“You saw Mafra from the sea, a magnificent object, but, like every thing in Portugal, it looks best at a distance; its history you know from the last letter in my first edition.* . . . . We yesterday went there from Cintra, a distance of three leagues (twelve miles). A quinta of the Marquis Pombal, on the way, forms a pleasing object from the olives which are planted to screen the vines; the grey foliage and the lively sunshine, as it were, of the vines contrasting very well. The quarries are near where the first stone is dug for the Lisbon buildings; two columns are now lying by the road, which in the great Pombal’s time were hewn for the Square of Lisbon, each of a single stone—a foolish waste of labour, only becoming barbarian pride; for
| 112 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 26. |
“Two leagues on the way lies a place called Cheleinas;
it may contain fifty scattered houses, I assuredly speak on the outside of its
number, but the place is a town, and its inhabitants
strangely jealous of its title. Some lads, lately passing through, inquired the
name of the village; the man replied, angrily, it was a
town; and as they, not believing it, laughed at him, he raised an uproar, and
they were actually in danger of being stoned by the offended townsmen. A bridge
has been lately built here over a valley, and a great work it is; it happens to
be in the Prince’s road from Queluz to Mafra, and on that account this
improvement has been made. The valley, in which Cheleinas stands, would not be
noticed for beauty in a cultivated country, but here it appears beautiful from
the contrast of vine and olive yards with naked and sun-burnt hills: the people
are in fault, not the climate; trees will grow wherever they will plant them,
but planting indicates foresight, and Portuguese never think of the future. A
stream runs through it, which in the rainy season must be wide and rapid; this
sweeps down the soil from the mountains, and fertilizes the bottom. A
circuitous road round the hill-top, to avoid a steep descent, leads to Mafra;
there is a bye-path, nearer by two miles, which I advise none but a pedestrian
to take. Mafra itself is a small place, the estalagem rather better than usual,
and not worse than a dirty English alehouse.
| Ætat. 26. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 113 |
“The church and convent and palace are one vast
building, whose front exhibits a strange and truly Portuguese mixture of
magnificence and meanness; in fact it has never been faced with stone, a mud
plaster is in its place; the windows are not half glazed, red boards filling up
the workhouse-looking casements. The church is beautiful; the library the
finest book-room I ever saw, and well stored. The friar who accompanied us said
‘it would be an excellent room to eat and drink in, and go to play
afterwards;’ and ‘if we liked better to play in the
dark, we might shut the windows!’ He heard the servant remark to
me that there were books enough for me to read there, and asked if I loved
reading. ‘And I,’ said he, ‘love eating and
drinking.’ Honest Franciscan! He told us, also, that the dress of
their order was a barbarous dress, and that dress did not change the feelings.
I suspect this man wishes he had professed in France.
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“‘You have a superb convent here,’ said I. ‘Yes,’ said the monk, ‘but it is a wretched place in winter, we suffer so from the cold; the rheumatism kills many; we have no fire in our cells, only in the kitchen.’ Such is Mafra: a library, whose books are never used; a palace, with a mud-wall front; and a royal convent, inhabited by monks who loathe their situation. The monks often desert; in that case they are hunted like deserters, and punished, if caught, with confinement and flogging. They take the vows young—at fourteen: those who are most stupidly devout may be satisfied with their life; those who are most abandoned in all vice may do well also; but a man with any feeling, any conscience, any brains, must be miserable. The old men, whose necks are broken to their yoke, whose feelings are all blunted, and who are, by their rank or age, exempt from some services, and indulged with some privileges,—these men are happy enough. A literary man would be well off, only that literature would open his eyes.
“The library was not originally a part of the
foundation: the Franciscan order excluded all art, all science; no pictures
might profane their churches; but when Pombal turned them out of this palace, he removed to it the
regular canons of St. Vincent, an order well born and well educated, wealthy
| Ætat. 26. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 115 |
“The Franciscan is by far the most numerous monastic family. A convent that subsists upon its revenues must necessarily be limited in its numbers, but every consecrated beggar gets more than enough for his own support; so the more the merrier. . . . . God bless you! I conclude in haste.
