LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 91 



showed a friendship for us as though our acquaintance had been of 

 very long standing. My little boy was so fond of this amiable 

 gentleman, and so devoted to His Eminence, that he would be in 

 the Propaganda whenever an opportunity offered. 



" But the church of the Gesu was the chief place of our daily 

 resort. My little boy might be said to have lived in the convent. 

 Its professed fathers and its lay brothers were unbounded in their 

 acts of friendship to him, and in imparting to him instructions the 

 most invaluable and important at his tender time of life. The 

 1 English angelino/ as these good religious called him, never appeared 

 to such advantage as when engaged in the sacred ceremonies at the 

 church of the Jesuits. The decorum which is punctually observed 

 in this splendid edifice renders it a place of universal resort, whilst 

 the punctuality in the daily performance of divine service is beyond 

 all praise. The doors are opened precisely at five o'clock of every 

 morning in the year, but many masses are said before that hour. 



" I would often in the morning, whilst waiting for the opening of 

 the church doors, ask some of the good souls assembled there, what 

 it was that made the Jesuits such universal favourites witrrthe people. 

 I invariably received for answer that, although the other religious 

 orders were very good and attentive to them, yet the fervour, and 

 charity, and attendance, of these fathers were carried to a still higher 

 degree j and that, during the cholera, their exertions were beyond 

 all praise, for they were seen in the most infected parts of the city, 

 both day and night, performing acts of charity and piety in every 

 shape imaginable. 



" Formerly the church of the Jesuits possessed many fine paintings 

 by masters of the first celebrity, but barbarity and injustice deprived 

 the fathers of these inestimable treasures. The cause of their disap- 

 pearance from the corridors of the Gesu does honour to the heart of 

 man. They were sold for the maintenance of the aged Portuguese 

 and Spanish missioners who had been most cruelly deprived of every 

 means of support, and driven into exile, by D'Aranda and Pombal,* 



* Pombal, the Portuguese Prime Minister, prevailed upon the King to issue 

 an edict, September 3, 1759, confiscating the goods of all the Jesuits in Portugal, 

 and banishing them the kingdom. They were put on board vessels, and were 

 landed in a state of destitution on the shores of Italy. A similar decree was 



