the highest rank are born to suffer, and to which they become callous
in time. But the Prince is young, and courtiers should be merciful. We
have just heard the president of the Academy proclaiming him as the
only mannerly prince in Europe since the days of the Great Frederick
of Prussia. M. Raczynski throws the strong light of his admiration
on another and a greater excellence in the German husband of Donna
Maria da Gloria, though, inferentially, it is no compliment either to
Her Faithful Majesty or her subjects,--"The King is, to my knowledge,
endowed with more taste than any other person in this country; beyond
every other individual, he possesses true feeling for the arts. He is
the owner of a pleasing collection of paintings, besides a rich album
of drawings and water-colours, pretty pictures in German, French, and
English!" The 21st Letter is "the continuation of my letter the 14th,"
that is, a resumption of the subject of Portuguese architecture. The
22d Letter is a corollary to the 10th, "to serve as a sequel to my
10th letter;" and so, throughout the work the reader is fiddled to and
fro, down the middle and up again--now at Coimbra, now at Marseilles,
back again to Barcelona and Seville, and other places where he has
no business--and at last sits down to cool in a printing-office at
Paris. In short, if only what fairly relates to the arts in Portugal
had been admitted into this publication, with a due regard to method,
five score pages would have served the purpose of above five times that
number, and Monsieur Renouard's types would have been more profitably
employed--for the reader at least, if not for the printer. Even as it
is, however, the book is an improvement on Taborda and Cyrillo, the
latter of whom the Portuguese have hitherto been contented to take
for their Vasari. There is no reasonable doubt that attempts at the
revived art of painting were practised in Portugal as early as in
Spain, though so vastly in favour of the latter nation is the balance
of pictorial wealth. Rudiments of the art seem faintly discernible in
the very infancy of the Portuguese monarchy. There is a tradition of a
portrait of Count Henry, who died in 1112. In the Lisbon duplicate of
the _Livro-preto_--the Black-Book of Coimbra cathedral, a collection
of ancient documents--there is one dated 1168, setting forth sundry
payments to artificers in the church; and in that memorandum, mention
is made of an altar-picture, The Annunciation to the Virgin. Among
the royal archives at Lisbon is a book of charters, one page of which
is wholly occupied by a drawing of our Saviour, coloured in red and
blue. This MS. bears date 1277. That Portugal was early rich in
illuminated manuscripts, is proved by the existence of many very old
bibles, missals, breviaries, books of armorial blazonry, and other
gorgeous quaintnesses, on much and long enduring vellum. Garcia de
Resende, in his Chronicle of John II., at whose court he was brought
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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