the trade away, thus imitating the conduct of the Russians at the Sulina mouth. What an incomprehensible country! the dead are honoured, while positive snares are laid for the living! But let us away from these gloomy considerations, and visit sunny, cheerful 'Messina, which ever greets the traveller with a bewitching smile of welcome.

Messina has been the repeated victim of earthquakes, and the last, in 1783, was so severe, that it almost destroyed the city, and traces are still visible of its injurious effect. It is more commercial than any other town in Sicily, and, as a natural consequence, the streets are handsome and wide, and the shops elegantly fitted up. It has not many antiquities to boast of, although Messina, known by the ancients as Zankle, is one of the oldest cities in the world. It has, however, met with many severe dispensations: pirates from Cumæ, in Campania, were the first settlers; it was destroyed by the Carthaginians, and restored by Dionysius the tyrant. During the first Punic war it was taken by the Romans; then held by the Saracens, who were dispossessed, in their turn, by Count Roger. After the Sicilian Vespers it was bombarded by Charles of Anjou, and under Charles II. it sank deeper and deeper, until the plague of 1741, and the more terrible earthquake of 1783, seemed to ruin it, while political reasons have prevented it springing up again as it would have done in the natural order of things. The cathedral, a very handsome building, is principally remarkable, however, for a copy of a letter carved in stone, addressed by the Virgin to the Messinese with a lock of her hair, both of which have been unfortunately lost. But, after all, the traveller in Sicily is not disposed to waste time in regarding the works of men's hands, when such magnificent scenery awaits him at every step. At any rate, such was the opinion of the prince, who preferred climbing to the summit of the lighthouse, which towers serenely above the once terrific Charybdis. At present, only a rather rapid current is perceptible at the spot which Greek navigators regarded with superstitious horror. On the other side of the straits, upon the Calabrian coast, rises the jagged rock of Scylla, beneath which nestles the little town of the same name, which is commanded by a castellated fort. To the south stretches the Calabrian coast, with glorious Reggio in the foreground; while to the north you can see as far as the Lipari Islands, with the volcano filling the air with smoke. Turning from the sea, you have Messina before you, with the superb range of mountains to form the setting of the picture. Well may Dr. Carus call this the fairest panorama Europe can display. The haven, too, presents a pretty picture, as will be seen from the following

extract:

While walking along the quay I stood for a long time examining the varieties of fish offered for sale in the market, gracefully and picturesquely arranged in baskets made of oziers. How original, too, were the faces and actions of the fishermen! In the fruit market I was greatly struck by the heavy carts in which oranges and lemons are brought to market. The wheels are solid, without spokes, and a sharp pole extends from the cart, on which the driver stands or sits and urges on his huge oxen with a lance. In the midst of these were noticeable the strangest costumes, and you might be quite sure there was no lack of monks, among whom I detected a new genus dressed in long black robes with a hood, and wearing a large scarlet cross on their shoulder and chest. These gentry especially struck me, for they were generally tall, handsome fellows, whose long coal-black beards gave them quite a diabolical aspect. Several nuns were also taking the air in close carriages.

But it is time for us to quit Sicily and all its magic spells to enthral the traveller, and return to Naples in company with the worthy doctor. Great was his regret at this hasty leave-taking; but princes are apt to be peremptory, and it is just possible that the approaching Carnival had something to do in accelerating his movements. However, Dr. Carus soon recovered from his regret while pursuing his investigations into the popular life of Naples, and going through the round of amusements always prescribed for travellers. A visit to Vesuvius took place in due course, as well as to the Calmaldolese Brethren, but nothing new is said about them.

The prince obtained permission to make some excavations at Pompeii, and found his way into the shop of a wine or oil-merchant, where he discovered his money-box, which, however, fell to pieces immediately on seeing the light. It contained a goodly quantity of silver and copper coins, as well as four nautilus shells, in which different sorts of money were kept. They also found twelve amphora of the usual description, and a considerable number of lamps. On the same evening the party made their appearance at a court ball, when Dr. Carus had the honour of being presented to his majesty, who received him most graciously. He describes him as a tall and rather stout gentleman, with very pleasant features and sparkling eyes, and displaying extraordinary animation in talking. The queen, on the other hand, was very short and serious, and looked very unwell. The supper was a miracle of coquine art: a whole roebuck was served up on a silver dish, with head and horns gilt: and some thirty thousand lobsters were consumed on the occasion. It is evident, then, that the Neapolitan king and people do not greatly take to heart the interdict England and France have laid upon them. In fact, the luxury was carried to such an extent, that, after the first supper had been demolished, another was served up, consisting of precisely the same dishes as the first. We are not at all surprised at his majesty of Naples evincing no inclination to resign his throne.

We had marked several other passages for extract from this amusing book, but our limits warn us to stop. As a specimen of courtly réticence, it is admirable; but at the same time it contains much that is interesting, as we hope to have shown. At any rate, the dangers attached to such a tour are as naught compared with the enjoyment to be obtained, and we think with envy of those happy beings who are enabled to spend their winter in such blessed scenery and sunshine, while we have to contend against fogs, and reckon it a day to be marked with white chalk if we see the sun at all.

VOLTAIRE AND THE PRÉSIDENT DE BROSSES.*

THE correspondence just published between Voltaire and M. de Brosses, first president of the parliament of Burgundy, brings the spoilt child of the eighteenth century, the correspondent of Catherine and of Frederick the Great, and the at one time pampered of the court of Versailles, before us in a new aspect-that of a landlord and "seigneur de paroisse." We wish we could say that this new character was more creditable to him than those which had preceded:

He should have been seen making his entrance into his county of Tourney, between nieces toutes en diamants, and himself "en habit de gala," harangued by the parish priest and saluted by his subjects, who had borrowed the artillery of Geneva, in order to celebrate his entry into possession of seignorial rights. Never was there a more ingenious spirit for creating business and troubles for itself. One moment he is pressing a prince of the blood to make him “lieutenant des chasses;" at another he is exhausting himself in endeavouring to obtain the syndicate of the nobility of Gex. He was in incessant hostility with all the churchmen of the canton. The excise had nowhere a more active and persevering enemy. He wanted to be the banker of the district of Gex, just as Paris de Montmartel had been that of the court. Then he entered into speculations in salt. He had his own followers, whom he sent as ambassadors into Switzerland, with that object in view. And how he was disturbed by all these little matters! He viewed these petty details in the most serious light; he allowed himself to be carried away by that mobility of passion which is peculiar to himself. We see at one moment the skilful arguments of a barrister, the cavils of an attorney, the sharp practices of a petty tradesman, the hyperboles of a poet, with occasional bursts of true eloquence. His letter to Président de Brosses for De Croze against the Curé of Moens, reminds us of his "Mémoire pour les Calas."

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Whilst it is well known in what inimical language Voltaire writes of Président de Brosses in his "Correspondance Générale," up to the present time only one side of the question has been heard. Now it so happens that M. Th. Foisset, Councillor at the Imperial Court of Dijon, was engaged in writing the history of one whom he designates as un des hommes les plus complets du XVIII' siècle," when the idea came to his mind to publish the correspondence of this illustrious man with Voltaire, in vindication of his character, as misrepresented in the letters correspondence. These letters, as well as many unpublished ones from Voltaire himself to the president and others, are in the hands of various sons, and they were so numerous that it was resolved, considering the importance of the names concerned, to publish the whole correspondence apart, including also some letters which belong to an earlier period of Voltaire's life, having passed between himself and the King of Prussia, and which, while they throw quite a new light on the cause of quarrel between the two powers, it is painful to say, throw also, in the words of the editor, a new light upon "l'attitude peu majestueuse du poëte durant l'avarie de Francfort."

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* Voltaire et le Président de Brosses: Correspondance Inédite, suivie d'un Supplément à la Correspondance de Voltaire avec le Roi de Prusse et d'autres Personnages, publiés d'après les Lettres Autographes, avec des Notes, par M. Th. Foisset, Conseiller à la Cour Impériale de Dijon.

The opening of the correspondence is characteristic:

VOLTAIRE TO PRÉSIDENT DE BROSSES.

Aux Délices, near Geneva, 9th September, 1758.

I have read with exceeding pleasure what you have written on Australia; but shall I be permitted to make a proposition to you which concerns our continent? You are not the man to turn your land of Tourney to profit. Your farmer, Chouet, is disgusted with it, and wishes to give up his stewardship. Will you sell me your land for the term of my life? I am old and sickly.* I know that I am making a bad bargain; but this bargain may be useful to you, and it will be agreeable to me. Here are the conditions which my fantasy, which has always guided me, submits to your prudence:

I engage to build a pretty pavilion of the materials of your very ugly châtau (sic in original), and I propose to expend in that operation 25,000 fr. I will, besides, pay you, ready money, 25,000 fr. more.

All the embellishments that I shall effect to the property, all the beasts and instruments of agriculture with which I shall have stored it, shall belong to you. If I die before having completed the building, you will have my 25,000 fr. in hand, and you can finish the building if you like. But I will do my best not to die for two years, and then you will be well lodged without its costing you anything.

Further, I make an engagement not to live more than four or five years.

In return for these honest offers, I ask for full possession of your land, of all your rights, furniture, beasts, and even of the curé, and that you guarantee me all these things till that curé shall bury me. If this bargain is agreeable to you, sir, you can, with one word, render it serious: life is too short, that business should be long.

I add one more little word: I have embellished my hole called Les Délices. I have embellished a house at Lausanne. These two properties, thanks to my improvements, are worth twice what they fetched. So it shall be with your property. See what you think about it. You will never sell it in the state it is now in.

Whatever may be the results, I ask you to be secret; and I have the honour to be, with the most respectful esteem, sir, your very humble, very obedient servant, VOLTAIRE.

The president replied in appropriate terms to such an epistle, and with manifest feeling towards "un homme si célèbre." "You ask from me," he writes, "seignorial rights, meadows, vineyards, furniture, wood, beasts, parish priest, and all." The last two words are in English. He then takes each article in detail. To the first four he agrees: as to the fifth, he says, "I warn you there is but little." Upon the subject of the parish priest, he says, “Under the form of a bear, this curé is a very good man, very upright-a rare thing. I hand over to you in him a precious personage." On the subject of building, he slyly remarks that knocking down is a certainty, building, a thing in futuro. At the same time he gallantly insists that Voltaire shall not engage to limit his life to four or five years. He adds that he will keep the secret, the more especially as he held his present advantages by the misfortunes of his ancestors, who were Huguenots in the time of Calvin himself. All was now couleur de rose. The president suggested in the most civil manner possible that

* Voltaire had always said he was dying for upwards of a quarter of a century. He survived this epistle twenty years, having really died on the 30th of May, 1778.

25,000 fr. was not enough. "Mettez la main sur le pourpoint: ce n'est pas assez. But he would not at the same time discuss the matter with one with whom he was extremely desirous of forming a friendly intimacy. Voltaire, on his part, replied at great length, that he thought his offer adequate, that "the honour of the president's friendship would be interest for his outlay;" and he again insinuates that the president would probably enjoy the fruits of his expenditure in perhaps two years, perhaps one! He concludes by saying, "Ut ut est, confer the honour of your good graces on the old Swiss Voltaire, sixty-four years of age, and soon sixty-five."

From the beginning the correspondence assumed a slight political tinge, which in such hands soon attained depth and meaning. The president had rallied Voltaire at the onset on his residing in Switzerland. "If I had been in your neighbourhood, sir, when you made a purchase so near the city (Geneva), whilst I should have admired with you the scenery of the lake, I should have had the honour to tell in your ear that the moral of the character of the inhabitants required that you should fix yourself in France, and that for two capital reasons: one, that a person ought to be at home, another, that he ought not to be among strangers.' No bad hint to many another. "You do not know," adds the president,

"how much this republic makes me love monarchies."

"I acknowledge, sir," replies Voltaire, "that there are abuses in republics as in monarchies: ubicumque calculum ponas, ibi naufragium invenies. We do not always meet with naufragium, but we always meet with some storms. They are less black and rarer here than elsewhere. I have every reason to rejoice in being in a corner of the earth dove non si vede mai la faccia della Maesta, and where the sovereigns send to ask for my carriage in order to come and eat my roast.' Ineffable fatuity of the old man! He did not want, he goes on to say, to live in France nor in Geneva. He wishes to be perfectly free. He wishes to have to do

neither with a paramount lord nor with a king sitting in council. "Point de seigneur suzerain, point de lods et ventes, point de vingtièmes, point de capitation (the two last refer to the penalties of a Huguenot), point d'intendant, ny de subdélégué si fas est."

To all this the president replies:

Like the Angel of the Apocalypse, who had one foot on land and the other on the sea, you wish, then, sir, to have one foot in a republic and the other in a monarchy? The system is good enough when one has the good fortune to be sufficiently isolated to follow it out.

"Le sage dit, selon les gens,

Vive le Roi! Vive la Ligue!"

But every one has not wings to put on. As to myself, I am ready to admit that, with the exception of Switzerland (of which I know little, but think a great deal), I have never seen a republic that was to my taste. One is tormented in such by pricks of pins, whilst with us one gets off with a sword-thrust through the body, and all is over. The mantle of liberty serves to cover a multitude of little chains. I like what is much worse than kings; I like popes. I lived for nearly a year at Rome, and I never found a milder, pleasanter residence, nor a more moderate government. It is a pity that the people are so stupid (bestes in original), in the midst of so many reasons for having knowledge and wit.