'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!"

6 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 encou

ragement 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."

'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

a row before him. These figures, fixed as statues, and, to all appearance, equally insensible, neither moved hand nor eye. As I advanced to make my salem to the Grand Seignor's representative, who received me with a most gracious nod of the head, his interpreter announced to what nation I belonged, and my own individual warm partiality for the Sublime Porte.

'As soon as I had taken my seat in a ponderous fauteuil of figured velvet, coffee was carried round in cups of most delicate china, with gold enamelled saucers. Notwithstanding my predilection for the East, and its customs, I could hardly get this beverage down, it was so thick and bitter. Whilst I was making a few wry faces in consequence, a low murmuring sound, like that of flutes and dulcimers, accompanied by a sort of tabor, issued from behind a curtain which separated us from another apartment. There was a melancholy wildness in the melody, and a continual repetition of the same plaintive cadences, that soothed and affected me.

The ambassador kept poring upon my countenance, and appeared much delighted with the effect his music seemed to produce upon it. He is a man of considerable talent, deeply skilled in Turkish literature; a native of Bagdad; rich, munificent, and nobly born, being descended from the house of Barmek; gracious in his address, smooth and plausible in his elocution; but not without something like a spark of despotism in a corner of his eye. Now and then I fancied that the recollection of having recommended the bowstring, and certain doubts whether he might not one day or other be complimented with it in his turn, passed across his venerable and interesting physiognomy.

'My eager questions about Bagdad, the Tomb of Zobeïda, the vestiges of the Dhar al Khalifal, or Palace of the Abassidæ, seemed to excite a thousand remembrances which gave him pleasure; and when I added a few quotations from some of his favourite authors, particularly Mesihi, he became so flowingly communicative, that a shrewd, dapper Greek, called Timoni, who acted as his most confidential interpreter, could hardly keep pace with him. Had not the hour of prayer arrived, our conversation might have lasted till midnight. Rising up with much stateliness, he extended his arms to bid me a good evening, and was assisted along by two good-looking Georgian pages to an adjoining chamber, where his secretaries, dragoman, and attendants were all assembled to perform their devotions, each on his little carpet, as if in a mosque; and it was not unedifying to witness the solemnity and abstractedness with which these devotions were performed.'

Our last specimen of this charming book shall be extracted from a letter describing the author's first visit to the Escurial.

I hate being roused out of bed by candle-light, of a sharp wintry morning; but as I had fixed to-day for visiting the Escurial, and had stationed three relays on the road, in order to perform the journey expeditiously,

expeditiously, I thought myself obliged to carry my plan into execution. The weather was cold and threatening; the sky red and deeplycoloured. Roxas was to be of our party, so we drove to his brother, the Marquis of Villanueva's, to take him up. He is one of the bestnatured and most friendly of human beings, and I would not have gone without him on any account; though in general I abhor turning and twisting about a town in search of anybody, let its soul be never so transcendent.

It was past eight before we issued out of the gates of Madrid, and rattled along an avenue on the banks of the Manzanares, full gallop, which brought us to the Casa del Campo, one of the king's palaces, wrapped up in groves and thickets. We continued a mile or two by the wall of this inclosure, and leaving La Sarsuela, another royal villa, surrounded by shrubby hillocks on the right, traversed three or four leagues of a wild, naked country; and, after ascending several considerable eminences, the sun broke out, the clouds partially rolled away, and we discovered the white buildings of this far-famed monastery, with its dome and towers detaching themselves from the bold background of a lofty, irregular mountain.

'We were now about a league off, and the country wore a better aspect than near Madrid. To the right and left of the road, which is of a noble width, and perfectly well made, lie extensive parks of greensward, scattered over with fragments of rock and stumps of oak and ash trees. Numerous herds of deer were standing stock still, quietly lifting up their innocent noses, and looking us full in the face with their beautiful eyes, secure of remaining unmolested, for the king never permits a gun to be discharged in these inclosures.

The Escurial, though overhung by melancholy mountains, is placed itself on a very considerable eminence, up which we were full half an hour toiling the late rains having washed this part of the road into utter confusion. There is something most severely impressive in the façade of this regal convent, which, like the palace of Persepolis, is overshadowed by the adjoining mountain; nor did I pass through a vaulted cloister into the court before the church, solid as if hewn out of a rock, without experiencing a sort of shudder, to which, no doubt, the vivid recollection of the black and blood-stained days of our gloomy Queen Mary's husband not slightly contributed. The sun being again overcast, the porches of the church, surrounded by grim statues, appeared so dark and cavern-like, that I thought myself about to enter a subterraneous temple set apart for the service of some mysterious and terrible religion; and when I saw the high altar, in all its pomp of jasper steps, ranks of columns one above the other, and paintings filling up every interstice, full before me, I felt completely awed.

• The sides of the recess in which this imposing pile is placed, are formed by lofty chapels almost entirely occupied by catafalts of gilt enamelled bronze. Here, with their crowns and sceptres humbly prostrate at their feet, bare-headed and unhelmed, kneel the figures,

as