Читать книгу The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 20, No. 560, August 4, 1832 - Various - Страница 3

PORTUGAL

(Abridged chiefly from the Rev. Mr. Kinsey's "Portugal Illustrated.")

Spaniards and Portuguese.—"Strip a Spaniard of all his virtues, and you make a good Portuguese of him," says the Spanish proverb. I have heard it said more truly, "Add hypocrisy to a Spaniard's vices, and you have the Portuguese character." These nations blaspheme God by calling each other natural enemies. Their feelings are mutually hostile; but the Spaniards despise the Portuguese, and the Portuguese hate the Spaniards.—Southey.

Portugal.—Situated by the side of a country just five times its size, Portugal, but for the advantageous position of its coast, the good faith of England, and the weakness of its hostile neighbour, impassable roads, and numerous strong places, would long since have returned to the primitive condition of an Iberian province; but its separate existence as a nation has been preserved to it by the strength of the British alliance being brought into a glorious co-operation with all its own internal means of defence.—Kinsey.

Column of Disgrace.—About the middle of the last century, the Duke of Aviero was detected in a conspiracy with the Jesuits in Portugal, and accordingly executed. His house, at Belem, was levelled to the ground at the time of the Duke's decapitation, and on the site was erected a column of disgrace, which still remains, though some shops have been erected beside it to hide the inscription; a just symbol of the conduct of the nation on this subject, for what they cannot alter they strive to conceal.