der these able masters he displayed equal ability and industry, and left several volumes in his own handwriting, which were preserved in the time of his biographer Poggiali, and shew an intimate and extensive ac-, quaintance with sacred and profane literature. To a lively, bold, and enterprising genius, he joined a supple and insinuating behaviour, and a watchful attention to seize every opportunity of improving his knowledge, which his sagacious mind had discovered to be the surest instrument of fortune.

By these talents and winning manners he gained many friends and protectors; and particularly acquired the patronage of Ignazio Gardini di Ravenna, a judge or coadjutor of the - criminal court at Placentia. This patron, however, falling under the displeasure of the sovereign, sought an asylum in his native city, and the young Alberoni voluntarily shared his disgrace.

Such was the path which was marked for his future elevation. At Ravenna he attracted the notice of the vice legate count Barni, who being promoted to the bishopric of Placentia, made him his steward. Being, however, as little qualified for the details of this office as for the labours of a gardener, Alberoni turned his views to the church, was ordained priest in 1690, admitted to a small cure, and by the interest of his patron received a prebend in the cathedral.

He next became preceptor, or rather companion, to count John Baptista Barni, nephew of his protector, and accompanied him to Rome. In this situation he not only improved his knowledge of classical literature and philosophy, but acquired the French tongue, which was the instrument of his further rise. At Rome he cultivated the acquaintance of many distinguished persons, particularly count Alessandro Roncoveri, afterwards bishop of Borgo St Domi

no, the travelling companion of the heir of Parma. On his return to Placentia, chance opened to him a channnel of promotion, which he adroitly improved. During the campaigns of Vendome in Italy, the French and Spanish armies were quar tered in the duchy, and oppressed the people by heavy contributions. To obtain some relief from these exactions, the duke employed the bishop of St Domino as his agent the Vendome, and the prelate being ignorant of the French tongue, chose Alberóni to accompany him as his interpreter.

The vivacity and insinuating address of the young priest had already captivated all to whom he became known, had gained him numerous patrons, had converted those patrons into friends, and had inspired them with the same solicitude for his interests as for their own.

less successful in acquiring the favour of the rough and soldier-like Vendome, than in pleasing his more refined and polished countrymen. During the course of the negotiation, he enlivened the tediousness of discussion with sallies of wit and buffoonery; he gratified the gross taste of the French commander by the most extravagant flattery, and libertine conversation, and by preparing with his own hand such poignant Italian dishes as were calculated to provoke a jaded appetite. By these means he gained new favour in every conference. The bishop soon perceived the superior influence of his interpreter, whom Vendome called his dear abbot,' and being disgusted with the gross manners of the French commander, advised his sovereign to transfer the whole negotiation to Alberoni. The duke adopted the advice, and gave additional consideration to his agent by conferring on him a canonry of Parma; and as he was the guide and interpreter of many French officers of high distinction, who repaired to the court, a salary was added to the donation,

her Parmesan attendants, was perfectly insulated in the solitary court of Madrid. She naturally, therefore, turned to her countryman Alberoni, to whom she principally owed her elevation, and who, besides his services and attachment, and capacity of agent from her father-in-law, was best adapted to become her counsellor, from his experience in public affairs, and intimate acquaintance with the court in which she was to figure as a sovereign. By his advice she was principally governed; and from the moment of her arrival his power may be dated; for the disgrace of the princess relieved him from an irksome dependence, and left him without a

rival.

Description of Volcanoes in the Island of ST MICHAEL, one of the AZORES.

THROUGHOUT these wonderful islands, nothing can be more opposite than the two districts of the valley of the Furnas, known by the names of the Caldeiras and the Vale das Furnas. A dreary waste of volcanic sand, without shade or shelter, scorched by the burning rays of the sun, and intersected by deep ravines and yawning craters, where, instead of refreshing breezes, the most suffocating vapours are spread, and boiling waters, which, rising from the tremb ling earth, threaten to overwhelm the affrighted beholder, are descriptive of the Caldeiras ; while, on the other hand, shady groves, green pastures, flavid fields, streams of the purest water, fruits of the most delicious flavour, and air of the most balmy fragrance, characterize the Vale das Fur

nas.

Some time elapsed before I could summon sufficient resolution minutely to examine the Caldeiras. To contemplate such extraordinary appearances without emotion, and a fearful

admiration of that Great Being who calmly forms these miracles to oper ate on the minds and conduct of his creatures, was impossible. It was impossible to view them without a sensation of exhausted strength; a diposition of mind favourable to hu miliation and reverence, and an acknowledgment of incapacity to analyze that which soars so much beyond the calculation or comprehension of man.

The guide to the Caldeiras, whose feelings were blunted by the habit of perusing this wonderful scene, paid but little attention to the devotion of my manners: he hurried me from object to object; making the principal objects of curiosity divisible into,

1. The Caldeiraş ;-2. The Muddy Crater; 3. The Perforated Rock.

1. The Caldeiras of the Furnas

are discoverable by vast columns of boiling water rising from springs of various diameters, and to a height in the greatest degree not exceeding twelve feet. The air is strongly impregnated with sulphur, and the impending atmosphere receives the burning vapour in the form of clouds, which exhibit a beautiful variety of eccentric figures and lucid tints. The water is so hot as to boil an egg in two minutes; and beans, potatoes, and corn, in a proportionable time, but it is so sulphuric and searching, that it impregnates the vegetable with the sulphurous acid it contains, and thereby renders it unfit for the food of man. For several yards round each Furnas or Caideira, slight vapors issue from the earth, which leave traces of a sublimed sulphur on the places exposed to their action, and exhibit colours in which green, yellow, and azure are, for the most part, predominant. The principal Caldeira makes a grand appearance: the water is cast from several hundred valves, and rises and falls as if ejected through the spiracles of so many whales. When this action is viewed

with attention opposite to the sun, the spherical surface is seen adorned with prismatic colours; and, were it not for the intense heat, and the sterile and dreary scenes that surround it, it is a spectacle much more calculated to excite a generous admiration than a dastardly terror. But the heat is so great, and the ruin and desolation so glaring and gigantic, that the mind shrinks from the idea of pleasure, and falls into the melancholy consideration of such objects only as are sad, perishable, and subject to decay. 2. "The Muddy Crater," separated from the Grand Caldeira by a bank of volcanic substance, can be viewed but with mingled sensations: it is an object of stupendous horror that appears to appal the mind, and startle the intellect, at the first sight, and yet, after reason or experience removed the first impressions of my fear, I made it also a foundation of pleasurable enjoyment. It is the same with fire, ruins, hurricanes, a stormy sky, a troubled ocean, a wild beast in chains, or a dead monster, which, either from their natural magnificence, or extraordinary novelty, become subjects of agreeable contemplation after they have been acknowledged at once dreadful and harmless. The vertex of the muddy crater is on a level with the plain, and leads to a vast cavern, wherein its mineral and metallic contents are in a continued state of ebullition, and which it unceasingly endeavours to discharge through the vertex, and with a vio'lence and uproar more powerful and mighty than the waves of the sea when they seek for admission into the recesses of their shores. But, strange as it may appear, the volcano has a limited domination: its lavatic matter swells and rises to the exact periphery of its vertex, but never overflows. It is, however, generally known in the valley, that the state of the atmosphere has a visible effect upon this crater, and that it possesses a very August 1813.

strong presentiment of every change in it. It has been discovered, that it possesses this quality in a more eminent degree than any barometer in the island. When the weather inclines to rain or wind, its noise increases from the dashing of waves to the roar of a hurricane, and when the weather is disposed to moderate, the roar subsides to the sound of waves beating against the strands of the sea. Nor is it slightly prognostic of the changes which are about to take place in the air. The barometer foretels the state of the weather only for about twenty-four hours, whereas there is a certainty that the weather will continue fine three or four weeks when the noise of the crater subsides. And such is the infallibility of this natural barometer, that it has never been known entirely to subside before the most perfect equilibrium of all the constituent parts of the air indicates, with certainty, that this great decline of detonation will not be made in vain. There are also artificial causes which operate a change of this wonderful phenomenon: stones thrown into the vertex are succeeded by an increase of noise commensurate with their magnitude, and cold water cast in excites an effervescence and uproar almost too horrible to be heard or to behold. Under this experiment, and during heavy rains, the lava swells up with impetuosity to the vertex of the crater, and emits a spray of the heat, colour, and consistence of boiling lead. The ground, for several yards round, is intensely hot, and no vestige of vegetation can be traced. The vertex of the crater is about forty-five feet in circumference; but, as it is hourly wasting by the ebullition and attrition of its fiery contents, its magnitude will ultimately expand and absorb the Caldeiras of clear water which at present play around its tremendous gulf. The heat emitted was so excessive and suffocating, that I could make no farther observations,

observations, and I gladly turned to

3. "The Perforated Rock." This beautiful object has been formed by the unremitting industry of a hot spring immediately beneath it, and to which it now serves as a covering or dome. The rock is about six feet in circumference, about four feet deep in the centre, and is perforated in such a manner, that its surface resembles a sieve through which the hot water emits itself with wonderful impetuosity and force. I have seen stones wasted by attrition and hollowed out by the tedious operation of water falling from the eaves of a house, drop by drop, but I believe this is the only instance of a rock being perforated through and through by the ebullition of a spring, or the perpendicular action of water beating up against it from the ground. The water is perfectly transparent, and strongly impregnated with sulphuret of iron.

I will now proceed to inform you, that, the day after my arrival at Ribeira Grande, I determined to visit a caldeira of the most extraordinary magnitude and character, and which was said to be about six miles from the town, and seated on the vertex of a volcano on the top of the highest nountain between Ponta Del Gada and the northern shore. Its road being represented to me impracticable for horses or asses, I was compelled to depart on foot, accompanied by Mr Purvis, a gentleman of great geological knowledge, attended by two guides, who affected to know more of the country than I afterwards found they did.

The obstructions to my journey commenced and multiplied from the moment I left the baths. In fact, the hills I had to pass over were so rugged, and the mountains, which lay between me and the object of my research, so steep and elevated, so convuised by eruptions, and so split and rent by the earthquakes which

chose this as the favourite theatre for their shocks, that I was frequently terrified by the prospect of encountering so many difficulties, and often wished to return without effecting the object of my pursuit. This timid disposition was not a little augmented by the discovery, that the distance infinitely exceeded the accounts I had received of it at Ribeira Grande.—

After travelling with insuperable difliculty a space of five miles, I had the mortification to perceive that the guide directed our attention to the summit of a mountain distant at least five miles further off, and separated from us by mountains of smaller magnitude, between which were deep valleys, frightful precipices, yawning chasins, and enbrinous rocks. Cautiously progressing, however, we at length approached an object of inexpressible grandeur and beauty, and which amply compensated for the toils and disappointments I had undergone. Not that it was the origi nal object of our pursuit, which was yet far distant, but seen unexpectedly, it had a peculiar charm, and an influence over the mind perhaps more powerful than if it had been the distinct object of research. »

Having arrived, as I have just observed, with much fatigue and danger, at the summit of one of the intervening mountains, I perceived å column of white vapour rise from the centre of the cone of a volcano, one side of which, by being rent from the summit to the base, afforded the means of seeing the vapour rise in several columns or streams, and also served as a passage for the spectator to enter without impediment into the body of the cone or vertex, and there examine and discover the conduct of nature in the formation of volcanic. mountains and exhibition of volcanic water. The effect of the grandeur and sublimity of the scene was, on the first instance of viewing it, somewhat suppressed by awe and appre