“After this, we thought we had seen enough, and turned to go down. The descent is as easy as the ascent is difficult; the cinders and ashes sliding away beneath the feet, nothing further is necessary than to step out, the quicker the better, to keep one’s equilibrium, and to avoid the fixed or large stones and pieces of lava. We were not more than ten minutes in reaching the point whence it had taken us an hour and a half to mount. In coming down, we were struck with the strange appearance of the torches of companies ascending and descending; they formed a pale wavering line from Resina to the hermitage; and thence to the cone, they were scattered about in thick and fantastic groups. On reaching the hermitage, we found it so crowded, that we could not enter. The large flat around was covered like a crowded fair, by people of all nations, and of all ranks, from the beautiful and accomplished countess of Fiquelmont, wife of the Austrian ambassador, to the Austrian sergeant and his wife, who had come to see the blazing mountain. Numbers of people had come from towns and villages below, with bread and wine, and fruit and aqua-vitae, all of which articles seemed in very great demand. The motley scene was illuminated by the bright silvery moon, and the red towering flames at the summit of the volcano. We took some slight refreshments, and repaired homewards in the midst of as merry groups as ever returned from scenes of festivity and joy.
“When we got lower down, we found that the lava had approached very near to the road, and had already seized upon a fine vineyard, which was blazing very brilliantly. After our retreat, we learned that the lava traversed the road. On Wednesday, the 27th, the eruption was in a great measure tranquillized; still, however, crowds of people continued going up the mountain; and an Austrian officer, who had come from Caspua to see it, was unfortunately killed on the ridge of the cone, by a large stone striking him on the head. On Thursday scarcely any thing but smoke issued from the crater, and it has continued from that time in the same peaceful state.”
Anagrams.
In “The Book of Curiosities,” even that mechanical, yet curiously fortuitous species of wit, called the Anagram, must not escape notice. It can scarcely be necessary to premise, that anagram, or metagram, is the dissolution of a word into its letters, as its elements; and then, by a new connection of them, making some perfect sense, applicable to the person or thing named. As there are some modern ones of this sort, exhibiting astonishing coincidences, we shall here subjoin a selection of the best:—
Lo i dress, Soldiers.—’Tis ye govern, Sovereignty.—Spare him not, Misanthrope.—Great Helps, Telegraphs.—No more Stars, Astronomers.—No Charm, Monarch.—March on, Monarch.—Comical Trade, Democratical.—Best in Prayer, Presbyterian.—A just Master, James Stuart.—To love Ruin, Revolution.—Oh poison Pitt, Th’ Opposition.—Honor est a Nilo, Horatio Nelson.—A Bear upon ’t, Buonaparte.
The unhappy Sir Edmundburie Godfry, having dared, as a magistrate, to take some legal depositions against the Papists, was, by three of those fellow-subjects, Green, Berry, and Hill, waylaid, and shockingly murdered, in 1678, upon which was then written,
I find murder’d by rogues
Sir Edmundburie Godfry.
Modern Dictionary.
To illustrate life at the present day, we insert the following whimsical Encyclopædia of Manners at the Commencement of the Nineteenth Century!