$799.] History and Description of Malta. 45 monarchs. Both in the privy-council, intercourse and collision of the individuals where political measures which required of different nations with each other. No fecrecy, and where affairs of the greatest particular character was to be met with importance were managed, as alfo in what was called the Great Council, he could propose what he thought fit, and carry every point, without being himself responsible for any step. In this latter council, it was requifite that every queftion to be discussed should be proposed in the first instance by the grand master himfelf, so that he could let it remain altogether unnoticed, if he did not wish to have it determined upon : he also distributed all the lucrative offices and favours of the order; and could not only create any places he thought necessary, but even appoint as many honorary baillies as he had occafion for votes to defeat his opponents. His titles were Serene Highness and Eminence. He nominated to twenty-one commanderies and one priory (some of which were worth upwards of 2000l. a year) every five years; and as there were always a great number of expectants or ambitious pretenders, much exterior fubmiffion was paid to to him him, and he was exceedingly careffed and courted. In 1770, the Chevalier Don Pinto, a Portuguese, who had prefided over this fingular little nation upwards of thirty years, had during that time disposed of 126 commanderies, befides priories and other offices of profit. In fact, the fituation of the grand master was the highest and beft appointment to which any private individual in Europe could legally afpire, the papacy excepted. He was chofen by a committee of twenty-one knights, the committee being nominated by the seven nations, three out of each nation. The election, by their statutes, was to be over, within three days after the death of the former grand master. During these three days, scarcely an individual slept in the island, all was cabal and intrigue; and most of the knights were masked in order to prevent their particular attachments and connections from being discovered. As Malta was an epitome of all Europe, and an affemblage of the younger brothers, (who are commonly, perhaps, the best) of its first families, it was certainly one of the best academies for politeness on the furface of the globe. All the knights and commanders had much here in the extreme. The French skip and affuming air, the German strut, stubbornness, and pride, the Spanish stalk, taciturnity, and folemnity, were still to be perceived, although blended in small proportions: the original characteristics were retained, and might be diftinguished, although their exuberance, and what made them appear extravagant and ridiculous, was worn off and had difappeared. The great politeness obfervable here might also partly be afcribed to this; that as the knights were entitled by law, as well as custom, to demand fatisfaction of each other for the least breach of it, every one of course was under a necessity of being very exact and circumspect with regard to his words and actions, as well as to the exterior punctilios of decorum. This fingular order, which was a compound of the military and ecclefiaftical policy, has now fubfifted with great eclat about 700 years. It was instituted at Jerufalem by Godfrey of Boulogne, (to protect the pilgrims visiting what was called the holy fepulchre, and to maintain an everlasting war with the Mahometans), under the name of the Order of the Knights Hospitalers of the Priory of St. John; which building stood immediately beyond the Chartreux-house in that city. After the lofs of Jerufalem, the knights retired from place to place, until having made a conquest of the island of Rhodes, they fixed there, and were thenceforward styled Knights of Rhodes: in 1522, however, they loft that island to the Turks. The order formerly confifted of eight nations, of which England was one, and poffefsed great riches here, as well as in other catholic countries, having at one time 19,000 manors in various parts of christendom; but on the separation of this country from the church of Rome, Henry VIII. confiscated all their poffeffions. Their priory-house in London stood in the Strand, and contributed its materials to build the spacious palace of the Protector Somerset, in the reign of Edward VI. Travellers who have been present at the celebration of their church service (particularly in the church of St. John) fpeak of it as infinitely more charged with papriefts, the ceremony of throwing incense upon all the Kni Knights of the Great Cross, and neglecting the poorer knights, with a variety and multiplicity of other articles, would appear highly ridiculous to a protestant, and are certainly very remote from the essential purity and fimplicity of primitive Christian worship*. the air and deportment of gentlemen and rade and ceremony than what is observed men of the world. It was curious, how in the other catholic countries. The ever, to observe the effect produced upon number of genuflexions before the altar, the various people that composed this the kissing of the prior's hand, the holdheterogeneous mixture, by the familiar ing up of his robes by the fubaltern priefts, The land force at Malta was equal to the whole number of men in the island, capable of bearing arms. They had n * The anniversary of the raifing of the hege in 1566 was always celebrated at Malta as a public festival. It began with a morcuary service at St. John's church for the waliant knights who lost their lives at the fiege, and whose names were commemorated with an eulogium on the heroic exploits by which they had immortalized themselves. This was performed on the eve of the anniversary. On the following day, all the troops being under arms, the Grand Master was faluted according to the military forms; the gofpel was read aloud under the great standard of the order, which (after this) was displayed under a canopy by his feat, and a page presented him wirh a fword and poignard, which Philip II. had fent on the occafion to the Grand Master, Valetta. The whole ceremony ended with a long proceffion, during which falvoes of cannon were fired off from all the batteries of the forts. The 6th of June was likewise observed as a folemn day of thanksgiving for their deliverance from a terrible conspiracy that was formed about thirty-nine years ago by the Mahomecan slaves, at one stroke to exterminate the whole order of Malta. All the fountains of the place were to be poisoned, and every lave had taken a folemn oath to put his mafter to death. It was discovered by a Jew who kept a coffee-house. He understood the Turkish language, and over-hearing fome discourse which he thought fufpicious, he went immediately and communicated the information to the Grand Master. The fufpected persons were immediately apprebended, and being put to the torture, foon confefsed the whole plot. The executions that followed were very terrible. Some were burned alive, some were broken on the wheel, and fome were torn to pieces by the four galleys rowing in different directions, and each bringing off its limb. Since that time the conduct of the flaves has been much more strictly watched, and they have been allowed less liberty than formerly. NotwithAnding, however, the supposed bigotry of the Maltese, the spirit of toleration had become so predominant, that about thirty years ago they built a mosque for their professed enemies, the Mahometans; and here the poor haves were allowed to enjoy their religion in peace. regiment of about five hundred regulars, who ferved on board their ships of war; and one hundred and fifty composed the guard of the fovereign. Their fea force commonly confifted of four galleys, three galliots, four ships of fixty guns, and a frigate of thirty-fix, befides a number of quick-failing little vessels, called fcampavias, from their exceeding swiftness; literally runaways. The Maltese failors are remarkably robust and hardy; many of them will row for ten or twelve hours fucceffively, without even the appearance of being fatigued*. Next in importance to the city of Valetta (often called Malta) is CivitaVecchia, or Cite Notabile, called Melita by the ancients; this is most probably the oldest town in the island, and was its capital before the arrival of the Knights in 1530. It is still the refidence of the bishop. This city is fituated near the centre of the island, and in clear weather commands a magnificent view of the whole. It is very strongly fortified with large ditches and fine walls, and is nearly as well built as Valetta, though far from * An English gentleman, who visited the island in 1770, thus describes the circumstances attending the departure of a Maltese squadron from the Port. "Eleven at Night.-The shew is now finished, it has afforded us great entertainment. The Bey of Tunis, it seems, has fallen under the displeasure of the Grand Monarque, because he refused to deliver up without ransom the Corsican flaves that were taken before the French were in poffeffion of the island. The squadron confifted of three gaileys, the largest with nine hundred men, each of the others with feven hundred, three galliots, and seven scampavias. These immenfe bodies were all worked by oars, and moved with great regularity. The Admiral went first; the rest in order, according to their dignity. The sea was crowded with small boats and feluccas, and the ramparts and fortifications were filled with company. The port refounded on all fides with the dif charge of heavy artillery, which was answered by the gallies and galliots as they left the harbour. As the echo here is surprisingly great it produced a very noble effect. "There were about thirty knights in each galley, making signals all the way to their mistresses, who were weeping for their departure upon the bastions; for these gentlemen pay as little regard to their vows of chastity as the priests and confeffors do. After viewing the shew from the ramparts, we took a boat and followed the fquadron for some time, and did not return till long after fun-fet." 1799.] History and Description of Malta. being so populous. The cathedral is a very ery fine structure, and although exceedingly large, is (or was fome years ago) entirely hung round with crimson damask, richly laced with gold. The old palace, however, is not much worth the feeing. Above the principal gate of the city is an antique statue of Juno with its ancient drapery, and yet without either head or hands. This figure is inferted in the walls. The city is governed by an officer called the Hahem. The catacombs near Civita-Vecchia are much spoken of as a great work, extending, according to lome accounts, (probably exaggerated) several miles under ground. It is certain, however, that many perfons have been loft by advancing too far in them; the prodigious number of ramifications making it next to impoffible to find the way out again. They are so well preferved, being hewn out of a white free stone, quite dry, that they always appear as if they were just made. From the smallness of the galleries, where only one perfon can enter at a time; their uniforın arrangement; their roof, which is arched, though cut out of the rock; the chambers of which are seen at various in-, tervals; the plaster which still adireres to many of them; the little niches intended to hold the lamps which enlightened the fubterraneous abodes; the regularity of the tombs, mostly placed under square roofs, with a fort of farcophagus covered over in a pediment, &c. it is probable that the catacombs are not mere excavations, the work of nature, but that they were applied to the use of hiding places, where the inhabitants fought refuge, and fecreted themselves with their most valuable effects, during the inroads of the Saracens and other nations. They might alfo be designed as a place of interment for the dead, and a place of religious worship, where the mysteries of chrif tianity might be celebrated in concealment. There are not fo many tombs here as in other catacombs, and the large ones appear to have ferved for interring two bodies; places for two heads, cut out in the stone, are still to be seen. In the largest hall or compartment are two round stones shaped like an oil-mill, the use of which cannot now be afcertained. At no great distance from the old city there is a fmall church, dedicated to St. Paul, and just by the church is a statue of the apostle with a viper on his hand; placed, according to tradition, on the very fpot where he shook the viper off his band, without being injured. Adjoining 47 a to the church is the celebrated grotto in which they pretend the apostle was imprifoned. His name is alto preferved by fort, and by a bay or harbour for small vessels, where it is faid he was shipwrecked. The great fource of water that supplies Valetta, takes its rife at the distance of a mile er two from Civita Vecchia; and there is an aqueduct compofed of feveral thousand arches, that conveys it from thence to the city. The whole of this immenfe work was finished at the private expence of one of the Grand Matters, Vignacourt, whose name it bears. The general afpect of the country of Malta is far from being pleasing to the eye: as the whole island is nothing but an inamense rock of very white free-ftone,, and the foil that covers it is not, in mott places, more than five or fix inches deep. Their crops, however, from the copious dews which fall in the spring and fummer months, and from the moisture which adheres to the rock below the foil, are furprizingly abundant. Their wheat and barley harvests produce fuficient corn to support the inhabitants about five months in the year; but the crop they chiefly depend upon is that of cotton. the general produce of the ifland, and is so lucrative, lucrative, both in quantity and quality, that it fupplies the deficiency of every other production, and enables them to pay for the corn, wine, paftry, and other neceffaries they import in great variety, and plenty from Allicata in Sicily; that place being the magazine and harbour for exporting whatever is furnished to Malta by Sicily. This is The cotton plant rifes to the height of a foot and a half, and is covered with a number of nuts, or pods, full of cotton. The Maltese cultivate three kinds of this plant; the Indian cotton, which is much the finest, and shoots five years fuccessively without renewing the plants; the common cotton of the country, which does not grow to high, and must be fown every two years; and the yellow cotton, of which the nankeen is made. The cotton produced from these plants, is much fuperior in quality to that of the cotton tree; at least the Maltese affirm so: it certainly is the fineft, although that of the cotton tree is by much of the strongest texture. The Maltese oranges justly deserve the character they have acquired; of being the finest in the world. In one kind of them the juice is as red as blood, and they are of a very delicate flavour. The other forts are thought EMINENT PERSONS. thought to be too luscious. In the orange months, from November till the middle of June, the groves of these beautiful trees are always covered with a great profusion of this delicious fruit. The greatest part of their crops were commonly fent every year in presents to the different courts of Europe, and to the relations of the chevaliers. The industry of the Maltese in cultivating their little island, is altogether incredible. There is not an inch of ground lost in any part of it; and where nature has not produced foil enough for the purpose of the husbandınan, they have brought over ships and boats loaded with it from Africa, and particularly from Sicily, where there is plenty and to spare. The whole ifland is full of inclosures of free-ftone, which are very finall and irregularly laid out, according to the inclination of the ground. These the inhabitants fay they obliged to maintain, notwithstanding the uncouth and deformed aspect they exhibit, as otherwife, the rapid floods, to which they are occasionally subject, would carry off the foil. The rains, however, fall here but very feldom. No fpot hardly upon earth, presents ground naturally more ungrateful and sterile than that of Malta; and yet the farmer here, in cultivating the foil, is so active, so indefatigable, and so neat, that his poverty has only the appearance of ab T are ANECDOTES OF THE MARQUIS DE POMBAL, LATE PRIME MINISTER OF PORTUGAL. HE great powers of the human understanding, and the immense interval that feparates the mind of one man from another, are never more clearly exhibited than when an obfcure individual arises from the midst of a nation funk in floth, and dozing in the lap of ignorance, and after pushing down all the obstacles placed by fortune in his way, afcends to an eminence so high as to enable him at once to despise and to command the whole inert mass of his countrymen. The Marquis de Pornbal was one of these rare prodigies; sometimes portending good, sometimes mischief, to the regions in which they appear. Joseph Sebastian Carvalho was born at Coimbra in 1699, of parents so very hum. ble, and so little known, that report has reduced them to the rank of artifans. The truth however is, that he defcended stinence. The foil of Sicily, on the other hand, is immenfely fortunate and fertile, crops of various various produce, corn, wine, oil, filk, &c. (which are all mingled together) rapidly succeeding, or rather treading close upon each other; while the mountains, highly cultivated, almost to their tops, the inclofures, fenced with hedges of the Indian fig, or prickly pear, and the fides of the roads garnished with a profufion of flowers or flowering shrubs, exceedingly beautiful, altogether present the most agreeable afpect to the eye that can poffibly be imagined (especially in failing along its very rich coast). Still, however, notwithstanding these natural advantages, the peafants there are poor, dull, and loathsomely dirty; and in Syracuse, and other of their cities, scarcely a creature is to be seen, and even those have the appearance of disease and extreme wretchedness. The inward and outward cleanliness and comfortableness of Malta and its inhabitants, contrasted with what is visible in Sicily, is so striking in paffing from one island to the other, that a stranger would almost be induced to imagine them a thousand leagues asunder: in fact, there never were two countries fo near each other, which, in every phyfical and moral point of view, have so little mutual relation and resemblance as these have. (To be continued.) from one of those noble, but obscure families, which the more opulent and dignified nobleffe held in almost equal contempt with the basest class of plebeians. The proud spirit of Carvalho was stung at an early age by this infolence of the grandees, which he forgot not to abate when he afterwards rose to power. Though he discovered confiderable talents while pursuing his studies at the university of his native city, he declined the arts of peace, in which he might have displayed them, and embraced the profession of arms, as better fuited to an ardent and enterprising mind, and to the perfonal advantage with which he was most liberally endowed by nature. He was one of the handsomest men of the age in which he lived. His stature was uncommon, his aspect noble and commanding; and his strength prodigious. He was no less remarkable among the Guards of the Palace for his undaunted courage; but $799.] Memoirs of the Marquis de Pombal. but the excesses and follies into which he was precipitated by the petulance of youth, foon obliged him, to quit his military station. At that time, the favourite diversion of the young nobility of Lisbon confifted in fallying forth at night, and attacking the guards that patrolled the streets of the city-guards, who, partaking more of the wolf than the dog, often stripped instead of protecting the passenger. The young men had at their head a brother of the king, a perfonage of a cruel and ferocious difpofition; and not a night paffed without some bloody broil, nor many without a murder. In these hazardous rencounters, young Carvalho was ever one of the foremost. His profligate course did not, however, prevent him from winning the heart of a young lady of the ancient house of Aveiro; nor did the repugnance of her family, who abhorred so mean an alliance, hinder him from bringing his amour to a fortunate conclufion. He carried her off, married her in spite of them; and found means to avoid the daggers and the prisons, with which they fought to avenge the deadly affront that had been offered to their honour. Having acquired in the mean time a confcioufness of the great gifts he had received from nature, he thought of turning his attention to politics, and fucceeded in obtaining the appointment of secretary to the Portuguese embafly at the court of Vienna. Here he gave the first indication of those superior talents and that vast genius which afterwards made him omni potent in Portugal. His diplomatic career was scarcely begun, when he received ascounts that his wife was no more; the hatred of her family, which she had incurred by her marriage, favouring a fufpicion that life and death had been difpenfed to her from the same fource. Thus left at liberty, he offered his hand to a fair relative of that Marshal Daun, whose name, and the hiftory of the seven vears war, will be of equal duration. His fine perfon and engaging manners procured him, as before, the confent of the lady; but, as before, he failed in obtaining that of her parents. The pride of family is in Germany still more fcrupulous than in Portugal; aud a countryman of Carvalho, then at Vienna, took a pleasure in repeating that his birth was mean, and his manners diffolute. Fortunately, the ambaffador Tancos, whose friendship he had gained, refigned in his favour; and his new dignity was accepted in place of a wide fpreading geMONTHLY MAG. No. XLI. 49 nealogical tree and splendid armorial bearings. He was at this time less than thirty years of age. His dispatches and his political condu& foon gave a high opinion of his talents, and suggested the idea of affigning them a wider sphere of action. He was accordingly recalled from his embassy; Don Diego de Mendoza, the prime minifter was exiled, and the reins of government were put into the hands of Carvalho. To mend the state and the manners of nation long debafed by tyranny and corruption, is at once a difficult and an ungrateful task. Abuses and ufurpations, when sanctioned by the lapse of tine, are held facred, and he who attempts to reform the one, or retrench the other, is fure of the enmity of all those who consider the plunder of the public as property, and oppreffion as a right. Hence it is, that every bungling statesinan can do mifchief with greater security, than the wisest can do good. Even the common people are taught by their crafty oppressors to clamour against the man whose hand is kindly extended to raise them from the ground. All this was experienced by the new minifter of Portugal. The hatred of an infolent nobility, whose ambition he repressed, was envenomed by envy and rage, at the pre-eminence of an upstart; while the popular voice was raised againft him by the holy inspiration of the priests, whose numbers and influence he fought to diminish; and whom he fcrupled not to call the most dangerous vermin that can infeft a state. He was, however, upheld by the eßeem and friendship of his master Jofeph, and gained a large acceffion of reputation and of authority, by the greatnefs of mind and abilities which he difplayed on two fignal occasions. The first was the ever memorable earthquake of 1755. He had hardly begun to apply remedies to the diforders and penury of the ftate, when that horrible catastraphe occurred. On the 1st of November, the fair and ferene afpect of the heavens befpoke no enmity, foreboded no misfortune to the devoted inhabitants of Lisbon, when, on a fudden, an obfcure fubterraneous found was heard, and immediately followed by a most tremendous convulfion. Many were buried beneath the ruins of their abodes; the earth fwallowed many; and many were confumed by the flames, while aifaffins, stabbing with one hand, and plundering with the other, increated the dreadful confufion of the fcene, in which not one of the four elements was idle. G |