ETNA. Drawn by W. Purser. "The fire in the cavern of Etna conceal'd, At length in a volume terrific reveal'd, No torrent can quench it, no bounds can repress." LORD BYRON, in a letter to Mr. H. Drury, dated from the Salsette frigate, May 3, 1810, says, "I have crossed Portugal, traversed the south of Spain, visited Sardinia, Sicily, Malta, and thence passed into Turkey:" but it does not appear that he landed in Sicily, or saw Etna except from sea. In a letter to Moore, dated Venice, April 11, 1817, he says, " and I have passed by Etna;" and, again, in the 4th canto of "Childe Harold," stanza 74: "I've looked on Ida with a Trojan's eye- If he saw it from sea, it could not have been on his way to Malta, as the following statement from Mr. Galt 72405 "But will shew; and though Medwin makes him say, Pæstum cannot surpass the ruins of Agrigentum, which I saw by moonlight," Galt, who was his companion from Gibraltar to Malta, says, in his "Life of Byron," Having landed the mail at Girgenti, we stretched over to Malta." No mention is made of their landing any of the passengers there. If, however, they had gone on shore, and ascended to the site of the fortress of ancient Agrigentum, which overlooks a vast extent of country, this splendid object might have been seen. "It was from this eminence," says Russell, in his "Tour through Sicily," "that we first beheld the burning Etna, although upwards of ninety miles distant, whose Alpine summit, white with eternal snow, distinctly appeared, not only above all the intermediate mountains, but also above the very clouds." The Editor has been obliged by a note from Mr. Galt, in which he says, "I do not recollect that after we landed the mail at Girgenti, and bore away for Malta, we saw Mount Etna-I rather think not, as the day was hazy; but, if my recollection serves me right, we saw it soon before or after we made the Ægadian islands. Lord Byron, before his return to England, had never been in Sicily: I believe he alludes chiefly to the view of Etna seen in going from Malta to the dominions of Ali Pacha; in that part of his voyage he would have a much better view of the ETNA. mountain than in any other; besides, Agrigentum stands very high, and he was never on shore there. In the voyage alluded to, he might not be further from Etna than thirty miles. I have seen Etna from Malta; so that I have no doubt, if his lordship took the trouble, it was in his power many times to have seen Etna from the sea. It will surprise you, perhaps, to hear, that I do not think he had much taste for the picturesque, though a very lively feeling on interesting scenes, especially where the associations were exciting: it was more associations than sights in which he delighted." Holland, in his "Travels," mentions Etna as "that vast volcano, which rises from its base, on these shores, with a majesty and singleness of form and outline which render it almost unique among the mountains of the world. Though the year was now far advanced, I was fortunate in my ascent of Etna, and accomplished all I could desire in the survey of its wonders of landscape, and of those volcanic phenomena which bear with them the record of nearly thirty centuries, and of no fewer than sixty eruptions." The remarkable form of Etna a volcanic cone -makes it not only an object of grandeur and sublimity from whatever point it is seen, but the panoramic view from it, extending to a vast distance, bounded in great part by the sea, and including nearly the whole island of Sicily, makes the attainment of its summit, |