," preserved in Percy's _Reliques_.]

* * * * *

Replies.

BRYDONE THE TOURIST.

(Vol. ix., pp. 138. 255.)

In reply to H. R. NEE F., I beg to state that the writer of the remarks
alluded to, on Brydone's _Tour in Sicily and Malta_, was the Rev. Robert
Finch, M.A., formerly of Balliol College in this University, and who died
about the year 1830. When I met with Mr. Finch's honest and somewhat blunt
expression of opinion, recorded in a {306} copy which once belonged to him,
of Brydone's _Tour_, I was quite ignorant of the hostile criticisms that
had appeared at different times on that once popular work; but knowing Mr.
Finch's high character for scholarship, and a knowledge of Italy, I thought
his remark worth sending to a publication intended, like "N. & Q.," as "A
Medium of Intercommunication for Literary Men, Antiquaries," &c., who are
well able to examine a Note of the kind; and either to accept it as valid,
or to reject it as untenable. On referring now to some standard works, in
order to discover the opinions of learned men respecting Mr. Brydone's
_Tour_, the first work I looked into was the _Biographie Universelle_ (in
eighty-three volumes, and not yet completed, Paris, 1811-1853), in vol.
lix. of which the following observations occur, under the name of BRYDONE
(Patrice):

"On lui a reproche d'avoir sacrifie la verite au plaisir de raconter
des choses piquantes. On l'avait accuse aussi d'avoir, par son
indiscretion, suscite a l'Abbe Recupero, Chanoine de Catane, une
persecution de la part de son eveque. Cette indiscretion n'eut pas
heureusement un resultat aussi facheux; mais ses erreurs sur plusieurs
points sont evidentes; il donne 4000 toises de hauteur a l'Etna qui
n'en a que 1662; il commet d'autres fautes qui ont ete relevees par les
voyageurs venus apres lui. Bartels (_Briefe ueber Kalabrien und
Sicilien_, 2te Auflage, 3 Bd., 8vo., Goetting. 1791-92) est meme
persuade que le voyage au sommet de l'Etna, chef-d'oeuvre de narration,
n'est qu'un roman, et cet avis est partage par d'autres."

Goethe says (_Werke_, Band xxviii. pp. 189, 190.: Stuttgart, 1830) that when
he inquired at Catania respecting the best method of ascending Mount Etna,
Chevalier Gioeni, the professor of natural history there, gave him the
following advice and information:

"Als wir den Ritter um die Mittel befragten wie man sich benehmen muesse
u