“Lisbon has twice been clean since the creation.
Noah’s flood washed it once, and the fire after
the earthquake purified it. When it will be clean again, will be difficult to
say; probably not till the general conflagration. A house, at which I called
yesterday, actually has a drain running round one of the sides, which empties
all the filth before the entrance. . . . . Government will neither cleanse the
city themselves, nor suffer any one else to do it. An English merchant applied
lately for permission to clean the street in which he lived, and it was
refused. This is one of the curious absurdities of the P. go-
| Ætat. 26. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 69 |
“The filthiest offices in the place are performed by
negroes. . . . . These poor people were brought as slaves into Portugal, till
Pombal prohibited all future
importation, still leaving those already in the country slaves, that property
might not be invaded. Once since, a petition was presented that the country
wanted negroes, and a few were imported in consequence. When they have grown
old in service and slavery, the trick of Portuguese generosity is to give them
their liberty; that is as if, in England, a man, when his horse was grown old,
should turn him adrift, instead of giving the old animal the run of his park.
Of course black beggars are numerous. Grey-headed, and with grey beards, they
look strangely; and some, that have the leprosy, are the most hideous objects
imaginable. The old women wear nothing on their heads, and, what with their
woolly hair and their broad features, look sometimes so fearfully ugly that I
do not wonder at the frequency of negresses in romance. A priest in this
country sold his own daughter by a negress. The
Portuguese despise the negroes, and by way of insult sneeze at them as they
pass: this is their strongest mark of contempt. Our phrase, ‘a fig for
him,’ is explained by an amulet in use here against witchcraft, called a
figa; the mules and asses
wear it. It is the figure of a hand closed, the thumb cocked out between the
fore and
| 70 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 26. |
“No doubt this is a regular government; it is an old
monarchy, and has an established church. . . . . A lawyer in England wrote a
book to prove that our monarchy was absolute also; and
Hughes, the clergyman at Clifton, whom you may have
seen at my aunt’s, lamented in a pamphlet that that awful tribunal, the Inquisition, had relaxed its vigilance: but you
may not forge and murder with impunity. An acquaintance of mine (Tennant, well known for some famous chemical
experiments on the diamond) met an Irishman in Switzerland, who had been at
Borne. He said it was the most laineant government in
the world: you might kill a man in the streets, and nobody would take the laist notice of it. This also is a laineant government: a man stabs his antagonist, wipes the knife in
his cloak, and walks quietly away. It is a point of honour in the spectators to
give no information. If one servant robs his master, it is a point of honour in
his fellow-servants never to inform of him. Both these points of honour are
inviolable from prudence, for a stab would be the consequence. One method of
revenge used in the provinces is ingeniously wicked: they beat a man with
sand-bags. These do not inflict so much immediate pain as a cane would do, but
they so
| Ætat. 26. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 71 |
“On Sunday, some boys, dressed like blue-coat boys, went
under our window, with baskets, begging provisions or money. A man has set up
this charity school on speculation, and without funds, trusting to chance alms.
The ‘Emperor of the Holy Ghost’ also passed us in person: his flags
are new, and his retinue magnificent in their new dresses of white and scarlet;
his musicians were all negroes: before him went a grave and comely personage,
carrying a gilt
| 72 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 26. |
“Lately a negro went along our street with a Christ in a glass case, which he showed to every one whom he met. They usually kissed the glass and gave him money. Pombal, in his time, prohibited such follies. These images have all been blessed by the Pope, and are therefore thus respected. I was in a shop the other day waiting for change, when a beggar-woman came in. As I did not give her anything, she turned to an image of Our Lady, prayed to it and kissed it, and then turned round to beg again.
“Religion is kept alive by these images, &c., like a
fire perpetually supplied with fuel. They have a saint for every thing. . . . .
One saint preserves from lightning, another from fire, a third clears the
clouds, and so on—a salve for every sore. It is a fine religion for an
enthusiast—for one who can let his feelings remain awake, and opiate his
reason. Never was goddess so calculated to win upon the human heart as the
Virgin Mary; and devotees, Moravians as well as Catholics, not unfrequently
mingle the feelings of earthly and spiritual love, as
| Ætat. 26. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 73 |
“One of the new convent towers is miserably disfigured by a projecting screen of wood. The man who rings the bell stands close by it, and the ugly thing is put there, lest he should see the nuns walking in the garden, or lest they should see him, for a nun has nothing but love to think of, and a powder magazine must be guarded warily. A million sterling has been expended upon this convent; it is magnificent within, wholly of marble, and the colour well disposed. A million sterling! and the great square is unfinished, and the city without flagstones, without lamps, without drains!
“I meet the galley-slaves sometimes, and have looked at them with a physiognomic eye to see if they differed from the rest of the people. It appeared to me that they had been found out, the others had not. The Portuguese face, when fine, is very fine, and it rarely wants the expression of intellect.
“The gardens have usually vine-covered walks, stone
pillars supporting the trellis poles. Some you see in the old-fashioned
style—box cut into patterns like the zig-zag twirling of a Turkey carpet
pattern. The Convent of the Necessidades has a very large and fine garden, open
to men but not to women. This is laid out in shady walks, like the spokes of
wheels, that centre into fountains; the space between the walks occupied with
oranges, lemons, and other fruit trees. Everywhere innumerable lizards are to
be seen sporting in the sun, grey or green, from two
| 74 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 26. |
