These are the only points of interest, which mark John V.’s long reign of forty-four years, and as the last thirty-five of these years were years of peace, it may well be said, happy is the reign which has but little history. But it must not be thought that he therefore left no impression upon his country. On the contrary, he did much to imprint his name on its history. He showed a tendency, like so many other princes of the eighteenth century, to imitate Louis XIV. He spent much money in building, and among his most famous efforts in this direction are the patriarchal church at Lisbon, the superb convent at Mafra, and the great aqueduct which still supplies Lisbon with water. He was a munificent patron of literature and the arts, and founded the Academy of History at Lisbon in 1720. He loved music and the theatre, and spent great sums in importing singers and dancers from Italy and actors from France. He took an intelligent interest in the administration of his kingdom, and for the better despatch of business formed three secretaryships of state for the home, foreign and war, and colonial and naval, departments instead of one, and he took a particular pride in his navy, and founded the naval arsenal of Lisbon. One other fact also may be recorded to his credit, that in 1725 he obtained a Bull from Pope Benedict XIII., allowing all prisoners of the Inquisition to employ counsel to defend them, and ordering that all sentences of the Holy Office should be communicated to and confirmed by the king in council. This excellent monarch had a paralytic stroke in 1742, and for the last eight years of his reign, until his death in 1750, the kingdom was governed by the queen, and the Cardinal da Cunha, Patriarch of Lisbon. The reign of King Joseph, which lasted from 1750 to 1777, is made famous by the administration of the Marquis of Pombal, the greatest minister who ever ruled Portugal, and one of the greatest of eighteenth-century statesmen. The king, though a man of real ability himself, interfered but little in politics, and left the management of affairs entirely in the hands of the minister, whose greatness he was the first to perceive. The relationship between the monarch and his subject resembles that between Louis XIII. and Richelieu, and does honour to both parties. In everything--in his great internal administrative reforms, in his financial schemes, in the reorganization of the army, in the abolition of slavery, and in the struggle with the Jesuits, which ended in the suppression of that famous order--King Joseph supported his minister. Pombal broke the power of the nobility, and made the king more absolute than ever, and he exalted the royal prerogative, while using it for his measures of reform; while, in return, the king maintained the minister in power, in spite of the vehement protests and wily intrigues of the Roman Catholic clergy, and the opposition of his wife.