at they were done by inferior Flemish painters visiting the
country, and are therefore the lees of the Flemish school, not the
flower of a national one. Universal belief among the Portuguese
attributes them to Gran Vasco, a master whose very existence is
mythical, and who if he had lived several lives could not have painted
all the works of various styles which are ascribed to him. That the
artistic sense was not lacking in the Portuguese people is abundantly
shown in their architecture, in their repousse-work of the fifteenth
century and the carvings in wood and stone. The church and convent at
Belem, the work of this period, are ornamented by Gothic stone-work of
exquisite richness and fertility of invention. The church is unfinished,
like the epoch it commemorates. To an age of activity and conquest
succeeded one of gloom and depression. The last of the kings whom the
nation had leaned on, while it supported them so loyally, had fallen at
Alcazar, and in the struggle which ensued for the succession Portugal
fell an easy prey to the strongest claimant. Philip II. strengthened his
claim to the vacant throne by sending an army of twenty thousand men
into the country under the command of the duke of Alva, and the other
heirs were too weak or too divided to oppose him. The discoveries and
conquests made by Portugal had laid the foundations of riches and power
for other nations: her own immediate benefit from them was over. The
period of prosperous repose which may be expected to follow one of great
national activity was denied to her. When the house of Braganza
recovered its rights, the impulse to creative art was extinct.

[Illustration: CLOISTERS OF BELEM CONVENT.]

Though it was as a maritime power that Portugal rose to its greatest
height, it has been from time immemorial an agricultural nation, and the
mass of its people are engaged in tilling the soil. They are a cheerful,
industrious race, who, far from meriting Lord Byron's contemptuous
epithet of "Lusitanian boors," are gifted with a natural courtesy and
refinement of manner. A New-England farmer would be tempted to follow
the poet's example and regard them with contempt: weighed in his
balance, they would certainly be found wanting. There is no
public-school system in operation, and the Portuguese farmer is not
likely to be able to read or sign his name. But the want of literature
is not felt in a Southern country, where social intercourse is far more
cultivate