he time when the few
good pictures which the country possesses were painted, and when much of
the splendid church plate which still exists was wrought.

The sixty years of the Spanish captivity, as it was called, from 1580 to
1640, were naturally comparatively barren of all good work. After the
restoration of peace and a revival of the Brazilian trade had brought
back some of the wealth which the country had lost, the art of building
had fallen so low that of the many churches rebuilt or altered during
the eighteenth century there is scarcely one possessed of the slightest
merit.

The most important events of the eighteenth century were the great
earthquakes of 1755 and the ministry of the Marques de Pombal.

Soon after the beginning of the nineteenth century came the invasion led
by Junot, 1807, the flight of the royal family to Brazil, and the
Peninsular War. Terrible damage was done by the invaders, cart-loads of
church plate were carried off, and many a monastery was sacked and
burned. Peace had not long been restored when the struggle broke out
between the constitutional party under Pedro of Brazil, who had resigned
the throne of Portugal in favour of his daughter, Maria da Gloria, and
the absolutists under Dom Miguel, his brother.

The civil war lasted for several years, from May 1828, when Dom Miguel,
then regent for his niece, summoned the Cortes and caused himself to be
elected king, till May 1834, when he was finally defeated at Evora
Monte and forced to leave the country. The chief events of his
usurpation were the siege of Oporto and the defeat of his fleet off Cape
St. Vincent in 1833 by Captain Charles Napier, who fought for Dona Maria
under the name of Carlos de Ponza.

One of the first acts of the constitutional Cortes was to suppress all
the monasteries in the kingdom in 1834. At the same time the nunneries
were forbidden to receive any new nuns, with the result that in many
places the buildings have gradually fallen into decay, till the last
surviving sister has died, solitary and old, and so at length set free
her home to be turned to some public use.[3]

Since then the history of Portugal has been quiet and uneventful. Good
roads have been made--but not always well kept up--railways have been
built, and Lisbon, once known as the dirtiest of towns, has become one
of the cleanest, with fine streets, electric lighting, a splendidly
managed system of electric tramways, and with funiculars and lifts