their cries, insisting loudly upon the relics of St. Januarius, being immediately opposed to the fury of the mountain; in short, the populace of this great city began to display its usual mixture of riot and bigotry, and if some speedy and welltimed precautions had not been taken, Naples would perhaps have been in more danger of suffering from the irregularies of its lower class of inhabitants than from the angry volcano. The eruption of Monday, the 9th of August, was similar to that of Thursday last, but many degrees more violent, and most of the inhabitants of the towns on the borders of Vesuvius fled to Naples, alarmed by the tremendous clouds and the loud explosions. Several very large stones, after having mounted to an immense height, formed a parabola, leaving behind them a trace of white smoke that marked their course, others fell into the valley between Somma and Vesuvius without bursting, others again burst into a thousand pieces soon after their emission from the crater: they might very properly be called volcanic bombs. Upon the whole, this day's eruption was very alarming; until the lava broke out about two o'clock, and ran three miles between the two mountains, we were in continual apprehension of some fatal event. It was universally remarked that the air this night, for many hours after the eruption, was filled with meteors, such as are vulgarly called falling stars; they shot generally in a horizontal direction, leaving a luminous trace behind them, but which quickly disappeared. The night was remarkably fine, starlight, and without a cloud. This kind of electrical fire seemed to be harmless and never to reach the ground, whereas that with which the black volcanic cloud of last night was pregnant appeared mischievous, like the lightning that attends a severe thunder-storm. On Wednesday, the mountains of white cotton-like clouds, piled over one another, rose to such an extraordinary height, and formed such a colossal mass over Vesuvius, as cannot possibly be described, or scarcely imagined. It may have been from a scene of this kind, that the antient poets took their idea of the giants waging war with Jupiter. About five o'clock in the evening the eruption ceased. The roof of his Sicilian Majesty's sporting seat at Caccia Bella, was much damaged by the fall of large stones and heavy scoriæ, some of which, after having been broken in their fall through the roof, still weighed upwards of thirty pounds. This place, in a direct line, cannot be less than four miles from the crater of Vesuvius. Volcanic stones and cinders (some of which weighed two ounces) fell at Benevento, Foggia, and Monte Mileto, upwards of thirty miles from Vesuvius ; but what is most extraordinary (as there was but little wind during the eruption of the 8th of August) minute ashes fell thick that very night upon the town of Manfredonia, which is at the distance of a hundred miles from Vesuvius. Had the eruption lasted an hour longer, Ottaiano must have shared the fate of Pompeii, for large vitrified masses, which after having struck against each other in the air and been broken by the fall, in several cases still weighed sixty pounds, covered a large space around them with vivid sparks of fire, which communicated their heat to every thing that was combustible. The number and size of the stones, or more properly speaking, fragments of lava which have been thrown out of the volcano in the course of the last eruption, and which lie scattered thick on the cone of Vesuvius and at the foot of it, is really incredible. The largest we measured was in circumference no less than one hundred and eight English feet, and seventeen feet high. It is a solid block, and much vitrified; in some parts of it there are large pieces of pure glass, of a brown yellow colour, like that of which our common bottles are made, and throughout its pores, seem to be filled with perfect vitrifications of the same sort. This immense mass was thrown at least a quarter of a mile clear of the mouth of the volcano. FULDA. FULDA, the chief city in the province of the same name in the Electorate of Hesse, lies in a wide plain, on the river Fulda. The number of inhabitants is ten thousand. The principal squares, the Domplaty, or Cathedral square, is ornamented with two obelisks. The cathedral is a fine building, it contains the remains of St. Boniface or Bonifacius, the apostle of the Germans. St. Boniface was an Englishman, a native of Devonshire, born about the year 680, and received at his baptism the name of Winfred. After having remained thirteen years in Exeter convent, the pious monk was appointed to teach rhetoric, history, and theology, in Nutcell convent. In his thirtieth year he was ordained priest. At this period, England and Ireland had already begun to send out priests for the conversion of the heathen nations of Europe. Gallus and Emmeran had visited Alemannia on this holy errand. Swidvert had made a pilgrimage to Frisia (Friesland), and Siegfried to Sweden. Winfred determined to devote his exertions to Frisia, the inhabitants of which had shewn great unwillingness to receive the truths of Christianity, but owing to the obstacles which occurred from the war which was then waging between Charles Martel and Radbod, king of the Frisians, VOL. III. 2 B he was obliged, for the present, to relinquish his design, and he returned from Utrecht to England to his convent, of which he was chosen abbot on the death of Winbert. In 718 he visited Rome, where Pope Gregory the Second gave him full power to preach the gospel to all the nations of Germany. Winfred proceeded first to Thuringia and Bavaria, passed three years in Frisia, wandered through Hesse and Saxony, everywhere baptizing the inhabitants, and consecrating their idolatrous groves into churches. He laboured zealously in his vocation for thirty years, founded cathedrals, to which he attached schools and monasteries, and the monks and nuns of those days, must be considered among the benefactors of mankind, as by clearing the forests, they not only promoted the education of the people, but assisted in the progress of agriculture, that mighty element in the early civilization of nations. In the early period of his career, his zeal and success attracted the notice of his superiors at Rome, and in 723, five years after he had been appointed Apostle of the Germans, Pope Gregory the Second called him to Rome, made him bishop, under the name of Boniface, gave him a collection of canons, which should serve him as a guide in his proceedings, and intrusted him with letters to Charles Martel, and all princes and bishops, begging them to assist him in his pious work. After his return from Rome in 724, he again went to Hesse, destroyed the different objects of adoration of the heathens, such as the oak near Grismar, which was consecrated to Thor, the idol Stuffo, on the mountain in the Harz, which still bears his name Stuffenberg (or Stuffo's mountain). He founded many churches and convents, and sent for priests, monks, and nuns, whom he distributed as his assistants in Thuringia, Saxony, and Bavaria. Of these the names of the monks Willibald, Wunibald, Burchard, Lullus, Lebuin, Wililhad; of the nuns, Lioba, Thecla, Walberg, and others, have been preserved. In 732, Pope Gregory the Third nominated him Archbishop and Primate of all Germany, with full power to erect bishoprics wherever he might consider them necessary. In 738, he made a third journey to Rome, and was appointed Papal Legate in Germany. In Bavaria, he erected the bishoprics of Freisingen and Regensburg, in addition to the already existing bishopric of Passau; in Thuringia, the bishopric of Erfurt; in Hesse, that of Buraberg, which was afterwards transferred to Paderborn, in Franconia; the bishopric of Wurzburg; and in the Palitinate, that of Eichstedt. In Salzburg, he restored the bishopric which had been erected by St. Rupert, in the beginning of the eighth century. He was nominated by Pepin, Archbishop of Mayence, anointed that monarch King of the French, at Loisson, in 752, and presided at the council which was held in that city. "Without the protection of the Frank prince," (he observes in a letter to one of his friends at Winchester), "I could neither govern |