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.