kerchiefs 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 poly-glottery was the glories and piety of John V., regret for the extinction of the Jesuits, and the reverse for the death of Pombal, whose memory he holds in something not distinctly removed from execration. This flood 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 graceful languor. But of what do I talk ?-I only saw her pale and evanescent, as one fancies one sees objects in a dream. Ā group of lovely children (her sister's, I believe) sat at her feet upon the ground, resembling genii, partially concealed by folds of drapery, in some grand allegorical picture by Reubens or Paul Veronese.

Night approaching, lights glimmered in the turrets, terraces, and every part of the strange huddle of buildings of which this moriscolooking 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 modenhas-formed altogether a strange though not unpleasant conbination of sounds.

'I was listening to them with avidity, when a glare of flambeaux, 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

*Father of the first Marquis of Loule.

Josè,

José, attended by a swarm of musicians, poets, bull-fighters, 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, has 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 rosy-coloured shoulders. Some of these little theatrical angels were extremely beautiful, and had their hair most coquetishly 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

'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-Vizieriat 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 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 glance was 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 demons be transferred from hell to our unfortunate planet.'

Since 1780, our unfortunate planet has verified a good deal of these dark anticipations; but even as yet we see only the beginning of the end. Our next extract is from an evening walk in Lisbon; and it includes one of the author's richest displays of Sybarism.

'The night being serene and pleasant, we 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

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 just fears all its true patriots entertain of seeing it once more relapsed into a Spanish province.

At a window 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 modenhas.

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 past away almost imperceptibly in the pleasing delirium these siren 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 Villanova,* preceding the canopy in a scarlet mantle, and tingling 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

* Afterwards Marquis of Abrantes.

officers

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 perseverent 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 centred between his two silver recipiendaries—the marquis, his son's, in dancing attendance upon the queen-and Villanova's in announcing with his bell to all true believers the approach of celestial majesty. The present rage of the scribbler of all these extravagancies is Modenhas, 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 jessamine and roses.'

We now pass to Madrid where our traveller arrived in the winter season of 1787; and made acquaintance with a Turkish ambassador, whom he paints with all his eastern gusto.

'Roxas, most eager to enter upon his office of cicerone, fidgeted to the window, observed we had still an hour or two of daylight, and proposed an excursion to the palace and gardens of the Buen Retiro. Upon entering the court of the palace, which is surrounded by low buildings, with plastered fronts, sadly battered with wind and weather, I spied some venerable figures, in caftans and turbans, leaning against a door-way. My sparks of orientalism instantly burst into a flame at such a sight. "Who are those picturesque animals?" said I to our conductor; " is it lawful to approach them? "As often as you please," answered Roxas; they belong to the Turkish Ambassador, who is lodged, with all his train, at the Buen Retiro, in the identical apartments once occupied by Farinelli, where he held his state levees and opera rehearsals;-drilling ministers one day, and tenors and soprani the other: if you have a mind, we will go upstairs and examine the whole menagerie."

66

No sooner said, no sooner done. I cleared four steps at a leap, to the great delight of his sublime Excellency's pages and attendants, and entered a saloon spread with the most sumptuous carpets, and perfumed with the fragrance of the wood of aloes. In a corner of this magnificent chamber sat the ambassador, Achmet Vasi Effendi, wrapped up in a pelisse of the most precious sables, playing with a light cane he had in his hand, and every now and then passing it under the noses of some tall handsome slaves, who were standing in

a row