accommodation of visitors by thin partitions of wood; by far the greater portion, however, remains the mere wreck of its former magnificence. The sleeping rooms have no ceilings. Still the hospitality of the brotherhood, with their dilapidated building, diminished revenues, and the burden of heavy exactions, is as warm, liberal, and generous as at the best days of their ancient wealth and splendour.

Their domains were formerly of very considerable extent. "At the moment the royal founder vowed to build the monastery, he endowed it with all the land and sea that can be seen from the summit of a neighbouring mountain, which commands a wide horizon. The abbot-general presides over the society as chief, and has no spiritual superior in the kingdom." In addition to these privileges, he possesses episcopal dignity; that of being the Esmoler Mòr, or grand almoner to the king; and, as is added by Murphy, " is the chief of all the monasteries and nunneries of the Bernardine order in Portugal."

However curtailed their property may be at present, these monks, who never appear in public except on mules or in carriages, seem still to have everything within their own power; in the convent, spacious cloisters and long corridors, so essentially useful in a hot climate for the enjoyment of exercise as well as for religious meditation; an extensive right of fishery on the coast; a large rabbit-warren attached to the building; fine productive gardens and orchards; capital pastures, vineyards, and olive plantations; mills for grinding their own corn; and a large range of stabling for their numerous mules and cattle. An apothecary resides in the house, and is paid by the fraternity, who give medicines gratis to the poor sick of the neighbourhood, in addition to many other charities. The cellar is a noble vaulted apartment, and contains some enormously large tuns, which are said to hold nearly seven hundred pipes of wine. The manufactories of cambric and fine linen established here by Pombal no longer exist.

"The kitchen," according to Murphy, "is near an hundred feet long by twenty-two broad, and sixty-three feet high from the floor to the intrados of the vault. The fire-place is twentyeight feet long by eleven broad, and is placed, not in the wall, but in the centre of the floor; so that there is access to it at every side. The chimney forms a pyramid resting upon eight columns of cast iron. A subterranean stream of water passes. through the centre of the floor, which is occasionally made to overflow the pavement in order to cleanse it. The operations in it are carried on under the inspection of one of the laybrothers." A great deal too much oil is used in the preparation of their dishes to suit the fastidious delicacy of an English traveller.

The library is a beautiful room, of modern construction, and overlooks the garden. Considerable taste is displayed in its decorations and in the arrangement of the books. A light open gallery runs along its two sides above the lower tier of windows. Its length may be about two hundred and twenty palmos, and including the two cabinets at either extremity, two hundred and ninety-six; its breadth is said to be fifty-five palmos and a half, and the height thirty-eight. The length of the library at Mafra is three hundred and eighty-one palmos, and its breadth only forty-three; therefore it exceeds that of Alcobaça in its length one hundred and sixty-one palmos, and is inferior to it in breadth by twelve. The books are confided to the care of a very intelligent person, from whom we experienced great civility and attention. The collection is modern and respectable, but a great number of the volumes, they tell us, have never found their way back to the shelves from the safe custody of those persons to whom they were intrusted during the occupation of the country by the French. In the centre of the ceiling is a very tolerable representation of St. Bernard, in an oval frame, seated at a table with a pen in his hand, and occupied in profound thought. The key of the

manuscript room, which is said to be rich in original works relative to the history of the kingdom, as of that in which the books proscribed by the Pope are carefully withheld from the inspection of the monks, the prior kept in his own possession, and neither were to be procured. "The once celebrated archives," as Link states, "were taken away by the Spaniards when they conquered Portugal, and were carried to the Escurial."

We were shown among the books an Oxford Pindar of 1697; a beautiful edition of Virgil in two volumes, by Dulau, Lond. 1800; a Glasgow Homer, 1756, given by Lord Strathmore and Cavalheiro Pitt, after their first visit to the monastery in 1760; a large folio volume, Physica Sacra, 1793, the gift of the late Duke of Northumberland, on the exterior of whose leaves are represented the different seats belonging to the family; a copy of Mickle's Lusiad, presented from London with an inscription, December 14, 1791, by Lady H. Frances O'Neill," in grateful acknowledgment of many and repeated attentions from the Illmos Rms Snres Religiozos de San Bernardo em Alcobaça," and stating that "Mickle's translation has made known to the nations of the north the sublime ideas and delicate varieties in expression of the original author, whom she esteems a second Homer." The more recent gifts are Ackerman's History of Westminster, 1812, and the French edition of the Lusiad in the original Portuguese, by Don Jose Maria de Souza, 1817.

But, at the present moment, by far the most interesting volume to us in the whole collection of presentation copies to the library, is that transmitted some few years since from England by Mr. Canning, in acknowledgment of hospitalities received from the worthy fathers of the monastery. The following inscription in his own hand-writing is faithfully copied, and you will doubtless preserve it as an interesting relic

LETTER XVI.

Yet Mafra shall one moment claim delay,
Where dwelt of yore the Lusian's luckless queen ;
And church and court did mingle their array;
And mass and revel were alternate seen.
Lordlings and freres-ill-sorted fry I ween.
But here the Babylonian whore hath built
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.
CHILDE HAROLD.

Mafra, 1827.

THE road from Alcobaça to Caldas da Rainha passes through A Charnais and Selirdo Mato, the distance between the two places being about four leagues. Leaving the hospitable brethren of the monastery with many mutual suadades, for we had become excellent friends with the whole fraternity, whom we found both cheerful and obliging, we continued our journey towards Lisbon. The route at first led up a steep ascent, to the north-west of the old castle, erected on a detached eminence above the town, in front of the convent, as a defence against the incursions of the Moors, and brought us to a quinta belonging to the convent, in the gardens of which we observed a