Another custom, though of a more private order, attracted the notice of this rational and almost universal improver. It had been adopted as a habit by the widows of the nobility, to spend the first years of their widowhood in the most miserable seclusion; they shut up their windows, retired to some gloomy chamber, slept on the floor, and, suffering all kinds of voluntary and absurd mortifications, forbade the approach of the world. As the custom was attended with danger to health, and often with death, besides its general melancholy influence on society, the minister publicly "enacted," that every part of it should be abolished; and, moreover, that the widows should always remove to another house; or, where this was not practicable, that they "should _not_ close the shutters, nor '_mourn_' for more than a week, nor remain at home for more than a month, nor sleep on the ground." Doubtless, tens of thousands thanked him, and thank him still, for this war against a popular, but most vexatious, absurdity. His next reform was the army. After the peace of 1763, he fixed it at 30,000 men, whom he equipped effectually, and brought into practical discipline. A succession of laws, made for the promotion of European and colonial trade, next opened the resources of Portugal to an extent unknown before. Pombal next abolished the "Index Expurgitorius"--an extraordinary achievement, not merely beyond his age, but against the whole superstitious spirit of his age. He was not content with abolishing the restraint; he attempted to _restore_ the PRESS in Portugal. Hitherto nearly all Portuguese books had been printed in foreign counties. He established a "Royal Press," and gave its superintendence to Pagliarini, a Roman printer, who had been expatriated for printing works against the Jesuits. Such, in value and extent, were the acts which Portugal owed to this indefatigable and powerful mind, that when, in 1766, he suffered a paralytic stroke, the king and the people were alike thrown into consternation. At length Don Joseph, the king, and faithful friend of Pombal, died, after a reign of twenty-seven years of honour and usefulness. Pombal requested to resign, and the Donna Maria accepted the resignation, and conferred various marks of honour upon him. He now retired to his country-seat, where Wraxall saw him in 1772, and thus describes his appearance. "At this time he had attained his seventy-third year, but age seemed to have diminished neither the freshness nor the activity of his faculties. In his person he was very tall and slender, his face long, pale, and meagre, but full of intelligence."