THE SANTA CLARA CONVENT.

67

presides, not as a skeleton, but as the most excellent Master, to the All-Seeing Eye, ready, with a friendly hand, to initiate the tried apprentice to the next degree.

From the cemetery ascending a little farther, the sight was gladdened on every side by the vine and fruit-planted terraces that wreathed the hills far and near with beauty, while over the walls and amid the trellaces of nearer gardens, were blooming flowers, that made the air redolent of their thousand reviving sweets. We wound around the hill, as it were upon galleries of the city, and came to the rear of the celebrated Santa Clara Convent, which, with the convent of the Encarnercion, near the Church of the Virgin, are the only ones on the island now inhabited by

nuns.

The author of Ship and Shore, has wrapped a storied interest about the Santa Clara Convent, and touched it with the glowing tints of romance, by his account of the pretty nun Clementina Maria, of whom he says, "the veil may never shadow a sweeter countenance, nor convent wall imprison a purer heart." But, however interesting the poetry of Clementina's history may have been, if the many-tongued scandal of the place be true, the sequel should be shaded by a deeper gloom than the black veil of her now irrevocable vow.

Our friend kindly led us into the court yard, and, being known to the abbess, obtained an entrance for us to the reception room. It was a neatly furnished parlour, from which the visiters might see and converse, through a large double grated window, with the fair devotees. A train of these soon appeared in their gloomy hoods and

frocks of black, and bearing each the beautiful feather flowers of her own handy work to vend.

They could speak only Portuguese, but they very affably aided our imperfect understanding of their tongue, and, by the eloquence of other features, we talked and smiled and jested together with ease and pleasure. We also bought their pretty flowers, and although the iron bars effectually intercepted any more tender advances, yet we dared presume by the arch leer of one or two, that they were not very misanthropic. However, if all were of my taste, those virgins generally would need no other barrier to protect their virtue than their own forms and faces; though, I must admit, that if compared only with the sallow, mole-marked brunettes of Funchal which I saw, there were two or three beautiful nuns.

There was one nun in particular, who was quite engaging. She had no Grecian cast of features, but her figure was symmetrical, her complexion unusually fair, and her countenance was enlivened by a sparkling eye, and the flitting hues of feeling. Indeed I felt half impelled to flirt with her. I even went so far at the first interview, as to obtain her prettiest flower, exchange names and glances with her, and propose to become a friar for her sake.

She blushed becomingly; but our friendly interview had evidently excited the jealousy of the rival flower-venders, and induced me to suspect that if the dear creatures had in fact voluntarily dammed up the outlet of the natural feelings within them, the fountains were still as full as ever, and little purified from the mire of passion.

As we glided out, I threw back a parting salute

ENGLISH HOSPITALITY.

69

to my fair Genoviva, for such was her name, and from that tomb of living hearts, went to visit the English Cemetery-the tombs of the less mournful dead.

There is an orange tree in the English Cemetery, from which has arisen the saying among the citizens, when a funeral passes: "there is one going to sleep under the orange tree." The monuments are of sculptured marble, and, embosomed as they are amid paths of the funeral cypress, and beds of flowers, they form an inviting retreat to the meditative mind. The burial place for strangers is near by, and rather surpasses the former in richness and taste. They are both quite small, but justly considered objects of interest and pride, as is also the neat Episcopal Church, situated in a garden.

It was not long after our first visit to the convent of Santa Clara, that two of us happily met with Mr. P., a very polite English gentleman, and one of the most influential among the twenty British merchants by whom the trade of Funchal is chiefly carried on. This gentleman on account of his tolerance and generosity, was a special favourite of the Catholic vicar-general. The vicar had that day invited Mr. P. with his family to dine in the convent, and this kind gentleman tendered us his influence to procure admission for ourselves after four o'clock. This was indeed an unexpected- an unparalleled favour, and, while we feared a failure, we felt grateful for the hope given us.

Previous to the reinstatement of Don Pedro's party, or about 1834, there were one thousand and more priests, friars, and curates, among the one hundred and ten thousand people of Madeira; but

at that time the monasteries were broken up, and all the beggarly clergy were expelled, excepting seventy priests, and twenfy-four members of the dean chapter, and the present vicar-general, whose right and rank, with a reduced salary, was allowed to continue during his life-time. Since that occurrence, the vicar has evinced more liberality to the Protestant Funchalese than was ever known before.

The reader may be assured that my friend and myself, accompanied by a young protegé of Mr. P. who kindly guided us before, were promptly at the convent before four, and waiting impatiently at the revolving shutter by which communication is held with the abbess within. Very soon the ponderous double doors were opened, and there were assembled many of the nuns for our reception. They were clad, as in the morning, with black glazed muslin, with a square breast-plate rising from the girdle. The black veil was thrown back, and the head-dress, with a conical point tapering over the forehead, came close under the chin, but was slightly relieved by a margin of white cambric that bordered the face.

My pretty Genoviva welcomed me cordially with a press of the hand; and as I boldly presented her with a pink and a rose, which I had brought for the purpose, she blushed beautifully and smiled; for she understood the language of flowers, and the compliment of the jest.

I turned an eye for my friend: he was close by me in the group, and beguiled by the smiles and graces of a nun, more beautiful and attractive than any I had seen-more beautiful indeed than one in hundreds of those I had ever met of her sex. Presently the word and impression past that

this fair object of admiration was Maria Clementina. My friend seemed not to doubt the identity at all, and was delighted; while the pretty nun also favoured the current surmise. My friend had a message to deliver from Mrs. R., the wife of our commodore, and the friend of Clementina, during the visit to Madeira a few years before. Another one called his attention a moment, and before he could turn to address his compliments and message to Clementina as he supposed, the sprightly girl was flown, and lost amid the winding passages, chapels, galleries, and gardens of that old and to us intricate convent.

The party now were in motion, and we all passed in cheerful procession through several narrow passage ways that led us upon a pleasant interior veranda, surrounding a pretty, central garden. The ballustrade on every side was hung with flowers and shrubbery; and with the fragrance and the beauty, there seemed to be a soothing, peaceful influence breathed with the soft air, that might well persuade a pensive mind to call that home; particularly if it were a tender female, who like Rebecca in "Ivanhoe," had been forth upon the watery waste of life, and found no resting place for her affections. For to woman confinement is soon tolerable, and if the love that is her soul, as it is her Maker's, is slighted in the world, a cloister is far more congenial to her than freedom.

It is not, however, to such a place that the motto of this chapter invites those who are tired of the cares, and mocking allurements of the world. It is to a better, a holier, a happier solitude that the poet invites. It is to the wilds, and groves of Nature,