somewhat resembling those of St. Paul’s in London, rise to the height of
near two hundred feet, and, joining on to the enormous corps de logis,
the palace terminates to the right and left by its stately pavilions.
These towers are light, airy, and clustered with pillars, remarkably
beautiful; but their form in general borders too much on a sort of
pagoda-ish style, and wants solemnity. They contain many bells of the
largest dimensions, and a famous chime which cost several hundred
thousand crusadoes, and which was set playing the moment our arrival was
notified. The platform and flight of steps before the columned entrance
of the church is strikingly grand; and the dome, which lifts itself up
so proudly above the pediment of the portico, merits praise for its
lightness and elegance.
My eyes ranged along the vast extent of palace on each side till they
were tired, and I was glad to turn them from the glare of marble and
confusion of sculptured ornaments to the blue expanse of the distant
ocean. Before the front of this colossal structure a wide level of space
extends itself, at the extremity of which several white houses lie
dispersed. Though these buildings are by no means inconsiderable, they
appear, when contrasted with the immense pile in the neighbourhood, like
the booths of workmen, for such I took them upon my first survey, and
upon a nearer approach was quite surprised at their real dimensions.
Few objects render the prospect from the platform of Mafra, interesting.
You look over the roofs of an indifferent village and the summits of
sandy acclivities, backed by a boundless stretch of sea. On the left,
your view is terminated by the craggy mountains of Cintra; to the right,
a forest of pines in the Viscount of Ponte de Lima’s extensive garden,
affords the eye some small refreshment.
To skreen ourselves from the sun, which darted powerfully on our heads,
we entered the church, passing through its magnificent portico, which
reminded me not a little of the entrance of St. Peter’s; and is crowded
with the statues of saints and martyrs, carved with infinite delicacy.
The first coup-d’œil of the church is very imposing. The high
altar, adorned with two majestic columns of reddish variegated marble,
each, a single block, above thirty feet in height, immediately fixes the
eye. Trevisani has painted the altar-piece in a masterly manner. It
represents St. Anthony in the ecstasy of beholding the infant Jesus
descending into his cell amidst an effulgence of glory.
To-morrow being the festival of St. Augustine, whose followers are the
actual possessors of this monastery, all the golden candelabra were
displayed, and tapers lighted. After pausing a few minutes in the midst
of this bright illumination, we visited the collateral chapels, each
enriched with highly finished bassi-relievi and stately portals of black
and yellow marble, richly veined, and so highly polished as to reflect
objects like a mirror. Never did I behold such an assemblage of
beautiful marble as gleamed above, below, and around us. The pavement,
the vaulted ceiling, the dome, and even the topmost lantern, is
encrusted with the same costly and durable materials. Roses of white
marble and wreaths of palm-branches, most exquisitely sculptured, enrich
every part of the edifice. I never saw Corinthian capitals better
modelled, or executed with more precision and sharpness, than those of
the columns which support the nave.
Having satisfied our curiosity by examining the various ornaments of the
altars, we followed our conductor through a long coved gallery into the
sacristy, a magnificent vaulted hall, panelled with some beautiful
varieties of alabaster and porphyry, and carpeted, as well as a chapel
adjoining it, in a style of the utmost magnificence. We traversed
several more halls and chapels, adorned with equal splendour, till we
were fatigued and bewildered like errant knights in the mazes of an
enchanted palace.
I began to think there was no end to these spacious apartments. The monk
who preceded us, a good-natured, slobbering greybeard, taking for
granted that I could not understand a syllable of his language,
attempted to explain the objects which presented themselves by signs,
and would hardly believe his ears, when I asked him in good Portuguese
when we should have done with chapels and sacristies. The old fellow
seemed vastly delighted with the Meninos, as he called Don Pedro and me;
and to give our young legs an opportunity of stretching themselves,
trotted along with such expedition that the Marquis and Verdeil wished
him in purgatory. To be sure, we advanced at a most rapid rate, striding
from one end to the other of a dormitory, six hundred feet in length, in
a minute or two. These vast corridors, and the cells with which they
communicate, three hundred in number, are all arched in the most
sumptuous and solid manner. Every cell, or rather chamber, for they are
sufficiently spacious, lofty, and well lighted, to merit that
appellation, is furnished with tables and cabinets of Brazil-wood.
Just as we entered the library, the Abbot of the convent, dressed in his
ceremonial habit, advanced to bid us welcome, and invite us to dine with
him to-morrow, St. Augustine’s day, in the refectory; which it seems is
a mighty compliment. We thought proper, however, to decline the honour,
being aware that, to enjoy it, we must sacrifice at least two hours of
our time, and be half parboiled by the steam of huge roasted calves,
turkeys, and gruntlings, which had long been fattening, no doubt, for
this solemn occasion.
The library is of a prodigious length, not less than three hundred feet;
the arched roof of a pleasing form, beautifully stuccoed, and the
pavement of red and white marble. Much cannot be said in praise of the
cases in which the books are to be arranged. They are clumsily designed,
coarsely executed, and darkened by a gallery which projects into the
room in a very awkward manner. The collection, which consists of above
sixty thousand volumes, is locked up at present in a suite of apartments
which opens into the library. Several well preserved and richly
illuminated first editions of the Greek and Roman classics were handed
to me by the father librarian; but my nimble conductor would not allow
me much time to examine them. He set off full speed, and, ascending a
winding staircase, led us out upon the roof of the convent and palace,
which form a broad, smooth terrace, bounded by a magnificent balustrade,
unincumbered by chimneys, and commanding a bird’s-eye view of the courts
and garden.
From this elevation the whole plan of the edifice may be comprehended at
a glance. In the centre rises the dome, like a beautiful temple from the
spacious walks of a royal garden. It is infinitely superior, in point of
design, to the rest of the edifice, and may certainly be reckoned among
the lightest and best proportioned in Europe. Don Pedro and Monsieur
Verdeil proposed scaling a ladder which leads up to the lantern, but I
begged to be excused accompanying them, and amused myself during their
absence with ranging about the extensive loggias, now and then venturing
a look down on the courts and parterres so far below; but oftener
enjoying the prospect of the towers shining bright in the sunbeams, and
the azure bloom of the distant sea. A fresh balsamic air wafted from the
orchards of citron and orange, fanned me as I rested on the steps of the
dome, and tempered the warmth of the glowing æther.
But I was soon driven from this cloudless, peaceful situation, by a
confounded jingle of all the bells; then followed a most complicated
sonata, banged off on the chimes by a great proficient. The Marquis, who
had climbed up on purpose to enjoy this cataract of what some persons
call melodious sounds at its fountainhead, would have me approach to
examine the mechanism, and I was half stunned. I know very little indeed
about chimes and clocks, and am quite at a loss for amusement in a
belfry. My friend, who inherits a mechanical turn from his father, the
renowned patron of clocks and time-pieces, investigated every wheel with
minute attention.
His survey finished, we descended innumerable stairs, and retired to the
Capitan Mor’s, whose jurisdiction extends over the park and district of
Mafra. He has seven or eight thousand crusadoes a year, and his
habitation wears every appearance of comfort and opulence. The floors
are covered with mats of the finest texture, the doors hung with red
damask curtains, and our beds, quite new for the occasion, spread with
satin coverlids richly embroidered and fringed. We had a most luxurious
repast, and a better dessert than even the monks could have given
us—the Capitan Mor taking the dishes from his long train of servants,
and placing them himself on the table, quite in the feudal style.
After coffee we hurried to vespers in the great church of the convent,
and advancing between the range of illuminated chapels, took our places
in the royal tribune. We were no sooner seated than the monks entered in
procession, preceding their abbot, who ascended his throne, having a row
of sacristans at his feet and canons on his right hand, in their cloth
of gold embroidered vestments. The service was chaunted with the most
imposing solemnity to the awful sound of organs, for there are no fewer
than six in the church, all of an enormous size.
When it was ended, being once more laid hold of by the nimble
lay-brother, we were conducted up a magnificent staircase into the
palace. The suite extends seven or eight hundred feet, and the almost
endless succession of lofty doors seen in perspective, strikes with
astonishment; but we were soon weary of being merely astonished, and
agreed to pronounce the apartments the dullest and most comfortless we
had ever beheld; there is no variety in their shape, and little in their
dimensions. The furniture being all locked up at Lisbon, a naked
sameness universally prevails; not a niche, not a cornice, not a curved
moulding breaks the tedious uniformity of dead white walls.
I was glad to return to the convent and refresh my eyes with the sight
of marble pillars, and my feet by treading on Persian carpets. We were
followed wherever we moved, into every cell, chapel, hall, passage, or
sacristy, by a strange medley of inquisitive monks, sacristans,
lay-brothers, corregidors, village-curates, and country beaux with long
rapiers and pigtails. If I happened to ask a question, half-a-dozen all
at once poked their necks out to answer it, like turkey-polts when
addressed in their native hobble-gobble dialect. The Marquis was quite
sick of being trotted after in this tumultuous manner, and tried several
times to leave the crowd behind him, by taking sudden turns; but
sticking close to our heels, it baffled all his endeavours, and
increased to such a degree, that we seemed to have swept the whole
convent and village of their inhabitants, and to draw them after us by
one of those supernatural attractions we read of in tales and romances.
At length, perceiving a large door open into the garden, we bolted out,
and striking into a labyrinth of myrtles and laurels, got rid of our
pursuers. The garden, which is about a mile and a half in circumference,
contains, besides wild thickets of pine and bay-trees, several orchards
of lemon and orange, and two or three parterres more filled with weeds
than flowers. I was much disgusted at finding this beautiful inclosure
so wretchedly neglected, and its luxuriant plants withering away for
want of being properly watered.
You may suppose, that after adding a walk in the principal alleys of the
garden to our other peregrinations, we began to find ourselves somewhat
fatigued, and were not sorry to repose ourselves in the Abbot’s
apartment till we were summoned once more to our tribune to hear matins
performed. It was growing dark, and the innumerable tapers burning
before the altars and in every part of the church, began to diffuse a
mysterious light. The organs joined again in full accord, the long
series of monks and novices entered with slow and solemn steps, and the
Abbot resumed his throne with the same pomp as at vespers. The Marquis
began muttering his orisons, the Grand Prior to recite his breviary, and
I to fall into a profound reverie, which lasted as long as the service,
that is to say above two hours. Verdeil, ready to expire with ennui,
could not help leaving the tribune and the cloud of incense which filled
the choir, to breathe a freer air in the body of the church and its
adjoining chapels.
It was almost nine when the monks, after chaunting a most solemn and
sonorous hymn in praise of their venerable father, Saint Augustine,
quitted the choir. We followed their procession through lofty chapels
and arched cloisters, which by a glimmering light appeared to have
neither roof nor termination, till it entered an octagon forty feet in
diameter, with fountains in the four principal angles. The monks, after
dispersing to wash their hands at the several fountains, again resumed
their order, and passed two-and-two under a portal thirty feet high into
a vast hall, communicating with their refectory by another portal of the
same lofty dimensions. Here the procession made a pause, for this
chamber is consecrated to the remembrance of the departed, and styled
the Hall de Profundis. Before every repast, the monks standing round it
in solemn ranks, silently revolve in their minds the precariousness of
our frail existence, and offer up prayers for the salvation of their
predecessors. I could not help being struck with awe when I beheld by
the glow of flaming lamps, so many venerable figures in their black and
white habits bending their eyes on the pavement, and absorbed in the
most interesting and gloomy of meditations.
The moment allotted to this solemn supplication being passed, every one
took his place at the long tables in the refectory, which are made of
Brazil-wood, and covered with the whitest linen. Each monk had his
glass caraffe of water and wine, his plate of apples and salad set
before him; neither fish nor flesh were served up, the vigil of St.
Augustine’s day being observed as a fast with the utmost strictness.
To enjoy at a glance this singular and majestic spectacle, we retreated
to a vestibule preceding the octagon, and from thence looked through all
the portals down the long row of lamps into the refectory, which, owing
to its vast length of full two hundred feet, seemed ending in a point.
After remaining a few minutes to enjoy this perspective, four monks
advanced with torches to light us out of the convent, and bid us
good-night with many bows and genuflections.
Our supper at the Capitan Mor’s was very cheerful. We sat up late,
notwithstanding our fatigue, talking over the variety of objects that
had passed before our eyes in so short a space of time, the crowd of
grotesque figures which had stuck to our heels so long and so closely,
and the awkward vivacity of the lay-brother.
High mass.—Garden of the Viscount Ponte de Lima.—Leave Mafra.—An
accident.—Return to Cintra.—My saloon.—Beautiful view from it.
August 28th, 1787.
I WAS half asleep, half awake, when the sonorous bells of the convent
struck my ears. The Marquis and Don Pedro’s voices in earnest
conversation with the Capitan Mor in the adjoining chamber, completely
roused me. We swallowed our coffee in haste; the Grand Prior reluctantly
left his pillow, and accompanied us to high mass. The monks once more
exerted their efforts to prevail on us to dine with them; but we
remained inflexible, and to avoid their importunities hastened away, as
soon as mass was ended, to the Viscount Ponte de Lima’s gardens, where
the deep shade of the bay and ilex skreened us from the excessive heat
of the sun.
The Marquis, seating himself by me near one of those clear and copious
fountains with which this magnificent Italian-looking garden is
refreshed and enlivened, entered into a most serious and semi-official
discourse about my stay in Portugal, and the means which were projecting
in a very high quarter to render it not only pleasant to myself, but of
some importance to many others.
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I felt relieved when the appearance of Don Pedro and his uncle, who had
been walking to the end of an immensely long avenue of pines, warded off
a conversation that began to press hard upon me. We returned altogether
to the Capitan Mor’s, and found dinner ready.
Both Don Pedro and myself were sorry to leave Mafra, and should have had
no objection to another race along the cloisters and dormitories with
the lay-brother. The evening was bright and clear, and the azure tints
of the distant sea inexpressibly lovely. We drove with a tumultuous
rapidity over the rough-paved roads, that the Marquis and I could hardly
hear a word we said to each other. Don Pedro had mounted his horse.
Verdeil, who preceded us in the carinho, seemed to outstrip the winds.
His mule, one of the most fiery and gigantic of her species, excited by
repeated floggings and the shout of a hulking Portuguese postilion,
perched up behind the carriage, galloped at an ungovernable rate; and at
about a league from the rocks of Cintra, thought proper to jerk out its
drivers into the midst of some bushes at the foot of a lofty bank,
nearly perpendicular, where they still remained sprawling when we passed
by.
Verdeil hobbled up to us, and pointed to the carinho in the ditch below.
Except a slight contusion in the knee, he had received no hurt. I
exclaimed immediately, that his escape was miraculous, and that,
doubtless, St. Anthony had some hand in it. My friend, who has always
the horrors of heresy before his eyes, whispered me that the devil had
saved him this time, but might not be so favourably disposed another.
It was not half-past five, when we reached Cintra. The Marchioness, the
Abade, and the children, were waiting our arrival.
Feeling my head in a whirl, and my ideas as much jolted and jumbled as
my body, I returned home just before it fell dark, to enjoy a few hours
of uninterrupted calm. The scenery of my ample saloon, its air of
seclusion, its silence, seemed to breathe a momentary tranquillity over
my spirits. The mat smoothly laid down, and formed of the finest and
most glossy straw, assumed by candlelight a delightful, soft, and
harmonious colour. It looked so cool and glistening that I stretched
myself upon it. There did I lie supine, contemplating the serene
summer-sky, and the moon rising slowly from behind the brow of a shrubby
hill. A faint breeze blowing aside the curtains, discovered the summit
of the woods in the garden, and beyond, a wide expanse of country,
terminated by plains of sea and hazy promontories.
A saloon in the highest style of oriental decoration.—Amusing
stories of King John the Fifth and his recluses.—Cheerful
funeral.—Refreshing ramble to the heights of Penha Verde.
August 29th, 1787.
IT was furiously hot, and I trifled away the whole morning in my
pavilion, surrounded by fidalgos in flowered bed-gowns, and musicians in
violet-coloured accoutrements, with broad straw-hats, like bonzes or
talapoins, looking as sunburnt, vacant, and listless, as the inhabitants
of Ormus or Bengal; so that my company as well as my apartment wore the
most decided oriental appearance: the divan raised a few inches above
the floor, the gilt trellis-work of the windows, and the pellucid
streams of water rising from a tank immediately beneath them, supplied
in endless succession by springs from the native rock.
An agreeable variety prevails in my Asiatic saloon; half its curtains
admit no light, and display the richest folds; the other half are
transparent, and cast a mild glow on the mat and sofas. Large clear
mirrors multiply this profusion of drapery, and several of my guests
seemed never tired of running from corner to corner, to view the
different groups of objects reflected on all sides in the most
unexpected directions, as if they fancied themselves admitted by
enchantment to peep into a labyrinth of magic chambers.
One of the party, a very shrewd old Italian priest, who had left his
native land before the too-famous earthquake shook more than the half of
Lisbon to its foundations, told me he remembered an apartment a good
deal in this style, that is to say, bedecked with mirrors and curtains,
in a sort of fairy palace communicating with the Nunnery of Odivellas,
so famous for the pious retirement of that paragon of splendour and
holiness, King John the Fifth. These were delightful days for the
monarch and the fair companions of his devotions.
“Oh!” said the old priest very judiciously, “of what avail is the finest
cage without birds to enliven it? Had you but heard the celestial
harmony of King John’s recluses, you would never have sat down contented
in your fine tent with the squalling of sopranos and the grumbling of
bass-viols. The silver, virgin tones I allude to, proceeding from the
holy recess into which no other male mortal except the monarch was ever
allowed to penetrate, had an effect I still remember with ecstasy,
though at the distance of so many years. Four of our finest singers, two
from Venice and two from Naples, attracted by a truly regal munificence,
added all that the most consummate taste and science could give to the
best voices in Portugal; the result was perfection.”
Aguilar, who came to dine with us, and whose mother, when in the bloom
of youth and beauty, had been not unfrequently invited to act the part
of perhaps more than audience at these edifying parties, confirmed all
the wonders the old Italian narrated, and added not a few of the same
gold and ruby colour in a strain so extravagantly enthusiastic, that
were I to repeat even half the glittering anecdotes he favoured me with,
upon the subject of Don John the Fifth’s unbounded fervour and
magnificence, your imagination would be completely dazzled.
Just as we had removed from the dinner to the dessert-table, which was
spread out upon a terrace fronting the principal alley of the gardens,
entered the abade Xavier, in full cry, with a rapturous story of the
conversion of an old consumptive Englishwoman, who, it seems, finding
herself upon the eve of departure, had called for a priest, to whom she
might confess, and abjure her errors of every description. Happening to
lodge at the Cintra inn, kept by a most flaming Irish Catholic, her
commendable desires were speedily complied with, and Mascarenhas and
Acciaoli, and two or three other priests and monsignors, summoned to
further the good work.
“Great,” said the abade, “are our rejoicings upon the occasion. This
very evening the aged innocent is to be buried in triumph: Marialva, San
Lorenzo, Asseca, and several more of the principal nobility are already
assembled to grace the festival; suppose you were to come with me and
join the procession?”
“With all my heart,” did I reply; “although I have no great taste for
funerals, so gay a one as this you talk of may form an exception.”
Off we set, driving as fast as most excellent mules could carry us, lest
we should come too late for the entertainment. A great mob was assembled
before the door. At one of the windows stood the grand prior, looking as
if he wished himself a thousand leagues away, and reciting his breviary.
I went up-stairs, and was immediately surrounded by the old Conde de San
Lorenzo and other believers, overflowing with congratulations.
Mascarenhas, one of the soundest limbs of the patriarchal establishment,
a capital devotee and seraphic doctor, was introduced to me. Acciaoli,
whom I was before acquainted with, skipped about the room, rubbing his
hands for joy, with a cunning leer on his jovial countenance, and
snapping his fingers at Satan, as much as to say, “I don’t care a d——
n for you. We have got one at least safe out of your clutches, and clear
at this very moment of the smoke of your cauldron.”
There was such a bustle in the interior apartment where the wretched
corpse was deposited, such a chaunting and praying, for not a tongue
was idle, that my head swam round, and I took refuge by the grand prior.
He by no means relished the party, and kept shrugging up his shoulders,
and saying that it was very edifying—very edifying indeed, and that
Acciaoli had been extremely alert, extremely active, and deserved great
commendation, but that so much fuss might as well have been spared.
By some hints that dropped, I won’t say from whom, I discovered the
innocent now on the high road to eternal felicity by no means to have
suffered the cup of joy to pass by untasted in this existence, and to
have lived many years on a very easy footing, not only with a stout
English bachelor, but with several others, married and unmarried, of his
particular acquaintance. However, she had taken a sudden tack upon
finding herself driven apace down the tide of a rapid consumption, and
had been fairly towed into port by the joint efforts of the Irish
hostess and the monsignori Mascarenhas and Acciaoli.
“Thrice happy Englishwoman,” exclaimed M—a, “what luck is thine! In
the next world immediate admission to paradise, and in this thy body
will have the proud distinction of being borne to the grave by men of
the highest rank.—Was there ever such felicity?”
The arrival of a band of priests and sacristans, with tapers lighted and
cross erected, called us to the scene of action. The procession being
marshalled, the corpse, dressed in virgin-white, lying snug in a sort of
rose-coloured bandbox with six silvered handles, was brought forth.
M——, who abhors the sight of a dead body, reddened up to his ears, and
would have given a good sum to make an honourable retreat; but no
retreat could now have been made consistent with piety: he was obliged
to conquer his disgust and take a handle of the bier. Another was placed
in the murderous gripe of the notorious San Vicente; another fell to the
poor old snuffling Conde de San Lorenzo; a fourth to the Viscount
d’Asseca, a mighty simple-looking young gentleman; the fifth and sixth
were allotted to the Capitaô Mor of Cintra, and to the judge, a gaunt
fellow with a hang-dog countenance.
No sooner did the grand prior catch sight of the ghastly visage of the
dead body as it was being conveyed down-stairs in the manner I have
recited, than he made an attempt to move on, and precede instead of
following the procession; but Acciaoli, who acted as master of the
ceremonies, would not let him off so easily: he allotted him the post of
honour immediately at the head of the corpse, and placed himself at his
left hand, giving the right to Mascarenhas. All the bells of Cintra
struck up a cheerful peal, and to their merry jinglings we hurried along
through a dense cloud of dust, a rabble of children frolicking on either
side, and their grandmothers hobbling after, telling their beads, and
grinning from ear to ear at this triumph over the prince of darkness.
Happily the way to the church was not long, or the dust would have
choked us. The grand prior kept his mouth close not to admit a particle
of it, but Acciaoli and his colleague were too full of their fortunate
exploit not to chatter incessantly. Poor old San Lorenzo, who is fat,
squat, and pursy, gasping for breath, stopped several times to rest on
his journey. Marialva, whom disgust rendered heartily fatigued with his
burthen, was very glad likewise to make a pause or two.
We found all the altars in the church blazing with lights, the grave
gaping for its immaculate inhabitant, and a numerous detachment of
priests and choristers waiting to receive the procession. The moment it
entered, the same hymn which is sung at the interment of babes and
sucklings burst forth from a hundred youthful voices, incense arose in
clouds, and joy and gladness shone in the eyes of the whole
congregation.
A murmur of applause and congratulation went round anew, those whom it
most concerned receiving with great affability and meekness the
compliments of the occasion. Old San Lorenzo, waddling up to the grand
prior, hugged him in his arms, and strewing him all over with snuff, set
him violently a-sneezing. San Vicente, as soon as the innocent was
safely deposited, retired in a sort of dudgeon, being never rightly at
ease in the presence of his brother-in-law Marialva. As for the latter
warm-hearted nobleman, exultation and triumph carried him beyond all
bounds of decorum. He scoffed bitterly at heretics, represented in their
true colours the actual happiness of the convert, and just as we left
the church, cried out loud enough for all those who were near to have
heard him, “Elle se f——iche de nous tous à présent.”
Their pious toil being ended, Mascarenhas and Acciaoli accompanied us to
the heights of Penha Verde, to breathe a fresh air under the odoriferous
pines: then, returning in our company to Ramalhaô, partook of a nice
collation of iced fruit and sweetmeats, and concluded the evening with
much gratifying discourse about the lively scene we had just witnessed.
Anecdotes of the Conde de San Lorenzo.—Visit to Mrs.
Guildermeester.—Toads active, and toads passive.—The old Consul
and his tray of jewels.
The principal personages who had so piously distinguished themselves
yesterday dined with me this blessed afternoon. Old San Lorenzo has a
prodigious memory and a warm imagination, rendered still more glowing by
a slight touch of madness. He appears perfectly well acquainted with the
general politics of Europe, and though never beyond the limits of
Portugal, gave so circumstantial and plausible a detail of what
occurred, and of the part he himself acted at the congress of
Aix-la-Chapelle, that I was completely his dupe, and believed, until I
was let into the secret, that he had actually witnessed what he only
dreamt of. Notwithstanding the high favour he enjoyed with the infante
Don Pedro, Pombal cast him into a dungeon with the other victims of the
Aveiro conspiracy, and for eighteen most melancholy years was his active
mind reduced to prey upon itself for sustenance.
Upon the present queen’s accession he was released, and found his
intimate friend the Infante sharing the throne; but thinking himself
somewhat coolly received and shabbily neglected, he threw the key of
chamberlain which was sent him into a place of less dignity than
convenience, and retired to the convent of the Necessidades. No means, I
have been assured, were left untried by the king to soothe and flatter
him; but they all proved fruitless. Since this period, though he quitted
the convent, he has never appeared at court, and has refused all
employment. Devotion now absorbs his entire soul. Except when the chord
of imprisonment and Pombal is touched upon, he is calm and reasonable. I
found him extremely so to-day, and full of the most instructive and
amusing anecdote.
Coffee over, my company having stretched themselves out at full-length
most comfortably, some on the mat, and some on the sofas, to recruit
their spirits I suppose, after the pious toils and enthusiastic
procession of the day before, I prevailed upon Marialva to escort me to
Mrs. Guildermeester’s, whom we found in a vast but dingy saloon, her
toads squatting around her. She gave us some excellent tea, and a plain
sensible loaf of brown bread, accompanied by delicious butter, just
fresh from a genuine Dutch dairy, conducted upon the most immaculate
Dutch principles. Donna Genuefa, the toad-passive in waiting, is a
little jossish old woman, with a head as round as a humming-top, and a
large placid lip, very smiling and good-natured. Miss Coster, the
toad-active, has been rather pretty a few years ago, makes tea with
decorum, shuts doors and opens windows with judgment, and has a good
deal to say for herself when allowed to sit still on her chair.
We had scarcely begun complimenting the mistress of the house upon the
complete success of her cow-establishment, when the old consul her
spouse entered, with many bows and salutations, bearing a huge japan
tray, upon which was spread out in glittering profusion an ample
treasure, both of rough and well-lapidated brilliants, the fruits of his
famous and most lucrative contract in the days of Pombal. Some of the
largest diamonds, in superb though heavy Dutch or German settings, he
eagerly desired Marialva would recommend to the attention of the queen,
and whispered in my ear that he hoped I also would speak a good word for
him. I remained as deaf as an adder, and the Marquis as blind as a
beetle, to the splendour of the display; so he returned once more to his
interior cabinet, with all his hopes out of blossom, and we moved off.
Evening was drawing on, and a drizzling mist overspreading the crags of
Cintra. It did not, however, prevent us from going to Mr. Horne’s. We
passed under arching elms and chesnuts, whose moistened foliage exhaled
a fresh woody odour. High above the vapours, which were rolling away
just as we emerged from the shady avenue, appeared the turret of the
convent of the Penha, faintly tinted by the last rays of the sun, and
looking down, like the ark on Mount Ararat, on a sea of undulating
clouds.
At Horne’s, Aguilar, Bezerra, and the usual set were assembled. The
Marquis, as soon as he had made his condescending bows to the right and
left, retired to his villa, and I took Horne in my chaise to Mrs.
Staits, a little slender-waisted, wild-eyed woman, by no means
unpleasing or flinty-hearted. It was her birthday, and she had
congregated most of the English at Cintra, in a damp garden about
seventy feet long by thirty-two, illuminated by thirty or forty
lanterns. Mrs. Guildermeester was there, covered with diamonds, and
sparkling like a star in the midst of this murky atmosphere. We had a
cold funereal supper, under a low tent in imitation of a grotto.
Mrs. Staits’ well-disposed, easy-tempered husband placed me next Mrs.
Guildermeester, who amused herself tolerably well at the expense of the
entertainment. The dingy, subterraneous appearance of the booth, the wan
light of the lanterns sparingly scattered along it, and the fragrance of
a dish of rather mature prawns placed under my nose, seized me with the
idea of being dead and buried. “Alas!” said I to my fair neighbour, “it
is all over with us now, and this our first banquet in the infernal
regions; we are all equal and jumbled together. There sits the pious
presbyterian Mrs. Fussock, with that bridling miss her daughter, and
close to them those adulterous doves, Mr. —— and his sultana. Here am
I, miserable sinner, right opposite your righteous and much enduring
spouse; a little lower our kind host, that pattern of conjugal meekness
and resignation. Hark! don’t you hear a lumbering noise? They are
letting down a cargo of heavy bodies into a neighbouring tomb.”
In this strain did we continue till the subject was exhausted, and it
was time to take our departure.
Expected arrival at Cintra of the Queen and suite.—Duke
d’Alafoins.—Excursion to a rustic Fair.—Revels of the
Peasantry.—Night-scene at the Marialva Villa.
Sept. 10th, 1787.
ADIEU to the tranquillity of Cintra, we shall soon have nothing but
hubbub and confusion. The queen is on the point of arriving with all her
maids of honour, secretaries of state, dwarfs, negresses and horses,
white, black, and pie-bald. Half the quintas around will be dried up,
military possession having been taken of the aqueducts, and their waters
diverted into new channels for the use of an encampment.
I was walking in a long arched bower of citron-trees, when M——
appeared at the end of the avenue, accompanied by the duke d’Alafoins.
This is the identical personage well-known in every part of Europe by
the appellation of Duke of Braganza. He has no right however, to wear
that illustrious title, which is merged in the crown. Were he called
Duchess Dowager, of anything you please, I think nobody would dispute
the propriety of his style, he being so like an old lady of the
bed-chamber, so fiddle-faddle and so coquettish. He had put on rouge and
patches, and though he has seen seventy winters, contrived to turn on
his heel and glide about with juvenile agility.
I was much surprised at the ease of his motions, having been told that
he was a martyr to the gout. After lisping French with a most refined
accent, complaining of the sun, and the roads, and the state of
architecture, he departed, (thank heaven!) to mark out a spot for the
encampment of the cavalry, which are to guard the queen’s sacred person
during her residence in these mountains. M—— was in duty bound to
accompany him; but left his son and his nephews, the heirs of the House
of Tancos, to dine with me.
In the evening, Verdeil, tired with sauntering about the verandas,
proposed a ride to a neighbouring village, where there was a fair. He
and Don Pedro mounted their horses, and preceded the young Tancos and me
in a garden-chair, drawn by a most resolute mule. The roads are
abominable, and lay partly along the sloping base of the Cintra
mountains, which in the spring, no doubt, are clothed with a tolerable
verdure, but at this season every blade of grass is parched and
withered. Our carriage-wheels, as we drove sideling along these slippery
declivities, pressed forth the odour of innumerable aromatic herbs, half
pulverized. Thicknesse perhaps would have said, in his original quaint
style, that nature was treating us with a pinch of her best cephalic. No
snuff, indeed, ever threw me into a more violent fit of sneezing.
I could hardly keep up my head when we arrived at the fair, which is
held on a pleasant lawn, bounded on one side by the picturesque
buildings of a convent of Hieronimites, and on the other by rocky hills,
shattered into a variety of uncouth romantic forms; one cliff in
particular, called the Pedra d’os Ovos, terminated by a cross, crowns
the assemblage, and exhibits a very grotesque appearance. Behind the
convent a thick shrubbery of olives, ilex, and citron, fills up a small
valley refreshed by fountains, whose clear waters are conducted through
several cloisters and gardens, surrounded by low marble columns,
supporting fretted arches in the morisco style.
The peasants assembled at the fair were scattered over the lawn; some
conversing with the monks, others half intoxicated, sliding off their
donkeys and sprawling upon the ground; others bargaining for silk-nets
and spangled rings, to bestow on their mistresses. The monks, who were
busily employed in administering all sorts of consolations, spiritual
and temporal, according to their respective ages and vocations, happily
paid us no kind of attention, so we escaped being stuffed with
sweetmeats, and worried with compliments.
At sunset we returned to Ramalhaô, and drank tea in its lantern-like
saloon, in which are no less than eleven glazed doors and windows of
large dimensions. The winds were still; the air balsamic; and the sky of
so soft an azure that we could not remain with patience under any other
canopy, but stept once more into our curricles and drove as far as the
Dutch consul’s new building, by the mingled light of innumerable stars.
It was after ten when we got back to the Marialva villa, and long before
we reached it, we heard the plaintive tones of voices and wind
instruments issuing from the thickets. On the margin of the principal
basin sat the marchioness and Donna Henriquetta, and a numerous group of
their female attendants, many of them most graceful figures, and
listening with all their hearts and souls to the rehearsal of some very
delightful music with which her majesty is to be serenaded a few
evenings hence.
It was one of those serene and genial nights when music acquires a
double charm, and opens the heart to tender, though melancholy
impressions. Not a leaf rustled, not a breath of wind disturbed the
clear flame of the lights which had been placed near the fountains, and
which just served to make them visible. The waters, flowing in rills
round the roots of the lemon-trees, formed a rippling murmur; and in the
pauses of the concert, no other sound except some very faint whisperings
was to be distinguished, so that the enchantment of climate, music, and
mystery, all contributed to throw my mind into a sort of trance from
which I was not roused again without a degree of painful reluctance.
Curious scene in the interior of the palace of Cintra.—Singular
invitation.—Dinner with the Archbishop Confessor.—Hilarity and
shrewd remarks of that extraordinary personage.
September 12th, 1787.
I WAS hardly up before the grand prior and Mr. Street were announced:
the latter abusing kings, queens, and princes, with all his might, and
roaring after liberty and independence; the former complaining of fogs
and damps.
As soon as the advocate for republicanism had taken his departure, we
went by appointment to the archbishop confessor’s, and were immediately
admitted into his sanctum sanctorum, a snug apartment communicating by
a winding staircase with that of the queen, and hung with bright, lively
tapestry. A lay-brother, fat, round, buffoonical, and to the full as
coarse and vulgar as any carter or muleteer in christendom, entertained
us with some very amusing, though not the most decent, palace stories,
till his patron came forth.
Those who expect to see the Grand Inquisitor of Portugal, a doleful,
meagre figure, with eyes of reproof and malediction, would be
disappointed. A pleasanter or more honest countenance than that kind
heaven has blessed him with, one has seldom the comfort of looking upon.
He received me in the most open, cordial manner, and I have reason to
think I am in mighty favour.
We talked about archbishops in England being married. “Pray,” said the
prelate, “are not your archbishops strange fellows? consecrated in
ale-houses, and good bottle companions? I have been told that mad-cap
Lord Tyrawley was an archbishop at home.” You may imagine how much I
laughed at this inconceivable nonsense; and though I cannot say,
speaking of his right reverence, that “truths divine came mended from
his tongue,” it may be allowed, that nonsense itself became more
conspicuously nonsensical, flowing from so revered a source.
Whilst we sat in the windows of the saloon, listening to a band of
regimental music, we saw Joaô Antonio de Castro, the ingenious
mechanician, who invented the present method of lighting Lisbon, two or
three solemn dominicans, and a famous court fool[18] in a tawdry
gala-suit, bedizened with mock orders, coming up the steps which lead to
the great audience-chamber, all together. “Ay, ay,” said the
lay-brother, who is a shrewd, comical fellow, “behold a true picture of
our customers. Three sorts of persons find their way most readily into
this palace; men of superior abilities, buffoons, and saints; the first
soon lose what cleverness they possessed, the saints become martyrs, and
the buffoons alone prosper.”
To all this the Archbishop gave his hearty assent by a very significant
nod of the head; and being, as I have already told you, in a most
gracious, communicative disposition, would not permit me to go away,
when I rose up to take leave of him.
“No, no,” said he, “don’t think of quitting me yet awhile. Let us repair
to the hall of Swans, where all the court are waiting for me, and pray
tell me then what you think of our great fidalgos.”
Taking me by the tip of the fingers he led me along through a number of
shady rooms and dark passages to a private door, which opened from the
queen’s presence-chamber, into a vast saloon, crowded, I really believe,
by half the dignitaries of the kingdom; here were bishops, heads of
orders, secretaries of state, generals, lords of the bedchamber, and
courtiers of all denominations, as fine and as conspicuous as
embroidered uniforms, stars, crosses, and gold keys could make them.
The astonishment of this group at our sudden apparition was truly
laughable, and indeed, no wonder; we must have appeared on the point of
beginning a minuet—the portly archbishop in his monastic, flowing white
drapery, spreading himself out like a turkey in full pride, and myself
bowing and advancing in a sort of pas-grave, blinking all the while
like an owl in sunshine, thanks to my rapid transition from darkness to
the most glaring daylight.
Down went half the party upon their knees, some with petitions and some
with memorials; those begging for places and promotions, and these for
benedictions, of which my revered conductor was by no means prodigal. He
seemed to treat all these eager demonstrations of fawning servility with
the most contemptuous composure, and pushing through the crowd which
divided respectfully to give us passage, beckoned the Viscount Ponte de
Lima, the Marquis of Lavradio, the Count d’Obidos, and two or three of
the lords in waiting, into a mean little room, not above twenty by
fourteen.
After a deal of adulatory complimentation in a most subdued tone from
the circle of courtiers, for which they had got nothing in return but
rebuffs and gruntling, the Archbishop drew his chair close to mine, and
said with a very distinct and audible pronunciation, “My dear
Englishman, these are all a parcel of flattering scoundrels, do not
believe one word they say to you. Though they glitter like gold, mud is
not meaner—I know them well. Here,” continued he, holding up the flap
of my coat, “is a proof of English prudence, this little button to
secure the pocket is a precious contrivance, especially in grand
company, do not leave it off, do not adopt any of our fashions, or you
will repent it.”
This sally of wit was received with the most resigned complacency by
those who had inspired it, and, staring with all my eyes, and listening
with all my ears, I could hardly credit either upon seeing the most
complaisant gesticulations, and hearing the most abject protestations of
devoted attachment to his right reverence’s sacred person from all the
company.
There is no saying how long this tide of adulation would have continued
pouring on, if it had not been interrupted by a message from the queen,
commanding the confessor’s immediate attendance. Giving his garments a
hearty shake, he trudged off bawling out to me over his shoulder, “I
shall be back in half-an-hour, and you must dine with me.“—“Dine with
him!” exclaimed the company in chorus: “such an honour never befel any
one of us; how fortunate! how distinguished you are!”
Now, I must confess, I was by no means enchanted with this most peculiar
invitation; I had a much pleasanter engagement at Penha-Verde, one of
the coolest and most romantic spots in all this poetic district, and
felt no vocation to be cooped up in a close bandboxical apartment,
smelling of paint and varnish enough to give the head-ache; however,
there was no getting off. I was told that I must obey, for everybody in
these regions, high or low, the royal family themselves not excepted,
obeyed the archbishop, and that I ought to esteem myself too happy in so
agreeable an opportunity.
It would be only repeating what is known to every one, who knows any
thing of courts and courtiers, were I to add the flowery speeches, the
warm encomiums, I received from the finest feathered birds of this covey
upon my own transcendant perfections, and those of my host that was to
be. The half-hour, which, by-the-by, was more than three-quarters,
scarcely sufficed for half those very people had to say in my
commendation, who, a few days ago, were all reserve and indifference, if
I happened to approach them. My summons to this envied repast was
conveyed to me by no less a personage than the Marquis of M——, who,
with gladsome surprise in all his gestures, whispered me, “I am to be of
the party too, the first time in my life I can assure you; not a
creature besides is to be admitted; for my uncle is gone home tired of
waiting for you.”
We knocked at the private door, which was immediately opened, and
following the same passages through which I had been before conducted,
emerged into an ante-chamber looking into a very neat little kitchen,
where the lay-brother, with his sleeves tucked up to his shoulders, was
making hospitable preparation. A table with three covers was prepared in
the tapestry-room, and upon a sofa, in the corner of it, sat the
omnipotent prelate wrapped up in an old snuff-coloured great coat, sadly
patched and tattered.
“Come,” said he, clapping his hands after the oriental fashion, “serve
up and let us be merry—oh, these women, these women, above stairs, what
a plague it is to settle their differences! Who knows better than you,
Marquis, what enigmas they are to unriddle? I dare say the Englishman’s
archbishops have not half such puzzles to get over as I have: well, let
us see what we have got for you.”
Entered the lay-brother with three roasting-pigs, on a huge tray of
massive silver, and an enormous pillau, as admirable in quality as in
size; and so it had need to have been, for in these two dishes consisted
our whole dinner. I am told the fare at the Archbishop’s table never
varies, and roasting-pigs succeed roasting-pigs, and pillaus pillaus,
throughout all the vicissitudes of the seasons, except on certain
peculiar fast-days of supreme meagre.
The simplicity of this part of our entertainment was made up by the
profusion and splendour of our dessert, which exceeded in variety of
fruits and sweetmeats any one of which I had ever partaken. As to the
wines, they were admirable, the tribute of every part of the Portuguese
dominions offered up at this holy shrine. The Port Company, who are just
soliciting the renewal of their charter, had contributed the choicest
produce of their happiest vintages, and as I happened to commend its
peculiar excellence, my hospitable entertainer, whose good-humour seemed
to acquire every instant a livelier glow, insisted upon my accepting
several pipes of it, which were punctually sent me the next morning. The
Archbishop became quite jovial, and supposing I was not more insensible
to the joys of convivial potations than many of my countrymen, plied me
as often and as waggishly as if I had been one of his imaginary
archbishops, or Lord Tyrawley himself, returned from those cold
precincts where no dinners are given or bottle circulated.
The lay-brother was such a fountain of anecdote, the Archbishop in such
glee, and Marialva in such jubilation at being admitted to this
confidential party, that it is impossible to say how long it would have
lasted, had not the hour of her Majesty’s evening excursion approached,
and the Archbishop been called to accompany her. As Master of the Horse,
the Marquis could not dispense with his attendance, so I was left under
the guidance of the lay-brother, who, leading me through another
labyrinth of passages, opened a kind of wicket door, and let me out with
as little ceremony as he would have turned a goose adrift on a common.
Explore the Cintra Mountains.—Convent of Nossa Senhora da
Penha.—Moorish Ruins.—The Cork Convent.—The Rock of
Lisbon.—Marine Scenery.—Susceptible imagination of the Ancients
exemplified.
Sept. 19th, 1787.
NEVER did I behold so fine a day, or a sky of such lovely azure. The
M—— were with me by half-past six, and we rode over wild hills, which
command a great extent of apparently desert country; for the villages,
if there are any, are concealed in ravines and hollows.
Intending to explore the Cintra mountains from one extremity to the
other of the range, we placed relays at different stations. Our first
object was the Convent of Nossa Senhora da Penha, the little romantic
pile of white buildings I had seen glittering from afar when I first
sailed by the coast of Lisbon. From this pyramidical elevation the view
is boundless: you look immediately down upon an immense expanse of sea,
the vast, unlimited Atlantic. A long series of detached clouds of a
dazzling whiteness, suspended low over the waves, had a magic effect,
and in pagan times might have appeared, without any great stretch of
fancy, the cars of marine divinities just risen from the bosom of their
element.
There was nothing very interesting in the objects immediately around us.
The Moorish remains in the neighbourhood of the convent are scarcely
worth notice, and indeed seem never to have made part of any
considerable edifice. They were probably built up with the dilapidations
of a Roman temple, whose constructors had perhaps in their turn availed
themselves of the fragments of a Punic or Tyrian fane raised on this
high place, and blackened with the smoke of some horrible sacrifice.
Amidst the crevices of the mouldering walls, and particularly in the
vault of a cistern, which seems to have served both as a reservoir and a
bath, I noticed some capillaries and polypodiums of infinite delicacy;
and on a little flat space before the convent a numerous tribe of
pinks, gentians, and other alpine plants, fanned and invigorated by the
pure mountain air. These refreshing breezes, impregnated with the
perfume of innumerable aromatic herbs and flowers, seemed to infuse new
life into my veins, and, with it, an almost irresistible impulse to fall
down and worship in this vast temple of Nature the source and cause of
existence.
As we had a very extensive ride in contemplation, I could not remain
half so long as I wished on this aërial and secluded summit. Descending
by a tolerably easy road, which wound amongst the rocks in many an
irregular curve, we followed for several miles a narrow tract over the
brow of savage and desolate eminences, to the Cork convent, which
answered exactly, at the first glance we caught of it, the picture one
represents to one’s self of the settlement of Robinson Crusoe. Before
the entrance, formed of two ledges of ponderous rock, extends a smooth
level of greensward, browsed by cattle, whose tinkling bells filled me
with recollections of early days passed amongst wild and alpine scenery.
The Hermitage, its cells, chapel, and refectory, are all scooped out of
the native marble, and lined with the bark of the cork-tree. Several of
the passages about it are not only roofed, but floored with the same
material, extremely soft and pleasant to the feet. The shrubberies and
garden plats, dispersed amongst the mossy rocks which lie about in the
wildest confusion, are delightful, and I took great pleasure in
exploring their nooks and corners, following the course of a
transparent, gurgling rill, which is conducted through a rustic
water-shoot, between bushes of lavender and rosemary of the tenderest
green.
The Prior of this romantic retirement is appointed by the Marialvas, and
this very day his installation takes place, so we were pressed to dine
with him upon the occasion, and could not refuse; but as it was still
very early, we galloped on, intending to visit a famous cliff, the Pedra
d’Alvidrar, which composes one of the most striking features of that
renowned promontory the Rock of Lisbon.
Our road led us through the skirts of the woods which surround the
delightful village of Collares, to another range of barren eminences
extending along the sea-shore. I advanced to the very margin of the
cliff, which is of great height, and nearly perpendicular. A rabble of
boys followed at the heels of our horses, and five stout lads, detached
from this posse, descended with the most perfect unconcern the dreadful
precipice. One in particular walked down with his arms expanded, like a
being of a superior order. The coast is truly picturesque, and consists
of bold projections, intermixed with pyramidical rocks succeeding each
other in theatrical perspective, the most distant crowned by a lofty
tower, which serves as a lighthouse.
No words can convey an adequate idea of the bloom of the atmosphere, and
the silvery light reflected from the sea. From the edge of the abyss,
where I had remained several minutes like one spell-bound, we descended
a winding path, about half a mile, to the beach. Here we found ourselves
nearly shut in by shattered cliffs and grottos, a fantastic
amphitheatre, the best calculated that can possibly be imagined to
invite the sports of sea nymphs. Such coves, such deep and broken
recesses, such a play of outline I never beheld, nor did I ever hear so
powerful a roar of rushing waters upon any other coast. No wonder the
warm and susceptible imagination of the ancients, inflamed by the
scenery of the place, led them to believe they distinguished the conchs
of tritons sounding in these retired caverns; nay, some grave
Lusitanians positively declared they had not only heard, but seen them,
and despatched a messenger to the Emperor Tiberius to announce the
event, and congratulate him upon so evident and auspicious a
manifestation of divinity.
The tide was beginning to ebb, and allowed us, not without some risk
however, to pass into a cavern of surprising loftiness, the sides of
which were incrusted with beautiful limpets, and a variety of small
shells grouped together. Against some rude and porous fragments, not far
from the aperture through which we had crept, the waves swell with
violence, rush into the air, form instantaneous canopies of foam, then
fall down in a thousand trickling rills of silver. The flickering gleams
of light thrown upon irregular arches admitting into darker and more
retired grottos, the mysterious, watery gloom, the echoing murmurs and
almost musical sounds, occasioned by the conflict of winds and waters,
the strong odour of an atmosphere composed of saline particles, produced
altogether such a bewildering effect upon the senses, that I can easily
conceive a mind, poetically given, might be thrown into that kind of
tone which inclines to the belief of supernatural appearances. I am not
surprised, therefore, at the credulity of the ancients, and only wonder
my own imagination did not deceive me in a similar manner.
If solitude could have induced the Nereids to have vouchsafed me an
apparition, it was not wanting, for all my company had separated upon
different pursuits, and had left me entirely to myself. During the full
half-hour I remained shut out from the breathing world, one solitary
corvo marino was the only living creature I caught sight of, perched
upon an insulated rock, about fifty paces from the opening of the
cavern.
I was so stunned with the complicated sounds and murmurs which filled my
ears, that it was some moments before I could distinguish the voices of
Verdeil and Don Pedro, who were just returned from a hunt after
seaweeds and madrapores, calling me loudly to mount on horseback, and
make the best of our way to rejoin the Marquis and his attendants, all
gone to mass at the Cork convent. Happily, the little detached clouds we
had seen from the high point of Nossa Senhora da Penha, instead of
melting into the blue sky, had been gathering together, and skreened us
from the sun. We had therefore a delightful ride, and upon alighting
from our palfreys found the old abade just arrived with Luis de Miranda,
the colonel of the Cascais regiment, surrounded by a whole synod of
monks, as picturesque as bald pates and venerable beards could make
them.
As soon as the Marquis came forth from his devotions, dinner was served
up exactly in the style one might have expected at Mequinez or
Morocco—pillaus of different kinds, delicious quails, and pyramids of
rice tinged with saffron. Our dessert, in point of fruits and
sweetmeats, was most luxurious, nor would Pomona herself have been
ashamed of carrying in her lap such peaches and nectarines as rolled in
profusion about the table.
The abade seemed animated after dinner by the spirit of contradiction,
and would not allow the Marquis or Luis de Miranda to know more about
the court of John the Fifth, than of that of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.
To avoid being stunned by the clamours of the dispute, in which two or
three monks with stentorian voices began to take part most vehemently,
Don Pedro, Verdeil, and I climbed up amongst the hanging shrubberies of
arbutus, bay, and myrtle, to a little platform carpeted with delicate
herbage, exhaling a fresh, aromatic perfume upon the slightest pressure.
There we sat, lulled by the murmur of distant waves, breaking over the
craggy shore we had visited in the morning. The clouds came slowly
sailing over the hills. My companions pounded the cones of the pines,
and gave me the kernels, which have an agreeable almond taste.
The evening was far advanced before we abandoned our peaceful,
sequestered situation, and joined the Marquis, who had not been yet able
to appease the abade. The vociferous old man made so many appeals to the
father-guardian of the convent in defence of his opinions, that I
thought we never should have got away. At length we departed, and after
wandering about in clouds and darkness for two hours, reached Cintra
exactly at ten. The Marchioness and the children had been much alarmed
at our long absence, and rated the abade severely for having occasioned
it.
Excursion to Penha Verde.—Resemblance of that Villa to the
edifices in Gaspar Poussin’s landscapes.—The ancient pine-trees,
said to have been planted by Don John de Castro.—The old forests
displaced by gaudy terraces.—Influx of Visiters.—A celebrated
Prior’s erudition and strange anachronisms.—The Beast in the
Apocalypse.—Œcolampadius.—Bevy of Palace damsels.—Fête at the
Marialva Villa.—The Queen and the Royal Family.—A favourite dwarf
Negress.—Dignified manner of the Queen.—Profound respect inspired
by her presence.—Rigorous etiquette.—Grand display of
Fireworks.—The young Countess of Lumiares.—Affecting resemblance.
September 22nd, 1787.
WHEN I got up, the mists were stealing off the hills, and the distant
sea discovering itself in all its azure bloom. Though I had been led to
expect many visiters of importance from Lisbon, the morning was so
inviting that I could not resist riding out after breakfast, even at the
risk of not being present at their arrival.
I took the road to Collares, and found the air delightfully soft and
fragrant. Some rain which had lately fallen, had refreshed the whole
face of the country, and tinged the steeps beyond Penha Verde with
purple and green; for the numerous tribe of heaths had started into
blossom, and the little irregular lawns, overhung by crooked cork-trees,
which occur so frequently by the way-side, are now covered with large
white lilies streaked with pink.
Penha Verde itself is a lovely spot. The villa, with its low, flat
roofs, and a loggia projecting at one end, exactly resembles the
edifices in Gaspar Poussin’s landscapes. Before one of the fronts is a
square parterre with a fountain in the middle, and niches in the walls
with antique busts. Above these walls a variety of trees and shrubs rise
to a great elevation, and compose a mass of the richest foliage. The
pines, which, by their bright-green colour, have given the epithet of
verdant to this rocky point (Penha Verde), are as picturesque as those I
used to admire so warmly in the Negroni garden at Rome, and full as
ancient, perhaps more so: tradition assures us they were planted by the
far-famed Don John de Castro, whose heart reposes in a small marble
chapel beneath their shade.
How often must that heroic heart, whilst it still beat in one of the
best and most magnanimous of human bosoms, have yearned after this calm
retirement! Here, at least, did it promise itself that rest so cruelly
denied him by the blind perversities of his ungrateful countrymen: for
his had been an arduous contest, a long and agonizing struggle, not only
in the field under a burning sun, and in the face of peril and death,
but in sustaining the glory and good fame of Portugal against court
intrigues, and the vile cabals of envious, domestic enemies.
These scenes, though still enchanting, have most probably undergone
great changes since his days. The deep forests we read of have
disappeared, and with them many a spring they fostered. Architectural
fountains, gaudy terraces, and regular stripes of orange-gardens, have
usurped the place of those wild orchards and gushing rivulets he may be
supposed to have often visited in his dreams, when removed some thousand
leagues from his native country. All these are changed; but mankind are
the same as in his time, equally insensible to the warning voice of
genuine patriotism, equally disposed to crouch under the rod of corrupt
tyranny. And thus, by the neglect of wise and virtuous men, and a mean
subserviency to knavish fools, eras which might become of gold, are
transmuted by an accursed alchymy into iron rusted with blood.
Impressed with all the recollections this most interesting spot could
not fail to inspire, I could hardly tear myself away from it. Again and
again did I follow the mossy steps, which wind up amongst shady rocks to
the little platform, terminated by the sepulchral chapel—
“——densis quam pinus opacat
Frondibus et nulla lucos agitante procella
Stridula coniferis modulatur carmina ramis.”
You must not wonder then, that I was haunted the whole way home by these
mysterious whisperings, nor that, in such a tone of mind, I saw with no
great pleasure a procession of two-wheeled chaises, the lord knows how
many out-riders, and a caravan of bouras, marching up to the gate of my
villa. I had, indeed, been prepared to expect a very considerable influx
of visiters; but this was a deluge.
Do not let me send you a catalogue of the company, lest you should be as
much annoyed with the detail, as I was with such a formidable arrival
en masse. Let it suffice to name two of the principal characters, the
old pious Conde de San Lorenzo, and the prior of San Juliaô, one of the
archbishop’s prime favourites, and a person of great worship. Mortier’s
Dutch bible happening to lie upon the table, they began tumbling over
the leaves in an egregiously awkward manner. I, who abhor seeing books
thumbed, and prints demonstrated by the close application of a greasy
fore-finger, snapped at the old Conde, and cast an evil look at the
prior, who was leaning his whole priestly weight on the volume, and
creasing its corners.
My musicians were in full song, and Pedro Grua, a capital violoncello,
exerted his abilities in his best style; but San Lorenzo was too
pathetically engaged in deploring the massacre of the Innocents to pay
him any attention, and his reverend companion had entered into a
long-winded dissertation upon parables, miracles, and martyrdom, from
which I prayed in vain the Lord to deliver me. Verdeil, scenting from
afar the saintly flavour of the discourse, stole off.
I cannot say much in praise of the prior’s erudition, even in holy
matters, for he positively affirmed that it was Henry the Eighth
himself, who knocked St. Thomas à Becket’s brains out, and that by the
beast in the Apocalypse, Luther was positively indicated. I hate
wrangles, and had it not been for the soiling of my prints, should never
have contradicted his reverence; but as I was a little out of humour, I
lowered him somewhat in the Conde’s opinion, by stating the real period
of St. Thomas’s murder, and by tolerably specious arguments, shoving the
beast’s horns off Luther, and clapping them tight upon—whom do you
think?—Œcolampadius! So grand a name, which very probably they had
never heard pronounced in their lives, carried all before it, (adding
another instance of the triumph of sound over sense,) and settled our
bickerings.
We sat down, I believe, full thirty to dinner, and had hardly got
through the dessert, when Berti came in to tell me that Madame Ariaga,
and a bevy of the palace damsels, were prancing about the quinta on
palfreys and bouras. I hastened to join them. There was Donna Maria do
Carmo, and Donna Maria da Penha, with her hair flowing about her
shoulders, and her large beautiful eyes looking as wild and roving as
those of an antelope. I called for my horse, and galloped through alleys
and citron bushes, brushing off leaves, fruit, and blossoms. Every
breeze wafted to us the sound of French horns and oboes. The ladies
seemed to enjoy the freedom and novelty of this scamper prodigiously,
and to regret the short time it was doomed to last; for at seven they
are obliged to return to strict attendance on the Queen, and had some
strange fairy-tale metamorphosis into a pumpkin or a cucumber been the
penalty of disobedience, they could not have shown more alarm or anxiety
when the fatal hour of seven drew near. Luckily, they had not far to go,
for her Majesty and the Royal Family were all assembled at the Marialva
villa, to partake of a splendid merenda and see fireworks.
As soon as it fell dark Verdeil and I set forth to catch a glimpse of
the royal party. The Grand Prior and Don Pedro conducted us mysteriously
into a snug boudoir which looks into the great pavilion, whose gay,
fantastic scenery appeared to infinite advantage by the light of
innumerable tapers reflected on all sides from lustres of glittering
crystal. The little Infanta Donna Carlotta was perched on a sofa in
conversation with the Marchioness and Donna Henriquetta, who, in the
true oriental fashion, had placed themselves cross-legged on the floor.
A troop of maids of honour, commanded by the Countess of Lumieres, sat
in the same posture at a little distance. Donna Rosa, the favourite
dwarf negress, dressed out in a flaming scarlet riding-habit, not so
frolicsome as the last time I had the pleasure of seeing her in this
fairy bower, was more sentimental, and leaned against the door, ogling
and flirting with a handsome Moor belonging to the Marquis.
Presently the Queen, followed by her sister and daughter-in-law, the
Princess of Brazil, came forth from her merenda, and seated herself in
front of the latticed-window, behind which I was placed. Her manner
struck me as being peculiarly dignified and conciliating. She looks born
to command; but at the same time to make that high authority as much
beloved as respected. Justice and clemency, the motto so glaringly
misapplied on the banner of the abhorred Inquisition, might be
transferred with the strictest truth to this good princess. During the
fatal contest betwixt England and its colonies, the wise neutrality she
persevered in maintaining was of the most vital benefit to her
dominions, and hitherto, the native commerce of Portugal has attained
under her mild auspices an unprecedented degree of prosperity.
Nothing could exceed the profound respect, the courtly decorum her
presence appeared to inspire. The Conde de Sampayo and the Viscount
Ponte de Lima knelt by the august personages with not much less
veneration, I should be tempted to imagine, than Moslems before the tomb
of their prophet, or Tartars in the presence of the Dalai Lama. Marialva
alone, who took his station opposite her Majesty, seemed to preserve his
ease and cheerfulness. The Prince of Brazil and Don Joaô looked not a
little ennuied; for they kept stalking about with their hands in their
pockets, their mouths in a perpetual yawn, and their eyes wandering
from object to object, with a stare of royal vacancy.
A most rigorous etiquette confining the Infants of Portugal within their
palaces, they are seldom known to mix even incognito with the crowd; so
that their flattering smiles or confidential yawns are not lavished upon
common observers. This sort of embalming princes alive, after all, is no
bad policy; it keeps them sacred; it concentrates their royal essence,
too apt, alas! to evaporate by exposure. What is so liberally paid for
by the willing tribute of the people as a rarity of exquisite relish,
should not be suffered to turn mundungus. However the individual may
dislike this severe regimen, state pageants might have the goodness to
recollect for what purpose they are bedecked and beworshipped.
The Conde de Sampayo, lord in waiting, handed the tea to the Queen, and
fell down on both knees to present it. This ceremony over, for every
thing is ceremony at this stately court, the fireworks were announced,
and the royal sufferers, followed by their sufferees, adjourned to a
neighbouring apartment. The Marchioness, her daughters, and the
Countess of Lumieres, mounted up to the boudoir where I was sitting,
and took possession of the windows. Seven or eight wheels, and as many
tourbillons began whirling and whizzing, whilst a profusion of admirable
line-rockets darted along in various directions, to the infinite delight
of the Countess of Lumieres, who, though hardly sixteen, has been
married four years. Her youthful cheerfulness, light hair, and fair
complexion, put me so much in mind of my Margaret, that I could not help
looking at her with a melancholy tenderness: her being with child
increased the resemblance, and as she sat in the recess of the window,
discovered at intervals by the blue light of rockets bursting high in
the air, I felt my blood thrill as if I beheld a phantom, and my eyes
were filled with tears.
The last firework being played off, the Queen and the Infantas departed.
The Marchioness and the other ladies descended into the pavilion, where
we partook of a magnificent and truly royal collation. Donna Maria and
her little sister, animated by the dazzling illumination, tripped about
in their light muslin dresses, with all the sportiveness of fairy
beings, such as might be supposed to have dropped down from the floating
clouds, which Pillement has so well represented on the ceiling.
Cathedral of Lisbon.—Trace of St. Anthony’s fingers.—The Holy
Crows.—Party formed to visit them.—A Portuguese
poet.—Comfortable establishment of the Holy Crows.—Singular
tradition connected with them.—Illuminations in honour of the
Infanta’s accouchement.—Public harangues.—Policarpio’s singing,
and anecdotes of the haute noblesse.
November 8th, 1787.
VERDEIL and I rattled over cracked pavements this morning in my rough
travelling-coach, for the sake of exercise. The pretext for our
excursion was to see a remarkable chapel, inlaid with jasper and
lapis-lazuli, in the church of St. Roch; but when we arrived, three or
four masses were celebrating, and not a creature sufficiently disengaged
to draw the curtain which veils the altar, so we went out as wise as we
came in.
Not having yet seen the cathedral, or See-church, as it is called at
Lisbon, we directed our course to that quarter. It is a building of no
striking dimensions, narrow and gloomy, without being awful. The
earthquake crumbled its glories to dust, if ever it had any, and so
dreadfully shattered the chapels, with which it is clustered, that very
slight traces of their having made part of a mosque are discernible.
Though I had not been led to expect great things, even from descriptions
in travels and topographical works, which, like peerage-books and
pedigrees, are tenderly inclined to make something of what is next to
nothing at all: I hunted away, as became a diligent traveller, after
altar-pieces and tombs, but can boast of no discoveries. To be sure, we
had not much time to look about us: the priests and sacristans, who
fastened upon us, insisted upon our revisiting the corner of a bye
staircase, where are to be kissed and worshipped the traces of St.
Anthony’s fingers. The saint, it seems, being closely pursued by the
father of lies and parent of evil, alias Old Scratch, (I really could
not clearly learn upon what occasion,) indented the sign of the cross
into a wall of the hardest marble, and stopped his proceedings. A very
pleasing little picture hangs up near the miraculous cross, and records
the tradition.
All this was admirable; but nothing in comparison with some stories
about certain holy crows. “The very birds are in being,” said a
sacristan. “What!” answered I, “the individual[19] crows who attended
St. Vincent?”—“Not exactly,” was the reply, (in a whisper, intended for
my private ear); “but their immediate descendants.”—“Mighty well; this
very evening, please God, I will pay my respects to them, and in good
company, so adieu for the present.”
Our next point was the Theatine convent. We looked into the library,
which lies in the same confusion in which it was left by the earthquake;
half the books out of their shelves, tumbled one over the other in dusty
heaps. A shrewd, active monk, who, I am told, has written a history of
the House of Braganza, not yet printed, guided our steps through this
chaos of literature; and after searching half-an-hour for some curious
voyages he wished to display to us, led us into his cell, and pressed
our attention to a cabinet of medals he had been at some pains and
expense in collecting.
Not feeling any particular vocation for numismatic researches, I left
Verdeil with the monk, puzzling out some very questionable inscriptions,
and went to beat up for recruits to accompany me in the evening to the
holy crows. First, I found the Abade Xavier, and secondly, the famous
missionary preacher from Boa Morte, and then the Grand Prior, and
lastly, the Marquis of Marialva; Don Pedro begged not to be left out, so
we formed a coach full, and I drove my whole cargo home to dinner.
Verdeil was already returned with his reverend medallist, and had also
collected the governor of Goa, Don Frederic de Sousa Cagliariz, his
constant attendant a bullying Savoyard, or Piedmontese Count, by name
Lucatelli; and a pale, limber, odd-looking young man, Senhor Manuel
Maria, the queerest, but, perhaps, the most original of God’s poetical
creatures. He happened to be in one of those eccentric, lively moods,
which, like sunshine in the depth of winter, come on when least
expected. A thousand quaint conceits, a thousand flashes of wild
merriment, a thousand satirical darts shot from him, and we were all
convulsed with laughter; but when he began reciting some of his
compositions, in which great depth of thought is blended with the most
pathetic touches, I felt myself thrilled and agitated. Indeed, this
strange and versatile character may be said to possess the true wand of
enchantment, which, at the will of its master, either animates or
petrifies.
Perceiving how much I was attracted towards him, he said to me, “I did
not expect an Englishman would have condescended to pay a young,
obscure, modern versifier, any attention. You think we have no bard but
Camoens, and that Camoens has written nothing worth notice, but the
Lusiad. Here is a sonnet worth half the Lusiad.
CXCII.
‘A fermosura desta fresca serra,
E a sombra dos verdes castanheiros,
O manso caminhar destes ribeiros,
Donde toda a tristeza se desterra;
O rouco som do mar, a estranha terra,
O esconder do Sol pellos outeiros,
O recolher dos gados derradeiros,
Das nuvens pello ar a branda guerra:
Em fim tudo o que a rara natureza
Com tanta variedade nos ofrece,
Me està (se não te vejo) magoando:
Sem ti tudo me enoja, e me aborrece,
Sem ti perpetuamente estou passando
Nas mòres alegrias, mòr tristeza!’
Not an image of rural beauty has escaped our divine poet; and how
feelingly are they applied from the landscape to the heart! What a
fascinating languor, like the last beams of an evening sun, is thrown
over the whole composition! If I am any thing, this sonnet has made me
what I am; but what am I, compared to Monteiro? Judge,” continued he,
putting into my hand some manuscript verses of this author, to whom the
Portuguese are vehemently partial. Though they were striking and
sonorous, I must confess the sonnet of Camoens, and many of Senhor
Manuel Maria’s own verses, pleased me infinitely more; but in fact, I
was not sufficiently initiated into the force and idiom of the
Portuguese language to be a competent judge; and it was only in fancying
me one, that this powerful genius discovered any want of penetration.
Our dinner was lively and convivial. At the dessert the Abadè produced
an immense tray of dried fruits and sweetmeats, which one of his hundred
and fifty protégés had sent him from, I forget what exotic region.
These good things he kept handing to us, and almost cramming down our
throats, as if we had been turkeys and he a poulterer, whose livelihood
depended upon our fattening. “There,” said he, “did you ever behold such
admirable productions? Our Queen has thousands and thousands of miles
with fruit-groves over your head, and rocks of gold and diamonds beneath
your feet. The riches and fertility of her possessions have no bounds,
but the sea, and the sea itself might belong to us if we pleased; for we
have such means of ship-building, masts two hundred feet high,
incorruptible timbers, courageous seamen. Don Frederic can tell you what
some of our heroes achieved not long ago against the gentiles at Goa.
Your Joaô Bulles are not half so smart, half so valorous.”
Thus he went on, bouncing and roaring us deaf. For patriotic
rodomontades and flourishes, no nation excels the Portuguese, and no
Portuguese the Abadè!
At length, however, all this tasting and praising having been gone
through with, we set forth on the wings of holiness, to pay our devoirs
to the holy crows. A certain sum having been allotted time immemorial
for the maintenance of two birds of this species, we found them very
comfortably established in a recess of a cloister adjoining the
cathedral, well fed and certainly most devoutly venerated.
The origin of this singular custom dates as high as the days of St.
Vincent, who was martyrized near the Cape, which bears his name, and
whose mangled body was conveyed to Lisbon in a boat, attended by crows.
These disinterested birds, after seeing it decently interred, pursued
his murderers with dreadful screams and tore their eyes out. The boat
and the crows are painted or sculptured in every corner of the
cathedral, and upon several tablets appear emblazoned an endless record
of their penetration in the discovery of criminals.
It was growing late when we arrived, and their feathered sanctities were
gone quietly to roost; but the sacristans in waiting, the moment they
saw us approach, officiously roused them. O, how plump and sleek, and
glossy they are! My admiration of their size, their plumage, and their
deep-toned croakings carried me, I fear, beyond the bounds of saintly
decorum. I was just stretching out my hand to stroke their feathers,
when the missionary checked me with a solemn forbidding look. The rest
of the company, aware of the proper ceremonial, kept a respectful
distance, whilst the sacristan and a toothless priest, almost bent
double with age, communicated a long string of miraculous anecdotes
concerning the present holy crows, their immediate predecessors, and
other holy crows in the old time before them.
To all these super-marvellous narrations, the missionary appeared to
listen with implicit faith, and never opened his lips during the time we
remained in the cloister, except to enforce our veneration, and exclaim
with pious composure, “honrado corvo.” I really believe we should have
stayed till midnight, had not a page arrived from her Majesty to summon
the Marquis of M—— and his almoner away.
My curiosity being fully satisfied upon the subject of the holy crows, I
was easily persuaded by the Grand Prior to move off, and drive through
the principal streets to see the illuminations in honour of the Infanta,
consort to Don Gabriel of Spain, who had produced a prince. A great
many idlers being abroad upon the same errand, we proceeded with
difficulty, and were very near having the wheels of our carriage
dislocated in attempting to pass an old-fashioned, preposterous coach,
belonging to one of the dignitaries of the patriarchal cathedral. I
cannot launch forth in praise of the illuminations; but some rockets
which were let off in the Terreiro do Paco, surprised me by the vast
height to which they rose, and the unusual number of clear blue stars
into which they burst. The Portuguese excel in fireworks; the late poor,
drivelling, saintly king having expended large sums in bringing this art
to perfection.
From the Terreiro do Paco we drove to the great square, in which the
palace of the Inquisition is situated. There we found a vast mob, to
whom three or four Capuchin preachers were holding forth upon the
glories and illuminations of a better world. I should have listened not
uninterested to their harangues, which appeared, from the specimen I
caught of them, to be full of fire and frenzy, had not the Grand Prior,
in perpetual awe of the rheumatism, complained of the night, so we
drove home. Every apartment of the house was filled with the thick
vapour of wax-torches, which had been set most loyally a blazing. I
fumed and fretted and threw open the windows. Away went the Grand Prior,
and in came Policarpio, the famous tenor singer, who entertained us with
several bravura airs of glib and surprising volubility, before supper
and during it, in a style equally professional, with many private
anecdotes of the haute noblesse, his principal employers, not
infinitely to their advantage.
I longed, in return, to have enlarged a little upon the adventures of
the holy crows, but prudently repressed my inclination. It would
ill-become a person so well treated as I had been by the crow-fanciers,
to handle such subjects with any degree of levity.
Rambles in the Valley of Collares.—Elysian scenery. Song of a
young female peasant.—Rustic hospitality.—Interview with the
Prince of Brazil[20] in the plains of Cascais.—Conversation with
His Royal Highness.—Return to Ramalhaô.
Oct. 19th, 1787.
MY health improves every day. The clear exhilarating weather we now
enjoy calls forth the liveliest sense of existence. I ride, walk, and
climb, as long as I please, without fatiguing myself. The valley of
Collares affords me a source of perpetual amusement. I have discovered a
variety of paths which lead through chesnut copses and orchards to
irregular green spots, where self-sown bays and citron-bushes hang wild
over the rocky margin of a little river, and drop their fruit and
blossoms into the stream. You may ride for miles along the bank of this
delightful water, catching endless perspectives of flowery thickets,
between the stems of poplar and walnut. The scenery is truly elysian,
and exactly such as poets assign for the resort of happy spirits.
The mossy fragments of rock, grotesque pollards, and rustic bridges you
meet with at every step, recall Savoy and Switzerland to the
imagination; but the exotic cast of the vegetation, the vivid green of
the citron, the golden fruitage of the orange, the blossoming myrtle,
and the rich fragrance of a turf, embroidered with the
brightest-coloured and most aromatic flowers, allow me without a violent
stretch of fancy to believe myself in the garden of the Hesperides, and
to expect the dragon under every tree. I by no means like the thoughts
of abandoning these smiling regions, and have been twenty times on the
point this very day of revoking the orders I have given for my journey.
Whatever objections I may have had to Portugal seem to vanish, since I
have determined to leave it; for such is the perversity of human nature,
that objects appear the most estimable precisely at the moment when we
are going to lose them.
There was this morning a mild radiance in the sunbeams, and a balsamic
serenity in the air, which infused that voluptuous listlessness, that
desire of remaining imparadised in one delightful spot, which, in
classical fictions, was supposed to render those who had tasted the
lotos forgetful of country, of friends, and of every tie. My feelings
were not dissimilar, I loathed the idea of moving away.
Though I had entered these beautiful orchards soon after sunrise, the
clocks of some distant conventual churches had chimed hour after hour
before I could prevail upon myself to quit the spreading odoriferous
bay-trees under which I had been lying. If shades so cool and fragrant
invited to repose, I must observe that never were paths better
calculated to tempt the laziest of beings to a walk, than those which
opened on all sides, and are formed of a smooth dry sand, bound firmly
together, composing a surface as hard as gravel.
These level paths wind about amongst a labyrinth of light and elegant
fruit-trees; almond, plum, and cherry, something like the groves of
Tonga-taboo, as represented in Cook’s voyages; and to increase the
resemblance, neat cane fences and low open sheds, thatched with reeds,
appear at intervals, breaking the horizontal lines of the perspective.
I had now lingered and loitered away pretty nearly the whole morning,
and though, as far as scenery could authorize and climate inspire, I
might fancy myself an inhabitant of elysium, I could not pretend to be
sufficiently ethereal to exist without nourishment. In plain English, I
was extremely hungry. The pears, quinces, and oranges which dangled
above my head, although fair to the eye, were neither so juicy nor
gratifying to the palate, as might have been expected from their
promising appearance.
Being considerably
More than a mile immersed within the wood,[21]
and not recollecting by which clue of a path I could get out of it, I
remained at least half-an-hour deliberating which way to turn myself.
The sheds and enclosures I have mentioned were put together with care
and even nicety, it is true, but seemed to have no other inhabitants
than flocks of bantams, strutting about and destroying the eggs and
hopes of many an insect family. These glistening fowls, like their
brethren described in Anson’s voyages, as animating the profound
solitudes of the island of Tinian, appeared to have no master.
At length, just as I was beginning to wish myself very heartily in a
less romantic region, I heard the loud, though not unmusical, tones of a
powerful female voice, echoing through the arched green avenues;
presently, a stout ruddy young peasant, very picturesquely attired in
brown and scarlet, came hoydening along, driving a mule before her,
laden with two enormous panniers of grapes. To ask for a share of this
luxuriant load, and to compliment the fair driver, was instantaneous on
my part, but to no purpose. I was answered by a sly wink, “We all belong
to Senhor Josè Dias, whose corral, or farm-yard, is half a league
distant. There, Senhor, if you follow that road, and don’t puzzle
yourself by straying to the right or left, you will soon reach it, and
the bailiff, I dare say, will be proud to give you as many grapes as you
please. Good morning, happy days to you! I must mind my business.”
Seating herself between the tantalizing panniers, she was gone in an
instant, and I had the good luck to arrive straight at the wicket of a
rude, dry wall, winding up and down several bushy slopes in a wild
irregular manner. If the outside of this enclosure was rough and
unpromising, the interior presented a most cheering scene of rural
opulence. Droves of cows and goats milking; ovens, out of which huge
cakes of savoury bread had just been taken; ranges of beehives, and long
pillared sheds, entirely tapestried with purple and yellow muscadine
grapes, half candied, which were hung up to dry. A very good-natured,
classical-look-magister pecorum, followed by two well-disciplined,
though savage-eyed dogs, whom the least glance of their master prevented
from barking, gave me a hearty welcome, and with genuine hospitality not
only allowed me the free range of his domain, but set whatever it
produced in the greatest perfection before me. A contest took place
between two or three curly-haired, chubby-faced children, who should be
first to bring me walnuts fresh from the shell, bowls of milk, and
cream-cheeses, made after the best of fashions, that of the province of
Alemtejo.
I found myself so abstracted from the world in this retirement, so
perfectly transported back some centuries into primitive patriarchal
times, that I don’t recollect having ever enjoyed a few hours of more
delightful calm. “Here,” did I say to myself, “am I out of the way of
courts and ceremonies, and commonplace visitations, or salutations, or
gossip.” But, alas! how vain is all one thinks or says to one’s self
nineteen times out of twenty.
Whilst I was blessing my stars for this truce to the irksome bustle of
the life I had led ever since her Majesty’s arrival at Cintra, a loud
hallooing, the cracking of whips, and the tramping of horses, made me
start up from the snug corner in which I had established myself, and
dispelled all my soothing visions. Luis de Miranda, the colonel of the
Cascais regiment, an intimate confidant and favourite of the Prince of
Brazil, broke in upon me with a thousand (as he thought) obliging
reproaches, for having deserted Ramalhaô the very morning he had come on
purpose to dine with me, and to propose a ride after dinner to a
particular point of the Cintra mountains, which commands, he assured me,
such a prospect as I had not yet been blessed with in Portugal. “It is
not even now,” said he, “too late. I have brought your horses along
with me, whom I found fretting and stamping under a great tree at the
entrance of these foolish lanes. Come, get into your stirrups for God’s
sake, and I will answer for your thinking yourself well repaid by the
scene I shall disclose to you.”
As I was doomed to be disturbed and talked out of the elysium in which I
had been lapped for these last seven or eight hours, it was no matter in
what position, whether on foot or on horseback; I therefore complied,
and away we galloped. The horses were remarkably sure-footed, or else, I
think, we must have rolled down the precipices; for our road,
“If road it could be call’d where road was none,”
led us by zigzags and short cuts over steeps and acclivities about three
or four leagues, till reaching a heathy desert, where a solitary cross
staring out of a few weather-beaten bushes, marked the highest point of
this wild eminence, one of the most expansive prospects of sea, and
plain, and distant mountains, I ever beheld, burst suddenly upon me,
rendered still more vast, aërial, and indefinite, by the visionary,
magic vapour of the evening sun.
After enjoying a moment or two the general effect, I began tracing out
the principal objects in the view, as far, that is to say, as they could
be traced, through the medium of the intense glowing haze. I followed
the course of the Tagus, from its entrance till it was lost in the low
estuaries beyond Lisbon. Cascais appeared with its long reaches of wall
and bomb-proof casemates like a Moorish town, and by the help of a glass
I distinguished a tall palm lifting itself above a cluster of white
buildings.
“Well,” said I, to my conductor, “this prospect has certainly charms
worth seeing; but not sufficient to make me forget that it is high time
to get home and refresh ourselves.” “Not so fast,” was the answer, “we
have still a great deal more to see.”
Having acquired, I can hardly tell why or wherefore, a sheep-like habit
of following wherever he led, I spurred after him down a rough
declivity, thick strewn with rolling stones and pebbles. At the bottom
of this descent, a dreary sun-burnt plain extended itself far and wide.
Whilst we dismounted and halted a few minutes to give our horses breath,
I could not help observing, that the view we were now contemplating but
ill-rewarded the risk of breaking our necks in riding down such rapid
declivities. He smiled, and asked me whether I saw nothing at all
interesting in the prospect. “Yes,” said I, “a sort of caravan I
perceive, about a quarter of a mile off, is by no means uninteresting;
that confused group of people in scarlet, with gleaming arms and
sumpter-mules, and those striped awnings stretched from ruined walls,
present exactly that kind of scenery I should expect to meet with in the
neighbourhood of Grand Cairo.” “Come then,” said he, “it is time to
clear up this mystery, and tell you for what purpose we have taken such
a long and fatiguing ride. The caravan which strikes you as being so
very picturesque, is composed of the attendants of the Prince of Brazil,
who has been passing the whole day upon a shooting-party, and is just at
this moment taking a little repose beneath yonder awnings. It was by his
desire I brought you here, for I have his commands to express his wishes
of having half-an-hour’s conversation with you, unobserved, and in
perfect incognito. Walk on as if you were collecting plants or taking
sketches, I will apprize his royal highness, and you will meet as it
were by chance, and without any form. No one shall be near enough to
hear a word you say to each other, for I will take my station at the
distance of at least one hundred paces, and keep off all spies and
intruders.”
I did as I was directed. A little door in the ruined wall, against which
an awning was fixed, opened, and there appeared a young man of rather a
prepossessing figure, fairer and ruddier than most of his countrymen,
who advanced towards me with a very pleasant engaging countenance, moved
his hat in a dignified graceful manner, and after insisting upon my
being covered, began addressing himself to me with great precipitation,
in a most fluent lingua-franca, half Italian and half Portuguese. This
jargon is very prevalent at the Ajuda[22] palace, where Italian singers
are in much higher request and fashion than persons of deeper tone and
intellect.
The first question his royal highness honoured me with was, whether I
had visited his cabinet of instruments. Upon my answering in the
affirmative, and that the apparatus appeared to me extremely perfect,
and in admirable order, he observed, “The arrangement is certainly good,
for one of my particular friends, a very learned man, has made it; but
notwithstanding the high price I have paid, your Ramsdens and Dollonds
have treated themselves more generously than me. I believe,” continued
his royal highness, “according to what the Duke d’Alafoens has
repeatedly assured me, I am conversing with a person who has no weak,
blind prejudices, in favour of his country, and who sees things as they
are, not as they have been, or as they ought to be. That commercial
greediness the English display in every transaction has cost us dear in
more than one particular.”
He then ran over the ground Pombal had so often trodden bare, both in
his state papers and in various publications which had been promulgated
during his administration, and I soon perceived of what school his royal
highness was a disciple.
“We deserve all this,” continued he, “and worse, for our tame
acquiescence in every measure your cabinet dictates; but no wonder,
oppressed and debased as we are, by ponderous, useless institutions.
When there are so many drones in a hive, it is in vain to look for
honey. Were you not surprised, were you not shocked, at finding us so
many centuries behind the rest of Europe?”
I bowed, and smiled. This spark of approbation induced, I believe, his
royal highness to blaze forth into a flaming encomium upon certain
reforms and purifications which were carrying on in Brabant, under the
auspices of his most sacred apostolic Majesty Joseph the Second. “I have
the happiness,” continued the Prince, “to correspond not unfrequently
with this enlightened sovereign. The Duke d’Alafoens, who has likewise
the advantage of communicating with him, never fails to give me the
detail of these salutary proceedings. When shall we have sufficient
manliness to imitate them!”
Though I bowed and smiled again, I could not resist taking the liberty
of observing that such very rapid and vigorous measures as those his
imperial Majesty had resorted to, were more to be admired than imitated;
that people who had been so long in darkness, if too suddenly broken in
upon by a stream of effulgence, were more likely to be blinded than
enlightened; and that blows given at random by persons whose eyes were
closed were dangerous, and might fall heaviest perhaps in directions
very opposite to those for which they were intended. This was rather
bold, and did not seem to please the novice in boldness.
After a short pause, which allowed him, at least, an opportunity of
taking breath, he looked steadily at me, and perceiving my countenance
arrayed in the best expression of admiration I could throw into it,
resumed the thread of his philosophical discourse, and even condescended
to detail some very singular and, as they struck me, most perilous
projects. Continuing to talk on with an increased impetus (like those
whose steps are accelerated by running down hill) he dropped some vague
hints of measures that filled me not only with surprise, but with a
sensation approaching to horror. I bowed, but I could not smile. My
imagination, which had caught the alarm at the extraordinary nature of
the topics he was discoursing upon, conjured up a train of appalling
images, and I asked myself more than once whether I was not under the
influence of a distempered dream.
Being too much engaged in listening to himself to notice my confusion,
he worked as hard as a pioneer in clearing away the rubbish of ages,
entered minutely and not unlearnedly into the ancient jurisprudence and
maxims of his country, its relations with foreign powers, and the rank
from whence it had fallen in modern times, to be attributed in a great
measure, he observed, to a blind and mistaken reliance upon the selfish
politics of our predominant island. Although he did not spare my
country, he certainly appeared not over partial to his own. He painted
its military defects and priest-ridden policy in vivid colours. In
short, this part of our discourse was a “deploratio Lusitanicæ
Gentis,” full as vehement as that which the celebrated Damien a Goes,
to show his fine Latin and fine humanity, poured forth some centuries
ago over the poor wretched Laplanders.
Not approving in any degree the tendency of all this display, I most
heartily prayed it might end. Above an hour had passed since it began,
and flattered as I was by the protraction of so condescending a
conference, I could not help thinking that these fountains of honour are
fountains of talk and not of mercy; they flow over, if once set a going,
without pity or moderation. Persons in supreme stations, whom no one
ventures to contradict, run on at a furious rate. You frequently flatter
yourself they are exhausted; but you flatter yourself in vain. Sometimes
indeed, by way of variety, they contradict themselves, and then the
debate is carried on between self and self, to the desperation of their
subject auditors, who, without being guilty of a word in reply, are
involved in the same penalty us the most captious disputant. This was my
case. I scarcely uttered a syllable after my first unsuccessful essay;
but thousands of words were nevertheless lavished upon me, and
innumerable questions proposed and answered by the questioner with equal
rapidity.
In return for the honour of being admitted to this monological dialogue,
I kept bowing and nodding; and towards the close of the conference,
contrived to smile again pretty decently. His royal highness, I learned
afterwards, was satisfied with my looks and gestures, and even bestowed
a brevet upon me of a great deal more erudition than I possessed or
pretended to.
The sun set, the dews fell, the Prince retired, Louis de Miranda
followed him, and I remounted my horse with an indigestion of sounding
phrases, and the most confirmed belief that “the church was in
danger.”
Tired and exhausted, I threw myself on my sofa the moment I reached
Ramalhaô; but the agitation of my spirits would not allow me any repose.
I swallowed some tea with avidity, and driving to the palace, evocated
the archbishop confessor, who had been locked up above half-an-hour in
his interior cabinet. To him I related all that had passed at this
unsought, unexpected interview. The consequences in time developed
themselves.
Convent of Boa Morte.—Emaciated priests.—Austerity of the
Order.—Contrite personages.—A nouveau riche.—His house.—Walk
on the veranda of the palace at Belem.—Train of attendants at
dinner.—Portuguese gluttony.—Black dose of legendary
superstition.—Terrible denunciations.—A dreary evening.
Nov. 9th, 1787.
M—— and his principal almoner, a renowned missionary, and one of the
most eloquent preachers in her Majesty’s dominions, were at my door by
ten, waiting to take me with them to the convent of Boa Morte. This is a
true Golgotha, a place of many skulls, for its inhabitants, though they
live, move, and have a sort of being, are little better than skeletons.
The priest who officiated appeared so emaciated and cadaverous, that I
could hardly have supposed he would have had strength sufficient to
elevate the chalice. It did not, however, fall from his hands, and
having finished his mass, a second phantom tottered forth and began
another. From the pictures and images of more than ordinary ghastliness
which cover the chapels and cloisters, and from the deep contrition
apparent in the tears, gestures, and ejaculations of the faithful who
resort to them, I fancy no convent in Lisbon can be compared with this
for austerity and devotion.
M—— shook all over with piety, and so did his companion, whose knees
are become horny with frequent kneelings, and who, if one is to believe
Verdeil, will end his days in a hermitage, or go mad, or perhaps both.
He pretends, too, that it is this grey-beard that has added new fuel to
the flame of M——’s devotion, and that by mutually encouraging each
other, they will soon produce fruits worthy of Bedlam, if not of
Paradise. To be sure, this father may boast a conspicuously devout turn,
and a most resolute manner of thumping himself; but he must not be too
vain. In Lisbon there are at least fifty or sixty thousand good souls,
who, without having travelled so far, thump full as sonorously as he.
This morning, at Boa Morte, one shrivelled sinner remained the whole
time the masses lasted with outstretched arms, in the shape and with all
the inflexible stiffness of an old-fashioned branched candlestick.
Another contrite personage was so affected at the moment of
consecration, that he flattened his nose on the pavement, and licked the
dirt and dust with which it was thickly encrusted.
I must confess that, notwithstanding this very superior display of
sanctity, I was not sorry to escape from the dingy cloisters of the
convent, and breathe the pure air, and look up at the blue exhilarating
sky. The weather being delightful, we drove to several distant parts of
the town, to which I was yet a stranger. Returning back by the Bairro
Alto, we looked into a new house, just finished building at an enormous
expense, by Joaô Ferreira, who, from an humble retailer of leather, has
risen, by the archbishop’s favour, to the possession of some of the most
lucrative contracts in Portugal. Uglier-shaped apartments than those the
poor shoe-man had contrived for himself I never beheld. The hangings are
of satin of the deepest blue, and the fiercest and most sulphureous
yellow. Every ceiling is daubed over with allegorical paintings, most
indifferently executed, and loaded with gilt ornaments, in the style of
those splendid sign-posts which some years past were the glory of
High-Holborn and St. Giles’s.
We were soon tired of all this finery, and as it was growing late, made
the best of our way to Belem. Whilst M—— was writing letters, I walked
out with Don Pedro on the verandas of the palace, which are washed by
the Tagus, and flanked with turrets. The views are enchanting, and the
day being warm and serene, I enjoyed them in all their beauty. Several
large vessels passed by as we were leaning over the balustrades, and
almost touched us with their streamers. Even frigates and ships of the
first rate approach within a quarter of a mile of the palace.
There was a greater crowd of attendants than usual round our table at
dinner to-day, and the huge massy dishes were brought up by a long train
of gentlemen and chaplains, several of them decorated with the orders of
Avis and Christ. This attendance had quite a feudal air, and transported
the imagination to the days of chivalry, when great chieftains were
waited upon like kings, by noble vassals.
The Portuguese had need have the stomachs of ostriches to digest the
loads of savoury viands with which they cram themselves. Their
vegetables, their rice, their poultry, are all stewed in the essence of
ham, and so strongly seasoned with pepper and spices, that a spoonful of
peas, or a quarter of an onion, is sufficient to set one’s mouth in a
flame. With such a diet, and the continual swallowing of sweetmeats, I
am not surprised at their complaining so often of head-aches and
vapours.
Several of the old Marquis of M——’s confidants and buffoons crept
forth to have a peep at the stranger, and hear the famous missionary
descant upon martyrdom and miracles. The scenery of Boa Morte being
fresh in his thoughts, his descriptions were gloomy and appalling: Don
Pedro, his sisters, and his cousin, the young Conde d’Atalaya,[23]
gathered round him with all the trembling eagerness of children who
hunger and thirst after hobgoblin stories. You may be sure he sent them
not empty away. A blacker dose of legendary superstition was never
administered. The Marchioness seemed to swallow these terrific
narrations with nearly as much avidity as her children, and the old
Abade, dropping his chin in a woful manner, produced an enormous rosary,
and kept thumbing his beads and mumbling orisons.
M—— had luckily been summoned to the palace by a special mandate from
his royal mistress. Had he been of the party, I fear Verdeil’s prophecy
would have been accomplished, for never did mortal hold forth with so
much scaring energy as this enthusiastic preacher. The most terrible
denunciations of divine wrath which ever were thundered forth by ancient
or modern writers of sermons and homilies recurred to his memory, and he
dealt them about him with a vengeance. The last half hour of the
discourse we were all in total darkness,—nobody had thought of calling
for lights: the children were huddled together, scarce venturing to move
or breathe. It was a most singular scene.
Full of the ghastly images the good father had conjured up in my
imagination, I returned home alone in my carriage, shivering and
shuddering. My friends were out, and nothing could be more dreary than
the appearance of my fireless apartments.
Rehearsal of Seguidillas.—Evening scene.—Crowds of
beggars.—Royal charity misplaced.—Mendicant flattery.—Frightful
countenances.—Performance at the Salitri theatre.—Countess of
Pombeiro and her dwarf negresses.—A strange ballet.—Return to the
Palace.—Supper at the Camareira Mor’s.—Filial affection.—Last
interview with the Archbishop.—Fatal tide of events.—Heart-felt
regret on leaving Portugal.
Sunday, November 25th, 1787.
WHAT a morning for the 25th of November! The sun shining most
brilliantly, insects fluttering about, and flowers expanding—the late
rains having called forth a second spring, and tinted the hills round
Almada, on the opposite shore of the Tagus, with a lively green.
I breakfasted alone, Verdeil being gone to St. Roch’s, to see the
ceremony of publishing the bull of the Crusade, which allows good
Christians to eat eggs and butter during Lent, upon paying his holiness
a few shillings. I stayed at home, hearing a rehearsal of Seguidillas,
in preparation for a new intermez at the Salitri theatre, till the hour
of mass was over, then getting into the Portuguese chaise, drove
headlong to the palace in the Placa do Commercio, and hastened to the
Marquis of M——’s apartments. All his family were assembled to dine
with him.
Had it not been for the thoughts of my approaching departure, I should
have felt more comfort and happiness than has fallen to my lot for a
long interval. M——, whose attendance on the Queen may be too justly
termed a state of downright slavery, had hardly taken his place at
table, before he was called away. The Marchioness, Donna Henriquetta,
and her little sister, soon retreated to the Camareira-Mor’s apartments,
and I was left alone with Pedro and Duarte. They seized fast hold, each
of a hand, and running like greyhounds through long corridors, took me
to a balcony which commands one of the greatest thoroughfares in Lisbon.
The evening was delightful, and vast crowds of people moving about, of
all degrees and nations, old and young, active and crippled, monks and
officers. Shoals of beggars kept pouring in from every quarter to take
their stands at the gates of the palace and watch the Queen’s going out;
for her Majesty is a most indulgent mother to these sturdy sons of
idleness, and scarcely ever steps into her carriage without distributing
considerable alms amongst them. By this misplaced charity, hundreds of
stout fellows are taught the management of a crutch instead of a musket,
and the art of manufacturing sores, ulcers, and scabby pates, in the
most loathsome perfection. Duarte, who is all life and gaiety, vaulted
upon the railing of the balcony, and hung for a moment or two suspended
in a manner that would have frightened mothers and nurses into
convulsions. The beggars, who had nothing to do till her Majesty should
be forthcoming, seemed to be vastly entertained with these feats of
agility.
They soon spied me out, and two brawny lubbers, whom an unfortunate
combination of smallpox and king’s-evil had deprived of eye-sight,
informed, no doubt, by their comrades of what was going forward, began a
curious dialogue with voices still deeper and harsher than those of the
holy crows:—“Heaven prosper their noble excellencies, Don Duarte Manoel
and Don Pedro, and all the Marialvas—sweet dear youths, long may they
be blessed with the use of their eyes and of all their limbs! Is that
the charitable Englishman in their sweet company?”—“Yes, my comrade,”
answered the second blind.—“What!” said the first, “that generous
favourite of the most glorious Lord St. Anthony? (O gloriosissimo Senhor
Sant-Antonio!)”—“Yes, my comrade.”—“O that I had but my precious eyes,
that I might enjoy the sight of his countenance!” exclaimed both
together.
By the time the duet was thus far advanced, the halt, the maimed, and
the scabby, having tied some greasy nightcaps to the end of long poles,
poked them up through the very railing, bawling and roaring out charity,
“charity for the sake of the holy one of Lisbon.” Never was I looked up
to by a more distorted or frightful collection of countenances. I made
haste to throw down a plentiful shower of small copper money, or else
Duarte would have twitched away both poles and nightcaps, a frolic by no
means to be encouraged, as it might have marred our fame for the
readiest and most polite attention to every demand in the name of St.
Anthony.
Just as the orators were receiving their portion of pence and farthings,
a cry of “There’s the Queen, there’s the Princess!” carried the whole
hideous crowd away to another scene of action, and left me at full
liberty to be amused in my turn with the squirrel-like gambols of my
lively companion; he is really a fine enterprising boy, bold, alert, and
sprightly; quite different from most of his illustrious young relations.
Don Pedro by no means approved my English partiality to such active
feats, and after scolding his cousin for skipping about in so hazardous
a style, entreated me to take them to the Salitri theatre, where a box
had been prepared for us by his father’s orders. Upon the whole, I was
better entertained than I expected, though the performance lasted above
four hours and a half, from seven to near twelve. It consisted of a
ranting prose tragedy, in three acts, called Sesostris, two ballets, a
pastoral, and a farce. The decorations were not amiss, and the dresses
showy. A shambling, blear-eyed boy, bundled out in weeds of the deepest
sable, squeaked and bellowed alternately the part of a widowed
princess. Another hob-e-di-hoy, tottering on high-heeled shoes,
represented her Egyptian majesty, and warbled two airs with all the
nauseous sweetness of a fluted falsetto. Though I could have boxed his
ears for surfeiting mine so filthily, the audience were of a very
different opinion, and were quite enthusiastic in their applause.
In the stage-box I observed the mincing Countess of Pombeiro, whose
light hair and waxen complexion was finely contrasted by the ebon hue of
two little negro attendants perched on each side of her. It is the high
tone at present in this court to be surrounded by African implings, the
more hideous, the more prized, and to bedizen them in the most expensive
manner. The Queen has set the example, and the royal family vie with
each other in spoiling and caressing Donna Rosa, her Majesty’s
black-skinned, blubber-lipped, flat-nosed favourite.
One of the ballets was admirably got up; upon the rising of the curtain,
a strange cabalistic apartment is discovered, where an astrologer
appears very busy at a table covered with spheres and astrolabes,
arranging certain mysterious images, and pinking their eyes with a
gigantic pair of black compasses. A sort of Pierrot announces some
inquisitive travellers, who enter with many bows and scrapings. One of
them, the chief of the party, an old dapper beau in pink and silver,
reminded me very much of the Duke d’Alafoens, and sidled along and
tossed his cane about, and seemed to ask questions without waiting for
answers, with as good a grace as that janty general. The astrologer,
after explaining the wonders of his apartment with many pantomimical
contortions, invites his company to follow him, and the scene changes to
a long gallery, illuminated with a profusion of lights in gilt branches.
The perspective ends in a flight of steps, upon each of which stands a
row of figures, pantaloons, harlequins, sultans, sultanas, Indian
chiefs, devils, and savages, to all appearance motionless. Pierrot
brings in a machine like a hand-organ, and his master begins to grind,
the music accompanying. At the first chord, down drop the arms of all
the figures; at the second, each rank descends a step, and so on, till
gaining the level of the stage, and the astrologer grinding faster and
faster, the supposed clock-work-assembly begin a general dance.
Their ballet ended, the same accords are repeated, and all hop up in the
same stiff manner they hopped down. The travellers, highly pleased with
the show, depart; Pierrot, who longs to be grinding, persuades his
master to take a walk, and leave him in possession of the gallery. He
consents; but enjoins the gaping oaf upon no account to meddle with the
machine, or set the figures in motion. Vain are his directions! no
sooner has he turned his back than Pierrot goes to work with all his
strength; the figures fall a shaking as if on the point of disjoining
themselves; creak, crack, grinds the machine with horrid harshness;
legs, arms, and noddles are thrown into convulsions, three steps are
jumped at once. Pierrot, frightened out of his senses at the goggle-eyed
crowd advancing upon him, clings close to the machine and gives the
handle no respite. The music, too, degenerates into the most jarring,
screaking sounds, and the figures knocking against each other, and
whirling round and round in utter confusion, fall flat upon the stage.
Pierrot runs from group to group in rueful despair, tries in vain to
reanimate them, and at length losing all patience, throws one over the
other, and heaps sultanas upon savages, and shepherds upon devilkins.
Most of these personages being represented by boys of twelve or thirteen
were easily wielded. After Pierrot has finished tossing and tumbling, he
drops down exhausted and lies as dead as his neighbours, hoping to
escape unnoticed amongst them. But this subterfuge avails him not; in
comes the astrologer armed with his compasses; back he starts at sight
of the confounded jumble. Pierrot pays for it all, is soon drawn forth
from his lurking-place, and the astrologer grinding in a moderate and
scientific manner, the figures lift themselves up, and returning all in
status quo, the ballet finishes.
Shall I confess that this nonsense amused me pretty nearly as much as it
did my companions, whose raptures were only exceeded by those of madame
de Pombeiro’s implings. They, sweet, sooty innocents, kept gibbering and
pointing at the man with the black compasses in a manner so completely
African and ludicrous, that I thought their contortions the best part
of the entertainment.
The play ended, we hastened back to the palace, and traversing a number
of dark vestibules and guard-chambers, (all of a snore with jaded
equerries,) were almost blinded with a blaze of light from the room in
which supper was served up. There we found in addition to all the
Marialvas, the old marquis only excepted, the Camareira-mor, and five or
six other hags of supreme quality, feeding like cormorants upon a
variety of high-coloured and high-seasoned dishes. I suppose the keen
air from the Tagus, which blows right into the palace-windows, operates
as a powerful whet, for I never beheld eaters or eateresses, no not even
our old acquaintance madame la Présidente at Paris, lay about them with
greater intrepidity. To be sure, it was a splendid repast, quite a
banquet. We had manjar branco and manjar real, and among other good
things a certain preparation of rice and chicken, which suited me
exactly, and no wonder, for this excellent mess had been just tossed up
by Donna Isabel de Castro with her own illustrious hands, in a nice
little kitchen adjoining the queen’s apartment, in which all the
utensils are of solid silver.
The number of lights upon the table, and of attendants and pages in rich
uniforms around it, was prodigious; but what interested me far more than
all this parade, was the sportive good-humour and frankness of the
company. How it happened that the presence of a stranger failed to
inspire any reserve, is one of those odd circumstances I can hardly
account for; especially as the higher orders of the Portuguese are the
farthest removed of all persons from admitting any but their nearest
relations to these family parties; but so it was, and I felt both
flattered and gratified at being permitted to witness the ease and
hilarity which prevailed.
The dutiful, affectionate attention of the younger part of the company
to their parents was truly amiable; nor do I believe that, at this day
in any other realm in Europe, the sacred precept of honouring your
father and your mother is so cordially observed as in Portugal. Happy
if, in our intercourse with that nation, we had profited in that respect
by their example; the peace of so many of our noblest families would
not have been disturbed by the lowest connexions, nor their best blood
contaminated by matches of the most immoral, degrading tendency. We
should not have seen one year a performer acting the part of lady this
or lady t’other upon the stage, and the next in the drawing-room; nor,
upon entering some of our principal houses, have been tempted to cry
out—“Bless me! that lovely countenance is the same I recollect adoring
by moonlight on the fine broad flagstones of Bond Street or Portland
Place!”[24]
It was now after two in the morning, and I must own, notwithstanding the
good cheer of which I had participated, and the kind entertainment I had
received, I began to feel a little tired. The children were in such
spirits, so full of frolic, and her sublimity, the Camareira-mor, so
unusually tolerant and condescending, that there was no knowing when
the party would break up. Taking, therefore, my leave in due form, I
made my retreat escorted by half-a-dozen torch-bearers.
Just as I had gotten about half-way on my journey through what appeared
to me interminable passages, I was arrested in my progress by a pair of
dominicans, father Rocha, and his scarecrow satellite frè Josè do
Rosario. A person less accustomed than I had lately been to such
apparitions would have been startled; especially, too, if he had found
himself like me between the most formidable living pillars of the holy
inquisition.
“What are you doing here so very late,” I could not help exclaiming, “my
reverend fathers? What’s the matter?”
“The matter is,” answered Rocha, with a voice of terrific hoarseness,
“that we have caught cold waiting for you in these confounded corridors.
The archbishop, above half-an-hour ago, commanded us to bring you to him
dead or alive; but a rascally jackanapes in waiting upon her excellency
the Camareira-mor would not let us in to deliver our message, so we
have been airing ourselves hitherto to no purpose.”
“Do you know,” said Rocha, taking me into a little room where a lamp was
still burning, “that affairs do not go on so smoothly as they ought? The
archbishop seems to have lost both time and temper since he has been
pressed into the cabinet; and, as for the Prince of Brazil and his
consort, God forgive me for wishing their advisers and all their
intrigues in the lowest abyss of perdition. How can you be scheming a
journey to Madrid at this season? The floods are out, and the robbers
also, and I tell you what, as the archbishop says twenty times a day, if
you do go you deserve to be drowned and murdered.”
“The die is cast,” I replied, “and I must take my chance; but really I
wish you would have the goodness to bid the archbishop a very good night
in my name, and let me put off asking his benediction till to-morrow,
for I am quite jaded.”
“Jaded or not,” answered the monk, “you must come with me; the wind is
up in the archbishop’s brain just at this moment, and by the least
contradiction more would become a hurricane.”
Finding resistance vain, I suffered myself to be conducted through two
or three open courts, very refreshing at this hour you may suppose, and
up a little staircase into the archbishop’s interior cabinet. All was
still as death—no lay-brother bustling about—no sound audible but a
low breathing, which now and then swelled into a half suppressed groan,
from the agitated prelate, whom we found knee-deep in papers, immersed
in thought.
“So,” said he, “there you are at last. What have you been doing all this
while? Who but a brute of an Englishman would have kept me waiting. Ay,
ay, you told me how it would be, and you are right. They plague my soul
out. We have twenty rascals pulling as many ways. Your people too are
not what they used to be, though Mello would make us believe to the
contrary. One thing I know for certain, some infernal mischief is
afloat, and unless God’s grace is speedily manifested, I see no end to
confusion, and wish myself anywhere but where I am. These
smooth-tongued, Frenchified, Italian, Voltaireists and encyclopedians
have poisoned all sound doctrine. Ay,” continued he, rising up, with an
expression of indignation and anger I never saw before on his
countenance, “somebody’s ears[25] are poisoned whom I could name.... But
where is the use of talking to you? You are determined to leave us, be
it so. God’s providence is above all. He knows what is best for you, and
for me, and for these kingdoms. There is your passport, countersigned by
your friend Mello; and here is a letter for Lorenzana, and another for
his catholic majesty’s confessor, in which I tell him what an amazing
fool you are, and unless you continue one without any remission, we
shall soon have you back again. Tell Marialva,” he added, addressing
himself to Rocha (for the other father had not been admitted), “tell
Marialva and all his friends that I have dried up my tongue almost more
times than one, in attempting to argue a thousand silly whimsies and
crotchets out of his harum-scarum English brain; but come,” said he,
extending his arms, “I bear no malice, I pity, I do not condemn. Let me
give you an embrace, and pray God it may not be the last you will
receive from me.”
It was, alas! the last I ever received from him, poor, honest-hearted,
kind old man! A sort of melancholy foreboding which seemed to pervade
all he said in this interview was too soon realized. The fatal tide of
events flowing on as it were with redoubled, tremendous velocity, swept
away in the course of a few short months from this period the Prince of
Brazil, the lovely and amiable infanta his sister, her husband Don
Gabriel of Spain, and the good old King Charles the Third. Not long
after, the archbishop-confessor himself was called from the plenitude of
power and the enjoyment of unrivalled influence to the presence of that
Being in whose sight “no man living shall be justified;” but as in many
trying and peculiar instances he had shown the tenderest mercy, it may
tremblingly be hoped that mercy has been shown to him. Notwithstanding
the bluntness of his manner, the kindness of his heart, so apparent in
his good-humoured, benevolent eye, found its way, almost imperceptibly
to himself, to the hearts of others, and tempered the despotic roughness
he sometimes assumed both in voice and gesture.
I still seem to behold the last, earnest, solemn look he gave me when,
the door closing, he retired to the cares of state, and I with my escort
of torch-bearers and dominicans hastened forth to breathe the open air,
of which I stood greatly in need. Many things I had heard, and many
others I conjectured, above all, the reluctance I felt at the bottom of
my heart to leave a country in which I had received such uncommon marks
of friendship, bore heavily upon me. When I got home, scarcely two hours
before daybreak, and tried to compose myself to sleep, I was neither
refreshed nor recruited, but experienced the agitation of feverish and
broken slumbers.
Dead mass at the church of Martyrs.—Awful music by Perez and
Jomelli.—Marialva’s affecting address.—My sorrow and anxiety.
26th Nov. 1787.
I WENT to the church of the Martyrs to hear the matins of Perez and the
dead mass of Jomelli performed by all the principal musicians of the
royal chapel for the repose of the souls of their deceased predecessors.
Such august, such affecting music I never heard, and perhaps may never
hear again; for the flame of devout enthusiasm burns dim in almost every
part of Europe, and threatens total extinction in a very few years. As
yet it glows at Lisbon, and produced this day the most striking musical
effect.
Every individual present seemed penetrated with the spirit of those
awful words which Perez and Jomelli have set with tremendous sublimity.
Not only the music, but the serious demeanour of the performers, of the
officiating priests, and indeed of the whole congregation, was
calculated to impress a solemn, pious terror of the world beyond the
grave. The splendid decoration of the church was changed into mourning,
the tribunes hung with black, and a veil of gold and purple thrown over
the high altar. In the midst of the choir stood a catafalque surrounded
with tapers in lofty candelabra, a row of priests motionless on each
side. There was an awful silence for several minutes, and then began the
solemn service of the dead. The singers turned pale as they sang, “Timor
mortis me conturbat.”
After the requiem, the high mass of Jomelli, in commemoration of the
deceased, was performed; that famous composition which begins with a
movement imitative of the tolling of bells,
“Swinging slow with sullen roar.”
These deep, majestic sounds, mingled with others like the cries for
mercy of unhappy beings, around whom the shadows of death and the pains
of hell were gathering, shook every nerve in my frame, and called up in
my recollection so many affecting images, that I could not refrain from
tears.
I scarcely knew how I was conveyed to the palace, where Marialva
expected my coming with the utmost impatience. Our conversation took a
most serious turn. He entreated me not to forget Portugal, to meditate
upon the awful service I had been hearing, and to remember he should not
die in peace unless I was present to close his eyes.
In the actual tone of my mind I was doubly touched by this melancholy,
affectionate address. It seemed to cut through my soul, and I execrated
Verdeil and all those who had been instrumental in persuading me to
abandon such a friend. The grand prior wept bitterly at seeing my
agitation. Marialva went to the queen, and the grand prior home with me.
We dined alone; my heart was full of heaviness, and I could not eat. At
night we returned to the palace, and there all my sorrow and anxiety was
renewed.
