mory, when they will be forgot, or only remembered for their infamy. He had indeed too high an idea of the moral character of men; which, though an inftance of the uprightness of his own intentions, xpofed in the more to their treacherous defigns.

But as eminent talents, virtues, and attainments, feldom fail of raifing envy, it would be very unreasonable to form a character of him from the inhuman treatment he met with from various forts of nien; particularly the unprecedented cenfure which he unjustly underwent, and mercenary fcribblers employed against him. "He will appear to every unprejudiced and difcerning perfon to have been governed by an earnest and steady love of truth, liberty, his country, and mankind, in all the different periods and circumftances of his life; which ought to be the chief objects of every man's purfuit. To thefe he facrificed not only his private intereft, and the flattering fecular vices; but, as is known to his intimate friends, even his conftitution.

:

"He was a perfon of unlimited chrif. tian charity to men of all perfuafions, free from every degree of fuperftition, and had the utmoft abhorrence to all kinds of perfecution, as perfectly anti-christian he was always zealous to ferve his friend, and ready to forgive injuries, which generous chriftian principle the worst treatment could never extinguifh: his gratitude and generofity have many witneffes among the relatives and friends of his benefactors, as well as others.

"He owned no mafter but Chrift in his church and kingdom, and maintained that revealed religion did not fubvert, but affift natural. For thefe and the like fentiments, he was calumniated by the crafty, the ignorant, the envious, and bigoted; but his patience and fortitude will be ad mired by generations to come for as no man knew better the intereft of virtue and his country, fo none, perhaps, ever had greater refolution to promote it. This was well known to those who have had the honour of the greatest fhare of power and credit in the prefent and two preceding reigns.

The years of his retirement were spent to the nobleft purposes, the study of the facred oracles; in which province he fhined with a peculiar luftre. His profound kill and facility in handling thefe divine

themes, by the happieft mixture of reafon and oratory, was the admiration and delight of all that had a juft relish of them; and, I fpeak it from knowledge, the contemplations which filled his own mind with the highest rational pleasure, were of the Supreme Being, his moral government, particular providence, and difpenfations to mankind. We may view the picture of his mind in these pathetick and admirable lines wrote to his fon and heir, whom he tenderly loved, a few weeks before his death.

"The study of morality," fays he, is the nobleft of all other; thofe eternal truths that regulate the conduct of God and man. This alone can be called the fcience of life; will inftruct us how to act in this fcene with happiness and usefulnefs; to leave it with compofure, and be affociated in a future and better state to the beft moralifts and philofophers that ever lived; to the wifeft men, and the greatest benefactors of mankind; to confeffors and martyrs for truth and righteoufnefs; to prophets and apoftles; to cherubim and feraphim; to the Holy Spirit that fearches and knows the deep things of God; to Jefus the Mediator of the new covenant; and to God the Judge of all, who is before all, above all, and in us all.”

"His first and fteady view was always truth and right; and his fine genius and jutt fentiments gave him that diftinguifhing fhare in the esteem of the greatest and belt men this nation ever knew; which, together with his vindications of revelation, will make his name immortal.

"His conjugal friendship and affection was inviolable and manly; he was a peculiarly kind and tender parent, and the principles of religion and liberty, which he tock care to inftil in the minds of his children and fervants with a fuitable address and fingular perfpicuity, were jui and rational, worthy of God and the dignity of human nature. His ardent defire was, that they might be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth, and the love and practice of virtue. In a word, he was a ftrict obferver of the laws of God and his country; a fhining example of fobriety, regularity and justice; a terror to evil-doers, and a most affiduous and able patron of afflicted virtue, and the just and natural rights of mankind; religious without enthufiafm; zealous without bigotry; learned without pedantry.”

Befiles

Befides the works mentioned in the Biographia, Lord Barrington published at Utrecht, "Differtatio Philofophica In"auguratio de Theocratia Civili; quam 66 annuente fummo Numine, ex aucto"ritate magnifici D. Rectoris D. Her"manni Witfii S. S. Theol. Doctoris, "ejufdemque in Inclytâ Academia Ul"traje&trina Profefforis Ordinarii, et Ec"clefiæ ibidem Paftoris, nec non amplif"fimi Senatûs Academici Confenfit, Subtiliffimæque Facultatis Philofophica "Decreto, pro gradu Doctoratûs in Phi❝lofophia et Liberalium Artium Magif"terio, omnibufque prærogativis, hono"ribus et privilegiis rite ac legitime con"fequendis, publice propugnabit Johannes Shute Londino Anglus ad diem 12. "Octob. horis locoque folitis. 4to. 1697.

66

In the London Daily Poft 25th December 1734, is the following article:

In a letter from Shrivenham in Berks, it is faid of Lord Barrington, "He had not been right well fince he fell out of his chaife when at Berwick; he had fomething of a dropfy and an afthma, but was on horfeback in the fields the Wednesday before he died; on Thursday he eat a very hearty dinner, and at night played at cards; about ten he was feized with a chilnefs, and had like to have been carried off with fainting fits; on Saturday morning early he died."

After his death a marble monument to his memory, by Mr. Cragg of Oxford, was fet up in Shrivenham Church.

SIR,

April 20, 1791.

POSIDIPPUS, a comic Greek Poet, utters the following complaint on human life.

1. Through which of the paths of life is it eligible to pafs? In public affemblies are debates and troublesome affairs;

2. Domestic privacies are haunted with anxieties.

3. In the country is labour; 4. On the fea is terror.

5. In a foreign land, he that has money must live in fear, he that wants it muft pine in diftrefs.

6. Are you married, you are troubled with fufpicions;

7. Are you fingle, you languish in folitude.

8. Children occafion toil, and a childlefs life is a life of deftitution.

9. The time of youth is a time of folly; and grey hairs are loaded with infirmity.

10. This choice only, therefore, can be made, either never to receive being, or immediately to lose it.

METRODORUS, a Philofopher of Athens, has fhewn that life has pleasures as

Your conftant reader,

ZOSIMUS.

well as pains; and, with equal appearance of reafon, draws a contrary conclufion.

1. You may pals well through any of the paths of life. In public affemblies are honours and tranfactions of wisdom;

2. In domeftic privacy is ftilnefs and quiet.

3 In the country are the beauties of nature;

4. On the sea is the hope of gain. 5. In a foreign land, he that is rich is honoured, he that is poor may keep his poverty fecret.

6. Are you married, you have a cheerful house;

7. Are you fingle, you are unencumbered.

8. Children are objects of affection; to be without children, is to be without

care.

9. The time of youth is the time of vigour ; and grey hairs are made venerable by piety.

10. It will, therefore, never be a wif man's choice, either not to obtain existence or to lose it; for every fate of life has its felicity.

LETTER

EMBRACE the first opportunity of giving you a circumftantial detail of my journey to Mount Etna. Towards noon my fellow-traveller and I left Catania, accompanied by two muleteers. A number of ruftics, returning merrily from the town where they had been to fell their commodities, joined us. We presently got acquainted with them; they interefted them felves in our welfare, and I was never more pleased than to find how envious they were to give us the best advice respecting the inconveniences and dangers we fhould run from want of being previously informed; inconveniences to which foreigners are frequently expofed, especially in fo arduous a journey as that to Mount Etna. They pointed out to us the best means of avoiding every difagreeable occurrence; there was even an officious difpute among them refpecting the choice of a guide. They at laft agreed as to the perfon, who, for thirty tarini, would join us at Nicolofi, where the journey begins to be difficult. Thanks to the cares of these honeft ruftics, we escaped a variety of dangers, and had reafon to applaud the fidelity of our guide. The commencement of the journey had been fo highly extolled to us, that I expected to find a terreftrial paradife; our dfappointment was the greater as it afforded but little to please us. Here and there, however, we perceived, among the terrible torrents of lava, fertile countries; on one fide, all the horrors of deftruction; on the other, all the bleffings of Heaven united. But we fought in vain for that feducing picture of abundance and riches, which had been so boasted of. This difappointment served in the end to increafe our joy and astonishment, when, having advanced a few miles, we were ftruck with a moft magnificent change of fcene. Before us was the celebrated Volcano, roaring like thunder and emitting large maffes of fire; behind us, Catania, inundated by torrents of lava; and around us a fertile country, in whofe bofom the Goddess of Plenty feemed to have delighted to shed her horn.

We had no fooner quitted the walls of Catania than we entered a barren defert, and intolerable roads, where the lava had formed a kind of pavement, confifting of pieces of rocks and fuch a prodigious quantity of small ftones, that we were obliged to take every precaution to keep our mules from ftumbling. Meanwhile it is remark. able that this barren district, being a space VOL. XX.

of fix leagues from Catania to Sancta Lucia, or, as it is alfo called, Masca Lucia, fwarms with contented and cheerful inhabitants; from which we were led to prefage that the environs must be very flourishing. This defert is the unfortunate town that was deftroyed by the terrible explosion in the year 1669, which reached ten miles beyond Catania. Figure to yourself a torrent of fire fifteen miles long, fixteen or feventeen wide, and more than four foot thick. Conceive that you hear it roaring with an impetuous fury; that you fee it deftroying the habitations of a thousand fouls, and converting a whole country into a deluge of fire. Figure to yourself again that you fee it rifing above the walls of Catania, thence to pour itself with a tremendous crafh, and accompanied with a fhower of ftones, into the fea. A faithful map has been drawn of the difafters occafioned by this dreadful explosion, which in fo fhort a time transformed the delightful paradife at the foot of Mount Etna into a dreary wafte. The materials which the inhabitants, who fortunately escaped the danger, found, when the lava became cold, ferved them from time to time to build new habitations: from their perfevering induftry they have already loft fight of the calamities of their forefathers.-Lucia is a very populous country, and of a tolerable extent. The inhabitants derive their fubfiftence pa.. from a commerce, tolerably productive, which they carry on with thofe of Catania, but chiefly by the profufe expence of the rich Monks who live in the environs. The revenues of thefe monks are immense; but as they expend their wealth in the midft of thofe from whom they derive it, its circulation only ferves as a spur to the industry of the inhabitants. I do not mean to fay that a country filled with Monks is a happy country; it is however true, that in the country of which I fpeak the Monks are very ferviceable, and that it would be ruined if they were to be driven out of it. The majority of the convents belong to the King's domains, the rest are fiefs of the Barons. Under the power of the firft, no people can be happier, under that of the aft none are more to be pitied. The reafon is this: The Baron to whom the fiet belongs, fucks, as it were, the very blood of his vaffals: loaded with his booty, he eagerly repairs to the capital to live in fplendour, regardless whether the poor labourer

D

dies

dies of hunger. The Monks, it is true, feize whatever they can lay their hands upon; but as they ftray not from home, but live among the peaiants, the money does not go out of the country. If a new code of laws were to be eftablished in this country, the principal object of the Legiflator fhould be to put a top to the oppreffion of the Barons; this is the quarter from which the inhabitants receive the deepest wounds. I do not mean to fay, that, by little and little, the nails of the Monks may not alfo be pared; but if the Legiflator fet out upon the principle of fuppreffing them entirely, and leaving the other grievances in force, he would only reduce the inhabitants to beggary.

In the habitable part of Etna, Nature appears to have been more favourable to the female fex than to ours; and it is certain that the number of women is much greater than that of men. They are naturally mild and amiable, and of a fuperior character to the rest of the Sicil an women. Candour and cheerfulnefs are visible in their countenance, their leaft gefture fpeaks the ferenity of their minds, and their most trifling actions a deûre to oblige and be useful: a delightful character, and which feems to be the portion of all the female mountaineers of this country. We were frequently furrounded by a number of these women, who came to offer us the productions of the foil without exacting any reward, and fatisfied with a petty piece of money which we gave them in return. We met more than thirty in the road from St. Lucia returning from the vintage. Each carried upon her head a basket of rails, with which they nimbly pafied the rocks. We declared them to be our tributaries, and they gallantly paid the debt we demanded. I remarked, that in general the inhabitants of thefe countries are much more induftrious than the majority of the common people in the other parts of Sicily and Italy. The women in question, though they had difficult roads to pafs, and carried a confiderable burden on their heads, had not their hands idle; all of them, even the young girls who were as yet incapable of carry ing a basket, had a diftaff, with which they spun as they walked along; and fo accustomed were they to this occupation, that they pursued the fame even pace with as little interruption as if they had been wholly unemployed. I diftinguished many among them whom I conceived to be the finett women I had ever beheld. One particularly ftruck me. To the enchanting graces of Venus was added the ma

We had fcarcely loft fight of Mafca Lucia in our way to Nupololi, which is abou twelve miles from Catania, than we difcovered the fertile and fo highly vaunted countries of ina. It is here that the famous town of Hybla formerly food, and which ought not to be confounded with that of the fame name between Catania and Syracufe, the honey of which has been fo highly celebrated by the Ancients. It was in this country alfo, that Innefa and other towns were fituated, of which there remains not the lightest trace; by the different eruptions of Etna they have all been thrown down or burned, a fate to which all the prefent towns and buildings are fubject. This part of Ætna enjoys a perpetual fpring. Fruit-trees, of all kinds, grow in plains of clover. The perfumes that exhile from the trees, which are always in bloom, from the various flowers, from the forets of oranges and citrons, purify the fulphureous air with which the other countries about Ætna are infected. It is beautiful to obferve how the richness of the foil feems to brave the exterminating defpotifim of this fiery abyss: even where the principal and most recent eruptions have made their way, new bleffings fpring from the bofom of thele liquid flames. The caufe is lefs impene. trable than the inhabitants imagine. The ftrong wind which always blows round the fummit of Atna, drives the smoking ashes from the upper part of the volcano, covers the country, and foon affords an exuberant foil. The warm exhalations of

the

the lava transform the air into that of a hothoute. We may add, and the reflection is in my opinion juft, that the electric property of the air has a confiderable influence in fertilizing the foil: thus every flood of lava furnishes a hope of new bleffings. Strabo accounts in the fame manner for the fertility of this country. "When Neptune,' fays he, "wifhed the volcano to vomit, all the neighbouring country of Catania was covered with afhes; the country suffered for fome time; but when the prefcribed period was elapted, a new and more exuberant foil fprung out of thefe ahes. The vines grew better than before; they produced a more confiderable quantity of excellent fruit; the wine was fingularly delicious; the grafs, and the aromatic fhrubs, acquired fo nourishing a virtue, that the fheep burit with fat, and the thepherds were obliged every fortnight to bleed them in the ears*."

I can affert, from my own experience, that this country furnishes not only a pro. digious quantity of fruits, but that they are all very excellent. The raifins and figs were of an exquifite flavour and an extraordinary fize, and I thought them preferable to what I had est in Calabria. I was informed that the dates, when fully ripe, were fuperior to those of any other country. There was an emulation among the inhabitants in regaling us with their various productions. The women furrounded us, and liftened, while they were fpinning, to the intelligent aniwers which their hufbands gave to our various questions. They entertained us in an agreeable manner till the arrival of our Piedeto (the name given to the guide who accompanies frangers to the fummit of Ætna). Before they quitted us, they treated us with a number of tales upon the fubject of fpirits and apparitions. At length we parted, and they accompanied us tili we were out of fight with an unanimous exclamation of Buon viaggio, Signori! Good journey to you, Gentlemen.

It was now that the country became every moment more frightful and defert: torrent upon torrent of lava was all we could fee; the very fhadow of fertility was banished from our fight. Before us were fmoak, afhes and fand; on each fide fome little mountains prefented themfelves, as barren as the brow of Etna, and all the offspring of that immenfe Coloffus, whole flaming head concealed itself in the clouds. Impetuous winds blew around us, and frequently a loud noife, as of thunder, di

rected our regards to the fummit of Æt 1a. -The Convent of St. Nicolo d'Arena belongs to the rich Benedictine Monks of Catania; here they firft fixed their abode; here they accumulated the wealth upon which they now live at their eafe in that agreeable town. If ever a convent could be called a retreat, this deferves the name: furrounded with afhes, fand, and rocks of lava, the Monks are here in a state of banifhment from the reft of human fociety. Thefe Benedictines have derived advantage from their folitude; they have fertilized the foi that was barren; they have planted with fuccefs a confiderable number of fruittrees, and have turned the mountains into vineya ds: their crops are abundant; they make the vintage themselves; their wines are rich and exhilarating, but their raifins are lefs forward than in the lower parts of Etna. Their vintage does not begin till the end of October, and then, from their plentiful crops, they are ob liged to ufe all poffible difpatch to fave them from the froits and hurricanes.

By the terrible eruption of 1669 there is formed near this convent a large mountain, which ferves it as a double wall, and at the foot of which, as well as in every other part of it, there is not the finalleft trace of fertility: it is a fteep rock of lava covered with afhes, about one mile high and three in circumference: a confiderable quantity of fulphur, mixed with other materials, gives to the mountain a bright red, which is rendered still brighter by the reflection of the fetting fun, and forms a striking object. It is probably from its colour that it derives the name of Monto Rosso, by which it is called in this country. Its fhape is nearly the fame as that of the other mountains formed by Ætna, a pyramid terminating in two points, between which, and nearer to Catania, is the place from whence the torrent of lava has flowed that committed the moft dreadful ravages. This torrent, which was twenty miles in length, feven in width, and more than fifty foot thick, may give rise to a comparifon, that would not be uninterefting, between the effects produced by the eruptions of Etna and thofe of Vesuvius.

The other mountains about this con, vent exhibited a pleafing variety. If the barren fummit of fome feemed emulous of reaching to the clouds, a delightful verdure adorned the tops of others. I there faw Nature, while the played the step-mother, oftentatious, as it were, of her cruelty by the pale light of the moon,