A much more pleasing example of the same school--a school doubtless influenced by the bad example of Churriguera in Spain--is the house called the Quinta do Freixo on the Douro a mile or so above the town. Here the four towers with their pointed slate roofs rise in so picturesque a way at the four corners, and the whole house blends so well with the parapets and terraces of the garden, that one can almost forgive the broken pediments which form so strange a gable over the door, and the still more strange shapes of the windows. Now that factory chimneys rise close on either side the charm is spoiled, but once the house, with its turrets, its vase-laden parapets, its rococo windows, and the slates painted pale blue that cover its walls, must have been a fit setting for the artificial civilisation of a hundred and fifty years ago, and for the ladies in dresses of silk brocade and gentlemen in flowered waistcoats and powdered hair who once must have gone up and down the terrace steps, or sat in the shell grottoes of the garden. [Sidenote: Queluz.] Though less picturesque and fantastic, the royal palace at Queluz, between Lisbon and Cintra, is another really pleasing example of the more sober rococo. Built by Dom Pedro III. about 1780, the palace is a long building with a low tiled roof, and the gardens are rich in fountains and statues. [Sidenote: Guimarães, Quinta.] Somewhat similar, but unfinished, and enriched with niches and statues, is a Quinta near the station at Guimarães. Standing on a slope, the garden descends northwards in beautiful terraces, whose fronts are covered with tiles. Being well cared for, it is rich in beautiful trees and shrubs. [Sidenote: Oporto, Hospital and Factory.] Much more correct, and it must be said commonplace, are the hospital and the English factory--or club-house--in Oporto. The plans of both have clearly been sent out from England, the hospital especially being thoroughly English in design. Planned on so vast a scale that it has never been completed, with the pediment of its Doric portico unfinished, the hospital is yet a fine building, simple and severe, not unlike what might have been designed by some pupil of Chambers. The main front has a rusticated ground floor with round-headed windows and doors. On this in the centre stands a Doric portico of six columns, and at the ends narrower colonnades of four shafts each. Between them stretches a long range of windows with simple, well-designed architraves. The only thing, apart from its unfinished condition, which shows that the hospital is not in England, are some colossal figures of saints which stand above the cornice, and are entirely un-English in style.