Some disputes having arisen respecting the age of Mrs Jordan, the regifter was searched, by which it appears, that she is just now fix and twenty. Since her fuccess in London, she has received a confiderable addition to her income by the death of a near relation of her mother, which, together with her theatrical emoluments, amount to upwards of three thousand pounds per annum.

Whether from attachment or other motives, we cannot say, but it is well known, that she has refused many splendid offers; and more than once an honourable alliance, with. a title. Inclination with her seems to be superior to interest, as the has formed a connexion with a gentleman, but of

what nature, as it is impossible for us to afcertain, it would be improper to speak here.

In private life she is respected and careffed by many persons of the firft rank and character, who are pleased with her conversation, which is, however, rather sensible than sprighdy. She has no improper pride, nor is the like some of her cotemporaries, fond of appearing a little fomething among the great. The brightest part of her character is, that she is kind to her relations, and generous to the needy. And humanity, says the Moralist, is not only an indication of a feeling heart, but the strongest criterion of virtue.

which

top of Vetuvius, in I faw a vast aperture full of smoke, which hindered the seeing its depth and figure. I heard within that horrid gulf certain odd sounds, which seemed to proceed from the belly of the mountain; a fort of marmuring, fighing, throbbing, churning, dashing (as it were) of waves, and between whiles a noise like that of thunder or cannon, which was conftantly attended with a clattering like that of tiles falling from the tops of houses on the ftreets Sometimes, as the wind changed, the smoke grew thinner, difcovering a very ruddy flame, and the jaws of the pan or crater streaked with red and several shades of yellow. After an hour's stay, the smoke, being moved by the wind, gave us short and partial profpects of the great hollow, in the flat bottom of which I could difcern two furnaces almost contiguous: that on the left, seeming about three yards in diameter, glowed with red flame, and threw up red-hot VOL. XII. No. 67.

H

a hideous noife, which,

as they fell back, caused the forementioned clattering. May 8. in the morning, I afcended to the top of Vesuvius a second time, and found a different face of things. The smoke ascending upright, gave a full profpect of the crater, which, as I could judge, is about a mile in circumference, and an hundred yards deep. A conical mound had been formed since my last vifit, in the middle of the bottom: this mount, I could fee, was made of the ftones thrown up and fallen back again into the crater. In this new hill remained the two mounts or furnaces already mentioned: that on our left was in the vertex of the hill which it had formed round it, and raged more violently than before, throwing up every three or four minutes, with a dreadful bellowing, a vast number of red-hot-stones, fometimes in appearance above a thousand, and at least three thousand feet higher than my head as I stood upon the brink; but there being little or no wind,

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into the crater, increasing the conical hill. The other mount to the right was lower in the fide of the same newformed hill. I could difcern it to be filled with red-hot liquid matter, like that in the furnace of a glass-house, which raged and wrought as the waves of the fea, causing a short abrupt noise like what may be imagined to proceed from a sea of quickfilver dashing among uneven rocks. This stuff would sometimes fpew over and run down the convex side of the conical hill; and appearing at first red-hot, it changed colour, and hardened as it cooled, shewing the first rudiments of an eruption, or, if I may fay fo, an eruption in miniature. Had the wind driven in our faces, we had been in no small danger of stifling by the fulphureous smoke, ог knocked on the head by lumps of molten minerals, which we saw had sometimes fallen on the brink of the crater, upon those shot from the gulf at the bottom. But as the wind was favourable, I had an opportunity to furvey this odd scene for above an hour and a half together; during which it was very obfervable, that all the volleys of smoke, flame, and burning stones, came only out of the hole to our left, while the liquid stuff in the other mouth wrought and overflowed, as hath been already described. June sth, after an horrid noise, the mountain was seen at Naples to spew a little out of the crater. The fame continued the oth. The 7th, nothing was observed till within two hours of night, when it began a hideous bellowing, which continued all that night and the next day till noon, caufing the windows, and as fome affirm, the very houses in Naples to shake. From that time it spewed vast quantities of molten stuff to the south, which streamed down the mountain like a great pot boiling over. This even ing I returned from a voyage through Apulia, and was surprised, paffing by

a great quantity of ruddy smoke lie along a huge tract of sky over the river of molten stuff, which was itself out of fight. The 9th, Vesuvius raged less violently: that night we faw from Naples a column of fire shoot between whiles out of its summit, The 10th, when we thought all would have been over, the mountain grew very outrageous again, roaring and groaning most dreadfully. You cannot form a juster idea of this noise in the most violent fits of it, than by imagining a mixed found made up of the raging of a tempeft, the murmur of a troubled sea, and the roaring of thunder and artillery, confused all to gether. It was very terrible as we heard it in the further end of Naples, at the distance of above twelve miles; this moved my curiofity to approach the mountain, Three or four of us got into a boat, and were set ashore at Torre del Greco, a town fituate at the foot of Vesuvius to the fouth-west, whence we rode four or five miles before we came to the burning river, which was about midnight. The roaring of the volcano grew exceeding loud and horrible as we approached, I observed a mixture of colours in the cloud over the crater, green, yellow, red, and blue; there was likewise a ruddy dismal light in the air over that tract of land where the burning river flowed; athes continually showered on us all the way from the sea coaft: all which circumstances, set off and augmented by the horror and filence of the night, made a scene the most uncommon and aftonishing I ever saw, which grew ftill more extraordinary as we came nearer the stream. Imagine a vast torrent of liquid fire rolling from the top down the side of the mountain, and with irresistible fury bearing down and confuming vines, olives, fig-trees, houses; in a word, every thing that stood in its way. This mighty flood divided into different channels, ac cording cording to the inequalities of the mountain: the largest stream seemed half a mile broad at least, and five miles long. The nature and consistence of these burning torrents hath been described with so much exactness and truth by Borellus in his Latin treatise of Mount Etna, that I need say nothing of it. I walked fo far before my companions up the mountain, along the side of the river of fire, that I was obliged to retire in great haste, the fulphureous stream having surprised me, and almost taken away my breath. During our return, which was about three o'clock in the morning, we conftantly heard the murmur and groaning of the mountain, which between whiles would burst out into louder peals, throwing up huge spouts of fire and burning stones, which falling down again, resembled the stars in our rockets. Sometimes I observed two, at others three, distinct columns of flames; and fometimes one vast one that seemed to fill the whole crater. These burning columns and the fiery stones seemed to be shot 1000 feet perpendicular above the summit of the volcano. The 11th, at night, I observed it, from a terrace in Naples, to throw up incessantly a vast body of fire, and great ftones, to a furprising height. The 12th, in the morning, it darkened the fun with ashes and smoke, caufing a fort of eclipse. Horrid bellowings, this and the foregoing day, were heard at Naples, whither part of the ashes also reached. At night I observed it throwing up flame, as on the 11th. On the 13th, the wind changing, we saw a pillar of black fmoke shot upright to a prodigious

height. At night I observed the mount cast up fire as before, though not so distinctly because of the smoke. The 14th, a thick black cloud hid the mountain from Naples. The 15th, in the morning, the court and walls of our house in Naples were covered with ashes. The 16th, the smoke was driven by a westerly wind from the town to the opposite side of the mountain. The 17th, the smoke appeared much diminished, fat and greasy. The 18th, the whole appearance ended; the mountain remaining perfectly quiet without any visible smoke or flame. A gentleman of my acquaintance, whose window looked towards Vesuvius, assured me that he observed several flashes, as it were of lightning, issue out of the mouth of the volcano. It is not worth while to trouble you with the conjectures I have formed concerning the cause of these phenomena, from what I obferved in the Lacus Amfantti, the Solfatara, &c. as well as in Mount Vesuvius. One thing I may venture to say, that I saw the fluid matter rife out of the centre of the bottom of the crater, out of the very middle of the mountain, contrary to what Borellus imagines; whose method of explaining the eruption of a volcano by an inflexed syphon and the rules of hydrostatics, is likewise inconsistent with the torrents flowing down from the very vertex of the mountain. I have not seen the crater since the eruption, but design to vifit it again before I leave Naples. I doubt there is nothing in this worth shewing the fociety; as to that you will use your discretion.

G. BERKELEY.

regions may be pleaded as exceptions from this general rule. He waves here any enquiry into the truth of this point, or into the physical and moral causes, which might occafion this uniformity. An intelligent mind, accustomed to speculate upon human events, to regard their causes, their progression and effects, and to form its general opinions from an expanded furvey of the whole, such a mind will naturally stop at particular æras in the history of nations, and assemble the scattered rays into one concentered point of view. It has been the particular object of the author to digeft and arrange this vast assemblage of reasoning and facts in fuch a manner, as, he trufts will gratify the wishes of a man of claffical taste.

The whole work will compose 3 vols. quarto.

T. RITCHIE.

A Sketch of the Life of Dr Duncan' Liddel of Aberdeen, Professor of Mathematics and of Medicine in the University of Helmitadt. Aberdeen, printed by J. Chalmers and Co. Sold by Laurie, Syming. ton and Co. Edinburgh, and J. Evans London. 4to. Is.

THIS pamphlet, which is written with claffic brevity, in the form of annals, contains a biographical account of a man of confiderable reputation, and one of the first scholars of his age, now involved with many others in undeserved obscurity.

It appears from this publication, that Dr Duncan Liddell was born at Aberdeen in 1661; that after having received the rudiments of his education in that place, he left Scotland and studied at Francfort on the Oder, at Breslau, at Rostock, and finally at the Academia Julia, established at Helmstadt by Henry Julius Duke of Brunswick. In this university he was

in process of time appointed Profef for of Mathematics, and afterwards of Medicine. Having been several times elected Dean of the Faculties both of Philosophy and Physic, he was at last chosen pro-rector of the University. But neither academical honours, nor the profits of an extensive medical practice abroad, could make him forget his native country. He returned, after an absence of about eight and twenty years, and settled in Scotland. He bestowed certain lands near Aberdeen upon the University there, in all time coming, for the education and support of fix poor scholars: he founded and endowed the profefforship of mathematics in the Marischall College there, and applied a confiderable part of his fortune to other benevolent purposes.

From the view of the life and wri tings of Dr Liddell, contained in the Sketch before us, the learned author modeitly observes, that " some judg ment may be formed of his general character and merits. It has been shewn that he was well received and patronized by the most eminent scholars in every university where he studied, and that in a foreign country, without fortune or the connections of family, he arrived at the highest honours of his profeffion, and was dif tinguished as one of the first phyficians and philofophers of his time. He appears to have always entertained a moft grateful sense of the favours conferred on him in his youth, and to have been warmly attached to his native country and his friends. That he was alfo highly esteemed and be loved by them, is evident from the Carmina Encomiaftica addressed to him in Latin and in Greek, by many of his colleagues in the Academia Ju-. lia and others though it must be acknowledged that there is none to be found from the learned Profefor Horftius."

To understand the reason of the particular exception contained in the concluding