LISBON. 27 



to hear a celebrated bishop, it was impossible to diHcern 

 more than the bare outline of the preaclH^r, and it wan 

 difficult to find our way through the buildin<^. 



Portu|j^ueKe churclios, airain, are very much plainer, and, 

 for the most part, though there are exceptions, are wanting 

 in the magnificent marbles, the copious gilding, and the 

 innumerable pictures and statues with which Spanish 

 churches are decorated from ceiling to floor. Neither is 

 thciv arrangement as in the sister country of Spain, but 

 rather savours of the churches of Italy or France. There 

 is no walled-in coro with its trascoro, blocking up the 

 nave and concealing the high altar. But above all, the 

 dedication of the cathedrals, as well as the chief post of 

 honour in the high altar, is here devoted to our Elessed 

 Lord, and not (as is almost, if not quite, universally the 

 case in Ultramontane Spain) given up to the Virgin, per- 

 haps, commemorating her Assumption, but still oftener 

 her immaculate Conception, that last and inost extreme 

 dogma of Eome, in. which Marioiatrous Spain especially 

 delights.* Now, this divergence between the two sister 

 countries of the Peninsula in the general aspect of the in- 

 terior of their respective churches, and still more in the 

 dedication of their cathedrals, suggests at once that the 

 tenets held by the iwo nations are not identical, and such 

 in fact we find to be the case. For whereas Spain is pro- 

 verbially the stronghold of all tiiat is extreme in Ivomisli 

 doctrine, and in this respect * His most Catholic Majesty, 

 the eldest and most dutiful Son of the Church,' as he was 

 officially styled, ruled over a na^tion far more obedient to 

 the fiats of the Holy Roman See than the subjects of the 

 Pope himself, the Portuguese clergy are entirely opposed 

 to such opinion's ; indeed, to so great an extent do they 



* Timt most of the cathedrnls of Spain ure de'dicatod to the Virgin, 

 869 Ford's HundhooJi; for Sjiain^ passim, especially pp. 69, 495, 84-i, 908, 

 910, 912, 913, 942. 



