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I believe, raised by goatherds for shelter during the day; and here I was glad to sit down for half an hour, and take something to eat and drink. The object in travelling by night is to be on the summit by sun-rise. The ascent is 18 English miles; in some parts very steep and very laborious, as one has to walk for about four miles over frozen snow, which takes two hours and a half to accomplish. Having passed the snow, the ground becomes soft and yielding, into which the foot sinks over the ankles; and the cold is so severe that persons, even in Midsummer, have been known to lose the use of some of their limbs. However, at a quarter before five in the morning, I got to the top, and in about fifteen minutes the sun rose, and my object was gained. It was a a clear bright morning, and consequently I had as splendid a view as the Emperor Adrian and Plato (who, we are told, visited this crater at sunrise,) could have enjoyed. I got back to Nicolosi about 11.

While writing of volcanos, I must inform you of an extraordinary one, which I recently went from hence to visit, and which had risen up from the bed of the sea about three months previously. The sea was known, prior to this event, to be 140 fathoms deep, and the island itself was about 200 feet above the level of the sea when I visited it about six weeks since, making together 1040 feet from the bottom of the ocean. It is situated between Africa and Sicily, and must have sprung up in the course of a few hours, as ships are constantly passing, and it was instantly noticed. It was not very active when I landed on it, but a few days before, it was seen to throw up fire, lava, and dense smoke, to the height of 1000 feet, which fell down in streams somewhat like the overflowing water of a fountain's vase. It is thought it must soon disappear, as it has almost ceased to work or throw up matter, and the waves beating on it, easily wash away the soft pulverized stuff of which it appears to be wholly composed. It may be driven out of sight, but when under the surface of the water, it cannot be much more reduced, and will remain a dangerous obstacle in the way of ships.

We are in expectation of the cholera reaching our lonely isles, and great

[Dec.

fear is entertained, that if it does, the poor starving and wretched beings who compose the great majority of the population, must fall victims to it. The strictest precautions are, however, observed to ward it off; and the Government have it in contemplation to prohibit vessels that have recently left places visited by the dangerous malady, from at all entering the ports.

There is some rumour afloat of my regiment returning to England. I shall not be sorry to quit this little dungeon, as I may fairly term it, if the large islands be, what I have heard they are, at best but gaols.

Mr. URBAN,

THE following Letter was sent to a lady on occasion of a public hoax, performed on the credulity or incredulity of the lounging population at Brighton, before Brighton had grown up to its present monstrous enormity. As it contains an entirely new history of the inventor of the long-renowned Bottle-conjuror, it is possible you may find it amusing. X. X.

DEAR MADAM, -Were you surprised that the man who announced that he should walk on the sea from the East to the West Cliff at Brighton, and fixed the hour, never made his appearance? And as he said no more on the subject, you conclude that his cynical gratification terminated in walking among the myriads which he had collected on the shores. The affair of the Bottle-conjuror is again revived, and you wish me to inform you of the history of a memorable person, whoever he was, and who appears to be as little known as the illustrious Junius. Foreigners have often pointed their sarcasms at us, for what they choose to imagine as an evidence of our popular credulity. Half a century has not sufficed to pass into oblivion the folly of a single evening.

This hoax, as we now call it, or bite as it was at the time, has been usually considered to have been one of the follies of certain noble humourists of the day; but to have practised the joke, they must have confederated with others of humbler rank. To remove from themselves the grossness of the public offence, it was alleged that the whole had simply originated in a considerable wager, without any design to swindle the audience, who

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it was imagined would not be numerous. But as the money taken at the door had been securely carried off, it was evident that some of the confederates had acted for a purpose more obvious than to gain a wager for a hare-brained Duke or Earl, in which they could little if at all participate.

The real person with whom this trial of ludicrous curiosity originated, has never been ascertained, though strong suspicions rest on the witty Chesterfield, and a wild humourist, the Duke of Montagu, who married his mad Duchess under the character and in the costume of the Emperor of China.

A few years after, when "the overflowing" and it may be added "the brilliant audience," (for the boxes and the stage were crowded with nobility as well as the house) could join in the laugh against themselves, the affair, then like a wasp which had lost its sting, could be safely played with, and a man was no longer in peril by making a public confession that he was the Bottle-Conjuror.

Such an one appeared in a Captain Dudley Bradstreet, and should he not have been the actual Bottle-Conjuror, at least it would be difficult to find another who could urge equal claims.

Captain Bradstreet was an Irish adventurer, not destitute of fortune and family, who in 1755 published his Autobiography in Dublin, a period not later than six years after the renowned feat. His subscribers include many names of his distinguished countrymen; and there is an air of authenticity, for the names of his employers are often introduced.

In the free narrative of his reckless inventions, some incidents have a breadth rather suspicious, and some a warmth rather indelicate. He was a joyous spirit of the Liffy. In 1745, being then a crony of the Duke of Montagu, at a moment's notice, he was urged to sally forth on a great and hazardous office,-it was no less than that of a spy in the enemy's camp. The Captain passed over to the Pretender's army at Derby, offered his treacherous services, and by his sinister counsels and fictitious representations, was the real occasion of the Pretender's unexpected and sudden retreat. His statement will seem doubtful, if we trust other accounts, that the Pretender was the only one

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in his council who persisted to advance. Spies in the situation of our Captain often flatter themselves with a presumed success, which in reality happened by other means than their contrivances; and then follow complaints of unrequited services, and finally of neglect, as does our present adventurer.

What seems less unlikely is, his assertion at page 244, that he was the identical projector of the Bottle-Conjuror. For the accuracy of his narrative of that almost recent event, he appeals to some who were his assistants, and moreover to his own notoriety, being universally reputed as that man in Ireland. To this egregious honour he seems to me to have substantiated his claim, by furnishing more than one specimen of his inventive adroitness at raising popular delusions;-schemes which, though more ingenious than the bolder incident, yet "the Bite" being less preposterous, seem to have passed away with other fugitive occurrences.

While the enraged audience were dismantling the theatre, and the mob rushing in, were making a bonfire of the ruins, Bradstreet and his two confederates at supper were sharing the three hundred guineas, the produce of that evening's entertainment.

Elated by the unhappy success of this scheme, the audacious ingenuity of this singular projector raised up another, in which the same confederates would act no unwilling parts.

It was to be supposed that the public credulity was quite extinct after the recent non-appearance; but Bradstreet knew how to touch the infirmity of man; the passions are never extinct. He levelled his invention at the good citizens of London, and at once roused their two darling passions -politics and epicurism.

Now, "all well-wishers to old England were invited by the newspapers to dinner at the Ship in Chancerylane, and at Old Lebeck in the Strand." The bills of fare for inspection, and the dinner tickets for sale, were left at the taverns. A crown a-head was the amazing low price, including as much wine as should be called for," at this city-feast.

People at first were chary,-no purchasers of tickets! Frequent advertisements induced some curious souls to steal to the taverns; they witness

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ed magnificent preparations, and con. ned the delicious columns of the carte. They learned that the King's cabinetmaker was employed for the decorations of the apartments; the Prince of Wales's wine-merchant was the purveyor of the wines; and the famous cook of Count Munich presided, and actually furnished the bills of fare.

The inquirers into the object of the meeting received their usual answer, "that at that dinner they would learn who is to rule the roast."

The confederates divided themselves about town, and insinuated themselves into public meetings in the country; coffee-houses debated, and families quarrelled. All cautious reckoners proved that the five shillings' banquet was ruinous to its providers. But then the rumour ran that "there was a great deal more meant by it than the public knew." Another report spread that "honest men had been too long kept from shuffling the cards, because they would turn out the knaves from the kings." It was now generally understood that "all the business of the nation was to be settled at the dinner, which the Lord of Oxford well knew."

The awful Wednesday now approached. Persons inquired of their friends whether they meant to get a dinner-ticket? No one confessed! Their curiosity was now famished,the bait was to their taste,-they had faith in Count Munich's cook, and the dinner-tickets were more and more in request, though it was observed that persons mostly called in the dusk of the evening, wary and secretly.

Late in the night preceding the dinner, the confederates discharged the servants they had hired, and paid them liberally from the produce of 1736 crowns. Moreover they got two quart bottles, and into the mouths of each they stuck two pantomimic figures, men in miniature, which showed to the eyes of all how it was possible that some men might be crammed into quarts. These two personages were fastened on the doors of each tavern, and in large capitals in chalk, a label from their lips informed the holders of the dinner-tickets, "You are all bottled, by G—!”

On the morning-but who shall describe the merriment of the town, and the consternation of those who had whetted their appetites during the

[Dec.

whole week, watching the busy preparations up to the last day?-the doors and windows closed, nothing remained but the tiny criminals nodding from the two quart bottles.

"I forgive the Bottle-Conjuror," said one, "though this be the second time that he has bit me,-twitted as I have been for having gone to the Haymarket, I have now the satisfaction of deciding on the superior judgment of the other wiseacres, who, appealing to their dinner-tickets, assumed that there could be no imposition in a good dinner at a crown."

When the bubble was blown up, persons would quarrel about the shades of their sagacity,-the ifs and the buts of their qualified opinions. "A ticket-dinner" for some time continued a term in vogue for a Bite; and we are further told, that many in London, on these and one or two minor delusions or disappointments, went from one extreme to another, which was to believe nothing they heard, but suspect deception in every thing.

It might be a question to resolve, whether such a system, turning entirely on popular delusion, could be practised on the public of the present day? I would neither affirm nor deny the possibility. Some more recent instances might be cited, which exhibit the same prurient love of the wonderful. In 1749 the higher classes of society showed themselves as prone as the middle order in flocking to the first egregious hoax; and not long after, the second proved not less successful, though practised on a graver and more calculating race, the citizens of London.

Yet let us honestly vindicate an infirmity bordering on a virtue. Curiosity after extraordinary or mysterious circumstances, is a passion implanted in man; it is the germ of all knowledge. In the present case the people were laughed at. Yet, in fact, the people were more curious than credulous. Could any one suppose that a man should leap into a quart bottle; or that a magnificent feast for a crown should be given to the public? No one believed these things possible; but they felt an itching want to know how the parties were to extricate themselves from their dilemma. The impostor, however ingenious, did not find it so difficult to impose on the town as it might seem. Irish spirits

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Christianity was first introduced into France to any extent by the baptism of Clovis. A contemporary writer, Gregory of Tours, has furnished us with a very accurate description of the then prevailing plan, which will apply to all churches of the class of which I am speaking, and among them to that of Manningford Bruce. De Caumont after him has thus described them: "They were oblong, with a circular east end; and sometimes in the form of a cross; but this was only in the more sumptuous edifices.-The windows were round-headed; in short every part was an imitation more or less of the Roman architecture."

Now this will give an excellent idea of the Church before us. The body is in the form of an oblong. To the east of this is the chancel, narrower than the body, with a circular termination or apsis. There are traces of a doorway in the north wall, but it

Around the forum at Rome, and at the principal stations in the provinces, were built spacious halls, called Basilica, where the courts of justice might sit, and other public lus ness might be transacted. The tribunal, which indeed was the chief part of the building, being the place in which the prætor sat, was of stone, and semicircular. (Vitruv. 5, 1.) They were afterwards converted into Christian churches. (Ath. iv. 26.) t'Avis vel As, connexio, finis, ligneus rotæ circulus. Lexicon. GENT. MAG. December, 1831.

seems to have been transferred to the south, and a modern porch has been added to it. It was originally lighted by four windows only, narrow and round-headed, but widening in the inside, so as to double their exterior dimensions, which are not quite two feet: two were in the body and two in the chancel. A pointed window, with the mullion and tracery, has been inserted in the place of the original one in the south wall of the body, and another in the south wall of the chancel. A pointed window has also been inserted in the west end of the Church. They must be nearly 250 years later than the others.

I could discover no Norman ornaments of any kind, and the rectangu