42 .TRAVELS IN UPPER 



he seriously assured me had been begun by S.Nico- 

 demus, who, having fallen asleep in the midst of 

 his labour, was very much surprised, on awaking, 

 to find the work finished. It was hardly worth 

 while, after all, to call in the assistance of a mi- 

 racle to complete such a miserable production. 



If the churches at Palermo are exquisitely beau- 

 tiful, the temple there reared to nature and the 

 sciences, is in a woful state of decay : a proof that 

 there is in that city more devotion than curiosity, 

 more piety than taste for instruction. The mu- 

 seum is a confused assemblage of very uninterest- 

 ing objects. The collection of animals is the most 

 wretched that can be imagined, and consists only 

 of some monsters preserved in spirit of wine, and 

 of some skins eaten through by the mites, and 

 falling into tatters. The abbe, who shewed this 

 cabinet, told me, that the Jesuits bad carried off 

 or sold the most valuable articles which it con- 

 tained, at the time of their expulsion from the do- 

 minions of the king of Naples. There still remain, 

 however, some curious petrifactions and beautiful 

 morsels of antiquity, of which, as my guide in- 

 formed me, the ingenious Hamilton, ambassador 

 from England at the court of Naples, had given 

 drawings and a description. They likewise shew 

 there anatomical injections of a man and of a wo- 

 man, perfectly well executed by a Sicilian physi- 

 cian, 



