117 



CHAPTER X. 



OPORTO. 



I LOOK BACK upon oiir visit to the University at Coimbra 

 with great pleasure, and I was quite sorry to bid adieu to 

 the Oxford of Portugal. Perhaps, however, I am scarcely 

 correct in that last expression, for Coimbra is rather the 

 amalgamation and concentration of Oxford, Lincoln's Inn, 

 and Edinburgh combined, inasmuch as divinity, law, and 

 physic are not only nominally represented by their several 

 professors, but all those faculties are carried out here to 

 the end. There is a certain quietness and repose about 

 the city, well becoming the haunts of learning; and there 

 was a peculiar but unmistakable air of earnestness and 

 application observable in the general demeanour of the 

 students, w^hich spoke for itself, and made it evident (as 

 indeed we had previously been given to understand), that 

 this was no resort of mere men of fashion, who came for 

 companionship and societ}^, but that the business of learn- 

 ing and mastering the faculties to which they severally 

 applied themselves was the paramount object with, at all 

 events, the majority of the members of this University. 

 At the same time, there was no appearance of priggishness 

 and pedantry, into which such universal application might 

 easily degenerate, but we came away from Coimbra with 

 a very high opinion of the manly, gentlemanly bearing, 

 and kind and courteous and straightforward demeanour of 

 the young men we had seen there. I do not know that I 



