Eafy of access to all, he was ever open to his Clergy, and ready to affift them by his counfel and advice, or, where the cafe required it, by liberal contributions. Their complaints and grievances were received by him, as into the bofom of a friend; and for them he had no authority but that of a parent. Amongst them he was much more ftudious to find out merit, and to diftinguish good behaviour, than ready to remark, or to remember errors and failings. Under every change of times, and thro' all the affairs both of public or private life, he maintained a teady course, regular, uniform, and confiftent. His measures were not taken from occafional fituations, from wavering inclination, or confiderations of prefent convenience. He acted on principles by their nature fixed and unchangeable. Religion had taken poffeffion of his foul, and all his rules of conduct were tranfcribed into his heart from the royal law of Chriftian charity. Therefore was his breaft filled with candour, integrity, and truth; and therefore did he maintain a firmness and conftancy, which they who proceed on principles of falfe honour, or worldly policy, muft adinire, but cannot equal.

His conceptions of the doctrines and defign of Christianity were noble and exalted. He felt their power, and wondered that it was not univerfally felt. How hath my foul been infamed when I have heard his fentiments on this fubject warm from his benevolent heart: We may boast ourselves,' he would fay, in the advancement we have made in the theory of religion; but how muft our pride be humbled

when we compare our practice with our theory! Surely principles fo great and fo glorious as thofe of the gofpel, fo full of the feeds of all bleffings to human fociety, cannot always remain without their effect. No. Revelation may be flow in working the full purpofe of Heaven, but it must be fure. Religion must one day be a very different thing from what we at prefent behold it. Chriftian charity cannot always be to the world a light without heat, a pale cold fire. Its warmth at length must be univerfally felt. The time muft come when our zeal shall appear to be kindled by this heavenly fire, and not by human paffion: When all our little earthly heats shall be extinguished, and that pure and divine flame alone fhall burn. The time will come, when animofity, and violence, and rage fhall cease; and when union, and love, and harmony fhall prevail. The time will come when earth fhall bear a nearer resemblance to heaven.'

May his fpirit be prophetic : May thefe glorious effects of our bleffed religion foon be accomplished: And may the happy period he wished for foon arrive!

Religion, thus understood, fupported him to the end, and administered to his foul all its heavenly confolations under the last great trial to which humanity can be called: Enabling him to give a proof, worthy of a Chriftian Bishop, of the ftrength of his principles, and their ability to sustain the mind in that great and decifive hour, when all human help is withdrawn, and when every other fupport fails and finks under it.

Such was your late benefactor: And fuch is the rude outline of a F 3

great

fore, quite to Catania. There are many of thefe fubterraneous cavities known, on other parts of Etna; fuch as that, called by the peasants, La Baracca Vecchia, another La Spelonca della Palomba (from the wild pidgeons building their nefts therein), and the cavern Thalia, mentioned by Boccaccio. Some of them are made ufe of as magazines for fnow; the whole ifland of Sicily and Malta being fupplied with this effential article (in a hot climate) from mount Etna; many more would be found, I dare fay, if fearched for, particularly near and under the craters from whence great lavas have iffued, as the immenfe quantities of fuch matter we fee above ground muft neceffarily fuppofe very great hollows underneath.

After having paffed the morning of the 25th in thefe obfervations, we proceeded through the fecond, or middle region of Etna, called La Selvofa, the woody, than which nothing can be more beautiful. On every fide are mountains, or fragments of mountains, that have been thrown up by various ancient explosions; there are fome near as high as mount Vefuvius, one in particular, (as the canon our guide affured me, having measured it) is little lefs than one mile in perpendicular heighth, and five in circumference at its bafis. They are all more or lefs covered, even within their craters, as well as the rich valleys between them, with the largest oak, chefnut, and firrtrees, I ever faw any where; and indeed it is from hence chiefly, that his Sicilian majefty's dock-yards are fupplied with timber. As this part of Etna was famous for its timber in the time of the tyrants

of Syracufa, and as it requires the great length of time I have already mentioned before the matter is fit for vegetation, we may conceive the great age of this refpectable volcano. The chefnut-trees predominated in the parts thro' which we paffed, and, though of a very great fize, are not to be compared to fome on another part of the Regione Selvofa, called Carpinetto.. I have been told by many, and particularly by our guide, who had measured the largeft there, called La Caftagna di Cento Cavalli, that it is upwards of twenty-eight Neapolitan canes in circumference. Now as a Neapolitan cane is two yards and half a quarter, English meafure, you may judge, fir, of the immenfe fize of this famous tree. It is hollow from age, but there is another near it almost as large, and found; as it would have required a journey of two days to have visited this extraordinary tree, and the weather being already very hot, I did not fee it."

It is amazing to me that trees should flourish in fo fhallow a foil, for they cannot penetrate deep without meering with a rock of lava, and indeed great part of the roots of the large trees we paffed by are above ground, and have acquired, by the impreffion of the air, a bark like that of their branches. In this part of the mountain, are the finest horned cattle in Sicily; we remarked in general, that the horns of the Sicilian cattle are near twice the fize of any we had ever seen ; the cattle themfelves are of the common fize. We paffed by the lava of the laft eruption in the year 1766, which has deftroyed above four miles fquare of the beautiful wood abovementioned.

The

which obliged us feveral times to throw ourselves flat upon our faces to avoid being over-turned by it, made this latter part of our expedition rather inconvenient and difagreeable. Our guide, by way of comfort, affured us that there was generally much more wind in the upper region at this time.

Soon after we had feated ourfelves on the highest point of Etna, the fun arose and difplayed a fcene that indeed paffes all defcription. The horizon lighting up by degrees, we difcovered the greatest part of Calabria, and the fea on the other fide of it; the Phare of Meffina, the Lipari Islands, Stromboli with its fmoaking top, though at above feventy miles diftance, feemed to be just under our feet; we saw the whole island of Sicily, its rivers, towns, harbours, &c. as if we had been looking on a map. The island of Malta is low ground, and there was a hazinefs in that part of the horizon, fo that we could not difcern it; our guide affured us he had feen it diftinctly at other times, which I can believe, as in other parts of the horizon, that were not hazy, we faw to a much greater distance; befides, we had a clear view of Etna's top from our ship as we were going into the mouth of the harbour of Malta fome weeks before; in fhort, as I have fince measured on a good chart, we took in at one view a circle of above nine hundred English miles. The pyramidal fhadow of the mountain reac ed across the whole island and far into the fea on the other fide. I counted from hence forty-four little mountains (little I call them in comparison of their mother Etna, though they would appear great

any where elfe) in the middle region on the Catania fide, and many others on the other fide of the mountain, all of a conical form, and each having its crater; many with timber trees flourishing both within and without their craters. The points of thofe mountains, that I imagine to be the most ancient, are blunted, and the craters of courfe more extenfive and lefs deep than thofe of the mountains formed by explosions of a later date, and which preferve their pyramidal form entire. Some have been fo far mouldered down by time as to have no other appearance of a crater than a fort of dimple or hollow on their rounded tops, others with only half or a third part of their cone standing the parts that are wanting having mouldered down, or perhaps been detached from them by earthquakes, which are here very frequent. All however have been evidently raised by explosion; and I believe, upon examination, many of the whimsical fhapes of mountains in other parts of the world would prove to have been occafioned by the fame natural operations. I obferved that these mountains were generally in lines or ridges; they have moftly a fracture on one fide, the fame as in the little mountains raised by explofion on the fides of Vesuvius, of which there are eight or nine. This fracture is occafioned by the lava's forcing its way out, which operation I have defcribed in my account of the laft eruption of Vefuvius. Whenever I fhall meet with a mountain, in any part of the world, whofe form is regularly conical, with a hollow crater on its top, and one fide broken, [

fhall