and the island of Caprea, with a pale violet inexpressibly soft and beautiful; Portici glittering in white splendour over the fatal lavas that buried Herculaneum seven times beneath their destructive floods; St Jorio hanging on the venerable sides of the fertile Somma, amid vineyards and groves of citron; the throng of shipping in the mole, whose masts rise like a forest; the crowded Chiaia, the parade of carriages, like one vast procession; the busy Lazzaroni of St Lucia, and the idle herd of soldiers in the opposite barracks; the rich melody of the evening band, whose deep swelling notes seem wafted with the cool breezes from the sea; the currents of liquid lava that course each other down the shaggy cheeks of Vesuvius, and, as the sun sinks lower, assume a brighter hue which, while I write, increases to vivid fire: all these form such a spectacle-so interesting a prospect, and so enlivening a scene, that it baffles all description, unless one's pen possessed the power of pouring forth "thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.”

“July 24, 1793.-While we were at tea in the Albergo Reale, such a scene presented itself as every one agreed was beyond any thing of that kind they had ever seen before. It was caused by the moon, which suddenly rose behind the convent upon Vesuvius; at first, a small bright line, silvering all the clouds, and then a full orb that threw a blaze of light across the sea, through which the vessels passed and repassed in a most beautiful manner. At the same time, the lava, of a different hue, spread its warm tint upon all the objects near it, and threw a red line across the bay, directly parallel to the reflection of the moon's rays. It was one of those scenes which one dwells upon with regret, because one feels the impossibility of retaining the impression it affords. It remains in the memory, but then all its outlines and its colours are so faintly touched, that the beauty of the spectacle fades away with the landscape; which, when covered by the clouds of the night and veiled in darkness, can never be revived, by the pencil, the pen, or by any recourse to the traces it has left upon the mind. pp. 112, 113.

A very severe disappointment here befell him, the effects of which clouded his spirits for a long time afterwards, and perhaps were not effaced until he accomplished his great expedition. Lord Berwick proposed to him a visit to Egypt and the Holy Land, since become, from the events of the war, frequented countries, and almost brought within the pale of the Grand Tour, but at that time almost as rarely visited as the South Sea islands. It may easily be imagined with what joy this scheme was embraced, and with how much earnestness Dr Clarke devoted himself to make the preparations for the excursion. After five weeks thus spent, and when upon the eve of embarking, his Lordship was necessarily detained by some private business, to expedite which, and the more effectually to secure their departure for the Levant, Dr Clarke undertook to

set out himself for England, and transact the affair which caused the delay. He travelled rapidly home, hardly allowing himself time for rest or refreshment, and, encountering many accidents and even dangers on the road, repaired to Shropshire and finished the business; came back to London, and, when about to set out for Naples, received letters which announced that the plan was abandoned-through the influence, as he believed, of persons unfavourably disposed towards him, and who took advantage of his absence to indispose Lord Berwick towards him. Our Author, however, informs us, that the names of those whom he suspected are carefully erased from his journal, with every allusion to the cause of his disappointment, and that ample justice is done to Lord Berwick's liberal conduct throughout their connexion. With a heavy heart he returned to Italy by the Tyrol, and stopping a few days at Venice, joined Lord Berwick at Naples, and came with him to Rome where he passed the remainder of the winter, and once more journeyed back to England, where he arrived in June. This volume contains several very interesting letters written during the season we have just referred to, and some extracts from his journal. We extract his remarks upon the plain of Lombardy.

"May 11.-Made a long journey from St Marcello to Rhegio. The first two posts from St Marcello, we ascended the whole way to Bosco-lungo, which is upon the highest part of the Apennines; the snow was still lying upon the tops. From Bosco lungo, to which place Lord Berwick and I walked, we ran down to Pieve Pelago, and continued along the tops of the Apennines for some time overlooking them all, as upon the waves of a troubled sea. The moment we left Penna di Mazzoni, we beheld the vast extended plain of Lombardy, the finest, the most fertile, of any in the world. It appears exactly like the ocean, and seems to rise from the eye like the sea. Indistinctly, at a distance, we saw the Alps skirting the utmost limits of the plain to the north, and may conceive the rapture of Hannibal and his soldiers, in the contemplation of such an enchanting garden. It may be compared to the delightful residence of our first parents, where the whole is so like a paradise, and the Po and the Tessin emulate the mazy windings of the Tigris and the Euphrates. It is laden with the choicest fruits, abounding in corn, oil, and wine; a land flowing with milk and honey. The Campagna Felice, that delightful and fertile spot, is but insignificant in comparison with the plain of Lombardy. But after all this, how melancholy are the reflections that arise in passing over it! The poor peasant of these rich domains, whose cottage is surrounded with all the luxuriance of abundant harvest, whose little garden overflows with the purple vintage of the grape, and who sleeps each night amid the choicest productions of the earth, has not a morsel of

bread to support his children from famine, nor one drop of the wine he gathers to moisten his parched lips. See him, poor unhappy man, without one ray of joy, through all the years of his servitude, to interrupt the continued tenor of despondency! See how he toils to bring his harvest to perfection, and see him among the foremost in conveying it away to the crowded granaries of his master! See him busy in clearing away every part of the produce his hand has cherished and brought to perfection, and then see him call together his poor miserable family, and sitting on the bare ground, distribute among them a few crude olives, a hard unwholesome diet, to alleviate the bitter pangs of hunger!

"No pipe is heard there to gladden the valley, neither is the festive board once cheered by the enlivening accompaniment of the song or the dance. One severe, uninterrupted poverty continues throughout these fertile, luxuriant plains. So unerring are the shafts of despotism, so oppressive their weight, so blighting their influence. Oh happy Britain, these are scenes that make us look to our country with delight! Throughout all Europe, in all the countries of the world, there is not a people so protected by their laws, and so fortunate in their government as ours. They say living at home fills us with prejudice; they mistake, it is travelling makes John Bulls of us all. It is experience of the miseries abroad that makes us proud of the blessings at home." pp. 179-181.

The advantageous comparison of our laws and government with those of the Milanese in 1791, and, we may unhappily add, with the same institutions since the restoration of the detested yoke of Austria suspended every effort towards improvement, is undeniably just; but where could Dr Clarke have learnt the great superiority which this passage is intended to imply, of our peasantry over those of Italy, in the share that falls to their lot of the ordinary comforts of life? Assuredly no Lombard lives in a way forming a greater contrast with the abundance that surrounds him, than our labourers in the agricultural districts of England, to say nothing of the still more wretched pittance received by the Irish peasant, who toils for the proprietors, lay and ecclesiastical, of overgrown estates in the most fruitful and most wretched part of the British dominions. Indeed, we need go no further than the volume before us, to find examples within the four seas of the effects produced on the condition of the people, by that greatest of all the political curses which have afflicted humanity, the feudal system. One of the numbers given by way of specimen, of a periodical paper which Dr Clarke carried on for about half a year, under the title of the Réveur, was written after passing some time in Wales, as tutor in a family of distinguished worth and the highest respectability;

and it exhibits the impression made upon his mind by the condition in which he had found the people of the principality.

The pride of the Welsh is not merely genealogical; neither is it altogether the result of those feelings, which arise from a conscious. ness of being the only remaining stock of true Britons. It is in great measure founded upon the arbitrary spirit of the feudal system. That pride, which formerly taught the lord to look down with contempt upon his vassal, still inclines every Welshman to consider himself as a being of a different nature from those whom Providence has placed below him. In fact, almost all Wales is a remnant of the feudal system. Its inhabitants consist of rich and poor, with little or no medium. It is the great man and his dependant, the lord and his vassal.

The clergy, who in other states form a respectable, and I may add an independent part of society, are by no means of that description in Wales. They are chiefly selected from the lower orders; from the cottage of the husbandman, or the offspring of the peasant. I make use of the terms husbandman and peasant, because those who bear the denomination of farmer throughout the country, differ but little from an English day-labourer. They possess a few acres of ground, usually appropriated to potatoes and barley; with a cottage by no means superior, and frequently inferior, to the little tenement of an English pauper. Hence it is, that at the houses of their principal people, the clergy deem it no degradation to associate with the upper servants, to dine at their table, to drink ale in their kitchen, and now and then to be admitted, as a mark of peculiar condescension, to the presence of their master. Their female relations are not unfrequently servants in those families, acting in the capacity of la dies' maids, housekeepers, &c.

I do not remember to have experienced a greater shock, than I once felt, at sitting down to table with a young clergyman who had been educated at the University, and whose sister acted as servant in the very family with which he was invited to dine. I well knew the master of that family possessed a benevolence of heart, with a de gree of urbanity and affability of manners, rarely to be paralleled. It was to me a perfect paradox. More intimate acquaintance with the manners of a people, to which I was then a stranger, has since unravelled the mystery. It was not that a clergyman in Wales was exposed to a trial, which an English clergyman would have been unable to support; but that the Welsh clergy are a different set of men, and are selected from an order of society, inferior to that class, from which the English usually derive their candidates for holy orders.' pp. 198, 199.

The samples given of this periodical work are calculated to convey a very favourable impression of its merits. The subjects appear to have been principally taken from the author's travels, and to have been handled in a most lively and interest

ing manner. The grand ceremony of the Papal Benediction, described by so many travellers, we venture confidently to affirm was never so powerfully sketched, or with such picturesque effect, as by Dr Clarke in the following passage.

"We hastened to St Peter's. The concourse was amazing. From. the castle of Angelo to the façade of the church, one might have walked on the roofs of the carriages, so closely were they jammed together. This amazing procession seemed to move slowly on like one undivided mass. The foot passengers were exposed to great danger, there being no separate pavement, as in London, appropriated to their use.

"It was a pleasing sight for Englishmen, to behold their Prince the most conspicuous in the middle of this prodigious throng. His Royal Highness Augustus Frederic* was elevated in his phaton above them all; while the populace, among whom he is universally and deservedly beloved, rent the air with shouts of Viva! Viva! Il Principe d'Inghilterra !'

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"Arriving at the Major Duomo's, we found a brilliant assemblage of foreigners, in magnificent dresses, mixed with a large party of our own countrymen; who were regaling themselves with chocolate, ices, lemonade, and a profusion of other refreshments. I made my escape as soon as possible through a window, to the roof of the colonnade; and climbing one of those enormous statues which ornament the Peristyle, placed myself above it, like Anchises of old, upon the shoulders of Eneas.

"It is impossible to describe the scene which presented itself before me; and were it otherwise, imagination is incapable of conceiving so sublime a spectacle. The inhabitants of the whole earth seemed assembled in one vast multitude; while the murmur of innumerable tongues, in different languages, ascended like the roaring of an ocean. Confusion could scarcely be greater in the plains of Shinar, when the descendants of Noah fled from the superstructure of their ignorance and folly.As far as the eye could reach, the tops of all the houses in Rome were laden with spectators. A single square, in the spacious area below, was preserved free from the multitude, by the whole body of the Pope's military, who formed themselves into a quadrangle. Every other spot was occupied; and so closely were the people united, that their heads in motion resembled the waves of the sea. The variety of colours blended together, and glittering in the sun, produced an effect of equal novelty and splendour. It surpassed all I had ever seen or imagined; nor do I believe any country upon the globe ever produced its parallel.

"While I was occupied in the contemplation of this amazing spectacle, a loud flourish of trumpets, from two opposite sides of the area, announced the approach of cavalry. First entered the nobles,

* His Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex.