I 4 ] 
Vesuvius. The operations of nature are flow ; great 
eruptions do not frequently happen, each flatters 
himfelf it will not happen in his time, or if it fliould, 
that his tutelar faint will turn away the deftru&ive 
lava from his grounds ; then indeed the great fer- 
tility in the neighbourhoods of volcanos tempts people 
to inhabit them. 
In about four hours of gradual afcent we arrived 
at a little convent of benedidtine monks, called St. 
Nicolo dell’ Arena, about thirteen miles from Ca- 
tania, and within a mile of the volcano from whence 
iflued the laft very great eruption in the year 1669, a 
eircumftantial account of which was fent to our 
court by a lord Winchelfea y w 7 ho happened to be then 
at Catania in his way home, from his embafly at 
Conftantinople. His lordlbip’s account is curious, and 
was printed in London foon after ; I faw a copy of 
it at Palermo, in the library of the prince Torre- 
muzzo * ** . We flept in the benediclines convent 
* It is intituled, A true and exa& Relation of the late prodi- 
gious Earthquake and Eruption of Mount /Etna, or Monte 
Gibello ; as it came in a letter written to his majefty from 
Naples, by the right honourable the earl of Winchelfea, his 
majefty r s late ambailador at Conftantinople, who in his return 
from thence, viftting Catania in the ifland of Sicily, was an eye- 
witnefs of that dreadful fpe&acle ; together with a more par- 
ticular narrative of the fame, as it is collt&ed out of the feveral 
relations fent fiom Catania ; pubbfhed by authority. Printed by 
T. Newcomb, in tire Savoy, 1669, p. 38. 
“ I accepted, fays the author, the invitation of the bifhop of 
** Catania to flay a day with him, that fo I might be the better 
“ able to inform your majefty of that extraordinary fire, which 
“ comes from Mount Gibel, 15 miles diftant from that city, 
“ which, for its horridnefs in the afpe£f, for the vaft quantity 
“ therepl (for it is 15 miles in length, and 7 in breadth), for its 
