Cathedral of Lisbon.--Trace of St. Anthony’s fingers.--The Holy
Crows.--Party formed to visit them.--A Portuguese
poet.--Comfortable establishment of the Holy Crows.--Singular
tradition connected with them.--Illuminations in honour of the
Infanta’s accouchement.--Public harangues.--Policarpio’s singing,
and anecdotes of the _haute noblesse_.
November 8th, 1787.
Verdeil and I rattled over cracked pavements this morning in my rough
travelling-coach, for the sake of exercise. The pretext for our
excursion was to see a remarkable chapel, inlaid with jasper and
lapis-lazuli, in the church of St. Roch; but when we arrived, three or
four masses were celebrating, and not a creature sufficiently disengaged
to draw the curtain which veils the altar, so we went out as wise as we
came in.
Not having yet seen the cathedral, or See-church, as it is called at
Lisbon, we directed our course to that quarter. It is a building of no
striking dimensions, narrow and gloomy, without being awful. The
earthquake crumbled its glories to dust, if ever it had any, and so
dreadfully shattered the chapels, with which it is clustered, that very
slight traces of their having made part of a mosque are discernible.
Though I had not been led to expect great things, even from descriptions
in travels and topographical works, which, like peerage-books and
pedigrees, are tenderly inclined to make something of what is next to
nothing at all: I hunted away, as became a diligent traveller, after
altar-pieces and tombs, but can boast of no discoveries. To be sure, we
had not much time to look about us: the priests and sacristans, who
fastened upon us, insisted upon our revisiting the corner of a bye
staircase, where are to be kissed and worshipped the traces of St.
Anthony’s fingers. The saint, it seems, being closely pursued by the
father of lies and parent of evil, alias Old Scratch, (I really could
not clearly learn upon what occasion,) indented the sign of the cross
into a wall of the hardest marble, and stopped his proceedings. A very
pleasing little picture hangs up near the miraculous cross, and records
the tradition.
All this was admirable; but nothing in comparison with some stories
about certain holy crows. “The very birds are in being,” said a
sacristan. “What!” answered I, “the individual[19] crows who attended
St. Vincent?”--“Not exactly,” was the reply, (in a whisper, intended for
my private ear); “but their immediate descendants.”--“Mighty well; this
very evening, please God, I will pay my respects to them, and in good
company, so adieu for the present.”
Our next point was the Theatine convent. We looked into the library,
which lies in the same confusion in which it was left by the earthquake;
half the books out of their shelves, tumbled one over the other in dusty
heaps. A shrewd, active monk, who, I am told, has written a history of
the House of Braganza, not yet printed, guided our steps through this
chaos of literature; and after searching half-an-hour for some curious
voyages he wished to display to us, led us into his cell, and pressed
our attention to a cabinet of medals he had been at some pains and
expense in collecting.
Not feeling any particular vocation for numismatic researches, I left
Verdeil with the monk, puzzling out some very questionable inscriptions,
and went to beat up for recruits to accompany me in the evening to the
holy crows. First, I found the Abade Xavier, and secondly, the famous
missionary preacher from Boa Morte, and then the Grand Prior, and
lastly, the Marquis of Marialva; Don Pedro begged not to be left out, so
we formed a coach full, and I drove my whole cargo home to dinner.
Verdeil was already returned with his reverend medallist, and had also
collected the governor of Goa, Don Frederic de Sousa Cagliariz, his
constant attendant a bullying Savoyard, or Piedmontese Count, by name
Lucatelli; and a pale, limber, odd-looking young man, Senhor Manuel
Maria, the queerest, but, perhaps, the most original of God’s poetical
creatures. He happened to be in one of those eccentric, lively moods,
which, like sunshine in the depth of winter, come on when least
expected. A thousand quaint conceits, a thousand flashes of wild
merriment, a thousand satirical darts shot from him, and we were all
convulsed with laughter; but when he began reciting some of his
compositions, in which great depth of thought is blended with the most
pathetic touches, I felt myself thrilled and agitated. Indeed, this
strange and versatile character may be said to possess the true wand of
enchantment, which, at the will of its master, either animates or
petrifies.
Perceiving how much I was attracted towards him, he said to me, “I did
not expect an Englishman would have condescended to pay a young,
obscure, modern versifier, any attention. You think we have no bard but
Camoens, and that Camoens has written nothing worth notice, but the
Lusiad. Here is a sonnet worth half the Lusiad.