more orderly or respectful than their bearing. The captain, a grave, dark, érect man, of about forty, stood at his gangway, and hailed us through his speaking trumpet; his costume, that of the Asiatic Greek, which is very similar to the Turk, but he wore a large broad straw hat overshadowing his face. As he stood, his person exposed at his gangway, he had a manly commanding look, and still more so as he stepped down into his boat, and again, when he stood up in it as it pulled under our stern, and rose, sunk, and swayed to the high and buoyant waves. He asked a few questions about the sailing of the Egyptian squadron, our landing, time out, &c. He saluted as he came alongside, and as he pulled off; and his boat shot handsomely athwart our bows and away. The boat's crew were handsome, bold-looking young men, turbaned; among them was a youth who pulled at the bow oar, of a very fair complexion, with a remarkably fine and fearless expression of countenance. On board the vessel, which was a fine seaboat, and well armed, everything was done smartly, well, and in seamanlike style,-you heard but the whistle, and she made sail and away.

May the God of battles prosper them! say I. The open honest Turk, and the cunning deceitful Greek, as I have too often heard Englishmen designate them. Who makes the Grecian what he is? As noble thoughts find a place in his bosom, they will swell and expand, and force out all the weaker weeds, which would choke their growth. I know not how the Englishman, who is free, or the Christian, who has a Bible, can say his prayers, and wish the Turk success.-Ibid. pp. 218-220.

There is an admirable description of Valetta, and the whole island-and then of Syracuse and Catania; but we can give only the night ascent to Ætna-and that rather for the scene of the Sicilian cottage, than for the sketch of the mighty mountain.

It was near ten o'clock when the youth who led the way stopped before a small dark cottage in a by-lane of Nicolosi, the guide's he said it was, and hailed them. The door was opened; a light struck; and the family was roused, and collected round me; a grey-headed old peasant and his wife; two hardy, plain, dark young men, brothers (one of whom was in his holiday gear, new breeches, and red garters, and flowered waistcoat, and clean shirt, and shining buttons); a girl of sixteen, handsome; a "mountain-girl beaten with winds," looking curious, yet fearless and "chaste as the hardened rock on which she dwelt" and a boy of twelve, an unconscious figure in the group, fast slumbering in his clothes on the hard floor. Glad were they of the dollar-bringing stranger, but suprised at the excellenza's fancy for coming at that hour; cheerfully, however, the gay youth stripped off his holiday-garb, and put on a dirty shirt and thick brown clothes, and took his cloak and went to borrow a mule (for I found, by their consultation, that there was some trick, this not being

the regular privileged guide family. During his absence, the girl brought me a draught of wine, and all stood round with welcoming and flattering laughings, and speeches in Sicilian, which I did not understand, but which gave me pleasure, and made me look on their dirty and crowded cottage as one I had rather trust to, if I knocked at it even without a dollar, than the lordliest mansion of the richest noble in Sicily.

For about four miles, your mule stumbles along safely over a bed of lava, lying in masses on the road; then you enter the woody region: the wood is open, of oaks, not large, yet good-sized trees, growing amid fern; and, lastly, you come out on a soft barren soil, and pursue the ascent till you find a glistering white crust of snow of no depth, cracking under your mule's tread; soon after, you arrive at a stone cottage, called Casa Inglese, of which my guide had not got the key; here you dismount, and we tied up our mules close by, and scrambling over huge blocks of lava, and up the toilsome and slippery ascent of the cone, I sat me down on ground all hot, and smcking with sulphureous vapour, which has for the first few minutes the effect of making your eyes smart, and water, of oppressing and taking away your breath. It yet wanted half an hour to the break of day, and I wrapped my cloak close round me to guard me from the keen air, which came up over the white cape of snow that lay spread at the foot of the smoking cone, where I was seated.

The earliest dawn gave to my view the awful crater, with its two deep mouths, from one whereof there issued large volumes of thick white smoke, pressing up in closely crowding clouds; and all around, you saw the earth loose, and with crisped, yellow-mouthed small cracks, up which came little, light, thin wreathes of smoke that soon dissipated in the upper air, &c.-And when you turn to gaze downwards and see the golden sun come up in light and majesty to bless the waking millions of your fellows, and the dun vapours of the night roll off below, and capes, and hills, and towns, and the wide ocean are seen as through a thin unearthly veil; your eyes fill, and your heart swells; all the blessings you enjoy, all the innocent pleasures you find in your wanderings, that preservation, which in storm, and in battle, and mid the pestilence, was mercifully given to your halfbreathed prayer, all rush in a moment on your soul.'—Ibid. pp. 253–

257.

The following brief sketch of the rustic auberges of Sicily is worth preserving, as well as the sentiment with which it closes.

The chambers of these rude inns would please, at first, any one. Three or four beds (mere planks upon iron trestles), with broad, yellow-striped, coarse mattresses, turned up on them; a table and chairs of wood, blackened by age, and of forms belonging to the past century; a daub or two of a picture, and two or three coloured prints of Madonnas and saints; a coarse table-cloth, and coarser napkin; a thin, blue-tinted drinking glass; dishes and plates of a striped, dirty-coloured, pimply ware; and a brass lamp with three

mouths, a shape common to Delhi, Cairo, and Madrid, and as ancient as the time of the Etruscans themselves.

To me it had another charm; it brought Spain before me, the peasant and his cot, and my chance billets among that loved and injured people. Ah! I will not dwell on it; but this only I will venture to say, they err greatly, grossly, who fancy that the Spaniard, the most patiently brave and resolutely persevering man, as a man, on the continent of Europe, will wear long any yoke he feels galling and detestable. '-Ibid. pp. 268, 269.

The picture of Naples is striking, and reminds us in many places of Mad. de Staël's splendid sketches from the same subjects in Corrinne. But we must draw to a close now with our extracts; and shall add but one or two more, peculiarly characteristic of the gentle mind and English virtues of the author.

I next went into the library, a noble room, and a vast collection. I should much like to have seen those things which are shown here, especially the handwriting of Tasso. I was led as far, and into the apartment where they are shown. I found priests reading, and men looking as if they were learned. I was confused at the creaking of my boots; I gave the hesitating look of a wish, but I ended by a blush, bowed, and retired. I passed again into the larger apartment, and I felt composed as I looked around. Why life, thought I, would be too short for any human being to read these folios; but yet, if safe from the pedant's frown, one could have a vast library to range in, there is little doubt that, with a love of truth, and a thirsting for knowledge, the man of middle age, who regretted his early closed lexicon, might open it again with delight and profit. While thus musing, in stamped two travellers, my countrymen, my bold, brave countrymen-not intellectual, I could have sworn, or Lavater is a cheat

"Pride in their port, defiance in their eye:"

They strode across to confront the doctors, and demanded to see those sights to which the book directed and the grinning domestique de place led them. I envied them, and yet was angry with them; how. ever, I soon bethought me, such are the men who are often sterling characters, true hearts. They will find no seduction in a southern sun, but back to the English girl they love best, to be liked by her softer nature the better for having seen Italy, and taught by her gentleness to speak about it pleasingly, and prize what they have seen :-Such are the men whom our poor men like,-who are generous masters and honest voters, faithful husbands and kind fathers; who, if they make us smiled at abroad in peace, make us feared in war, and any one of whom is worth to his country far more than a dozen mere sentimental wanderers. '-Ibid. pp. 296-298.

́Always on quitting the museum it is a relief to drive somewhere, that you may relieve the mind and refresh the sight with a view of earth and ocean, The view from the Belvedere, in the garden of

St Martino, close to the fortress of St Elmo, is said to be unequalled in the world. I was walking along the cloister to it, when I heard voices behind me, and saw an English family-father, mother, with daughter and son, of drawing-room and university ages. I turned aside that I might not intrude on them, and went to take my gaze when they came away from the little balcony. I saw no features; but the dress, the gentle talking, and the quietude of their whole manner, gave me great pleasure. A happy domestic English family! parents travelling to delight, improve, and protect their children; younger ones at home, perhaps, who will sit next summer on the shady lawn, and listen as Italy is talked over, and look at prints, and turn over a sister's sketch book, and beg a brother's journal. Magically varied is the grandeur of the scene-the pleasant city; its broad bay; a little sea that knows no storms; its garden neighbourhood; its famed Vesuvius, not looking either vast, or dark, or dreadful-all bright and smiling, garmented with vineyards below, and its brow barren, yet not without a hue of that ashen or slaty blueness which improves a mountain's aspect; and far behind, stretched in their full bold forms, the shadowy Appenines. Gaze and go back, English; Naples, with all its beauties and its pleasures, its treasury of ruins, and recollections, and fair works of art; its soft music and balmy airs cannot make you happy; may gratify the gaze of taste, but never suit the habits of your mind. There are many homeless solitary Englishmen who might sojourn longer in such scenes, and be soothed by them; but to become dwellers, settled residents, would be, even for them, impossible. '-Ibid. pp. 301–303.

We must break off here-though there is much temptation to go on. But we have now shown enough of these volumes to enable our readers to judge safely of their character-and it would be unfair, perhaps, to steal more from their pages. We think we have extracted impartially; and are sensible, at all events, that we have given specimens of the faults as well as the beauties of the author's style. His taste in writing certainly is not unexceptionable. He is seldom quite simple or natural, and sometimes very fade and affected. He has little bits of inversions in his sentences, and small exclamations and ends of ordinary verse dangling about them, which we often wish away

and he talks rather too much of himself, and his ignorance and humility, while he is turning those fine sentences, and laying traps for our applause. But, in spite of all these things, the books are very interesting and instructive; and their merits greatly outweigh their defects. If the author has occasional failures, he has frequent felicities;-and, independent of the many beautiful and brilliant passages which he has furnished for our delight, has contrived to breathe over all his work a spirit of kindliness and contentment, which, if it does not minister (as it ought) to our improvement, must at least disarm our censure of all bitterness.

ART. III. A Letter on the Present State and Future Prospects of Agriculture, addressed to the Agriculturists of Salop. By W. W. WHITMORE, Esq. M. P. pp. 86. London, 1822.

THOU

tion.

HOUGH we have often endeavoured to demonstrate the impolicy of the existing Corn-laws, and the advantages that would result from their repeal, we make no apology for again reverting to a subject bearing so strongly on the best interests of the country. Perhaps, however, we should have deferred the remarks we have now to offer on these laws to a future opportunity, had we not learned that they are certainly to be brought under the consideration of the House of Commons during the ensuing session of Parliament. This circumstance has induced us to think that we might advantageously employ a few pages, not so much in discussing the general policy of restrictions on the corn-trade, as in showing the fallacy of those arguments ad misericordiam on which the agriculturists now principally rest their claims to protecIt is no longer contended, that monopolies and restrictions ought to be supported for their own sakes, or that they are intrinsically advantageous. The principles on which they are founded are now universally admitted to be unsound, even by those who attempt to justify them in their application to particular cases. None of the more intelligent advocates of the corn-laws now defend them on the ground of their being calculated to accelerate the progress of the country in wealth and civilization: On the contrary, they generally concede that this desirable result would be most effectually secured by allowing food to be purchased in the cheapest market: But they contend that, though the free admission of foreign corn might eventually lead to a greater increase of wealth, it would, in the first instance, be productive of ruin to the whole rural population of the country,-that their numbers would be diminished, and that our agriculture, which they allege is the only sure foundation of national opulence, would be irreparably injured. Now, unquestionably, if it could be shown that these consequences would flow from the abolition of the restrictive system, it would be necessary to treat it with the greatest possible caution: And ministers might well be excused for doubting whether the prospective advantages to be derived from the freedom of the corn-trade, would be a sufficient compensation for the destruction of individual fortunes, the forced change of employments, and the wide-spread misery which it is affirmed would be occasioned by the transit from the restrictive