A Tour Through Sicily and Malta: In a Series of Letters to William Beckford, Esq. of Somerly in Suffolk, Volume 2

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R. Marchbank, 1780 - Malta

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Page 12 - Pretty! in amber to observe the forms Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms ! The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare, But wonder how the devil they got there.
Page 66 - ... a nurfe 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...
Page 72 - hours in these niches. The bodies of the princes and first nobility are lodged in handsome chests or trunks, some of them richly adorned. These are not in the shape of coffins, but all of one width, and about a foot and a half or two feet deep.
Page 217 - And if these are in the smallest degree relaxed, or their elasticity diminished, how is it possible that their contractions and expansions can so readily obey the will as to produce these effects ? The opening of the glottis which forms the voice is extremely small, and in every variety of tone its diameter must suffer a sensible change; for the same diameter must ever produce the same tone. So wonderfully minute are its contractions and dilatations, that Dr. Keil, I think, computes that in some...
Page 12 - ... of the blind, though they might as well keep to themselves " Scott's thirty thousand copies sold," which must sadly discomfit poor Sou they's unsaleables.
Page 63 - ... no sort of resemblance in nature. He puts the head of a lion to the neck of a goose, the body of a lizard, the legs of a goat, the tail of a fox. On the back of...
Page 73 - ... excited by these venerable figures, you only consider this as a vast gallery of original portraits, drawn after the life, by the justest and most unprejudiced hand. It must be owned that the colours are rather faded : and the pencil does not appear to have been the most flattering in the world But no matter, it is the pencil of truth and not of a mercenary, who only wants to please. We were alleging too, that it might be made of very considerable utility to society; and that these dumb orators...
Page 63 - The amazing crowd of statues that surround his house, appear at a distance like a little army drawn up for its defence; but when you get amongst them, and every one assumes his true likeness, you...
Page 65 - Some of thefe 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 thefe beautiful tables he has fupplied by a new fet of his own invention, fome^ of which are not without their merit. Thefe are made of the fineft...
Page 183 - As soon as the fish have got into the hall, the fishermen, who stand sentry in their boats durjng the season, shut the outer door, which is no more than letting down a small piece of net, which effectually prevents the tunny from returning by the way they came. They then open the inner door of the hall, which leads to the second apartment, which they call the anti-chamber, and, by making a noise on the surface of the water, they soon drive the tunny fish into it.

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