soliciting, he can obtain it; but in Palermo, although the city is by no means deficient in beggars, yet they are far less numerous; nor do they thrust their deformities into your face, or mob your carriage, as they do at Naples; but this remark is only applicable to Palermo, for, as we get into the interior, we shall find the beggars of Partenico as clamorous, as numerous, and as energetic as at the railway station of Castellamare.

The viceroy having desired I might be allowed to visit every place within his dominions-having handed me over to the friendship of the director of the interior, and the protection of the director of police-it became my own fault if I did not profit by this kindness. The invitations to the palace were extended to those who travelled with me, although not of my family; his excellency himself suggested our various excursions, and took great care that we were received and instructed by the chiefs of the different departments. I regretted extremely that, after one of our excursions, the prince was obliged to return to Naples, on account of the severe illness of his son.

The streets of the Toledo and Macqueda

present sufficient animation; they cross the whole city as near the centre as possible, and thus make four distinct quarters. The shops are indifferent, and the pickpockets lethargic: there is not much to apprehend from carriages, although very convenient and comfortable public carriages are to be found on various stands. The Rez de Chaussée is entirely devoted to shops; café-clubs, in all their multifarious ramifications, from the rich magazin to the low cabaret; and it will be remarked, that although, at times, the crowd is sufficiently dense, ladies of the higher class will seldom, if ever, be seen. The china remains on its costly shelf; the delf and the crockery are more exposed to breakage.

In the Toledo, formerly called La Strada Cassaro, and in the Macqueda, are many churches and palaces; the whole street has an air of richness gradually decreasing. It is like a poor gentleman well dressed: there is the mark of poverty, however clean may be his shirt. The solid stone-work, the varied, rich, and strong balconies, the Spanish style of magnificence, are imposing; but there is squalid wretchedness on the door-steps; and there is that want of ensemble which is distinguished

in the truly opulent. Walk from the Porta Felice to the Porta Nuova, that is, from the landing-place to the royal palace, and although you will pass along a splendid street, straight as an arrow, with huge buildings, hospitals, churches, palaces, it will at once strike you

as outside show ;" and diverge into the narrower streets--the markets or the Vico-and you will be satisfied that Palermitans are not rich; there are individuals, of course, affluent and respectable,, but the generality are poor and vicious.

The city of Palermo may glorify itself as the birth-place of St. Agatha, distinguished for her birth, beauty, and her sufferings; but her virtue and constancy, in resisting the advances of Quintilian, who roasted her alive on burning coals, to shake her idolatry, or warm her blood, are forgotten in the present generation; and sixteen hundred years (St. Agatha died in 251) obliterates the memory, even of a good example.

From the higher enclosed iron galleries, for they cannot be called balconies, and which belong to the convents, and are approached by a subterraneous passage, the nuns, and those young ladies who seek instruction from

the sisters, are allowed to view all religious processions; and if report is not an arrant liar, the eyes of these fair prisoners are more devoted to other objects than those so familiar to them; and many have paid the heavy penalty of curiosity.

The city of Palermo has about 160,000 inhabitants, and is a little more than a league in circumference; its defences are insignificant, and an enemy would have little to fear, from either the Arenella or the mole on the Monte Pellegrino side, or from St. Erasmus towards the Bagheria. At present there is a strong military force, the expenses for the maintenance of which are levied on the inhabitants. Milan and Palermo are excellent examples of the consequences of unsuccessful but noble revolutions; one city is a desert-the other is impoverished by the tax which nourishes its oppressors.

Lord William Bentinck, in 1812, gave the Sicilians a kind of English constitution, and the country prospered under the liberty it enjoyed. The hundred days-the treaty of Paris-the overthrow of Murat by the Austrians-re-placed Ferdinand on the throne of Naples; then arose again the humbled pride

of the Sicilian nobles, who strove to regain their feudal rights, of which the English constitution had shorn them. The constitution was annulled.

On the 8th of December, 1816, the king took the title of Ferdinand I. of the Two Sicilies, declared Sicily a province of the kingdom; and it was afterwards, by a decree, dated June 1824, incorporated entirely with the kingdom of Naples, and subjected to the same laws. To prosper under such a disaster, after the blessings of liberty, law, and justice, was not very possible or probable.

Sicily, which has had three names, like a child of nobility, "Trinacria (from its triangular configuration), "Sicania," and "Sicily," has only 1,650,000 inhabitants. In ancient times Syracuse alone had 1,200,000 people, and yet in all Europe there is no country so favoured by Providence as this most beautiful island; whilst an eternal winter may be found on Mount Etna, an eternal spring reigns in the vicinity of Girgente-there is not a richer or more productive soil in the universe, yet not onefourth of it is cultivated. Here are corn and wine in abundance, here the orange, the fig, the date, the pomegranate, the tamarind, the