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 opacat
Frondibus et nulla lucos agitante procella
Stridula 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.
As soon as it fell dark Verdeil and I set forth to catch a glimpse of
the royal party. The Grand Prior and Don Pedro conducted us mysteriously
into a snug boudoir which looks into the great pavilion, whose gay,
fantastic scenery appeared to infinite advantage by the light of
innumerable tapers reflected on all sides from lustres of glittering
crystal. The little Infanta Donna Carlotta was perched on a sofa in
conversation with the Marchioness and Donna Henriquetta, who, in the
true oriental fashion, had placed themselves cross-legged on the floor.
A troop of maids of honour, commanded by the Countess of Lumieres, sat
in the same posture at a little distance. Donna Rosa, the favourite
dwarf negress, dressed out in a flaming scarlet riding-habit, not so
frolicsome as the last time I had the pleasure of seeing her in this
fairy bower, was more sentimental, and leaned against the door, ogling
and flirting with a handsome Moor belonging to the Marquis.
Presently the Queen, followed by her sister and daughter-in-law, the
Princess of Brazil, came forth from her merenda, and seated herself in
front of the latticed-window, behind which I was placed. Her manner
struck me as being peculiarly dignified and conciliating. She looks born
to command; but at the same time to make that high authority as much
beloved as respected. Justice and clemency, the motto so glaringly
misapplied on the banner of the abhorred Inquisition, might be
transferred with the strictest truth to this good princess. During the
fatal contest betwixt England and its colonies, the wise neutrality she
persevered in maintaining was of the most vital benefit to her
dominions, and hitherto, the native commerce of Portugal has attained
under her mild auspices an unprecedented degree of prosperity.
Nothing could exceed the profound respect, the courtly decorum her
presence appeared to inspire. The Conde de Sampayo and the Viscount
Ponte de Lima knelt by the august personages with not much less
veneration, I should be tempted to imagine, than Moslems before the tomb
of their prophet, or Tartars in the presence of the Dalai Lama. Marialva
alone, who took his station opposite her Majesty, seemed to preserve his
ease and cheerfulness. The Prince of Brazil and Don Joaô looked not a
little ennuied; for they kept stalking about with their hands in their
pockets, their mouths in a perpetual yawn, and their eyes wandering
from object to object, with a stare of royal vacancy.
A most rigorous etiquette confining the Infants of Portugal within their
palaces, they are seldom known to mix even incognito with the crowd; so
that their flattering smiles or confidential yawns are not lavished upon
common observers. This sort of embalming princes alive, after all, is no
bad policy; it keeps them sacred; it concentrates their royal essence,
too apt, alas! to evaporate by exposure. What is so liberally paid for
by the willing tribute of the people as a rarity of exquisite relish,
should not be suffered to turn mundungus. However the individual may
dislike this severe regimen, state pageants might have the goodness to
recollect for what purpose they are bedecked and beworshipped.
The Conde de Sampayo, lord in waiting, handed the tea to the Queen, and
fell down on both knees to present it. This ceremony over, for every
thing is ceremony at this stately court, the fireworks were announced,
and the royal sufferers, followed by their sufferees, adjourned to a
neighbouring apartment. The Marchioness, her daughters, and the
Countess of Lumieres, mounted up to the boudoir where I was sitting,
and took possession of the windows. Seven or eight wheels, and as many
tourbillons began whirling and whizzing, whilst a profusion of admirable
line-rockets darted along in various directions, to the infinite delight
of the Countess of Lumieres, who, though hardly sixteen, has been
married four years. Her youthful cheerfulness, light hair, and fair
complexion, put me so much in mind of my Margaret, that I could not help
looking at her with a melancholy tenderness: her being with child
increased the resemblance, and as she sat in the recess of the window,
discovered at intervals by the blue light of rockets bursting high in
the air, I felt my blood thrill as if I beheld a phantom, and my eyes
were filled with tears.
The last firework being played off, the Queen and the Infantas departed.
The Marchioness and the other ladies descended into the pavilion, where
we partook of a magnificent and truly royal collation. Donna Maria and
her little sister, animated by the dazzling illumination, tripped about
in their light muslin dresses, with all the sportiveness of fairy
beings, such as might be supposed to have dropped down from the floating
clouds, which Pillement has so well represented on the ceiling.