their eyes wandering from object to object, with a stare of royal vacancy.

A most rigorous etiquette confining the Infants of Portugal within their palaces, they are seldom known to mix even incognito with the crowd; so that their flattering smiles or confidential yawns are not lavished upon common observers. This sort of embalming princes alive, after all, is no bad policy; it keeps them sacred; it concentrates their royal essence, too apt, alas! to evaporate by exposure. What is so liberally paid for by the willing tribute of the people as a rarity of exquisite relish, should not be suffered to turn mundungus. However the individual may dislike this severe regimen, state pageants might have the goodness to recollect for what purpose they are bedecked and beworshipped.

The Conde de Sampayo, lord in waiting, handed the tea to the Queen, and fell down on both knees to present it. This ceremony over, for every thing is ceremony at this stately court, the fireworks were announced, and the royal sufferers, followed by their sufferees, adjourned to a neighbouring apartment. The Marchioness, her daughters, and the Countess

of Lumieres, mounted up to the boudoir where I was sitting, and took possession of the windows. Seven or eight wheels, and as many tourbillons began whirling and whizzing, whilst a profusion of admirable line-rockets darted along in various directions, to the infinite delight of the Countess of Lumieres, who, though hardly sixteen, has been married four years. Her youthful cheerfulness, light hair, and fair complexion, put me so much in mind of my Margaret, that I could not help looking at her with a melancholy tenderness: her being with child increased the resemblance, and as she sat in the recess of the window, discovered at intervals by the blue light of rockets bursting high in the air, I felt my blood thrill as if I beheld a phantom, and my eyes were filled with tears.

The last firework being played off, the Queen and the Infantas departed. The Marchioness and the other ladies descended into the pavilion, where we partook of a magnificent and truly royal collation. Donna Maria and her little sister, animated by the dazzling illumination, tripped about in their light muslin dresses, with all the sportiveness

of fairy beings, such as might be supposed to have dropped down from the floating clouds, which Pillement has so well represented on the ceiling.

LETTER XXX.

Cathedral of Lisbon.-Trace of St. Anthony's fingers.The Holy Crows.-Party formed to visit them.-A Portuguese poet.-Comfortable establishment of the Holy Crows. Singular tradition connected with them.-Illuminations in honour of the Infanta's accouchement.Public harangues.-Policarpio's singing, and anecdotes of the haute noblesse.

November 8th, 1787.

VERDEIL and I rattled over cracked pavements this morning in my rough travellingcoach, for the sake of exercise. The pretext for our excursion was to see a remarkable chapel, inlaid with jasper and lapis-lazuli, in the church of St. Roch; but when we arrived, three or four masses were celebrating, and not a creature sufficiently disengaged to draw the curtain which veils the altar, so we went out as wise as we came in.

Not having yet seen the cathedral, or Seechurch, as it is called at Lisbon, we directed our course to that quarter. It is a building of no

striking dimensions, narrow and gloomy, without being awful. The earthquake crumbled its glories to dust, if ever it had any, and so dreadfully shattered the chapels, with which it is clustered, that very slight traces of their having made part of a mosque are discernible.

Though I had not been led to expect great things, even from descriptions in travels and topographical works, which, like peerage-books and pedigrees, are tenderly inclined to make something of what is next to nothing at all: I hunted away, as became a diligent traveller, after altar-pieces and tombs, but can boast of no discoveries. To be sure, we had not much time to look about us: the priests and sacristans, who fastened upon us, insisted upon our revisiting the corner of a bye staircase, where are to be kissed and worshipped the traces of St. Anthony's fingers. The saint, it seems, being closely pursued by the father of lies and parent of evil, alias Old Scratch, (I really could not clearly learn upon what occasion,) indented the sign of the cross into a wall of the hardest marble, and stopped his proceedings. A very pleasing little picture hangs up near the miraculous cross, and records the tradition.