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Starting from Portsmouth on a lovely day in December, we quickly left the shores of old England in the distance. But our fine weather soon deserted us; for after being exposed to all the fury of a violent gale of wind, we were obliged to put into Plymouth, where we stayed till the wind changed, when we again set sail, and stood out to sea, passing off the rock of Lisbon, and off Cape St. Vincent, and finally reached Gibraltar, on as fine a day, and the sun shining as bright, as in June. The coasts of Barbary and Spain were seen to perfection. The Barbary coast I consider to be truly magnificent. We had a good view of Tangiers, the Ape's Hill, and Ceuta. On the left was the coast of Spain. The Sandy Hatch and St. Matthew's Head are two large mountains or hills; the latter is the greatest in extent. The lighthouse of Tarifa and the little town is a pretty object from sea; though the lighthouse is the only object worth notice. The prickly-pear was in blossom, and reminded me of the beautiful orchards in Herefordshire. At Gibraltar the scarlet geranium was in full blossom, and the gardens were in great perfection; as also the aloe. The sun shining on Gibraltar, as we approached, made the scene the more beautiful. This mighty rock has been in possession of the English since 1704, and is so defended by art and nature as to be considered impregnable. We now passed off the coast of Andalusia, a province in the south of Spain; also Granada and Malaga, and Cape di Gata, the most extreme point south east of Spain; the snow shining on the covered heights afforded a fine view; and Cape di Gata was seen to perfection. When off Galita the wind sprung up, and carried away our main-top-gallant mast. Sicily now appeared in the distance, of which on the following day we had a fine view, and with a glass could distinguish the most minute objects on this very interesting island, which is the largest and most celebrated in the Mediterranean Sea. It is situated at the bottom of Italy, and is of triangular form. Sicily is about six-hundred miles in circumference, and is celebrated for its fertility; so much so that it was called one of the granaries of Rome, and Pliny says a husbandman was rewarded an hundredfold. Syracuse was one of its most famous cities. The poets feign that the Cyclops were the original inhabitants of this island, and that after them it came into the possession of the Sicani, a people of Spain; and at last of the Siculi, a nation of Italy. The plains of Enna (now Castro Janni), situated in this island, are celebrated for their excellent honey; and, according to Diodorus, the hounds lost their scent in hunting on account of the many odoriferous plants that profusely perfumed the air. This may account for the excellence of the honey, but I very much doubt the opinion of Diodorus being correct. The inhabitants of Sicily were so fond of luxury, that "Sicula mensæ" became a proverb. According to poetical tradition, it was from this island that Pluto carried away Proserpine. The dangerous whirlpool Charybdis, which proved so fatal to part of the fleet of Ulysses, is situated on the coast of Sicily, opposite a dangerous rock on the coast of Italy, called Scylla, whence the proverb-" Incidit in Scyllam qui vult vitare Charybdim." No whirlpool, however, is now found to correspond with the description of the ancients, as regards the danger and magnitude. Mount Etna now appears. We had a most excellent view of this noble mountain, which was to be seen in all its grandeur ; its summit and sides were covered with snow. The sun shining most

brilliantly on the snow, gave it a dazzling brightness; at times its summit was enveloped in clouds; then again the clouds dispersed, and the peak of the mountain could be seen most clearly. This mountain is two miles in perpendicular height, and measures a hundred-and-eighty miles round at the base, with an ascent of thirty miles. Its crater forms a circle of about three miles-and-a-half in circumference. The poets suppose that Jupiter had confined the giants under this mountain, and Ovid says

Quas quoties proflat spirare Typhoea credas,

Et rapidum Ætneo fulgur ab igne jaci."

It was also represented as the forge of Vulcan, where his servants, the Cyclops, fabricated thunderbolts. I do not think Mount Etna could be seen to greater perfection than on the present occasion. Passing now off Isle Faro, Corfu appears in the distance; and finally we drop anchor opposite Corfu, near the little island of Vido, on one of the most lovely nights I ever remember, the moon and the stars being very bright and clear, the sky a beautiful blue, and the planet Jupiter shining in all his glory, with his satellites around him. On the following morning I first set my foot in Corfu. It was indeed a lovely morning, and everything appeared fresh and gay to those who had been shut up so long at sea. The approach to Corfu is beautiful in the extreme; the opposite coast of Albania, the fortifications of the island of Vido, the citadel of Corfubuilt on two precipitous rocks, running out into the sea-t -the palace of the Lord High Commissioner, the town itself, and the distant mountains of the island, form a splendid panoramic view. The ancient name of Corfu was Corcyra. It is about forty miles in its greatess extent, and varies in breadth from seventeen to two miles; its circumference is one hundred and twelve miles; and it contains a population of about sixty thousand, of which the city possesses a third. On the north side are some bold and lofty mountains, now called St. Salvador-the ancient Mount Istone. The island is separated from the coast of Albania by a channel not above twelve miles in its greatest breadth, and two miles in the narrowest part. The whole country displays the most picturesque scenery, whilst Albania in the distance looks magnificent in the extreme. On arriving at the "Ditch," which is the usual place of landing, (the other being at the health office), you first of all recognise the Lion of St. Mark on the right hand as you enter the ditch, which is under the citadel. From thence you ascend by a flight of stone steps to the esplanade, which is the best part of the town. On the right hand stands the palace, a fine building of Maltese stone, built by King Tom (the late Sir T. Maitland). On the open space in front of the palace the different regiments parade, a certain day in the week being allotted to each regiment. On the esplanade is a statue of Count Schulemberg, placed there by the Venetian government: it was erected by the senate in commemoration of the valiant defence of Corfu by this great captain, when it was besieged in 1716 by a powerful Ottoman army of thirty-five thousand men, and a naval force of twenty-two sail of the line. After a siege of forty-two days the assailants were compelled to sail away with the loss of half their army. From the statue of Schulemberg you pass over a drawbridge to the citadel, which is remarkable for two rocky eminences, the aërias arces" mentioned in Virgil, which add much to the grandeur of the place. Within the citadel are the barracks, &c., a

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well-built military and naval hospital, and a lighthouse. These different objects may be viewed from the esplanade, around which a carriage drive has been made, where most of the residents and garrison may be seen of an afternoon. The bands of the different regiments play here on certain days of the week at four o'clock. Leaving the esplanade you enter at once into the town of Corfu, which appears to be a perfect labyrinth; the streets are narrow and dirty, the houses appear to be of a very ordinary character, consisting of three or four stories; indeed, there seems to be a want of comfort about the whole place the streets are generally crowded by the inhabitants and persons from the country, who are seldom without a pipe in their mouths, and, at this time of the year (January), a greggo on their backs. There are several places of worship in the town, and many of the churches are rich in ornaments and relics, with a profusion of candlesticks and pictures. The principal church is that of St. Spiridion, the guardian saint of the island, whose body is preserved in a large case or tomb in the church. occurs on the 24th of December, and is celebrated with much pomp. The people of Corfu say that the Venetians made several attempts to carry the body of the saint (which they pretend yields to the touch, though he has been dead many hundred years) to Venice, but the saint always frustrated their design. This church is ornamented with many costly offerings, and the saint's worshippers pay him frequent visits, crossing themselves, and kissing his tomb, and what appeared to me to be holding a sort of conversation with him through the keyhole. He is also invoked before any particular undertaking, and I understood the boatman who brought our shooting party from Albania would that night pay a visit to his favourite saint, and return him his thanks for having granted us a prosperous voyage. Here among the people of the place "St. Spero does everything"-the people invoke him and swear by him.

His festival

At the extremity of the town stands Fort Neuf, built on a hill, which is very lofty, precipitous, and strongly fortified, and is perfectly bombproof, and provided with everything necessary for defence; the barracks are good, and a very large and excellent messroom, with officers' apartments, has lately been built. The markets for fish and meat, as also for vegetables, are good, and appear to have been built within the last few years. I cannot speak in very high terms of the meat market, but the one for fruit and vegetables is as neat and clean and as well provided as any market in England.

Some of the drives and rides in the neighbourhood of Corfu are beautiful, and the roads are excellent, quite as good as those of M'Adam himself. The One-gun Battery is a favourite lounge, where on a fine evening may be seen most of the fashion of the place; it is situated about two miles and a half from the town; the road to it, leading you through a forest of olive trees and some vineyards, renders the ride or drive a very pleasant one; added to this, you have an excellent view of a small island called the Sail of Ulysses," in allusion to the galley of the Phæacius, which on her return from having conveyed Ulysses to Ithaca, was overtaken by the vengeance of Neptune, and petrified within sight of the port, as Homer in his Odyssey says

ὴ δὲ μάλα σχεδόν.

From the One-gun Battery you have a most beautiful view of the sea,

and the surrounding country covered with olive and orange trees. A cannon was formerly placed there, from whence the name "One Gun." The battery overhangs a strait, which admits the waters of the sea into a lake, which renders Corfu exceedingly unwholesome during the summer and autumn. In the vicinity of the battery are many ruins, which point out the position of the ancient town of Corcyra; the ruins of the Temple of Neptune are to be seen near the Casino of the Lord High Commissioner; they overlook the sea, and are situated in a beautiful part of an olive grove. On leaving the One-gun Battery to return to Corfu, the pedestrian should bear away to the right, through the olive groves; he will then enjoy a fine wild walk, and will pass by the ruins of the Temple of Neptune, and through the gardens of the Casino, where some of the most delicious oranges may be gathered by having a little conversation with the gardener. I shall never forget the delicious flavour of some of the oranges I picked off one particular tree, though indeed all I picked in these delightful gardens were far superior to any I could buy in Corfu.

(To be continued.)

THE UNSUCCESSFUL MAN;

OR,

PASSAGES IN THE LIFE OF TILBURY NOGO, ESQ.

BY FOXGLOVE.

CHAP. XXIV.

Davy. Marry sir, thus-those precepts cannot be served and again sir, shall we sow the headland with wheat?

Shallow. With red wheat, Davy.

Dary. Now, sir, a new link to the bucket must needs be had.-And, sir, do you mean to stop any of William's wages about the sack he lost the other day at Hinkley fair?"

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KING HENRY IV,

Glowing hath ever been the poet's description of the simplicity of rustic life; and much hath plain English been swollen into stanzas, and distorted into rhyme, for the purpose of enlarging on the fable of the "town and country mouse.' But paradoxical as it may appear, I am inclined to believe that those, who in theory are most enthusiastic in their admiration of a country life, are the very men, Londoners by destiny, and cockneys in grain, for whom the charms of such a vegetable existence are chiefly enhanced by the impossibility of their following out their arcadian ideal, and with whom, as with the rest of us, in this discontented world, desire springs most intensely from separation. That poetical wag, and polished satirist, who delighted the rank and fashion of ancient Rome with his life-like descriptions, as with his dancing numbers, and bequeathed the name of Horace to our later age, as a

type of all that is amusing and agreeable to the man, albeit somewhat unpopular with the school-boy, modestly expresses the summit of his dearest wishes to be a small farm, a few rods of wood, and a clear and rippling stream; while the very vividness with which, in a few lines, he places before us the sunny slope, the shady grove, and the refreshing waters, proves that in his yearning after the clear atmosphere, and the balmy breeze of the country, he was at heart essentially a cockney. But had the bard been destined to sit down for life under his arbutus trees, removed from the charms of his Augustan coterie, as from "the smoke, the riches, and the noise of Rome;" had he been compelled to earn an appetite for his garlick pottage, by the daily superintendence of his Sabine clod-poles, cleaving his Sabine clods; had his conversation with his neighbours been limited to the price of wheat, and his computation of time been reckoned by the yearly epochs of hay-making and harvest, we may fairly conclude that the sociable minstrel would have found such an existence a very poor exchange for the life, the fun, and the luxurious repasts of the capital, and would have left us many a terse and classical interpretation of that too well-known substantive which the French call ennui, and the English bore.

Well, I too have pined for a country-life; I have got up on a fine morning, in London, when the sun, for want of any thing better, was wasting his gilding on the chimney-pots, and I have longed for the smiling pastures, the breezy uplands, and the hill and dale of the open country; have thought that the summit of earthly happiness was to walk round the farm before breakfast, the acme of human comfort to make your own butter and eat your own mutton; but it is a dangerous experiment for any man whose youth has been passed in a metropolitan sphere of life, using the expression in its widest sense, and thereby including all the pleasures and amusements of Windsor, Ascot, Epsom, Melton-aye, even the Highlands of Scotland, which are enjoyed by London people, in a London manner-I say it is a dangerous experiment for a man educated in such a school to sit down for life in some quiet nook of a rural parish, and to suppose that because he has sometimes been bored with London, he is for that reason fitted to live entirely in the country. I have always fancied that to fill the situation effectively a man should have been bred a farmer; and although we see many noblemen and gentlemen, when they have done with the more stirring avocations of the court, the camp, and the senate, assuming the yellow gaiters, and out-of-door habits of agricultural prosperity, I have never been given to understand that their cultivation of the soil is based upon a method either so convenient or so profitable as that of the honest yeoman, "whose farm on his honour's estate is the same that his grand-father tilled;" or that, much as they may study its nature, and argue upon its minutiæ, they ever attain that success in the profession of our first parents, which they have achieved in the busier avocations of their early life. For my own part, sparingly as fortune has ever smiled upon my endeavours, I think my farming has been the worst speculation of all; nor can I be convinced that I was in my right senses when, having determined to settle permanently in the west, and as near as possible to Topthorne Lodge, I bought the small estate and commodious farm-house of Wild-wood, formerly the property of my friend Segundo, for which I paid fully one-third more than its marketable value,

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