THE EARTHQUAKE AT LISBON.

AMONG all the catastrophes of which we read in history, few appear so horrible as those which have been occasioned by earthquakes. Thousands, who but a few minutes before were full of busy life, have been swallowed up as if they had never existed, or crushed to death by fragments of falling buildings.

On the 1st of November, 1755, Lisbon was visited by the most tremendous earthquake that has been known in modern times. It happened to be a festival day. The churches were lighted up, and particularly crowded; when, suddenly, a sound was heard like thunder, in the very heart of the earth, and before the terrified inhabitants could conjecture what was going to happen, a violent shock threw down the greater part of their city, burying more than 60,000 of them in the ruins: and for all this

the space of six minutes was sufficient! It is impossible, in so small a picture as this, to give a just idea of the horrors of such a scene.

By this time the sea was violently agitated, and, after sweeping back so as to leave the bar almost dry, it came swelling and rushing with tremendous force towards the devoted city, and rising more than fifty feet above its usual level. Close to the water was a large marble quay, upon which great numbers of the survivors had crowded for safety, when (as if there was to be no refuge for those against whom this awful doom had gone forth) the quay went down; and all that agony of hopes and fears, and of horror unspeakable, vanished in a moment, and not a trace of the quay, or of those who had flown to it for shelter, was ever seen afterwards.

Those who had hurried into boats on the Tagus met with no happier fate; they sunk in the whirlpool occasioned by the earthquake.

Lisbon has never recovered from the effects of this disaster; the few handsome streets which have been rebuilt only seem to show, in more melancholy contrast, the heaps of rubbish and ruins which were left ninety years ago; and the imposing appearance of palaces, churches, and convents, which rise above the quays on approaching the city from the river, creates a delusion which quickly fades away when the badly-paved and dirty streets offend the eye of the traveller. To complete his disgust, he

is almost sickened with pestilential effluvia, and annoyed by swarms of dogs of every breed, with which the streets of Lisbon are as much infested as those of Corinth or Constantinople.

Notwithstanding the efforts which some influential people have made to restore their city, so as to justify its ancient name of "Felicitas Julia," the greater part of it must still retain its reputation for want of decency and cleanliness-the imperfect lighting of the streets, the want of sewerage, and the extreme indolence of the Portuguese, all combine to give it this most undesirable celebrity.

Their government is bad, and there is a total want of education among the lower orders. Mr. Semple describes them as "a meager race, generally clothed in rags, and filthy beyond endurance.”

The aristocratic Portuguese are more grave, reserved, and proud than their neighbors the Spaniards, against whom, as a nation, they entertain a profound antipathy; but, notwithstanding all that has been said, many redeeming features are to be found among the more enlightened and refined circles in Lisbon.

Lord Byron's description appears admirably just :

Disconsolate will wander up and down

'Mid many things unsightly to strange 'ee;
For hut and palace show like filthily.
The dingy denizens are rear'd in dirt;

Ne

personage of high or mean degree

Doth care for cleanness of surtout or shirt,

Tho' shent with Egypt's plague, unkempt, unwash'd; unhurt."

THE AMPHITHEATRE OF VERONA.

MODERN Italy abounds in relics of antiquity-memorials, more or less entire, of a time when she was mistress of the world. Now, oppressed by foreign intruders, and degraded by native superstition, her children seek for consolation by turning to the glories of their ancestors, and thirst for the time when their beautiful country may again take her proper station amidst the nations of Europe. The Roman, as he treads the ruins of the Forum, listens in fancy to the eloquence of Cicero; he paces the gigantic round of the Coliseum, and its now ruined and deserted walls appear, to his fervid imagination, crowded with the myriads eager to witness the contests of wild beasts, or the dying struggles of the gladiator.

The lively Neapolitan descends to the buried remains of Herculaneum and Pompeii, where are brought visibly before him the domestic manners of his ancestors: he sees the preparations for the meal that was never tasted; he visits the dungeon of the prisoner whose doom was pronounced by no mortal judge; and his thoughtless levity is