Monthly Review of Literature, 



[MAY, 



in defiance and in scorn of cicerones and 

 is earnest, and almost solemn, in recom- 

 mending travellers to see every thing within 

 their reach and ken, on the ground, chiefly, 

 that no man knows what suggestions, what 

 ideas, and combinations of ideas, the sight 

 may start into existence, or how useful the 

 most apparently useless may eventually 

 prove ; but, above all, that no rival traveller 

 may win a malignant triumph in his assu- 

 rances that you have overlooked the " most 

 interesting, the most captivating and va- 

 rious." 



Among the antiquities of Palermo, he 

 enumerates the Kubba, now called Castel 

 Reale, and converted into barracks, once the 

 residence of a Moorish chief, but bearing 

 few marks of its original character ; and the 

 Zera, another Moorish palace, which has 

 suffered scarcely any change by the lapse of 

 time, or the convulsions of society. The 

 examination of these noble relics confirms 

 the writer in the conclusion he had before 

 formed, that the style of architecture called 

 Gothic is strictly Saracenic a fact which 

 he endeavours to establish by historical de- 

 ductions and which will not by any means 

 be new to the reader. This style, in truth, 

 is a combination of certain peculiarities of 

 every ether the round arch of the Romans 

 the three columns of the Greeks the 

 pointed arch, tracery, and open lattice work 

 of the Chinese, Hindoos, and Persians the 

 spiral pillar and horse-shoe form of the 

 Egyptians all of which appear in the re- 

 ligious structures of the Saracens were 

 brought by them into the south of Europe 

 were adopted by their successors the 

 Goths, and imitated in the north. 



From Palermo, the author coasts the 

 shore round the western promontory, the 

 ancient Lilybaeum, contemplating every 

 thing in his way, new and old, till he 

 reaches Terra Nova, from whence he strikes 

 across the country to Syracuse, and again 

 starts along the coast, stepping out of his 

 line to look at Etna, till he comes to Mes- 

 sina, where he embarks again in a steam- 

 packet, meaning to return to Palermo, 

 and from thence again to Naples ; but, 

 luckily, iincling an opportunity at Malazzo 

 to steal a glance at the Lipari Islands, in 

 obedience to his principle of seeing all, he 

 seizes it, and lands on several of them, and, 

 not unpleasantly, takes us over spots, of 

 which as little is known as of many of the 

 islands of the Pacific. 



To give the reader a taste of his quality. At 

 Carini, about fifteen miles from Palermo, and 

 four from the sea, after describing the place, 

 he speaks of tli river as once flowing through 

 Hyccara, about a mile before it reaches the 

 sea. This unfortunate town was sacked by 

 Nicias in thePeloponnesian war, and scarcely 

 is one stone left upon another to identify 

 the spot. " Such is the destiny of man," 

 breaks out the author, " such is the evane- 

 scent existence of human works, when di- 



vine authority decrees their fall." We 

 must stop a moment. Where is the pro- 

 priety, we would ask, of this kind of lan- 

 guage, which we are every where meeting 

 with among writers, who evidently have no 

 convictions regarding the subject involved 

 in it ? All, so far as we can conclude, is 

 under the providence of the creator the 

 general stability of nature establishes the 

 fact, whatever be the instruments with 

 which it works. The fall of Hyccara is 

 intelligible enough on the principles of 

 human action, and the experience of life, 

 which are the laws of God, and his appoint- 

 ments, and the contemplation of which may 

 enable us sometimes to shun the causes that 

 lead to ruin. But what is the doctrine in- 

 culcated by the expressions to which we 

 allude ? That experience is of no use to 

 us that events are occvirring according to 

 other laws, or no laws, and which being at 

 least unknown, are not to be calculated vipon 

 before hand, nor understood after when 

 the fact is, that the more we learn, the more 

 intelligible becomes what was before unin- 

 telligible. We are not by this remark tak- 

 ing things out of the hands of Providence, 

 but placing them under it not capriciously 

 talking of Providence on one point, and 

 forgetting it on another. This is not our 

 notion of piety. Hyccara fell by an over- 

 whelming force, and an ill-advised resist- 

 ance and her fall exhibits nothing out of 

 the course of experience in that age. But 

 the reader will think we are preaching 



This place, Hyccara, observes the writer, was 

 the birth place of the far-famed Lais, who, yet a 

 child, together with the other prisoners of Nicias, 

 was carried to Catana, where they were sold into 

 slavery by public auction, and the lovely Sicil 

 maid became the property of a Corinthian mer- 

 chant, in after years the wonder and admiration 

 of man, the envy of woman, and the theme of 

 song. 



At Trapani, the ancient Drepanum, the author 

 remarks, the coral trade is carried on to a great 

 extent, not only from the fisheries of its own 

 coast, but those of Tunis, for the privilege of 

 which they pay a trifling annual rent to the Bey. 

 However, the competition they are about to expe- 

 rience from England, I imagine, will soon de- 

 prive them of those benefits, and at the same time 

 of the means of livelihood to hundreds of poor 

 wretches, who have been their whole lives en- 

 gaged in the pursuit. 



If the writer alludes to the coral compa- 

 nies, he need be under no alarm- they 

 have followed, or will follow, the fate of 

 the rest of the wild speculations of 'Change 

 Alley. 



Among the rocky islets to the south of 

 Trapani, he visited the largest of the group, 

 Columbara, called in ancient days the Isle 

 of Doves, and which Captain Smyth, it 

 seems, describes as the goal established by 

 yEneas for the boat race, " which, I think," 

 remarks our author, " a steady perusal of the 

 fifth book of the /Eneid will undeniably 



