Part 33 (1/2)
Another contrite personage was so affected at the moment of consecration, that he flattened his nose on the pavement, and licked the dirt and dust with which it was thickly encrusted.
I must confess that, notwithstanding this very superior display of sanct.i.ty, I was not sorry to escape from the dingy cloisters of the convent, and breathe the pure air, and look up at the blue exhilarating sky. The weather being delightful, we drove to several distant parts of the town, to which I was yet a stranger. Returning back by the Bairro Alto, we looked into a new house, just finished building at an enormous expense, by Joao Ferreira, who, from an humble retailer of leather, has risen, by the archbishop's favour, to the possession of some of the most lucrative contracts in Portugal. Uglier-shaped apartments than those the poor shoe-man had contrived for himself I never beheld. The hangings are of satin of the deepest blue, and the fiercest and most sulphureous yellow. Every ceiling is daubed over with allegorical paintings, most indifferently executed, and loaded with gilt ornaments, in the style of those splendid sign-posts which some years past were the glory of High-Holborn and St. Giles's.
We were soon tired of all this finery, and as it was growing late, made the best of our way to Belem. Whilst M---- was writing letters, I walked out with Don Pedro on the verandas of the palace, which are washed by the Tagus, and flanked with turrets. The views are enchanting, and the day being warm and serene, I enjoyed them in all their beauty. Several large vessels pa.s.sed by as we were leaning over the bal.u.s.trades, and almost touched us with their streamers. Even frigates and s.h.i.+ps of the first rate approach within a quarter of a mile of the palace.
There was a greater crowd of attendants than usual round our table at dinner to-day, and the huge ma.s.sy dishes were brought up by a long train of gentlemen and chaplains, several of them decorated with the orders of Avis and Christ. This attendance had quite a feudal air, and transported the imagination to the days of chivalry, when great chieftains were waited upon like kings, by n.o.ble va.s.sals.
The Portuguese had need have the stomachs of ostriches to digest the loads of savoury viands with which they cram themselves. Their vegetables, their rice, their poultry, are all stewed in the essence of ham, and so strongly seasoned with pepper and spices, that a spoonful of peas, or a quarter of an onion, is sufficient to set one's mouth in a flame. With such a diet, and the continual swallowing of sweetmeats, I am not surprised at their complaining so often of head-aches and vapours.
Several of the old Marquis of M----'s confidants and buffoons crept forth to have a peep at the stranger, and hear the famous missionary descant upon martyrdom and miracles. The scenery of Boa Morte being fresh in his thoughts, his descriptions were gloomy and appalling: Don Pedro, his sisters, and his cousin, the young Conde d'Atalaya,[23]
gathered round him with all the trembling eagerness of children who hunger and thirst after hobgoblin stories. You may be sure he sent them not empty away. A blacker dose of legendary superst.i.tion was never administered. The Marchioness seemed to swallow these terrific narrations with nearly as much avidity as her children, and the old Abade, dropping his chin in a woful manner, produced an enormous rosary, and kept thumbing his beads and mumbling orisons.
M---- had luckily been summoned to the palace by a special mandate from his royal mistress. Had he been of the party, I fear Verdeil's prophecy would have been accomplished, for never did mortal hold forth with so much scaring energy as this enthusiastic preacher. The most terrible denunciations of divine wrath which ever were thundered forth by ancient or modern writers of sermons and homilies recurred to his memory, and he dealt them about him with a vengeance. The last half hour of the discourse we were all in total darkness,--n.o.body had thought of calling for lights: the children were huddled together, scarce venturing to move or breathe. It was a most singular scene.
Full of the ghastly images the good father had conjured up in my imagination, I returned home alone in my carriage, s.h.i.+vering and shuddering. My friends were out, and nothing could be more dreary than the appearance of my fireless apartments.
LETTER x.x.xIII.
Rehearsal of Seguidillas.--Evening scene.--Crowds of beggars.--Royal charity misplaced.--Mendicant flattery.--Frightful countenances.--Performance at the Salitri theatre.--Countess of Pombeiro and her dwarf negresses.--A strange ballet.--Return to the Palace.--Supper at the Camareira Mor's.--Filial affection.--Last interview with the Archbishop.--Fatal tide of events.--Heart-felt regret on leaving Portugal.
Sunday, November 25th, 1787.
What a morning for the 25th of November! The sun s.h.i.+ning most brilliantly, insects fluttering about, and flowers expanding--the late rains having called forth a second spring, and tinted the hills round Almada, on the opposite sh.o.r.e of the Tagus, with a lively green.
I breakfasted alone, Verdeil being gone to St. Roch's, to see the ceremony of publis.h.i.+ng the bull of the Crusade, which allows good Christians to eat eggs and b.u.t.ter during Lent, upon paying his holiness a few s.h.i.+llings. I stayed at home, hearing a rehearsal of Seguidillas, in preparation for a new intermez at the Salitri theatre, till the hour of ma.s.s was over, then getting into the Portuguese chaise, drove headlong to the palace in the Placa do Commercio, and hastened to the Marquis of M----'s apartments. All his family were a.s.sembled to dine with him.
Had it not been for the thoughts of my approaching departure, I should have felt more comfort and happiness than has fallen to my lot for a long interval. M----, whose attendance on the Queen may be too justly termed a state of downright slavery, had hardly taken his place at table, before he was called away. The Marchioness, Donna Henriquetta, and her little sister, soon retreated to the Camareira-Mor's apartments, and I was left alone with Pedro and Duarte. They seized fast hold, each of a hand, and running like greyhounds through long corridors, took me to a balcony which commands one of the greatest thoroughfares in Lisbon.
The evening was delightful, and vast crowds of people moving about, of all degrees and nations, old and young, active and crippled, monks and officers. Shoals of beggars kept pouring in from every quarter to take their stands at the gates of the palace and watch the Queen's going out; for her Majesty is a most indulgent mother to these st.u.r.dy sons of idleness, and scarcely ever steps into her carriage without distributing considerable alms amongst them. By this misplaced charity, hundreds of stout fellows are taught the management of a crutch instead of a musket, and the art of manufacturing sores, ulcers, and scabby pates, in the most loathsome perfection. Duarte, who is all life and gaiety, vaulted upon the railing of the balcony, and hung for a moment or two suspended in a manner that would have frightened mothers and nurses into convulsions. The beggars, who had nothing to do till her Majesty should be forthcoming, seemed to be vastly entertained with these feats of agility.
They soon spied me out, and two brawny lubbers, whom an unfortunate combination of smallpox and king's-evil had deprived of eye-sight, informed, no doubt, by their comrades of what was going forward, began a curious dialogue with voices still deeper and harsher than those of the holy crows:--”Heaven prosper their n.o.ble excellencies, Don Duarte Manoel and Don Pedro, and all the Marialvas--sweet dear youths, long may they be blessed with the use of their eyes and of all their limbs! Is that the charitable Englishman in their sweet company?”--”Yes, my comrade,”
answered the second blind.--”What!” said the first, ”that generous favourite of the most glorious Lord St. Anthony? (O gloriosissimo Senhor Sant-Antonio!)”--”Yes, my comrade.”--”O that I had but my precious eyes, that I might enjoy the sight of his countenance!” exclaimed both together.
By the time the duet was thus far advanced, the halt, the maimed, and the scabby, having tied some greasy nightcaps to the end of long poles, poked them up through the very railing, bawling and roaring out charity, ”charity for the sake of the holy one of Lisbon.” Never was I looked up to by a more distorted or frightful collection of countenances. I made haste to throw down a plentiful shower of small copper money, or else Duarte would have twitched away both poles and nightcaps, a frolic by no means to be encouraged, as it might have marred our fame for the readiest and most polite attention to every demand in the name of St.
Anthony.
Just as the orators were receiving their portion of pence and farthings, a cry of ”There's the Queen, there's the Princess!” carried the whole hideous crowd away to another scene of action, and left me at full liberty to be amused in my turn with the squirrel-like gambols of my lively companion; he is really a fine enterprising boy, bold, alert, and sprightly; quite different from most of his ill.u.s.trious young relations.
Don Pedro by no means approved my English partiality to such active feats, and after scolding his cousin for skipping about in so hazardous a style, entreated me to take them to the Salitri theatre, where a box had been prepared for us by his father's orders. Upon the whole, I was better entertained than I expected, though the performance lasted above four hours and a half, from seven to near twelve. It consisted of a ranting prose tragedy, in three acts, called Sesostris, two ballets, a pastoral, and a farce. The decorations were not amiss, and the dresses showy. A shambling, blear-eyed boy, bundled out in weeds of the deepest sable, squeaked and bellowed alternately the part of a widowed princess. Another hob-e-di-hoy, tottering on high-heeled shoes, represented her Egyptian majesty, and warbled two airs with all the nauseous sweetness of a fluted falsetto. Though I could have boxed his ears for surfeiting mine so filthily, the audience were of a very different opinion, and were quite enthusiastic in their applause.
In the stage-box I observed the mincing Countess of Pombeiro, whose light hair and waxen complexion was finely contrasted by the ebon hue of two little negro attendants perched on each side of her. It is the high tone at present in this court to be surrounded by African implings, the more hideous, the more prized, and to bedizen them in the most expensive manner. The Queen has set the example, and the royal family vie with each other in spoiling and caressing Donna Rosa, her Majesty's black-skinned, blubber-lipped, flat-nosed favourite.
One of the ballets was admirably got up; upon the rising of the curtain, a strange cabalistic apartment is discovered, where an astrologer appears very busy at a table covered with spheres and astrolabes, arranging certain mysterious images, and pinking their eyes with a gigantic pair of black compa.s.ses. A sort of Pierrot announces some inquisitive travellers, who enter with many bows and sc.r.a.pings. One of them, the chief of the party, an old dapper beau in pink and silver, reminded me very much of the Duke d'Alafoens, and sidled along and tossed his cane about, and seemed to ask questions without waiting for answers, with as good a grace as that janty general. The astrologer, after explaining the wonders of his apartment with many pantomimical contortions, invites his company to follow him, and the scene changes to a long gallery, illuminated with a profusion of lights in gilt branches.
The perspective ends in a flight of steps, upon each of which stands a row of figures, pantaloons, harlequins, sultans, sultanas, Indian chiefs, devils, and savages, to all appearance motionless. Pierrot brings in a machine like a hand-organ, and his master begins to grind, the music accompanying. At the first chord, down drop the arms of all the figures; at the second, each rank descends a step, and so on, till gaining the level of the stage, and the astrologer grinding faster and faster, the supposed clock-work-a.s.sembly begin a general dance.
Their ballet ended, the same accords are repeated, and all hop up in the same stiff manner they hopped down. The travellers, highly pleased with the show, depart; Pierrot, who longs to be grinding, persuades his master to take a walk, and leave him in possession of the gallery. He consents; but enjoins the gaping oaf upon no account to meddle with the machine, or set the figures in motion. Vain are his directions! no sooner has he turned his back than Pierrot goes to work with all his strength; the figures fall a shaking as if on the point of disjoining themselves; creak, crack, grinds the machine with horrid harshness; legs, arms, and noddles are thrown into convulsions, three steps are jumped at once. Pierrot, frightened out of his senses at the goggle-eyed crowd advancing upon him, clings close to the machine and gives the handle no respite. The music, too, degenerates into the most jarring, screaking sounds, and the figures knocking against each other, and whirling round and round in utter confusion, fall flat upon the stage.