PORTUGUESE JESUITS.
fT0 THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR.") SIR,—I may seem overbold to ask for standing-room amongst your corresrondents a second week in succession, but my theme is now quite another, and my claim depends on the very weight and fair intention of your own criticisms. I am no Jesuit (alas !), nor tutored by any Jesuit, neither do I hail from further north than England, but in the name of humour I beg to know what you find in the Times corre- spondent's account of the private rooms in the Jesuits' house in Lisbon to make them "ridiculous" in your eyes (Spectator, October 15th). If the joke is in the "Inquisitorial mysteries." for heaven's sake tell us what it is, and also what they are. If you cannot, I take leave to say the phrase is nothing but a vile vulgarism fit to play on the imagination of ignorant pre- judice, and, what is more, it stamps the whole report as essentially false, though it may be literally true, false with the falsity of a false light. Every reception-room in a large house with a gilt cornice is a " gilded salon," and the cooking facilities of " first-class restaurants " are found in workhouses, as being most economical and expeditious. Many persons think if that night, full of broken faith and cowardice and bloodshed, had a comic side, it was on the side of the Portuguese Army, the sharpshooters at least, wriggling on their stomachs up to their objective, a private clerical house, and after pouring in volleys, taking it by sudden storm, only to find it empty, just as though Jesuits of all men would wait to be murdered ! After this I quite believe the story of the Portuguese General haranguing his troops before action,— above all let them remember they were Portuguese, "and," the story goes on, "they did indeed, for they bolted at the first shot." I heard it from a Jesuit.—I am, Sir, &c.,
St. Charles' House, Brentwood.
EDWARD J. WATSON.
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