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PORTUGAL. 83 PORTUGAL. “ Her hands it was whose patient skill should trace The finest broidery, weave the costliest lace ; But most of all—her first and dearest care— The office she would never miss or share, Was every day to weave fresh garlands sweet, To place before the shrine at Mary’s feet.” The Convent Child, Miss Procter. Point lace was made in Portugal as well as in Spain, and held in liigh estimation. There was no regular manufacture; it formed the amusement of the nuns, and of a few women who worked at their own houses. The sumptuary law of 1749 put an end to all luxury among the laity. Even those who exposed such wares as laces in the streets were ordered to quit the town. 31 In 1729, 32 when Barbara, sister of Joseph, King of Portugal, at seventeen years of age, married Ferdinand, Prince of Spain, before quitting Lisbon, she repaired to the church of the Madre de Dios, on the Tagus, and there solemnly offered to the Virgin the jewels and a dress of the richest Portuguese point she had worn on the Jay of her espousals. This lace is described as most magnificent, and was for near a century exhibited under a glass case to admiring eyes, till at the French occupation of the Peninsula the Buchesse d’Abrantes, or one of the imperial generals, is supposed to have made off with it. When Lisbon arose from her ashes after the terrible earthquake of 1755, the Marquis de Pombal founded large manufactures of lace, which were carried on under his auspices. Wraxall, in his “Memoirs,” mentions having visited them. The modern laces of Portugal and Madeira closely resemble those of Spain; the wider for flounces are of silk; much narrow is made after the fashion of Mechlin. Forty years ago a con siderable quantity of white coarse lace, very effective in pattern, was made in Lisbon and the environs: this was chiefly exported, via Cadiz, to South America. Both black and white are ex tensively made in the peninsula of Peniche, north of Lisbon (Kstremadura Province), and employ the whole female population. ^kigazin de Londres,” 1749. years, and retired to Portugal: whether 32 Mademoiselle Dumont, foundress of she there introduced her art is more than re Point de Prance Manufactory, in the the author can affirm, ne St.-Denis, quitted Paris after some G 2