which it has been chiefly prepared, while it may be characterized as generally, for the more immediate purposes of criticism, a useful help, its value as a standard commentary is very seriously marred by two pervading blemishes. First of all, it labours considerably under the same defect which has been already mentioned as so materially interfering with the value of the Commentary on Hebrews-that, namely, of being so grammatical in its tone, so much occupied with the meaning of words, and the construction of sentences. This appears throughout the main thing in hand, and what has been con amore undertaken the rest rather incidentally arising, or in a sense forced on the author. It is true there is a great deal about doctrine in the Commentary-as much, perhaps, in point of space, as we should have deemed advisable; but the space thus occupied is, for the most part, taken up with simply proving, or more commonly in attempting to prove, that the particular statement or doctrine involved in the interpretation given is justified by the import of the words, the connection of the passage, or the nature of things, and that the other interpretations have one or more of these against them. It is still generally mere words and meanings, or disputes about these, with which we are held conversant, while the truths themselves scarcely ever appear on their own account, or from any appreciation formed of their intrinsic value. There is not, so far as we can remember, throughout the whole Commentary anything like a heaven-taught, fragrant breathing forth of the truth of God, as refreshing to the spiritual taste, and commending itself to the approval and confidence of the enlightened soul. Even when the representation given is according to the truth, still it is the truth in a dry, scholastic, or controversial form, not as welling forth from a mind alive to its vast importance, or warmed by a sense of its strong consolations. It is this absence of fresh, living thought about the truth itself, with which the Epistle to the Romans is so singularly pregnant, and the disproportionate regard paid to what may be called the subordinate and collateral parts of interpretation, which, in point of form, constitutes the great defect of Mr Stuart's work, and renders it not so properly a help as an impediment to the mind, in labouring to follow the apostle's profound vein of thought, and expand itself with the swelling current of his great argument.

But there is unhappily another defect still more serious; a defect, not in regard to the form, but to the matter presented under it, which is not always by any means in accordance with the truth. There are occasional examples of this, not essentially connected with the leading purport of the Epistle, and arising chiefly from a disposition to take up with an outside and superficial, rather than searching for a thoroughly grounded view of things (for example at chapter iii. 31, or chapter vii.); but its worst manifestation has respect to the main stream of the apostle's argument, and affects the very basis of the doctrinal structure he seeks to raise. The radical error in this respect in Mr Stuart's doctrinal views, and which has given the wrong bias to nearly all his false interpretations, is substantially the same with that which was recently exposed in our notice of Barnes, so that we need do little more than advert to it now. He stumbles at the principle of imputation, first of Adam's sin, then of Christ's righteousness; whence, as an inevitable consequence, his view of the gospel scheme is loose and disjointed, and he has been forced sometimes to have

recourse to the most strained, inconsistent, and violent interpretations. From thus erring at the foundation (as Mr Haldane justly remarks, though he has certainly carried the spirit of fault-finding to excess against Mr Stuart, and occasionally pointed his denunciations with undue severity), "he finds many difficulties, which it costs him a great deal of trouble to remove. He is ever fighting with the Scriptures, and contradicting himself. From first to last he is explaining, and defining, and guarding, and straining." One of his own countrymen, also, in the "Biblical Repertory," in a passage quoted by Mr Haldane, says of him with substantial correctness, "We think no man can fail to observe that Professor Stuart's rejection of certain doctrines is the result of a mere prejudice, awakened in the mind, and strengthened into antipathy. That he was never led to it by any process of interpretation is clear, in the first place, from the evident labour which it has cost him to force even his own mind to accede to his interpretations; and in the second, because he admits propositions, which involve every one of the offensive principles involved in the doctrines he rejects."

The discussions into which Mr Stuart has entered for the purpose of establishing his doctrinal views, are by no means very favourable specimens of his mental powers. He is not fitted for shining on the field of close argumentation, and has, consequently, fallen here into various misconceptions, contradictory statements, and false reasonings. His writings in this respect indicate the failing that usually attaches to persons of subtile and acute, rather than of solid and profound parts. The thoughts come and go too easily; the depths of the soul are not stirred by the spirit of contemplation, nor is the subject itself kept sufficiently long before the eye of the mind to be seen in all its aspects and bearings, and to give full play to the discriminating faculty in laying hold of the true grounds for a decision. Hence, in the hands of such a person, we feel an instinctive jealousy, lest there should be some flaw in the process; and even when the conclusion is sound, we can scarcely rest in it, till we have found it confirmed from some other quarter, or have ourselves subjected it to a careful cross-examination. This is very much the case in which we find ourselves with Mr Stuart's reasonings on any nice or difficult point. And in regard to the aberrations themselves from sound doctrine, which have given so unhappy a bias to a considerable part of the interpretations and reasonings in this Commentary, we are afraid they are of pretty long standing. Some indications were given of them in the Commentary on Hebrews, especially in the 19th and 20th Excursus, where he was at pains to qualify the statement regarding the vicarious nature of Christ's suffering, by saying that the expression must not be understood with philosophical precision, as if Christ really bore all the consequences of men's sin, and gives the following loose paraphrase to 2 Cor. v. 21: "God made Christ a sinoffering, or subjected him to calamity." No one would have expressed himself so who had taken a clear and firm hold of the scriptural doctrine of atonement, and the foundation on which it rests. It was not, therefore, greatly to be wondered at, that he should have been so little able to find his way when he came to the strictly doctrinal parts of the Epistle to the Romans; and that his explanations of the leading terms, in particular of the cardinal phrase, "the righteousness of God," should have been such as to remind us of "the infinite ambiguity" which

There are occasional passages, besides, of superficial criticism and wrong interpretation which would require to be met by more special correctives. We may particularly notice the comment, extending to upwards of ten pages, on ch. i. 4, where Christ is said to have been "declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead." Mr Stuart has evidently laid out all his critical acumen here to clear up and settle the meaning of this verse; but he has utterly failed in regard to all the leading points-the title "Son of God," the import of "Spirit of holiness," and the bearing of the resurrection of Christ on his being "declared to be the Son of God." The mistakes into which he has fallen in criticism and theology are so calmly and judiciously exposed, and the whole subject so admirably handled by Treffry in his work on the "Eternal Sonship," pp. 196-208, that we would commend it to the careful perusal of theological students and the younger portion of our clerical readers. And for the correct view generally (with a few exceptions, not of any great moment) of the 7th chapter, as opposed professedly to the mistakes and errors of an older school, but equally suitable as an antidote to those of Mr Stuart, see "Fraser on Sanctification."

We have left very little room to speak of Mr Stuart's last work as a commentator-his two volumes on the Apocalypse. This is by much the most elaborate and carefully prepared of the Professor's exegetical productions, and really contains much that is valuable both in its introductory matter and the verbal explanations given of particular parts. On these accounts, we have no doubt it will be frequently referred to by students of the Apocalypse, and as a hermeneutical help will probably be of longer standing than his preceding works. We think it fitted in one respect to exercise a beneficial influence upon the interpretation of that wonderful book, from the pains taken to exhibit and explain the symbolology which pervades its language and structure, and which has never yet met with due attention in this country. But as to being itself in the proper sense of the term an interpretation, we are far from imagining. It is based and constructed throughout on the false neological principle, which has so often been applied, especially on the Continent, to the utter subversion of the meaning of the other prophetical writings, viz., that the inspired author must have written so as to be understood by intelligent readers of his own period. (Vol. i. p. 4, vol. ii. pp. 326, 435, &c.) There is some degree of truth in this principle, if it is understood merely in reference to the language or idiom in which the sacred penman wrote, or perhaps the peculiar form and imagery under which he might choose to present his divine communications respecting what was to come; in which case it is legitimately applied, when a minute and careful investigation is made into all that can be found, in the times of the author and contemporaneous writ

ing of his terms. But if understood, as Mr Stuart evidently means, as including also the events in providence in which the terms should receive their fulfilment, it strikes at the root of all sound prophetical interpretation, and virtually takes the feeble capacities of men, instead of the large and comprehensive mind of the Spirit, as the guage and measure of predicted events. One might as well hold that every thing hereafter is to be ruled, not by the rich and glorious significancy which God will then give in embodied fulfilment to his own word, but by the faint aud often-erring conceptions which his people, amid their present imperfections, had been enabled to form of it. This false principle standing at the bottom of the commentary on the Apocalypse, necessarily gives a false and inadequate turn to the particular interpretations of the greater part of the book. It is characterized to a large extent by the arbitrariness, the shallow views, and the miserable accommodations of the neological school, and his chief authorities are plainly Eichhorn and Ewald. On the numbers he has been much indebted to Bähr; and the 2d Excursus, which is on the symbolical use of numbers, is in every essential point taken from Bähr. There might be no harm in this, considered by itself, but Mr Stuart's professed acknowledgments to Bähr are not at all equal to their amount; he only owns his obligations to him for many of the facts stated (while there is not one worth naming which is not to be found in Bähr), and appears sometimes to exercise an independent judgment by first giving Bähr's view and then his own, while, in point of fact, both are in Bähr, and the only difference is, that he lays more stress on a particular part than Bähr does. This is not very creditable to his candour, though we should not judge too harshly, as possibly the apparent impropriety has arisen more from oversight and infirmity than intention. We must in duty add, however, that occasionally the neological manner breaks out in other parts than those which refer to what is strictly prophetical. Thus, in the 1st Excursus, at p. 403: "When the evangelist lays the scene of our Saviour's temptation in the wilderness, the representation is altogether appropriate,"-evidently implying that the whole was a mere vision. There are various other things of a loose and objectionable character in the same treatise.

We regret that we have had no more satisfactory results to present. We have written impartially, with an eye only to the truth. We own ourselves somewhat indebted to our author, but chiefly for the excellent example he has set of unwearied energy and devoted application to his favourite study. In other respects, his influence is not likely to be very great in this country; and where greatest, we are constrained to say, we fear it will be the least salutary.

WALKS ABOUT NAPLES.

IX.-HERCULANEUM.

"He that would see fair Melrose aright,
Must visit the shrine by the pale moonlight;"

and he that would enjoy the neighbourhood of Naples should see it from the bay. We sailed across it to Herculaneum; and, for once, found that all that is said of that scene is less than the truth. The clear sharp outline of every object, however distant-the

deep blue of the firmament there, still unexplained by | philosophy-the bold magnificence, blended with teeming abundance that reigns over all—and the placidity of the strong but sleeping sea-are all so peculiarly Italian, that a visitor from Britain feels as if some new element were added to creation. In the island of his home there may be scenes as grand, nay, that exceed all this in beauty, but the haze and the murkiness in which they are beheld prevent their full grandeur from being seen-they can be felt only in detail; while from the centre of yon bay, objects crowding upon objects in endless profusion, near and far away, are all distinct and sharp as if individually at hand. In spite of Lord Byron's sneer, we are not sure that the view of Naples from the bay is superior to that from the Calton Hill or Arthur's Seat; but the Scottish prospect is beheld through clouds and vapour, which hide half its glories-the Italian is seen in a bright transparency, where all is perfectly unveiled. Yet here, as everywhere, there is an alloy of one's enjoyment. Gazing on the city and the environs, trending crescent-shaped along the margin of the bay, one could rejoice at the glorious vision; but when the mind ceased to be merely emotive, and began to think-when the condition of the hundreds of thousands, sunk in deepest wretchedness there, without one reason to hope for early deliverance, occurred -when the dense darkness that broods over the souls of men was remembered, with the perfect bondage in which they are held by that system which has so long tyrannized in Italy and elsewhere-it appeared as if one should not enjoy amid such mingling causes of sorrow. We felt that the song and the glee of our rowers were misplaced-it was like merry music in a dying man's chamber, or a garland on a dying man's brow; and one would have preferred loneliness, or even gloom, as more congenial to the thoughts evolved by such contrasts as the moral and the physical here present-nature all glory, grandeur, beauty-man degraded, galled, civilly and religiously dead while he seems to live. The Italians boast that Naples and its bay are un pezzo di cielo caduto in terra" piece of heaven fallen upon earth: how completely has it been shattered or defiled by the fall!

-a

On beginning to explore Herculaneum, the first view is disappointing. Instead of seeing, as fancy anticipated, symptoms of devastation and ruin on every side, modern buildings prevail throughout, and the city of antiquity has literally to be searched for by torch-light. In the year 79 of our era, a heavy shower of sand, pumice, and lapilli fell for eight successive days and nights from the neighbouring volcano. Herculaneum was then deserted. Subsequent outbreaks occasioned more thorough destruction. Lava from Vesuvius rolled over the city in wave after wave; and while the interiors of the ancient houses are filled with matter that must have entered as mud (or lava d'aqua), formed of the sand, dust, and water ejected by the crater, the upper coverings or layers are composed of lava proper (di fuoco), and their aggregate depth at some places is seventy feet, while at others they amount to one hundred and twelve. At least six eruptions have thus swept over the city since its first interment. Each has a layer of soil above it; and were our object the study of geology, we are now in an admirable school.

It was in 1713, on occasion of sinking a well, that Herculaneum was discovered. The workmen penetrated into the theatre, where some statues were found; and it is to that building, in so far as it has been

excavated, that the traveller is conducted, to commune with the remains and mementos of eighteen hundred years ago. But the difficulty of excavating, owing to the depth and hardness of the material, has limited the operations, and the extent of the ancient city is still unknown. A temple of Jupiter and the Forum have been explored, and again filled with rubbish, which it was found too much for Italian energy or perseverance to remove, so that only a fragment is open to inspection. That fragment, however is inscribed with many lessons. Wooden beams, two thousand years old, when split, appear well-nigh as fresh as timber felled a year ago. Fishing nets have been found in abundance, often quite entire. Linen has been dug up with the texture well defined. Almonds, chesnuts, and walnuts, all distinctly recognizable, were found in a fruiterer's shop. A loaf, bearing the baker's name stamped on it, still preserves its form. An apothecary's pills, and apparatus for preparing them, with a jar of medicinal herbs, have been disinterred. Moist olives were found in a square glass case about five and twenty years ago, while object after object, tending to show the habits of that city so strangely buried, are dug up from time to time, as the tardiness of Italian operations permits. A visit to such scenes resembles a descent into the Mummy Chambers at Thebes. One finds himself sitting side by side with the men of twenty centuries ago, learning their habits, their enjoyments, and pastimes. has been hermetically sealed up by the volcano, for the information of future ages, and to connect the past with the passing.

All

But a scholar's prime inquiry in such a neighbourhood is after the papyri of Herculaneum-the MSS. discovered there, which long tantalized us with the hope that Livy's lost decades might yet be restored, and other treasures added to the existing store. Those found at Herculaneum appear to have been enveloped in a kind of paste, which consolidated around them, and prevented the carbonizing process of the burning lava from being completely destructive.* The vegetable substance of the papyri has become a thin, friable matter, very like the attenuated tinder made by burnt paper. Bundles of MSS. have been found ticketed with their titles. The majority are in Greek, though a few are found in Latin, and the corrections are so numerous, as to indicate the care with which the authors composed. About 400 titles have been deciphered, all found in the library of the villa of a private individual, but the treatises are really trifling. Music and cookery form the chief topics. A littérateur was busy with one of the former when we visited the scene. The characters on the tinderlike material were traced as we can sometimes trace the writing on paper that has been burned, but the process of deciphering is so difficult and slow, that even though a complete Livy were discovered, the present generation could scarcely benefit by the disclosure. It is remarkable, however, that nearly all the MSS. are by authors of the Epicurean school. Two of them are by Epicurus himself; and some who reason boldly regarding providential events, might be disposed to connect this, and the habits to which his style of philosophy led, with the ruin of Herculaneum. In spite of Epicurus, "there is a God that judgeth in the earth." Men of learning and men of science have united in bewailing the tardiness which has characterized the Italian researches amid such scenes, or the Gothicism which is content to leave See Lyell's Geology, p. 376.

them unexplored; but we confess, that if only treatises on Music and Cookery are to be found, our loss is the less to be deplored. In one of the most classical of the productions yet deciphered, the author reasons of the Iliad as if the characters were all allegorical. Agamemnon is the ether, Achilles the sun, Helen the earth; and surely we are not greatly impoverished by the lack of such trifles.

The process by which the papyri are unrolled though tedious, is very simple. A frame, resembling a bookbinder's stitching-frame, is made; the MS. to be deciphered is placed where the sheets to be stitched would be laid; the end of the roll, which is always the beginning of the colume, is detached from the carbonized mass by a chemical solvent; it is then fastened by a glutinous substance (aqua-di-colla) to a thin membrane like that used by gold-beaters, which forms the basis of the new fabric, as it is gradually or imperceptibly unfolded by enlarging the frame; and by this process about three lines each day may be unrolled. The characters are exceedingly indistinct and various, though, after they have been unrolled, it is not very difficult to read them, as they hang around the "Chamber of the MSS." When we saw the interpreters at work, about ten men were employed, under the superintendence of the prefect of the Royal Library at Naples. The works are generally printed with a Latin translation, and the lacunæ filled up by conjecture, or otherwise, when that can be done. †

Besides Herculaneum and Pompeii, various other cities suffered by the vast cataclysms which laid them in ruins. Stabiæ, near the site of Castel-a-Mare, perished in 79, and skeletons and other remains have been found among the ruins. Torre del Greco has been the arena of many such disasters. Boiling water has rushed along its streets-burning torrents of lava have enveloped, as in a winding-sheet of stone, many of its buildings. In 1631, 3000 inhabitants were destroyed by a flood poured forth from the volcano. In 1737, lava again flowed round and through the city; the edifices were then half buried, but these substructures soon became the foundation of new erections. Unscared by all the past, men still cling to the favoured spot; the graves of one race sometimes become the foundations of the homes of another; and the lava, which first overthrew and then entombed those fated abodes, became, when indurated, the quarry out of which new edifices were reared. Nor need we marvel at this. The beauty of the scene, the fertility of the soil, the inexpressibly delicious character of the bay and its margin, knit men to it with intense affection; and as sinners will pursue sin this hour, though it should end in destruction the next, so the dwellers in the neighbourhood of Naples cling to their homes so often melted or swept away. Like soldiers bivouacking on the field where their comrades are stretched beside them in death, they rear their new homes, and hasten to renew their former pursuits, and pleasures, and sins, amid scenes where every rock is a monument, and every footstep is on a grave. Horace, in principle, explains all this, where he says:—

"Nullus in orbe sinus Baiis prælucet amænis."

has been published on the subject in Britain, France, and Italy, but it is still undescribed. It must be seen. We glance only at some of the more prominent peculiarities.

Murat and his queen were the chief excavators here. With great zeal, and at great expense, they disencumbered the city till its circumference of three miles was traced, and not a few of its streets, paved with lava, yet deeply rutted by wheels, can again be trod. An amphitheatre capable of containing from twenty to thirty thousand spectators, temples of Hercules, Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, Serapis, and other divinities, have been uncovered, and, in some cases, the apparatus of altars, adyta, shrines, and vestries, can be distinctly traced. Along with these mementos of a false religion, are mingled the tokens of a voluptuous life, for modesty is abashed at the representations or inscriptions which sometimes greet the eye, and as one wanders through those deserted streets, disturbed only by the echo of his own foot-fall, he cannot but marvel more and more at the mingled taste and grossness of the ancient Romans. The style of some of the temples and of the Forum might serve as a model for all times, while the lamps, vases, and various implements, are perfect in their forms. Walk into that open door, and you will see the mark left by the wine flagon on the table eighteen centuries ago. Or look into that other apartment, and see the implements of the baker, the barber, the apothecary. That house with the obscene inscription was a brothel. At the corner of the adjoining street, see where the provocatives to lowest passions were plied. Gambling and grossest debauchery there reigned paramount; and perhaps the eye of faith can read in such things an explanation of the city's overthrow. But now, visit that villa, and study the tokens of its ancient master's taste. That Mosaic floor, representing some portions of the history of Alexander, shows how exquisite was the mind that directed the decorations. That glass in the windows tells how vainly the moderns boast of discovering the art, of manufacturing that article. Those painted walls so finely peculiar in their tints, that even Sir H. Davy could not detect the secret by which they were made so exceedingly beautiful, with a crowd of other objects, proclaim that recent times can in many respects, only toil after the doings of former generations. There are cycles in the history of the arts, as of nations and men; for there is, in reality, more fact and more philosophy in the words, "There is nothing new under the sun," than many are disposed to allow.

But how was Pompeii laid in ruins? Pliny the younger, in a letter to Tacitus, enables us to reply. In the month of August 79, after frequent earthquakes, an eruption of Vesuvius took place. The elder Pliny then lay at Misenum in command of the Roman fleet, in full view of the mountain, and hastened across the bay to obtain a nearer prospect of the phenomena of that stupendous eruption. The younger Pliny, his nephew, refused to accompany him, and the uncle set sail in his pinnace about "the seventh hour of the night." The inhabitants of Retina (now Resina), had been roused by the terrible commotion, and besought the philosopher to desist from his purpose. His curiosity, however, prevailed, and he sailed right into the danger. Ashes were now falling fast on the ships, which gradually increased in heat and quantity. Then stones, shattered by the action of fire, descended in showers. The sea heaved

violently, now suddenly retiring, and anon rushing landward, as if it would sweep the mountain from its base. The philosopher faltered, yet urged onward by his zeal to see and know, and attracted by the tremendous column of smoke issuing pine-shaped from the mountain, illuminated from time to time by the lurid flashes of the volcano, he pressed forward, and silenced his pilot's suggestion by the remark so soon to be falsified, "Fortes fortuna jurat-Pomponianum pete." Pomponianus, the friend of Pliny, was then stationed at Stabiæ, and forward, therefore, the philosopher was borne. He reached the point at which he aimed, and, after bathing, he supped and retired to rest. Meanwhile, the scene on the mountain was hastening to its crisis. The house in which Pliny slept began to be buried in ashes, and, lest they should be emtombed alive, the attendants awoke him. The fabric was rocking to its fall, and as they reluctantly retreated, they were obliged to use every precaution lest they should be stifled by the dust, or buried beneath the showers of stone. The words of the nephew are graphical: "Crebris rastisque tremoribus tecta nutabant, et quasi emota sedibus suis nunc illuc abire aut referri videbantur." By this time the morning had dawned on the opposite shores, but it was still night, and something more, around Pompeii-" Nox omnibus noctibus nigrior.' Undeterred, however, by all that had happened, the uncle persevered in his observations, but flames and sulphureous odours drove some of his attendants to flight, and alarmed at last, he rose to depart, leaning on two of his slaves. It was too late, and he sank to the earth stifled by the denseness and heat of the atmosphere. His body was found three days after his death, uninjured, and uncovered. Similar agitations had prevailed where the younger Pliny lay. The sea ebbed and flowed with tremendous violence. Fish were cast upon the dry land. The people howled for terror-" Metu mortis mortem precarentur." Vehicles on shore lurched like ships at sea; and all combined to tell at once how puny is man-how majestic is He at whose touch the mountains are melted, and run down.

Few skeletons of human beings have been found among the ruins either of Herculaneum or Pompeii, and the inference is, that the inhabitants had time and forewarning to flee. Indeed, the frequent earthquakes that preceded the eruption of 79 had given abundant premonition; and the history of that flight is easily read among the ruins of Pompeii. When the showers of sand and stone that buried the city fell, some of the buildings that had been damaged by an earthquake which happened sixteen years before, were in course of being rebuilt. Pillars and capitals were hewn, on which the marks of the chisel are still fresh. Some large blocks of coarse marble remain half-hewn; and all that is seen betokens at once the greatness of the catastrophe, and the entireness of the overthrow. The human remains, as we have stated, are not numerous. In the barracks at Pompeii, two soldiers were discovered made fast in the stocks; and in the vaults of a villa in the suburbs, seventeen skeletons were found. Near them was preserved a perfect cast of a woman, with an infant in her arms, of whom only the bones remained, around which a chain of gold was suspended, while jewelled rings decorated the fingers.

It requires no effort to moralize in this city of the dead. Here is the very home of voluptuousness. Orgies, which should not be once named among us,

were rife in the homes of Pompeii-but is not the end of these things death? To seek pleasure in these is it not like seeking rest on the top of a mast? Yet, unwarned by all that has happened, men are still in crowds pursuing the same mad career. Nay, their career is now madder far, for light from heaven has shone upon that land, and men have preferred the darkness to it. The former cities were like Sodom and Gomorrah; the modern are worse they are like Chorazin and Bethsaida. In proportion to their privileges is their guilt.

The effects of such eruptions as laid Herculaneum in ruins, may be estimated from the following statistics:-On the 12th of June 1794, from ten in the evening to four in the morning, the lava descended to the sea at Herculaneum in a stream 12,000 feet long, and 1500 feet wide, and penetrated into the bay to the extent of sixty fathoms. On that occasion the volcano, it has been calculated, discharged matter equivalent to a cube of 2,804,440 fathoms. Torre del Greco, containing 15,000 persons, was overwhelmed; and people had to walk by torchlight at mid-day, at a distance of ten or twelve miles from Vesuvius. Ashes, it is said, lay to the depth of fourteen inches and a half for three miles round the mountain. A fortnight of impetuous rain ensued. The torrents carried all before them-houses, trees, bridges, and roads-killed men and animals, and spread a devastation all but universal.*

But, after all, these sore devastations are trivial, compared with the magnificent scale on which similar havoc has been wrought in other lands. There is an extinct crater near Batur, in Java, called Guevo Upas-the Valley of poison-which no living thing can approach. The valley is covered with the carcasses of tigers, deer, birds, and even the bones of men-all killed, says Mr Lyell, by the abundant emanations of carbonic acid gas, by which the bottom of the valley is filled. Farther, it is computed that about 2000 eruptions take place every century among all the known volcanoes on the globe, and the havoc thus wrought is incalculable. Take a few specimens. In 1815, the province of Tambora, in the island of Sumbawa, contained about 12,000 inhabitants—an eruption took place, and only twenty-six survived. Men, horses, and cattle were carried aloft by whirlwinds; large trees were torn up by the roots; the sea was covered by floating timber; the fall of ashes was so heavy, that, at a distance of forty miles, it crushed houses, and rendered them uninhabitable; while particles of dust were carried to a distance of 800 miles.+ Again, in 1812, Caraccas was visited by an earthquake; in an instant 10,000 of the inhabitants were buried in the ruins of their city. In the year 1772, forty villages were destroyed by eruptions, or engulfed in abysses, in Java. Two thousand nine hundred and fifty-seven of the inhabitants perished. The cone of a volcano was reduced from 9000 feet to about 5000. In the following year, 8000 families perished by a similar catastrophe. At Lisbon, in the year 1755, about 60,000 immortal beings perished in the space of six minutes. During an earthquake in the two Calabrias and Sicily, it is computed that 40,000 perished; while 20,000 more died of epidemics occasioned by malaria, arising from stagnant pools and other causes. But we need not enumerate more. It may be possible to compute the hun

* See Michélet's Roman Republic, p. 21.
† See Lyell's Geology, pp. 441-442.
Lyell's Geology contains a mass of such facts.