Curious succession of visiters.--A Seraphic Doctor.--Monsenhor
Aguilar.--Mob of old hags, children, and ragamuffins.--Visit to the
Theatre in the Rua d’os Condes.--The Archbishop
Confessor.--Brazilian Modinhas.--Bewitching nature of that
music.--Nocturnal processions.--Enthusiasm of the young Conde de
Villanova.--No accounting for fancies.
14th June, 1787.
It was my lot this afternoon to receive a curious succession of
visitors. First came Pombal, who looked worn down with gay living and
late hours; but there is an ease and fashion in his address not common
in this country. Though he possesses one of the largest landed estates
in the kingdom, (about one hundred and twenty thousand crowns a-year,)
he wished me to understand that his dread father, the scourge and terror
of the noblest houses in Portugal, the sole dispenser during so many
years of the royal treasure, died, notwithstanding, in distressed
circumstances, loaded with debts contracted in supporting the dignity
of his post.
The next who did me the honour of a visit was the Judge Conservator of
the English factory, Joaô Telles, a relation, legitimate or illegitimate
(I know not exactly which), of the Penalvas. This man, who has risen to
one of the highest posts of the law by the sole strength of his
abilities, has a nervous, original style of expression, which put me in
mind of Lord Thurlow; but to all this vigour of character and diction,
he joins the pliability and subtleness of a serpent; and those he cannot
take by storm, he is sure of overcoming by every soothing art of
flattery and insinuation.
As soon as he was departed, entered a pair of monks with a basket of
sweetmeats in cut paper, from a good lady abbess, beseeching me to
portion out two sweet virgins as God’s spouses in some neighbouring
monastery.
They were scarcely dismissed, before Father Theodore d’Almeida and
another of his brethren were ushered in. The whites of their eyes alone
were visible, nor could Whitfield himself, the original Doctor Squintum
of Foote, have squinted more scientifically.
I was all attention to Father Theodore’s seraphic discourse; so
excellent an opportunity of hearing a first-rate specimen of
hypocritical cant was not to be neglected. No sooner had the fathers
been conducted to the stairshead with due ceremony, than Monsenhor
Aguilar, one of the prelates of the Patriarchal Cathedral, was
announced. He confirmed me in the opinion I entertained of Father
Theodore. No person can accuse Aguilar of being a hypocrite. He lays
himself but too much open, and treats the church from which he derives a
handsome maintenance, not as a patroness, but as an humble companion;
the constant butt and object of his sarcasms. In Portugal, even in the
year 1787, such conduct is madness, and I fear will expose him one day
or other to severe persecution.
We were roused from a peaceful dish of tea by a loud hubbub in the
street, and running to the balcony, found a beastly mob of old hags,
children, and ragamuffins assembled, headed by half-a-dozen drummers,
and as many negroes in scarlet jackets, blowing French-horns with
unusual vehemence, and pointing them directly at the house. I was
wondering at this Jericho fashion of besieging one’s door, and drawing
back to avoid being singed by a rocket which whizzed along within an
inch of my nose, when one of the servants entered with a crucifix on a
silver salver, and a mighty kind message from the nuns of the Convent of
the Sacrament, who had sent their musicians with trimbrels and
fireworks, to invite us to some grand doings at their convent, in honour
of the Festival of the Heart of Jesus. Really, these church parties
begin to lose in my eyes great part of the charm which novelty gave
them. I have had pretty nearly my fill of motets, and Kyrie eleisons,
and incense, and sweetmeats, and sermons.
That heretic Verdeil, who would almost as soon be in hell at once as in
such a cloying heaven, would not let me rest till I went with him to the
theatre in the Rua d’os Condes, in order to dissipate by a little
profane air the fumes of so much holiness. The play afforded me more
disgust than amusement; the theatre is low and narrow, and the actors,
for there are no actresses, below criticism. Her Majesty’s absolute
commands having swept females off the stage, their parts are acted by
calvish young fellows. Judge what a pleasing effect this metamorphosis
must produce, especially in the dancers, where one sees a stout
shepherdess in virgin white, with a soft blue beard, and a prominent
collar-bone, clenching a nosegay in a fist that would almost have
knocked down Goliah, and a train of milk-maids attending her enormous
foot-steps, tossing their petticoats over their heads at every step.
Such sprawling, jerking, and ogling I never saw before, and hope never
to see again.
We were heartily sick of the performance before it was half finished,
and the night being serene and pleasant, were tempted to take a ramble
in the Great Square, which received a faint gleam from the lights in the
apartments of the palace, every window being thrown open to catch the
breeze. The Archbishop Confessor displayed his goodly person at one of
the balconies; from a clown, this now most important personage became a
common soldier, from a common soldier a corporal, from a corporal a
monk, in which station he gave so many proofs of toleration and
good-humour, that Pombal, who happened to stumble upon him by one of
those chances which set all calculation at defiance, judged him
sufficiently shrewd, jovial, and ignorant, to make a very harmless and
comfortable confessor to her Majesty, then Princess of Brazil: since her
accession to the throne, he is become Archbishop, _in partibus_, Grand
Inquisitor, and the first spring in the present Government of Portugal.
I never saw a sturdier fellow. He seems to anoint himself with the oil
of gladness, to laugh and grow fat in spite of the critical situation of
affairs in this kingdom, and the just fears all its true patriots
entertain of seeing it once more relapse into a Spanish province.
At a window immediately over his right reverence’s shining forehead, we
spied out the Lacerdas, two handsome sisters, maids of honour to the
Queen, waving their hands to us very invitingly. This was encouragement
enough for us to run up a vast many flights of stairs to their
apartment, which was crowded with nephews and nieces and cousins
clustering round two very elegant young women, who, accompanied by their
singing-master, a little square friar, with greenish eyes, were warbling
Brazilian modinhas.
Those who have never heard this original sort of music, must and will
remain ignorant of the most bewitching melodies that ever existed since
the days of the Sybarites. They consist of languid interrupted measures,
as if the breath was gone with excess of rapture, and the soul panting
to meet the kindred soul of some beloved object. With a childish
carelessness they steal into the heart, before it has time to arm itself
against their enervating influence; you fancy you are swallowing milk,
and are admitting the poison of voluptuousness into the closest recesses
of your existence. At least, such beings as feel the power of harmonious
sounds are doing so; I won’t answer for hard-eared, phlegmatic northern
animals.
An hour or two passed away almost imperceptibly in the pleasing delirium
these syren notes inspired, and it was not without regret I saw the
company disperse and the spell dissolve. The ladies of the apartment
having received a summons to attend her Majesty’s supper, curtsied us
off very gracefully, and vanished.
In our way home we met the Sacrament, enveloped in a glare of light,
marching in state to pay some sick person a farewell visit; and that
hopeful young nobleman, the Conde de Villa Nova,[13] preceding the
canopy in a scarlet mantle, and tinkling a silver bell. He is always in
close attendance upon the Host, and passes the flower of his days in
this singular species of danglement. No lover was ever more jealous of
his mistress than this ingenuous youth of his bell. He cannot endure any
other person should give it vibration. The parish officers of the
extensive and populous district in which his palace is situated, from
respect to his birth and opulence, indulge him in this caprice, and
indeed a more perseverant bell-bearer they could not have chosen. At all
hours and in all weathers he is ready to perform this holy office. In
the dead of the night, or in the most intense heat of the day, out he
issues and down he dives, or up he climbs, to any dungeon or garret
where spiritual assistance of this nature is demanded.
It has been again and again observed, that there is no accounting for
fancies. Every person has his own, which he follows to the best of his
means and abilities. The old Marialva’s delights are centered between
his two silver recipiendaries; the Marquis his son in dancing attendance
with the Queen; and Villa Nova, in announcing with his bell to all true
believers the approach of celestial majesty. The present rage of the
scribbler of all these extravagances is modinhas, and under its
prevalence he feels half-tempted to set sail for the Brazils, the native
land of these enchanting compositions, to live in tents, such as the
Chevalier de Parny describes in his agreeable little voyage, and swing
in hammocks, or glide over smooth mats surrounded by bands of youthful
minstrels, diffusing at every step the perfume of jasmine and roses.