Lisbon, capital of Portugal, and the Tagus River, four leagues from the Ocean, thirty-four leagues SW of Coimbra, sixty leagues NW of Seville, one hundred six leagues SW of Madrid.

The town is 12°57'45" further east than Paris; lat. 38°45'25" according to the observations of M. Couplet, made on site in 1698 and recorded in the memoirs of the Academy of Sciences, year 1700, page 175.

Long. 10.49 according to the observations of Jacobey, reported in les Transactions philosophiques and approved by M. de Lisle in the mémoires de l'académie royale des Sciences.

Long. according to M. Cassini, 9°6'30" lat. 38°43' and according to M. Couplet, 38°45'25".

Easterly long. according to M. Monnier, 8°30' lat. 38°42'20".

M. Bradley has established 9°7'30" or O. H. 36'30" as the difference in longitude between London and Lisbon . See les Transactions philosophiques , n° 394.

This town is the normal residence of the king and the court, seat of the premier parliament of the kingdom, called the relaçao , with an archbishopric, whose archbishop assumes the title of patriarch, a university, a customs office which generates a large portion of the king's income, and a port on the Tagus approximately 4 leagues long, considered among the best and most famous in Europe, although it is sometimes exposed to violent storms.

This town formerly formed a brilliant amphitheater, constituted by its position on seven mountains, from which the view extends over the full breadth of the Tagus, the countryside and the sea. As little as six years ago, the city boasted of the solidity of its fortresses and castle, the beauty of its public squares and buildings, its churches, its palaces, particularly the residence of the king. Indeed, it was justly regarded as one of the great cities of Europe and a prodigious commercial center. All these beautiful things were erased from the book of life by a revolutionary event both prompt and unexpected.

" Lisbon was; it is no longer," says a letter informing us that an earthquake had taken place 1 November 1755 and had reduced it to a second Herculaneum. But since hope exists today that the city will be extracted from its ruins and even returned to its former splendor, we will leave the curtain closed for a moment on the frightful perspective that destroyed it, in order to say a few words about its past and the diverse transformations it has suffered, leading up to the recent catastrophe, the date of which we have just mentioned.

Although I am deeply touched by its misfortunes, I cannot situate its origins in the time of Ulysses nor believe that that hero, after the destruction of Troy, established its foundations, in such a way that the town was subsequently called Ulyssipone or Ulyssipo . Beyond the fact that Ulysses probably never left the Mediterranean, the true name of this town was Olyssipo , as it appears in the following transcription, which was found there: Imp. Caes. M. Julio. Philipp. Fel. Aug. Pontif. Man. Trib. Pot. II. P. P. Cons. III. Fel. Jul. Olissipo . This inscription confirms the fact that Lisbon , after the arrival of a Roman colony, adopted the name Felicitas Julia ; and this sufficiently establishes its ancient origins.

It has been attacked several times, conquered and reconquered by various peoples. D. Ordogno III, who reigned in the tenth century, mastered the town and razed it. It had hardly been rebuilt when the Moors grabbed it. D. Henri recaptured it at the beginning of the twelfth century and it soon fell under the rule of the Saracens. It was the time of the Crusades; D. Alphonso organized one to extricate it from the hands of the infidels. In 1145 a large fleet put together by the Flemish, the English and the Germans entered the Tagus, attacked the Moors and captured Lisbon from them. As soon as the count of Portugal took possession of the town, he settled it with Christians and made it his capital instead of Coïmbra as was previously the case. A foreigner named Gilbert was mitered as the first bishop. Henri, king of Castille, subjugated it to his crown in 1373. It later returned to Portuguese control and remained in their power until the duke of Alba, victorious over D. P. d'Achuna, brought it under Spanish domination. At last, during the revolution of 1640, the duke of Braganza was proclaimed king of Portugal in Lisbon and adopted the name Jean IV.

His successors have maintained their power until the present time. Charmed by the mildness of the climate and, so to speak, the perpetual springtime, which produces flowers in the middle of winter, they expanded this capital of their domains, covered the seven hills, and extended it to the bank of the Tagus. It embraced within its walls a large number of superb buildings, several public squares, a castle overlooking it, a well-furnished artillery arsenal, a vast customs office, forty parish churches, not including those in the monasteries, several magnificent hospitals, and nearly thirty thousand houses, which collapsed in the terrible earthquake, the story of which makes even those nations tremble that are best protected against such catastrophes.

The morning of 1 November 1755, at 9:45, was the precise time of this tragic phenomenon that causes curious mindes to reflect and sensitive souls to cry. I will leave speculation to physicists, and to historians of the country I will grant the right to paint such grave disasters. Quaeque ipsa misserima vidi, & quorum pars magna fui [ And I myself saw these most miserable things, and I was a great part of them ; this is a slightly modified quote from Virgil, The Aeneid , II.4-5], wrote a foreign woman, 4 November, in a letter penned in the midst of the fields where she had taken refuge, five miles from the spot where Lisbon had been three days earlier.

The small number of houses in this large city that escaped the various shakings of the earthquakes in 1755 and 1756 were devoured by flames or pillaged by brigands. The center of Lisbon , in particular, was ravaged in an indescribable way. All the major shops were overthrown or reduced to ash; fire consumed merchandise worth more than forty million cruzados , most of which belonged to the English. The damage to churches, palaces and houses amounted to more than fifty million of the same currency, and it was estimated that the number of people who perished in the ruins of this capital or in the fire, was between fifteen and twenty thousand souls.

All the major powers expressed in letters to His Most Faithful Highness [S. M. T. F.] the sorrow they felt at this sad event. The King of England—more closely linked in friendship and by commercial interests—sent, for the relief of the suffering, vessels loaded with gold and provisions, which arrived at the Tagus at the beginning of Jan. 1756, and his charitable gifts were given to the King of Portugal. They consisted of thirty thousand pounds sterling of gold, twenty thousand pounds sterling in pieces of eight, six thousand barrels of salt meat, four thousand barrels of butter, a thousand sacks of biscuit, twelve hundred barrels of rice, ten thousand quintals of flour, ten thousand quintals of wheat, in addition to a considerable number of hats, stockings and shoes. Such considerable aid, distributed with both economy and equity, saved the lives of the inhabitants of Lisbon , renewed their depleted strength, and inspired courage in them to rebuild their walls, their houses and their churches.

Let us finish this interesting article on Lisbon by saying a word about Abarbanel, Govea, Lobo and, above all, Camoens, who hailed from this city.

Rabbi Isaac Abarbanel distinguished himself in his commentary on the Old Testament, by its simplicity, by his judicious attachment to the literal meaning of the text, and by his gentleness and charity for the Christians who had persecuted him. He died in Venice in 1508, at the age of sixty-eight.

Antoine de Govea is held to be the best jurist in Portugal; his treatise de jurisdictione is the most respected of all his works. He died in 1565.

Father Jérôme Lobo, Jesuit, ended his days in 1678, at the age of eight-five, after spending thirty years in Ethiopia. We owe to him the best account we have of Abyssinia; it has been translated into our language by the abbé Le Grand and was printed in Paris in 1728, in -4°.

But the famous Camoens has done eternal honor to his homeland with his epic poem the Luziade. His life and misfortune are well known. Born in Lisbon in 1524 or thereabouts, he took up arms and lost an eye in combat against the Moors. He traveled to the Indies in 1553, offended the Viceroy, and was exiled. He left Goa and took refuge in a deserted corner of the world on the Chinese border. It was there that he composed his poem; the subject is the discovery of a new land of which he himself had been a witness. Even if one does not approve of the misplaced erudition that he flaunts in this poem with respect to the Savages, and even if one must condemn the way he mixes together pagan fables and Christian truths, at least one cannot help but admire the fecundity of his imagination, the richness of his descriptions, the variety and brilliance of his images.

It is said that he nearly lost this fruit of his genius while traveling to Macau. His ship went down during the crossing, but Camoens, imitating Caesar, had the presence of mind to preserve his manuscript by holding it in one hand above the water while he swam with the other. Upon return to Lisbon in 1569, he spent ten unhappy years and finished his life in a hospital in 1579. Such was the fate of the Portuguese Virgil.