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being fo populous. The cathedral is a very fine ftructure, 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 ftatue 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) feveral 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 fo well preferved, being hewn out of a white free ftone, quite dry, that they always appear as if they were just made. From the fmallness of the galleries, where only one perfon can enter at a time; their uniforin arrangement; their roof, which is arched, though cut out of the rock; the chambers of which are feen at various in-, tervals; the plafter 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, moftly placed under fquare 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 ufe 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 defigned as a place of interment for the dead, and a place of religious worship, where the myfteries of chrif tianity might be celebrated in conceal ment. 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 ftone, are ftill to be feen. In the largeft hall or compartment are two round ftones fhaped like an oil-mill, the ufe of which cannot now be afcertained.

At no great diftance from the old city there is a finall church, dedicated to St. Paul, and juft by the church is a ftatue of the apostle with a viper on his hand; placed, according to tradition, on the very pot where he fhock the viper off his band, without being injured. Adjoining

to the church is the celebrated grotto in which they pretend the apoitle was imprifoned. His name is alfo preferved by a fort, and by a bay or harbour for fmall veffels, where it is faid he was hipwrecked.

The great fource of water that fupplies Valetta, takes its rile at the distance of a mile or 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, whofe name it bears.

The general afpect of the country of Malta is far from being pleafing to the eye: as the whole island is nothing but an immenfe 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 fpring and fummer. months, and from the moisture which adheres to the rock below the foil, are furprizingly abundant. Their wheat and barley harvefts produce fufficient corn to fupport the inhabitants about five months in the year; but the crop they chiefly depend upon is that of cotton. This is the general produce of the island, and is fo 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.

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 Maltele cultivate three kinds of this plant; the Indian cotton, which is much the fineft, and fhoots five years fucceffively 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 thefe plants, is much fuperior in quality to that of the cotton tree; at least the Maltese affirm fo: it certainly is the fineft, although that of the cotton tree is by much of the strongest

texture.

The Maltefe oranges juftly deferve 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

thought to be too lufcious. In the orange months, from November till the middle of June, the groves of thefe beautiful trees are always covered with a great profufion of this delicious fruit. The greatest part of their crops were commonly fent every year in prefents to the different courts of Europe, and to the relations of the chevaliers.

The induftry of the Maltefe in culti vating their little ifland, is altogether incredible. There is not an inch of ground loft in any part of it; and where nature has not produced foil enough for the purpofe of the hufbandınan, they have brought over fhips and boats loaded with it from Africa, and particularly from Sicily, where there is plenty and to fpare. The whole ifland is full of inclofures of free-ftone, which are very fmall and irregularly laid out, according to the inclination of the ground. These the inhabitants fay they are obliged to maintain, notwithstanding the uncouth and deformed afpect they exhibit, as otherwife, the rapid floods, to which they are occafionally fubject, would carry off the foil. The rains, however, fall here but very feldom. No fpot hardly upon earth, prefents ground naturally more ungrateful and fterile than that of Malta; and yet the farmer here, in cultivating the foil, is fo active, fo indefatigable, and fo neat, that his poverty has only the appearance of ab

ftinence. The foil of Sicily, on the other hand, is immenfely fortunate and fertile, crops of various produce, corn, wine, oil, filk, &c. (which are all mingled together) rapidly fucceeding, or rather treading clofe upon each other; while the mountains, highly cultivated, almost to their tops, the inclosures, 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 prefent the moft agreeable afpect to the eye that can poffibly be imagined (efpecially in failing along its very rich coaft). Still, however, notwithstanding thefe natural advantages, the peasants there are poor, dull, and loathfomely dirty; and in Syracufe, and other of their cities, fcarcely a creature is to be feen, and even thofe have the appearance of difeafe and extreme wretchedness. The inward and outward cleanlinefs and comfortableness of Malta and its inhabitants, contrafted with what is vifible in Sicily, is fo ftriking in paffing from one island to the other,' that a ftranger would almoft be induced to imagine them a thousand leagues afunder: in fact, there never were two countries fo near each other, which, in every phyfical and moral point of view, have fo little mutual relation and resemblance as these have. (To be continued.)

ANECDOTES OF EMINENT PERSONS.

THE MARQUIS DE POMBAL, LATE PRIME MINISTER OF PORTUGAL. HE great powers of the human un

from one of thofe noble, but obfcure fa milies, which the more opulent and dig. nified nobleffe held in almoft equal con

inter- tempt clafs

val that feparates the mind of one man from another, are never more clearly exhibited than when an obfcure individual arifes from the midst of a nation funk in floth, and dozing in the lap of ignorance, and after pufhing down all the obftacles placed by fortune in his way, afcends to an eminence fo high as to enable him at once to defpife and to command the whole inert mafs of his countrymen. The Marquis de Pornbal was one of these rare prodigies; fometimes portending good, fometimes mifchief, to the regions in which they appear.

Jofeph Sebaftian Carvalho was born at Coimbra in 1699, of parents fo very hum. ble, and fo little known, that report has reduced them to the rank of artifans. The truth however is, that he defcended

The proud fpirit of Carvalho was ftung at an early age by this infolence of the grandees, which he forgot not to abate when he afterwards rofe to power.

Though he discovered confiderable talents while purfuing his ftudies at the univerfity of his native city, he declined the arts of peace, in which he might have difplayed them, and embraced the profeffion of arms, as better fuited to an ardent and enterprising mind, and to the perfonal advantage with which he was moft liberally endowed by nature. was one of the handfomeft men of the age in which he lived. His ftature was uncommon, his afpect noble and commanding; and his ftrength prodigious. He was no less remarkable among the Guards of the Palace for his undaunted courage;

He

but

but the exceffes 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 diverfion 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 ftripped intead of protecting the paffenger. 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 fome bloody broil, nor many without a murder. In these hazardous rencounters, young Carvalho was ever one of the foremost. His profligate courfe did not, however, prevent him from winning the heart of a young lady of the ancient houfe of Aveiro; nor did the repugnance of her family, who abhorred fo mean an alliance, hinder him from bringing his amour to a fortunate conclufion. He carried her off, married her in fpite of them; and found means to avoid the daggers and the prifons, with which they fought to avenge the deadly affront that had been offered to their honour.

Having acquired in the mean time a confcioufnefs of the great gifts he had received from nature, he thought of turning his attention to politics, and fucceeded in obtaining the appointment of fecretary to the Portuguese embafly at the court of Vienna. Here he gave the first indication of thofe fuperior talents and that vaft genius which afterwards made him omnipotent in Portugal.

His diplomatic career was fcarcely begun, when he received ascounts that his wife was no more; the hatred of her family, which he had incurred by her marriage, favouring a fufpicion that life and death had been difpenfed to her from the fame fource. Thus left at liberty, he offered his hand to a fair relative of that Marshal Daun, whofe name, and the hiftory of the feven years war, will be of equal duration. His fine perfon and engaging manners procured him, as before, the content of the lady; but, as before, he failed in obtaining that of her parents. The pride of family is in Germany ftill more fcrupulous than in Portugal; aud a countryman of Carvalho, then at Vienna, took a pleafare in repeating that his birth was mean, and his manners diffolute. Fortunately, the ambaffador Tancos, whofe friendship he had gained, refigned in his favour; and his new dignity was acsepted in place of a wide fpreading geMONTHLY MAG. No. XLI.

nealogical tree and fplendid armorial bearings. He was at this time less than thirty years of age.

His difpatches and his political condu& foon gave a high opinion of his talents, and fuggefted the idea of affigning them a wider fphere of action. He was accordingly recalled from his embaffy; Don Diego de Mendoza, the prime minifter was exiled, and the reins of government were put into the hands of Carvalho.

To mend the ftate and the manners of nation long debafed by tyranny and corruption, is at once a difficult and an ungrateful talk. Abufes and ufurpations, when fanctioned by the lapfe of time, are held facred, and he who attempts to reform the one, or retrench the other, is fure of the enmity of all those who confider the plunder of the public as property, and oppreffion as a right. Hence it is, that every bungling ftatefman can do mifchief with greater fecurity, than the wisest can do good. Even the common people are taught by their crafty oppreffors to clamour against the man whofe 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, whofe ambition he repreffed, was envenomed by envy and rage, at the pre-eminence of an upstart; while the popular voice was raised against him by the holy infpiration of the priests, whofe 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 eheem 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 occafions. 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 1ft of November, the fair and ferene afpect of the heavens bespoke no eminity, foreboded no misfortune to the devoted inhabitants of Lifbon, when, on a fudden, an obfcure fubterraneous found was heard, and immediately followed by a moft tremendous convulfion. Many were buried beneath the ruins of their abodes; the earth fwallowed many; and many were confumed by the flames, while affaffins, ftabbing with one hand, and plundering with the other, increafed the dreadful confufion of the fcene, in which not one of the four elements was G

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idle. A furious gale fpread the conflagration; and the fea, rifing above its natural elevation, dashed the veffels in the port against each other and the fhore. The lofs of life, refulting from this complication of curfes, would, however, have been far lefs than it was, had the people of Lisbon conformed to the fentiments of fome ancient fect, or philofopher, who thought the univerfe the temple moft worthy of the deity, and prayed in the open air. But fear and devotion drove them to the churches, the folid ftructure of which, for a time, refifted the earthquake, and then fell in and crushed thoufands into one undistinguishable mafs. The furvivors, who filed to the mountains, were not lefs confounded. Fugitives, from barracks and foldiers, nuns, and friars, herded together during the firft two nights, and though abhorrent in habits, cuftoms, and practices, mixed readily in the commiffion of the moft fcandalous exceffes, and even of crimes.

convents

---

In the first moment of this dreadful misfortnne, the prime minifter made his way undifmayed through flames and falling houfes, to every quarter of the city, carrying with him fuccour and confolation, calming fear, and repreffing the fpirit of pillage and diforder. By his command the dead bodies were thrown into the fea in bags of lime; by his care, provifions were brought from the neareft provinces; and, by his fortitude and courage, the people were prevented from abandoning a city, which offered nothing to the eye but heaps of ruins, and images of defpair. Their stay, beneficial to themfelves, will probably produce the deftruction of a future race, fince the experience of many ages juftifies a belief that the fite of Lisbon is doomed to the fame dreadful disturbance once, and once only, in a century.

During the two firft days after this calamity, the minifter took no repofe but in his carriage; no fuftenance but a little foup; and in the courfe of the firft week two hundred and thirty ordinances iffued from his fertile brain. One of them enjoined the hanging without trial or delay, of every men found in poffeffion of gold or filver bearing the marks of fire. This exceffive and indifcriminating feverity to which many guiltless victims were immoJated, may be applauded by the ftatesman who calculates, but feels not; with whom human life is nothing-ftate expediency every thing; but it will be marked with the just reprobation of the philofopher, who knows that one of the greate

incitements to virtue-one of the greatest comforts we derive from fociety, is the conviction that we are fecure, as long as we are innocent. The conduct of Carvalho was nevertheless crowned with general approbation. From the people it obtained him the appellation of the faviour of his country; and from the king the fucceffive titles of Count d'Oyras and of Marquis de Pombal.

But as the royal favour incrcafed, so did his enemies; their number being daily augmented by the unrelenting attacks he made upon the abufes in every department of the ftate. He was only beginning to enjoy the fruits of his reforms, when his attention was diverted from them by another remarkable event. A confpiracy was formed against the life of the king. The Duke d'Aveiro, the Marquis of Tavora and his two fons, with the Counts of Antonguia, Almeidas, and Poriza, were the heads of it. An amorous intrigue of the monarch with the Marchionels of Tavora, was their principal grievance, or rather their principal pretext; for the Tavoras were in fact rather fpurred on by ambition, than by indignation at this affront offered to their honour. Enraged, as well as the rest of the nobility, at the king's blind and unlimited confidence in the Marquis de Pombal, they thought that as he had abdicated his power, he ought to be hurled from the throne, and determined to feat in it the eldeft of their own family.

When Jofeph was about to pay his customary evening vifit to his miftrefs, two hundred and fifty confpirators placed themselves in finall bands upon his road; and retained their fire till he was in the midst of them. Mufket-fhots then flew from all quarters, and wounded him in three places. The Duke d'Aveiro himfelf aimed at the driver, but his carbine miffed fire. It was the fortune of the king to have attendants equally intrepid and intelligent. His valet de chambre faved him from further injury by laying him down in the bottom of the carriage; while the poftillion with no lefs prefence of mind fuddenly turned the heads of his horfes, and drove back to the palace at full speed, but by another road.

Cavalho had fhewn, at the time that Lifbon lay in ruins, all the courage and all the refources of a great mind: he now exhibited all the dexterity of a ftateman, and all the refined cunning of a courtier. Ever firm and compofed in the most critical conjunctures, he began by enjoining fecrecy to the valet de chambre, and pol

tillion

tillion; but the confpirators to turn aside fufpicion, haftened themfelves to divulge the attempt upon the king's life; and came with the crowds whom affection or curiofity brought to the palace. The Duke d'Aveiro was among the foremost, and offered to go armed in pursuit of the affaffins. That nobleman was of the houfe of Braganza. Crooked in body and mind, reftlefs, inhuman, the declared enemy of the government, and capable of any thing, he was an object of ftrong fufpicion to Carvalho. The minifter, however, bade him be quiet; en rufted him with falfe fecrets, which he entreated him not to disclose; and fent him away proud of the fuccefs of his diffimulation, and confident of impunity.

The king recovered; fix months paffed away unproductive of any arreft or difcovery; and the event was almoft obliterated from the public mind. But it was not forgotten by Carvalho. He was fecretly collecting every information that might lead to a knowledge of the delinquents; and the more his proofs against d'Aveiro and Tavora acquired confiftency, the more his attentions to them were fudied and particular. He obtained leave for one to pass three months at his country manfion; for the other an appointment folicited long before. At length the whole treasonable hiftory was revealed to him by a domestic, who was waiting one night with amorous views in Tavora's garden, when the confpirators affembled there anew, difcuffed the caufes of their past failure, and laid a plan that promifed better fuccefs.

To prevent its execution, and to bring the criminals to justice without farther delay, the Marquis de Pombal availed himself of a ball given in honour of his daughter's nuptials with the Count de Zampayo. An invitation from the king decoyed thither the whole of the confpirators, who, instead of the "musick, mintrelfy, and making" they expected, met with fetters, dungeons, and the rack. A week after, ten of the principal traitors were executed; their bodies burnt; and their afhes caft into the fea. The Duke d'Aveiro, and the old Marchionefs of Tavora died as if they had exchanged fexes, he with more than the weaknefs of a woman, and the with a fortitude truly heroic. The young Marchionefs of Tavora, the king's miftrefs, was confined in a convent for life; and the greater part of the nobility was imprifoned, till the death of the king, which did not happen till nineteen years afterwards,

The jefuit Malagrida, generally though falfely fuppofed to have been executed as a confpirator, was in fact tried by the inquifition, and burnt as a heretic. One of the charges was his having written that the Virgin Mary Spoke Latin in the womb of St. Anne-words difgraceful to the au thor; aud ftill more difgraceful to the odious tribunal, by which they were con ftrued into a crime. But thefe and other theological abfurdities were made the pretexts of his death, because there was no proof, although there was no doubt, of his being privy to the plot. The expulfion of his whole order, fufpected of tampering in it, followed; furnished an example for their deftruction throughout Europe; and will ever redound to the glory of the Marquis de Pombal, who thus ftruck the first blow at that dark, intriguing, and ambitious fraternity.

More deeply rooted than ever in the confidence of his mafter, the haughty minifter no longer feared to brave the first perfons of the realm. A brother of the king, who was grand inquifitor, delaying to licenfe a work, containing fome state regulations, Carvalho, in the prefence of another Infant of Fortugal, exhaled his rage in the moft infulting threats, till he raised their choler to a height ftill greater than his own. From invective they proceeded to perfonal infults; pulled off his peruke, threw it in his face; and driving him out of the apartment, bade him carry his complaint to the king. His obedience to this farcaftic command, procured the lafting exile of the royal brothers; and gave him an opportunity he had long detired of placing one of his own creatures at the head of the inquifition. His brother Don Juan Carvalho had the appointment; but did not keep it long.

He went;

When the court removed occafionally to the fummer palace of Salvatierra, the miniker, detained at Lisbon by public affairs, fent thither the grand inquifitor to watch over the conduct of the queen, whofe artifices he feared. Informed of the infidious part the prieft was playing, fhe fent for him to her chamber. but was never feen to return. According to the accounts moft credited, the fhot him through the head with a fowling piece. It is certain, at leaft, th at Don Juan Carvalho difappeared. It may be atked why, if capable of fuch a crime, he did not dispatch the principal inftead of the agent; but the Marquis de Pombal, who diftrufted her as well as the grandees, was not eafily affailable. He was always efcorted by a detachment of cavalry, and a body-guard

of

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