Italy; with sketches of Spain and Portugal Part 26

Nothing but amus.e.m.e.nt 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 n.o.b 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 fete, and returned enraptured with the affable pleasing manners of the foreign milliners and native n.o.bility.

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 facade, 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 princ.i.p.al 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 att.i.tude, and, drawing a curtain, condescended to admit us into a s.p.a.cious 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 Jose 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 pa.s.sed 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 n.o.bleman. 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 s.e.xes were a.s.sembled, 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 pa.s.sages, 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 pa.s.sed in the apartment, of the singular figures that entered, or those that went away; the starings, whisperings, and fan-flirtings of the a.s.sembly were lost upon me: I could not utter a syllable, and was vexed when an arbitrary old aunt insisted upon no more singing, and proposed a faro-table and a dance.

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

LETTER XVI.

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

30th June, 1787.

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

The Inquisition too often lays hold of these wretched sibyls, and works them confoundedly. I saw one dragging into light as I pa.s.sed 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 ma.s.sive 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 sh.o.r.e of the Tagus, at this extremity of the metropolis above nine miles broad. Lisbon, which appeared to me so uninteresting a few hours ago, a.s.sumed 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 pa.s.sed was filled with idlers of all sorts and s.e.xes, 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 t.i.tle 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 ill.u.s.trious by several important and successful emba.s.sies: 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 a.s.sure 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 ill.u.s.trious 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 a.s.sistance 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 pa.s.sed a delectable evening. This set shan't catch me at home again in a hurry.

LETTER XVII.

Dog-howlings.--Visit to the Convent of San Jose 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 inc.u.mbrances.

Verdeil, who could not sleep any more than myself, on account of a furious and long protracted battle between two parties of these h.e.l.l-hounds, persuaded me to rise with the sun, and proceed on horseback along the sh.o.r.e 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 Jose di Ribamar. The building is irregular and picturesque, rising from a craggy eminence, and backed by a thicket of elm, bay, and arbor judae. 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 sh.e.l.l-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 sh.e.l.l-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 cla.s.s 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 cla.s.sics 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 a.s.sembled. 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 appet.i.te, 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 a.s.sociated 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 _a la facon 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 gla.s.ses, 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 c.o.c.k-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.