Italy; with sketches of Spain and Portugal

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.

LETTER XXVIII

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.

LETTER XXIX

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 opacatFrondibus et nulla lucos agitante procellaStridula 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.