cathedral, from the solemn, restrained Romanesque of the nave to the plain sepulchral little Gothic cloister, where, in the dim sea-green light filtering through leaves and crumbling arches young children learn the letter of their faith. There is in these Portuguese churches no affectation of the gloomy splendour and mystery which is the characteristic of the Spanish cathedrals. At mass on Sundays the faithful gather, and on other days a certain number attend; but the constant coming and going of worshippers at all hours of the day, and the celebration of mass at one altar or another continuously from dawn to midday that in Spain is universal, find no counterpart in the Portuguese portion of the Peninsula. Here, and above all in the north, the priest is not constantly in evidence, as he is in Spain, and his garb is, as a rule, as unobtrusive as that of an English clergyman; for the shovel-hat and flowing cassock and cloak have in Portugal almost disappeared. However religious the Portuguese may be the apparatus and panoply of religion are not conspicuous, and when once mass is over in the Portuguese church, the place is usually deserted. Although with justice, Lisbon is usually considered an extremely unæsthetic capital, and has not much to show worth seeing in pictorial art, there is one feature, in which, little known or noticed as it is by visitors, Lisbon can boast of unrivalled artistic possessions. I mean in that of ecclesiastical _orfèvrerie_. When the religious houses were suppressed, and the State appropriated church property, the priceless productions of the old goldsmiths, gifts of devout sovereigns and grandees for centuries to sacred shrines, were not plundered or frittered away in private hands, as happened in England and France, but carefully preserved by the State for public enjoyment. Truth to say, no one seems to enjoy these exquisite objects very much now, for of the many times I have spent hours in admiring the collections in the National Museum, and in that of São Roque, I have rarely seen any but an occasional stranger in either place.