1828. ] Portugal Illustrated. 175 
that several chapters in this part of his work, are written in a spirit 
more rebuked and intelligent than most of those to which we have 
already alluded. His notices of the commerce and finance of Portugal, 
and especially of the wine trade of Oporto, though occasionally tripping 
as to principle, are industriously collected, and marked in the main by 
temperance and good sense. As an example of the errors in point of 
principle, we may take the passage immediately before us (p. 147.), in 
which the author ascribes the decrease that he finds in the population 
of Portugal, to “the great demand for labour in the colonies.” We 
are afraid that not much of the abstraction of hands is really to be 
traced to this source. The demand for labour is very high in Australia 
and even in the United States ; but we do not find (just now unluckily) 
that it tends very materially to carry off the surplus labourers of England 
orIreland. The “ celibacy of the priesthood” too, and “ the extent of the 
conventual system,” two other causes named by Mr. Kinsey, as tending to 
lower the zmount of population, can hardly operate to produce that efiect 
in any very extended degree. The number of individuals acted upon 
by them (and especially of females), though numerically it appears large, 
taken in comparison with the great mass of the community, is inconsider- 
able. In Ireland, the priests do not marry ; but there is notwithstanding 
no want of an abundant population. A good deal of the fault lies, pro- 
bably, in the absence of that spirit of enterprise and industry in Portugal, 
among those classes by whom the property. of the country is possessed ; 
which, where it exists, by the bounty which it offers for labour,. can 
scarcely fail to call the principle of population into action. But somes 
thing, we fear, will have to be attributed to the peculiar bodily constitution, 
and with that to the vices and ill habits of the people themselves ;—cer- 
tainly the fact will have forced itself upon the notice of every Portuguese 
traveller—that in passing through a town or village, he seldom saw any 
thing like the number of children, even in proportion to the number of 
adults, that he would have expected to find in France or England. 
Those pages of this portion of the work which relate to the province of 
Douro, contain information, as we have already observed, and entertain- 
ment; but we attempt any extract from them almost with apprehension, 
for the extracts of the author himself from former writers are so extensive 
and incessant, that it is very difficult to decide, even upon cautious exami- 
nation,when he means to speak for himself, and when he quotes the 
words of some other person. We shall hazard a few detached passages 
however, chiefly those describing the town and vicinity of Oporto. 
* One of the finest streets in Porto is the Rua Nativida. It forms the 
continuation of the Calcada dos Crucos, where the market people principally 
assemble. At the top is situated the beautiful church of the Clericos. From 
the part where these two streets divide, the Rua das Hortas begins, and 
terminates in the Rua Nova Almada. Close to the Rua dentre Vendas, 
where small wines are sold, is a sort of covered passage, or little bazaar for 
inferior shops, where the country people are accustomed to make their pur- 
chases. In the Rua Largo da Feira, bread, dried fish, fruits and vegetables 
of all sorts, are sold, as well as groceries and other necessaries. The Rua 
das Flores, however, is the principal street at Porto, and in which the best 
shops in every line of business are situated, and where any article almost of 
English manufacture may be procured. At an ‘ Armazem de Papel de todas 
a ee: we observed a shield of the Norwich Union fire office placed over 
the door. In the Rua des Domingos are the bank or Caixa Filial do Banco 
de Lisboa, the grand front of the Dominican convent, and principal entrance 
into their church. At the end of the Rua das Flores, and overlooking the 
