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.