Part 25 (1/2)
Unless St. Anthony lulls me asleep by a miracle, I must expect no rest to-night, there is such a whizzing of fireworks, blazing of bonfires and flouris.h.i.+ng of French horns in honour of to-morrow, the five hundred and fifty-fifth anniversary of that memorable day, when the Holy One of Lisbon pa.s.sed by a soft transition to the joys of Paradise. I saw his image at the door of almost every house and even hovel of this populous capital, placed on an altar, and decked with a profusion of wax-lights and flowers.
LETTER XIII.
The New Church of St. Anthony.--Sprightly Music.--Enthusiastic Sermon.--The good Prior of Avis.--Visit to the Carthusian Convent of Cachiez.--Spectres of the Order.--Striking effigy of the Saviour.--A young and melancholy Carthusian.--The Cemetery.
June 13th, 1787.
I slept better than I expected: the Saint was propitious, and during the night cooled the ardour of his votaries and the flames of their bonfires by a vernal shower, which pattered agreeably this morning amongst the vineleaves of my garden. The clouds dispersed about eight o'clock, and at nine, just as I ascended the steps of the new church built over the identical house where St. Anthony was born, the sun shone out in all its splendour.
I cannot say this edifice recalled to my mind the magnificent sanctuary of Padua, which five years ago on this very day impressed my imagination so forcibly. Here are no constellations of golden lamps depending by glittering chains from a mysterious vaulted ceiling, no arcades of alabaster, no sculptured marbles. The church is supported by two rows of pillars neatly carved in stone, but wretchedly proportioned. Over the high altar, where stands the revered image in the midst of a bright illumination, was stretched a canopy of flowered velvet. This drapery, richly fringed and ta.s.seled, marks out the spot formerly occupied by the chamber of the saint, and receives an amber-light from a row of tall cas.e.m.e.nt windows, the woodwork gleaming with burnished gold.
A great many broad English faces burst forth from amongst the crowd of profane vulgar at the portal of the church, and all their eyes were directed to their enthusiastic countryman, but he was not to be stared out of a decent countenance.
The ceremony was extremely pompous. A prelate of the first rank, with a considerable detachment of priests from the royal chapel, officiated to the sounds of lively jigs and ranting minuets, better calculated to set a parcel of water-drinkers a dancing in a pump-room, than to direct the movements of a pontiff and his a.s.sistants.
After much indifferent music, vocal and instrumental, performed full gallop in the most rapid allegro, Fre Joao Jacinto, a famous preacher, mounted the pulpit, lifted up hands and eyes, and poured forth a torrent of sounding phrases in honour of St. Anthony. What would I not give for such a voice?--it would almost have reached from Dan unto Beersheba!
The Father has undoubtedly great powers of elocution, and none of that canting, nasal whine so common in the delivery of monkish sermons. He treated kings, tetrarchs, and conquerors, the heroes and sages of antiquity, with ineffable contempt; reduced their palaces and fortifications to dust, their armies to pismires, their imperial vestments to cobwebs, and impressed all his audience, except the heretical squinters at the door, with the most thorough conviction of St. Anthony's superiority over these objects of an erring and impious admiration.
”Happy,” exclaimed the preacher, ”were those gothic ages, falsely called ages of barbarism and ignorance, when the hearts of men, uncorrupted by the delusive beverage of philosophy, were open to the words of truth falling like honey from the mouths of saints and confessors, such words as distilled from the lips of Anthony, yet a suckling hanging at the breast in this very spot. It was here the spirit of the Most High descended upon him, here that he conceived the sublime intention of penetrating into the most turbulent parts of Europe, setting the inclemency of seasons and the malice of men at defiance, and sprinkling amongst lawless nations the seeds of grace and repentance. There, my brethren, is the door out of which he issued. Do you not see him in the habit of a Menino de Coro, smiling with all the graces of innocence, and dispensing with his infant hands to a group of squalid children the portion of nourishment he has just received from his mother?
”But Anthony, from the first dawn of his existence, lived for others, and not for himself: he forewent even the luxury of meditation, and instead of retiring into a peaceful cell, rushed into the world, helpless and unprotected, lifting high the banner of the Cross amidst perils and uproar, appeasing wars, settling differences both public and domestic, exhorting at the risk of his life ruffians and plunderers to make rest.i.tution, and armed misers, guarding their coffers with b.l.o.o.d.y swords, to open their hearts and their hands to the distresses of the widow and the fatherless.
”Anthony ever sighed after the crown of martyrdom, and had long entertained an ardent desire of pa.s.sing over into Morocco, and exposing himself to the fury of its bigoted and cruel sovereign; but the commands of his superior retain him on the point of embarkation; he makes a sacrifice of even this most laudable and glorious ambition; he traverses Spain, repairs to a.s.sisi, embraces the rigid order of the great St.
Francis, and continues to his last hour administering consolation to the dejected, fortifying their hopes of heaven, and confirming the faith of such as were wavering or deluded by a succession of prodigies. The dead are raised, the sick are healed, the sea is calmed by a glance of St Anthony; even the lowest ranks of the creation are attracted by eloquence more than human, and give marks of sensibility. Fish swim in shoals to hear the word of the Lord; and to convince the obdurate and those accursed whose hearts the false reasoning of the world had hardened, mules and animals the most perversely obstinate humble themselves to the earth when Anthony holds forth the Sacrament, and acknowledge the presence of the Divinity.”
The sermon ended, fiddling began anew with redoubled vigour, and I, disgusted with such unseasonable levity, retired home in dudgeon. This little cloud of peevishness was soon dissipated by the cheering presence of the good Prior of Avis, than whom there exists not, perhaps, in this world a more benign, evangelical character; one who gives glory to G.o.d with less ostentation, or bears a more unaffected goodwill towards men.
This excellent prelate had been pa.s.sing his morning, not in attending pompous ceremonies, but in consoling the sick and relieving the indigent; climbing up to their miserable chambers to afford a.s.sistance in the name of the saint whose festival was celebrating, and whose fame, for every charitable beneficent act, had been handed down by the inhabitants of Lisbon from father to child, through a long series of generations.
Our discourse was not of a nature to incline me to relish pomps and vanities. I waved seeing the procession which was expected to pa.s.s through the princ.i.p.al streets of the city, and, accompanied by my reverend friend, enjoyed the serenity of the evening on the sh.o.r.e of Belem. We stopped as we pa.s.sed by the Marialva palace, and took up Don Pedro and his nursing father, the old Abade, who proposed a visit to the Carthusian convent of Cachiez.
In about half an hour we were set down before the church, which fronts the royal gardens, and were ushered into a solemn, silent quadrangle.
Several spectres of the order were gliding about the cloisters, which branch off from this court. In the middle is a marble fountain, shaded by pyramids of clipped box; around are seven or eight small chapels; one of which contains a coloured image of the Saviour in the last dreadful agonies of his pa.s.sion, covered with livid bruises and corrupted gore.
Whilst we were examining this too faithful effigy, some of the monks, by leave of their superior, gathered around us; one of them, a tall interesting figure, attracted my attention by the deep melancholy which sat upon his features. Upon inquiry, I learned he was only two-and-twenty years of age, of ill.u.s.trious parentage, and lively talents; but the immediate cause of his having sought these mansions of stillness and mortification, the Grand Prior seemed loth to communicate.
I could not help observing, as this young victim stood before me, and I contemplated the evening light thrown on the arcades of the quadrangle, how many setting suns he was likely to behold wasting their gleams upon these walls, and what a wearisome succession of years he had in all probability devoted himself to consume within their precincts. The eyes of the good prior filled with tears, Verdeil shuddered, and the Abade, forgetting the superst.i.tious part he generally acts in religious places, exclaimed loudly against the toleration of human sacrifices, and the folly of permitting those to renounce the world, whose youth incapacitates them from making a due estimate of its sorrows or advantages. As for Don Pedro, his serious disposition received additional gloom from the objects with which we were environed.
The chill gust that blew from an arched hall where the fathers are interred, and whose pavement returned a hollow sound as we walked over it, struck him with horror. It was the first time of his entering a Carthusian convent, and, to my surprise, he appeared ignorant of the severities of the order.
The sun set before we regained our carriage, and our conversation the whole way home partook of the impression which the scenery we had been contemplating inspired.
LETTER XIV.