or four hundred walking above. The whole of the doors are likewife covered over with fmall pieces of mirror, cut into the most ridiculous fhapes, and intermixed with a great variety of cryftal and glafs of different colours. All the chimney-pieces, windows, and fide-boards are crouded with pyramids and pillars of tea-pots, caudle-cups, bowls, cups, faucers, &c. ftrongly cemented together; fome of these columns are not without their beauty: one of them has a large china chamber-pot for its bafe, and a circle of pretty little flower-pots for its capital: the shaft of the column, upwards of four feet long, is compofed entirely of tea-pots of different fizes, diminishing gradually from the base to the capital. The profufion of china that has been employed in forming thefe columns is incredible; I dare fay there is not less than forty pillars and pyramids formed in this ftrange fantastic man

ner.

Most of the rooms are paved with fine marble tables of different colours, that look like fo many tomb-ftones. Some of these are richly wrought with lapis lazuli, porphyry, and other valuable ftones; their fine polifh is now gone, and they only appear like common marble; the place of these beautiful tables he has fupplied by a new fet of his own invention, fome of which are not without their merit. These are made of the finest tortoise-shell mixed with mother of pearl,

ivory, and a variety of metals; and are mounted on fine stands of folid brass.

The windows of this inchanted castle are compofed of a variety of glass of every different colour, mixed without any fort of order or regularity. Blue, red, green, yellow, purple, violet. So that at each window, you may have the heavens and earth of whatever colour you chufe, only by looking through the pane that pleases you.

The house clock is cafed in the body of a ftatue; the eyes of the figure move with the pendulum, turning up their white and black alternately, and make a hideous appearance.

His bed-chamber and dreffing-room are like two apartments in Noah's ark; there is fcarce a beast, however vile, that he has not placed there; toads, frogs, ferpents, lizards, fcorpions, all cut out in marble, of their respective colours. There are a good many bufts too, that are not lefs fingularly imagined. Some of these make a very handsome profile on one fide; turn to the other, and you have a skeleton; here you fee a nurse with a child in her arms; its back is exactly that of an infant; its face is that of a wrinkled old woman of ninety.

For fome minutes one can laugh at these follies, but indignation and contempt foon get the better of your mirth, and the laugh is turned into

a fneer. I own I was foon tired of them; though fome things are fo ftrangely fancied, that it may well excuse a little mirth, even from the most rigid cynic.

The family ftatues are charming; they have been done from fome old pictures, and make a most venerable appearance; he has dressed them out from head to foot, in new and elegant fuits of marble; and indeed the effect it produces is more ridiculous than any thing you can conceive. Their fhoes are all of black marble, their stockings generally of red; their cloaths are of different colours, blue, green, and variegated with a rich lace of giall' antique. The periwigs of the men and head-dreffes of the ladies are of fine white; fo are their shirts, with long flowing ruffles of alabafter. The walls of the house are covered with fome fine baffo relievos of white marble, in a good taste; these he could not well take out, or alter, fo he has only added immenfe frames to them. Each frame is compofed of four large marble tables.

The author and owner of this fingular collection is a poor miserable lean figure, shivering at a breeze, and feems to be afraid of every body he fpeaks too; but (what furprised me) I have heard him talk fpeciously enough on several occafions. He is one of the richest subjects in the island, and it is thought he has not laid out less that 20,000 pounds in the creation of this world of monsters

and chimeras. He certainly might have fallen upon fome way to prove himself a fool at a cheaper rate. However it gives bread to a number of poor people, to whom he is an excellent mafter. His houfe at Palermo is a good deal in the fame ftile his carriages are covered with plates of brafs, fo that I really believe fome of them are musket proof.

The government have had ferious thoughts of demolishing the regiment of moniters he has placed round his house, but as he is humane and inoffensive, and as this would certainly break his heart, they have as yet forborne. However, the feeing of them by women with child is faid to `have been already attended with very unfortunate circumstances; feveral living monsters having been brought forth in the neighbourhood. The ladies complain that they dare no longer take an airing in the Bagaria; that fome hideous form always haunts their imagination for fome time after their husbands too, it is faid, are as little fatisfied with the great variety of horns. Adieu. I shall write you again by next poft, as matter multiplies faft upon me in this metropolis.

Ever yours.

LETTER XXV.

Palermo, June 30th.

THE account the people here give

of the Sirocc, or South-eaft wind, is truly wonderful; to-day, at the viceroy's, we were complaining of the violence of the heat, the thermometer being at 79. They affured us, that if we staid till the end of next month, we should probably look on this as pleasant cool weather; adding, that if we had once experienced the Sirocc, all other weather will appear temperate. I asked to what degree the thermometer commonly rofe during this wind; but found to my furprise, that there was no fuch inftrument in ufe amongst them: however, the violence of it, they affure us, is incredible; and that those who had remained many years in Spain and Malta, had never felt any heat in those countries to compare to it. How it happens to be more violent in Palermo than in any other part of Sicily, is a mystery that still remains to be unfolded. Several treatises have been written on this fubject, but none that give any tolerable degree of fatisfaction. As we shall stay for fome time longer, it is poffible we may have an opportunity of giving you some account of it.

They have begun fome weeks ago to make preparations for the great feaft of St. Rofolia;