Italy; with sketches of Spain and Portugal

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!

LETTER VIII

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

May 31, 1787.

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

“Hide me from day’s garish eye;”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LETTER IX

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

3 June, 1787.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LETTER X

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

7th June.

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

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