“Deus immortalis haberi,
Dum cupit Empedocles ardentem frigidus Ætuam
Insiluit.—”—Hor.
and desirous of the glory of dying a death worthy of the great nation, plunged into the fiery abyss. The guide placed my hand on the very spot where he was stated to have last stood, before he thus rashly entered upon eternity.
I was anxious to have proceeded up the cone to the border of the superior and large crater, but our guide objected, indeed refused to conduct us to it, unless we awaited the dawn of morning; the moon, he said, was fast descending, so that we should be involved in darkness before we could attain it; and that consequently it would be attended with risk in the extreme to make the attempt.
This was a check to the completion of my anxious wishes, but our arrangements at Naples neither made it convenient to my friend, or myself, to remain until morning; nor would it have been pleasant to have spent some hours here without refreshment, more particularly as I had left my coat behind near the hermitage, and at this elevation we found it extremely cold.
After spending a short time in examining some of the immense masses of calcined rock, some of them forming solid cubes of twenty feet diameter, and which had been at different times thrown out by the volcanic power; we began to retrace our steps towards the hermitage, distant, as our guide informed us, four miles, but which must have been an over-rated estimate. As we approached this latter place, we met a party ascending the mountain, with an intention of waiting the break of day, so as to enable them to reach the very summit.
We now partook freely of the good hermit’s provisions, and enjoyed his Lachrymæ Christi, both white and red; which of course he had no objection to, as he expected to be well paid for it; he is probably influenced by motives of this nature in residing here, although he is said to enjoy a small pension from the king. The present hermit has not been long resident; the former, a very old man, having retired a few years since to spend the remnant of his days in the bosom of his family. Of course the tenant of this seclusion is a monk, but in the present day we have few instances of voluntary and solitary retirement from the busy haunts of men, on the mere score of religious feeling, and we can scarcely, in the present instance, attribute a lonely residence, in the midst of such dangerous circumstances, to this principle alone.
But the danger of the situation is probably not so great as might be imagined: to the common eruptions our recluse must be accustomed, and of course has had experience of their comparative innocence; and with respect to the more important ones, it is certain, that a variety of indicating circumstances have generally preceded them, well understood by those who are exposed to their agency, and which give timely and sufficient warning; besides, our hermit is not so solitary a being as many who move on the busy stage of life; for the number of parties that visit his cell, must afford him considerable intercourse with society, and was it otherwise, we know how much we are the creatures of habit, which can even reconcile us to incompatibles. Some think a ship a prison, nay, Dr. Johnson says, it is “the worst of prisons, for you have no means of escaping,” and yet there are many, who, from custom, are never more happy than in one.
The hermit placed his book before us, containing the names of those who had visited his cell, and we found them accumulated from all nations, and largely interspersed with observations in verse and prose; but as for their beauty and point I shall leave this to be determined by those who may think well to inspect them. My friend was anxious that I should contribute my mite to this book of scraps, when, as my mind was not a little elate, with the idea of having so easily surmounted the difficulties which my friends had urged against my present excursion, I put down a couplet to the following effect: