XXIII. Here didst thou dwell, here schemes of pleasure plan, Beneath yon mountain's ever beauteous brow: But now, as if a thing unblest by Man, Thy fairy dwelling is as lone as thou! Here giant weeds a passage scarce allow To halls deserted, portals gaping wide: Fresh lessons to the thinking bosom, how Vain are the pleasaunces on earth supplied; Swept into wrecks anon by Time's ungentle tide! XXIV. Behold the hall where chiefs were late convened!! Oh! dome displeasing unto British eye! With diadem hight foolscap, lo! a fiend, A little fiend that scoffs incessantly, There sits in parchment robe array'd, and by Where blazon'd glare names known to chivalry, And sundry signatures adorn the roll, Whereat the Urchin points and laughs with all his soul.2 The Convention of Cintra was signed in the palace of the Marchese Marialva.["The armistice, the negotiations, the convention itself, and the execution of its provisions, were all commenced, conducted, and concluded, at the distance of thirty miles from Cintra, with which place they had not the slightest connection, political, military, or local; yet Lord Byron has gravely asserted, in prose and verse, that the convention was signed at the Marquis of Marialva's house at Cintra; and the author of The Diary of an Invalid,' improving upon the poet's discovery, detected the stains of the ink spilt by Junot upon the occasion."Napier's History of the Peninsular War.] 2 The passage stood differently in the original MS. Some verses which the poet omitted at the entreaty of his friends can now offend no one, and may perhaps amuse many : In golden characters right well design'd, XXV. Convention is the dwarfish demon styled Then certain other glorious names we find, Convention is the dwarfish demon styled But when Convention sent his handy-work, Stern Cobbett, who for one whole week forbore To question aught, once more with transport leapt, Then burst the blatant beast, and roar'd, and raged, and slept ! - "Blatant beast"- a figure for the mob, I think first used by Smollett in his "Adventures of an Atom." Horace has the " bellua multorum capitum: " in England, fortunately enough, the illustrious mobility have not even one. XXVI. And ever since that martial synod met, And fain would blush, if blush they could, for shame. Will not our own and fellow-nations sneer, To view these champions cheated of their fame, By foes in fight o'erthrown, yet victors here, [year? Where Scorn her finger points through many a coming XXVII. So deem'd the Childe, as o'er the mountains he Sweet was the scene, yet soon he thought to flee, Thus unto Heaven appeal'd the people: Heaven, But Mercy cloak'd the babes beneath her wing; By this query it is not meant that our foolish generals should have been shot, but that Byng might have been spared, though the one suffered and the others escaped, probably for Candide's reason," pour encourager les autres." [See Croker's" Boswell," vol. i. p. 298.; and the Quarterly Review, vol. xxvii. p. 207., where the question, whether the admiral was or was not a political martyr, is treated at large.] XXVIII. To horse! to horse! he quits, for ever quits But seeks not now the harlot and the bowl. XXIX. Yet Mafra shall one moment claim delay, Where dwelt of yore the Lusians' luckless queen; 2 And church and court did mingle their array, And mass and revel were alternate seen; Lordlings and freres-ill-sorted fry ween! But here the Babylonian whore hath built 3 A dome, where flaunts she in such glorious sheen, That men forget the blood which she hath spilt, And bow the knee to Pomp that loves to varnish guilt. [" After remaining ten days in Lisbon, we sent our baggage and part of our servants by sea to Gibraltar, and travelled on horseback to Seville; a distance of nearly four hundred miles. The horses are excellent: we rode seventy miles a-day. Eggs and wine, and hard beds, are all the accommodation we found, and, in such torrid weather, quite enough." - B. Letters, 1809.] 2 "Her luckless Majesty went subsequently mad; and Dr. Willis, who so dexterously cudgelled kingly pericraniums, could make nothing of hers.". Byron MS. [The queen laboured under a melancholy kind of derangement, from which she never recovered. She died at the Brazils, in 1816.] 3 The extent of Mafra is prodigious: it contains a palace, convent, and most superb church. The six organs are the most beautiful I ever beheld, in point of decoration: we did not hear them, but were told that their tones were correspondent to their splendour. Mafra is termed the Escurial of Portugal. ["About ten miles to the right of Cintra," says Lord Byron, in a letter to XXX. O'er vales that teem with fruits, romantic hills, Though sluggards deem it but a foolish chase, XXXI. More bleak to view the hills at length recede, Spain's realms appear whereon her shepherds tend Flocks, whose rich fleece right well the trader knows Now must the pastor's arm his lambs defend : For Spain is compass'd by unyielding foes, And all must shield their all, or share Subjection's woes. his mother," is the palace of Mafra, the boast of Portugal, as it might be of any country, in point of magnificence, without elegance. There is a convent annexed: the monks, who possess large revenues, are courteous enough, and understand Latin; so that we had a long conversation. They have a large library, and asked me if the English had any books in their country."-Mafra was erected by John V., in pursuance of a vow, made in a dangerous fit of illness, to found a convent for the use of the poorest friary in the kingdom. Upon inquiry, this poorest was found at Mafra; where twelve Franciscans lived together in a hut. There is a magnificent view of the existing edifice in Finden's " Illustrations."] |