All this portion of the city is more regularly built than the remainder, and is situated just over the very spot that felt the effects of the terrible earthquake, traces of which are now and then met with, in the shape of patches of old pavement, in digging for the foundations of houses, &c.; though there are no traces of the successful storming of the city by the French, under Junot, in 1807, nor of its equally successful resistance of a similar attempt a couple of years afterwards. In the vicinity of the Hospital of St. José are the ruins of a church, in which, embedded in the earth, were to be seen, some years since, if not now, skeletons, in various attitudes, of persons who formed the congregation at the time the catastrophe took place, which was, as the reader will recollect, when the greater number of the citizens were assembled at mass in the churches on All-Saints’ Day, November 1st, in the ever-memorable year 1755—a circumstance that will probably account for the enormous number of 30,000 lives being lost; for, although 6,000 private dwellings were destroyed, the fatality could hardly have been so great but for the multitudes being assembled in the mode mentioned. The celebration of the festival, too, was otherwise the occasion of prodigious mischief; for, owing to the immense number of tapers in the churches, the curtains, drapery, and other combustible materials, caught fire, and a devastating conflagration swept the doomed city from end to end, carrying off what the convulsion had not already prostrated in ruin. Indirectly, however, the commemoration of the festival was productive of some good—at least to our countrymen in Lisbon; for, in order to avoid exciting religious prejudice during a fête so solemn in the Papal calendar, they had nearly all retired to their country houses, and but ten who remained in the city were killed, a fact which renders, if possible, more magnanimous the grant by the British parliament of £100,000 to the relief of the suffering Portuguese, immediately the dismal tidings arrived; news of like events, but not on such a scale, continuing to be received for a long time after, from various portions of the New World. As in the case of our own dear delightful ante-diluvian Chester, the older quarters of Lisbon city generally interest a stranger most, from their very irregularity; the streets being narrow, steep, and destitute of trottoirs, and the houses very lofty, ranging in height from five to as many as eleven stories, in each of which dwells a separate family, all using one staircase in common. Notwithstanding the seeming peril from this cause, in the event of another earthquake, the danger of the walls falling is considerably lessened by their being built with a strong framework of timber, dovetailed together, before the addition of brick or stone.
Some of the churches are very handsome, although the absence of steeples will perhaps cause them to be hardly so regarded by the majority of Englishmen; and, moreover, many are in an unfinished state, for want of funds. The one that probably astonishes unsophisticated Saxons most, is the Patriarchal Church, from the circumstance of the pillars which support the roof being covered with wax models of heads, arms, legs, &c.—the naif native offerings of individuals, desirous of testifying their gratitude to the Virgin, for her cures of complaints affecting those corporeal adjuncts. In the church of St. Roque is a small chapel, containing imitations, in mosaic, of several pictures of the Italian masters. These, with the splendid decorations, consisting of lapis lazuli columns, candelabra in the precious metals, &c., are credibly estimated to have cost upwards of one million sterling. This vast expense, of course, could only have been in Portugal’s most palmy days, when the genius of Albuquerque threw open the portals of the East, and showered ‘barbaric pearl and gold’ upon his noble king, Emanuel, rightly indeed called the ‘Fortunate,’ and deserving so to be, as worthily inheriting the throne of Alphonso the Victorious (son of the heroic Henry of Burgundy) who routed five Saracen monarchs at Ourique, and freed his country from the Moors. The British cemetery[24] (Os aciprestes), surrounding a neat chapel, is well worth a visit, including, in its attractions, a monument to Fielding, who there lies buried. Few of our countrymen, who have the opportunity, ever fail to make a pilgrimage to the spot where rests all that is mortal of him who drew Partridge and Blifil, Squire Western and Sophia, Parson Adams and Tom Jones—his tomb being as eagerly sought as is that of his brother humourist, Smollett, at Leghorn. Strange that two of the most essentially English of all our writers should have died and been entombed so far from their native land, whose literature their genius has so long enriched, and will for ever continue to do so.
Besides the public buildings already mentioned, there are several well-managed hospitals, an arsenal, academies for instruction in the naval, military, and other sciences; the Castle of St. George, used as a prison more than as a place of defence: museums; a noble national library, of 30,000 volumes, formed from those of the convents suppressed in 1835; and, lastly, the aqueduct of Alcantara, with thirty-six arches, a splendid structure, north of the city, supplying the greater part of the inhabitants with water, and so solid, that it withstood the shock of earthquake, which laid nearly all else in ruins. The central arch is of sufficient dimensions to allow of a three-decker, under full sail, passing through, were there water to float her.
The population of Lisbon is between 250,000 and 300,000, having increased rapidly of late years, though sadly thinned during Don Miguel’s usurpation, owing to the wholesale murders which were then committed, the numbers obliged to serve in the army, and killed, and also the emigration so many hundreds, nay thousands, were compelled to have recourse to, in order to escape from his cruelties, and those of his satellites. The remembrance of these atrocities, however, would seem insufficient to deprive him of some partizans in the country yet, if we may judge by the intrigues in his favour that have supervened on the death of the queen.
CINTRA, NEAR LISBON.
A first visit to Portugal cannot fail to revive—in the minds of Englishmen—‘memories of the past,’ full of ‘sweet and bitter fancies,’ as being alike the spot where England, by her diplomatic fatuity, earned an immortality of ridicule, and, by her valour, an eternity of praise, thanks to the Great Duke and his troops, so many of whom fell in defence of those liberties, which, if what survives here be a fair specimen, were certainly hardly worth the cost of preservation;[25] for, even at this distance of time, how many families can recal the bereavements they sustained in that glorious struggle. Moreover, Portugal possesses a deep interest from the great deeds of its early navigators, already slightly adverted to. None who sympathize with the noble qualities the mention of these heroic names conjures up can fail to deplore that the spirit of Vasco de Gama, Cabral, Camoens,[26] and many others, has not descended to succeeding generations, rendering the land their genius and patriotism had adorned what it might yet be made under an enlightened government, viz., one of the most prosperous countries in Europe. That it is not so, even after the mismanagement it has endured, and is enduring now, nearly as bad as ever, is a matter of never-ending wonderment to those who know its means and appliances for advancement in the scale of nations. As regards myself, desire for personal authentication on the spot of what I had known from others, imparted an additional zest to my visit, from long acquaintance with the Brazils, even in the time of the grandfather of the late Queen, when the present splendid South American empire was a struggling colony of the now enfeebled and decaying parent kingdom. Hence I was prepared to look with a favourable eye on all that came under my notice in the capital of Portugal—a disposition enhanced by the first glance I had an opportunity of bestowing upon it; for, seen from the river on a bright sunny morning, Lisbon’s strikingly picturesque aspect and position reminded me strongly both of Bahia and Rio Janeiro, a portion of the city being built, like them, on low ground; hills, covered in every direction with handsome structures of variegated colours, chiefly white, rising like an amphitheatre behind; whilst the red-tiled roofs, green verandahs, and other fanciful decorations, lend to the whole a very foreign, almost tropical, but extremely pleasing appearance.
Unfortunately, the parallel between the capital of Portugal and the metropolis of her flourishing transatlantic offspring further holds good, as, on landing, much of the pleasing illusion vanishes: