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of the Bay of Naples, or, (what is not quite the same thing, we admit,) brings Naples and Vesuvius to us; so that the reader has but to sit still, like a child in a coach, who fancies that the trees and other objects are running past him, and he will find the whole scenery of the route, from Resina to the burning cone, gradually brought before him.

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The volume before us will not, however, admit of advantageous comparison with Mr. Auldjo's former publication,—with its lively details and spirited sketches, descriptive of the ascent and scenery of Mont Blanc. He was, then, fortunate in the aid of Harding's exquisite lithography, and in his own vivid recollections of sundry storms and avalanches, and hair-breadth 'scapes'; but in the present instance, his excursions have all the insipidity of perfect safety; and his illustrations, though they are executed in an artist-like style, have neither the decision of Haghe, nor the expressive gracefulness of Harding's handling. The signature to the plates is 'F. Wenzel'; and we mention the name, because we have no doubt of his ultimate success in this branch: his touch is free, and his line bold; he is sometimes defective in precision, but there are indications which induce us to refer this to carelessness, rather than to want of skill. The view of the wall of lava in the Fosso Grande is beautifully drawn.

Mr. Auldjo's repeated visits to the mountain seem to have passed off without a single adventure. Not a singe occurred to give vivacity to the promenade; and we are almost tempted to wonder that the admitted license of travellers was not exercised, within discreet limits, on so urgent an occasion. A ten-feet leap across a fiery lava-gulf, or an hour's march along a six-inch ledge, midway between sky and abyss, might have had a fine effect'; even the repetition of Brydone's sprained ancle would have shewn some small anxiety for the amusement of his readers; but all is blank. Nor is the simplicity of truth relieved by any very striking elasticity of style. A little further labour, and a more judicious management of the extensive system of illustration, would have made of this slight volume, a work of permanent value. In its present form, it can claim no merit beyond such as belongs to a respectably executed Guide. The earlier portion describes the ascent, scenery, and general phenomena of the mountain, assisted by a dozen sketches, several of which are on a large scale, exhibiting the characteristic features and the picturesque circumstances of the volcano. This part is followed by a history of eruptions, illustrated by a very interesting map, displaying, by the aid of different tints, the various streams of lava that have been traced on the declivities of Vesuvius. An Appendix, with additional plates, contains interesting details of recent convulsions.

This celebrated mountain has two summits, the present cone

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of Vesuvius and the Monte Somma, which are separated by a narrow valley, called the Atrio del Cavallo *, on the west, and the Canale dell' Arena on the north. The lava which sometimes flows from the north side of the cone, with the scoria and ashes ejected or washed down from it into this valley, has raised the level, and will, probably, some day fill it up; and then that side of the cone, united with the ridge of the Somma, will become part of the flank of the mountain. The cone itself, in appearance a mass of ashes, is truncated from N.E. to s.w., and rests, on the N.W., upon the Atrio del Cavallo; on the N.E., upon the Canale dell' Arena; and towards the s., upon the Pedementina, extending its flank down to the bay, and forming an inclined plane from its vertex to its base. The slope, from the Pedementina and the Atrio del Cavallo, is regular, and is covered with vineyards and gardens: it is broken only by the Vocoli, (small cones formed during the eruption of 1760,) by the picturesque hill on which the convent of the Camaldoli is built, and by prominences raised on the lava of the eruption of 1794, near the Piano delle Ginestre. This plain, the ascent to which from Resina occupies about an hour, (or an hour and a half by the more convenient route of the Fosso Grande, recommended by Mr. Auldjo,) was once adorned with evergreen shrubs and bushes, and broom, (from which it takes its name,) flowering throughout the year, and wearing the semblance of eternal spring. It now presents only 'a desolate expanse, wherein nothing is to be seen but the scorious 'surfaces of vast streams of lava, which, in pouring down from 'the cone, have intersected and covered each other, have been 'heaped up in confused masses and hillocks, or extended in broad and irregular masses.' From this plain, the route ascends to the Hermitage, through a winding cleft in the mass of lapillo, of which the ridge of the Canteroni, upon which the Hermitage is built, is principally composed. Before reaching the upper part, a magnificent prospect opens, extending over the richly-wooded plain of the Campo Felice, terminating in the sea in one direction, and, in the other, bounded by the chain of the Apennines behind Caserta. Leaving the Hermitage on the left, the road lies along the highest part of the verdant ridge, at the end of which the ashy cone rears itself aloft, the white smoke rising in opaque masses from the centre, and curling high into the air.' It then leads down, by a short descent, to the Atrio del Cavallo, and winds among rude, unshapen masses, between two streams of recent lava, towards a spot at the base of the cone, whence it is necessary to climb on foot its steep, sandy side, by a zig-zag

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So called, because, formerly, persons always ascended thus far on horseback. Up to 1631, it produced herbage and trees, but is now a barren plain of lava.

path, leading, in rather more than half an hour, to the top of the

cone.

On the summit,' says Mr. Auldjo, a scene is presented, which almost baffles description. The field of lava in the interior of the crater, enclosed within a lofty and irregular bank, might be likened to a lake, whose agitated waves had been suddenly petrified; and, in many respects, it resembles the mers de glace, or level glaciers of Switzerland, although, in its origin and materials, so very different. It is intersected by numberless crevices, some deep and wide, others long and shallow. Here, one sees masses curled and twisted like cables; there, large slabs, piled up in various angles against each other; in one part, a wide table or platform; in another, a narrow stream, the ripples of which, in pushing each other forward, have maintained their wavy form for a great distance. In the sea of ice, the white dazzling surface is relieved by beautiful tints and various shades of blue and green: in its simulachre of stone, the bright yellow and red of the compounds of sulphur and the metals, interspersed with the pure white of the muriate of soda, afford a pleasing contrast to the brown and melancholy hue of the lava.

A small black cone, formed of scoria ejected from its mouth, rises from the lava a little to the north-east of the centre of the crater; and from a cavity in it, volumes of smoke roll up into the air, sometimes accompanied by a cloud of small, fine sand, and often, by showers of red-hot molten lava, which, shot aloft, soon scatter and fall in all directions; a part in large masses like cannon-balls, a part in small perfect spheroids, or in lumps that, striking on the lava, dash out into long strings of scoria.

Two terraces of lava extend across the crater from the southern side of the small cone; and upon them several conical fumaroli, lately thrown up, constantly ejected vapour, which gushed forth with a hissing noise. One of these had been rent asunder by some violent convulsion in the crater. One half, which had fallen down, presented a confused heap of lava in cubical blocks; but the part that remained standing, exhibited a structure like that of columnar basalt; and the whole was covered with beautiful crystallizations of the salts of copper and iron, in various shades of green.' pp. 10, 11.

The view from the highest peak, Mr. Auldjo describes as one of the most beautiful in the world, the height of the mountain (4000 feet above the sea) not being so great that the features of the landscape are lost or too much diminished.

To the s.E., the island of Capri rises from the bosom of the ocean, like a huge fortress protecting the entrance of the bay. On turning to the left, one sees the Apennines, embosoming Massa and the orangecovered platform of Sorrento, extend their dark line along the shore, as far as Castell' amare, over which towers St. Angelo, their highest point. Thence, their lofty range, dividing the valley of the Sarno from the bay of Salerno, runs up into the country, until it makes a bend to the left, and forms a distant semicircle round Vesuvius and the plain of Nola, which spreads out between them. Behind Caserta,

these picturesque mountains hide their heads in the clouds, though, at times, their gray and often snow-covered summits, sparkling with the rays of the sun, are beautifully defined through the clear atmosphere. Monte Circello, and the hills about Gaeta, terminate the line, again lost in the sea, but enclosing the luxuriant Campo Felice, with the numberless towns scattered over its surface. The whole tract fenced in by this line of mountains, and lying between it and the sea, is of volcanic origin, and to it the ancients gave the name of Campi Phlegrai. The plain is perfectly level till it reaches the acclivity on which the city of Naples rises, terrace above terrace, each built of palaces and churches, thickly crowded together, and crowned by the massive walls of the castle of St. Elmo. Behind these is a semicircular hill, splendid and verdant, whereon villas, gardens, and orange-groves stand, one above the other, in rich confusion. Further on, the Camaldoli, the promontory of Posilippo, and the mountains behind the bay of Baia, raise their heads, and form a fine back-ground to the city. To the left of these, the high conical point of Ischia, frowning over the island of Procida, and a long line of blue sea, close this extensive panorama.' pp. 13, 14.

From the structure of the mountain, it is apparent, that the semi-circular ridge of the Monte Somma, now facing the present cone, together with the Pedementina, were originally inIcluded in the circumference of a much loftier cone. No record informs us when that part of which the Pedementina formed the base, was carried away; but it is generally thought to have been displaced during the great eruption of A.D. 79, Monte Somma being the only part of the original crater which resisted the shock. Mr. Auldjo has given a very interesting description of the phenomena attending the last two eruptions. That of 1831 was accompanied with tremendous earthquakes, which were felt through part of Calabria; and by one of these, the beautiful town of Catanzaro, its capital, built on a hill eight miles from the sea, was laid in ruins, nearly at the same hour at which the shock was felt at Naples. Calabria has for ages been peculiarly subject to frightful convulsions, which have rent its mountains into the most wild and rugged forms, and separated them by fearful chasms. As to Vesuvius, the great vent-hole of the subterranean furnace, although not a century has passed, during which some part of the lands around its base has not been ruined by earthquakes, desolated by currents of lava, or covered with ashes,--the lower parts of the mountain are still studded with towns, villages, and palaces, rising amid vineyards and gardens, the property of men who forget their danger, while seeking to derive wealth from the fertility of its soil!" A striking and affecting emblem of the moral blindness of the greater part of mankind, and of their infatuated pursuit of transitory enjoyments, forgetful of the awful condition on which they occupy the surface that covers the grave.

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Art. III. History of the Reformed Religion in France. By the Rev. Edward Smedley, M.A., late Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. Vol. I. (Theological Library, Vol. III.) pp. 399. London, 1832.

THERE are many links which tend to preserve a degree of connection between the departments of knowledge apparently at the greatest remove from each other. The successful application of the human faculties in one path, is something done toward their more effective exercise in others. The circumstances which give existence to a Chaucer, or a Petrarch, may be expected to prepare the way for a Michel Angelo, or a Raffael; and the state of things which ministers to the growth of such spirits, will hardly fail to call forth a Columbus, a Galileo, or a Bacon. The man who excels in any one liberal pursuit, will generally imbibe a sympathy with more, and must impart the aid of that sympathy, more or less, to his fellows. Mental power is constrained to venerate its like, and must contribute to produce it, though the objects to which it is applied in its different possessors, may have little in common.

But, if this reflective influence belong, in some degree, to all the matters of human culture, it must be more especially observable in such as are less abstract in their character, and most of all in religion, which connects itself more readily with the mass, and takes the strongest hold on all the springs of action. If the renovation of one science, therefore, be the certain prelude to a similar process elsewhere, the renovation of Christianity must be the precursor to a similar change in regard to every path of human improvement.

What it would have been reasonable, in this respect, to anticipate, has become history. The collateral benefits of the Protestant Reformation may be estimated in some degree from the present condition of the states by which its claims have been rejected. The rod of the oppressor, by which the nations had been so long afflicted, was much too powerful to admit of being broken by any force short of that which religion could supply. It required the hopes and fears of the future, to undo the thraldom of the present. But, these mighty influences once brought into action, the effect was wide, and deep, and permanent. The state of Italy, Portugal, and Spain, improved or checked, as even they have been, by their juxta-position with Protestant communities, may suggest some notion of what must have continued to be the condition of Europe, apart from the agency of that momentous revolution which armed the aristocracy and the people, the prince and the peasant, in defence of a common liberty. That great change consisted mainly, in what mainly distinguished it from all other changes-the elevation of the people; and served,

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