Page:Historical account of Lisbon college.djvu/131

 memories there remains vividly impressed the image of his venerable and stately if somewhat stern and rugged presence. The future prospects too of the Establishment were bright and hopeful. The fabric had been enlarged to the dimensions which it at present retains, providing accommodation for some fifty students and Superiors, the wise administration of the last two Presidents had freed it in a great measure from those financial difficulties which formerly had much crippled its usefulness, and the downfall of Napoleon restored to Europe what seemed likely to prove a permanent peace.

The departure of Dr. Buckley to England, in 1818, left Edmund Winstanley and Thomas Hurst the only two Superiors, and upon them therefore devolved all the professorial duties of the Establishment. The rapid increase however of the number of students after the reconstitution of the College, soon made it necessary for them to seek assistants from among the inmates, accordingly Father Le Clerc by virtue of a special dispensation owing to his being under the canonical age, was ordained priest and elected Superior in 1822, and in 1829 was nominated Vice-President in succession to Father Hurst who received the appointment of Confessarius.

In the year 1832, a resolution was adopted by the Superiors, eminently conducive to the comfort, pleasure and health of the students. It was decided to rent a villa in Palma de Cima, some three miles out of the city, in order that during the heat of the summer months a division of the students might go thither in alternate weeks, and thus whilst continuing their studies derive the benefit of a change to the country. This villa pleasantly situated in its own gardens and grounds, from the locality in which it was placed, came to be familiarly designated Palma, and for those Lisbonians whose memories can carry them back to the early forties and fifties, next to the Quinta there is no name round which cluster so many pleasing reminiscences as that of Palma.

Those only who have had experience of the close