154

LIFE OF COLONEL MACERONI.

and almost supplicating mood, tliey were glad to purchaseand beg the assistance of the former, in the works of exca-vation, the construction of temporary huts, and in the pro-curing of food of any description.

Without saying a few words on the conduct of the Nea-politan government, and of other classes of the nation, Ishould commit a great injustice to their memories. Thenews of the disaster reached Naples with great celerity.Incredulity, astonishment, dismay, compassion, in turnsprevailed. The facts being fully ascertained, aid of everykind was promptly furnished. Clothes, provisions, money,physicians, artisans, architects; and then learned scientificprofessors, judges, magistrates, police agents, surveyors,and many lawyers followed. A tax of two millions ofducats was imposed on the rest of the kingdom, for therelief of the afflicted Calabrians. In ten months sixtythousand persons had perished. Such was the strange sub-version of all things, physical and moral, that the extraor-dinary marriages alone would indicate an epoch of socialconfusion.

Whether it be necessary for me to apologise again for theintroduction of these brief details of the memorableearthquake, I will leave my readers to decide. Some willsay yes; others, perhaps, no. My object is to cater forvarious palates. The same subjects will not please all par-ties, so between them I must take my chance.

Almost from my infancy, I may say, my greatest delightwas in the study of nature, and natural history.

While at school at Old Hall Green, I was celebrated fordissecting frogs, rats, or other animals, and demonstratingthe anatomical facts to my school-fellows. At fourteen, Ientered warmly into the study of chemistry, and being pro-vided by my munificent father, with furnaces, crucibles, andevery apparatus I could desire, I repeated most of the mani-