Catania is chiefly resorted to by the nobles, whose lortimes do not enable them to shine al the royal residence. in Palermo. The city is superabundantly stocked with priests, monks, nuns, and beggars. Any one passing through a Sicilian town, might readily believe that it contained the aggregate of decrepitude and deformity of Europe. 'Elie incite-al ions inhabitants are few, the j'ruges conoumere mai numerous.
ln the square belOre the cathedral a gigantic elephant, the ancient symbol of Catania, of lava, with an obelisk upon his bacl., on the sides of which hieroglyphic charac ters are carved, stands, having withstood the concussions ()finally earthqtedies.
The prince of Biscari, the great man of the place, has a choice collection of specimens of Carthaginian, Gre cian, and lloinan arellittetur•, mosaic work, and statues ; a cry pci fact collection of Tuscan and other vases, and Lamps of infinite variety of form ; bronzes, volcanic specimens, and an assortment or cameos and intaglios of the most exquisite workmanship. There arc also excellent monuments of the arts, which have escaped the ravages of time, in iron and other metals, such as pieces of armour, I !UM as, keys, &c. Instead of con liuinl to the display of what they are almost unriy ailed in, the vanity of the Iiist ari family has led them to disli7ure their museum, by the introdm lion of natura', and disgusting anatomical preparations.
\Ve are told that Catania contains 80,000 souls; but we cannot give them credit for half that number of inhabitants. It is the see or a bishop, much of whose ample revenue is drawn from the snow sold from En a. There is an university of much repute (in Sicily) in this place, where the three learned professions are taught. The students destined for the church far outnumber those of physic or law, the reason of which is very obvious ; nearly cue-third the landed property of the island is in the possession or the church and the religi ous orders ; many temptations are therefore held out : the Uglier classes, accordingly, very frequently force their daughters, who are not fortunate enough to get married, to take the y eil ; and as younger sons could not pursue any profession without degrading their illustrious family, they take the vows to obtain a provision for life, and to partake of the good things of this world which the church has to offer. The lower classes flock to those convents which admit people not of noble descent, sonic from zeal, others to advance in the scale or rank, and many from indolence, to eat the bread of idleness rather than earn it by labour. Of the poorer students for the church, many. are educated at the expellee of the bishop.
It may amuse such of our readers as are so curious to know the progress of the sciences, to lay before them a few points to illustrate the state of medicine as prac tised in Sicily ; in this view, we shall transcribe some from the hist/tut/ones 1/edicinte of the present professor of that science in the university of Catania. as tiogues pedum et digitorum linoB. vomitum excitant, (it would indeed extraordinary if they did not,) et valent contra tpilepsiam, lethargiam, hydropem et inttrmittentt s fibres, &c. Drina interne assumpta et recess et tepola ab t. ad Zvi. matutino tempore, jejumo stomach° \ ipirartl arect. Urina niariti a parturientibus Lausta partum facilem reddit ! Corn nontis de genera hoc I" Such a breakfast, such sieulc woncci not suit an English stomach.
It may gratify the adherents of that northern light in ph). e, John to learn, that their hero has divided the faculty in Sicily into two parties, in each of which, sy 'upturns are to be traced eviocing the existence of malady well known amongst doctors, though mulc se by nosologists, y iz. the odium medicron, hi as genuine a form as ever Germany exhibited. A preliminary to a consultation has more than once been the I low does opium op( rate ? and we have often read a most ex cellent application or the true Ilrunonian answ( r, writt( n with charcoal in hirge characters, on the outside of a wine house in the plain of Catania, Non +a•ui olnum, fol lowed by the appropriate exclamation, Viva 21 celeberrinv, Brown.
Ilow the laws are taught in this only ersity we arc not competent to say ; but we have seen enough of their administration to form a pretty accurate judgment of their practical application, from which we arc inclined to doubt the possibility of the juri,prudence of tl e petty states of Barbary being upon a worse or more un«.rtain footing.. A very few years ago, two atrocious ',turd( r were committed in the course of one : Tice bishop's cook was most sacrilegiously s'abbed when offs at his ow n altar, namely the kitchen dresser ; and a tra velling guide was shot in the dusk of the ev•oilia-„ at the door of a wine house, by a companion, with w host he had had a dispute the day. before. Many examples might be cited, to skew Low prone the Sicilians are to commit murder, under the impulse of passion, which is no way restrained by the laws. Although assassination is very frequent, a capital punishment hardly (Yer infli( led. and, if it were to take place, the process is so It thous, that the crime would be forgotten before the criminal suffered. \Ve were still more surprised to observe, that the perpetration of two murders in so short a time, called forth no expression of indignation on the part of those NN hum eve may suppose to have been more enlightened, no one even mentioned the circumstance as an extraordi nary occurrence ; nay more, the police of the place made no effort to apprehend the murderers, because, as one of the senators sagely remarked, " it would be fruitless, fur a man always runs off when he assassinates another." Such deeds make no other impression than what ari from the dread or their own career being cut short in the same way.
In digging through the lava some years ago, an ex tensive theatre of Grecian architecture, built of lava, and lOn»ded upon lac a, was discovered. There are remains of hot and vapour baths in several places.
The principal exports of this c ity. are the means of producing heat and cold, the snow and fire wood which Etna furnishes, to Malta and other phioes ; toe various sorts of maccaroni, which arc well ir nufactured here, and sold under the general term of paste ; silk. which is also manufactured here.
The amusements are, as in every Italian town, a eon verNazione, which much more frequently signifies a p-rty assembled to play at faro, share, or other games of chance, than for the purpose of ratioLal co:r. I...C. a ; sometimes an opera, and a masquerade on Sc. ie.ay dur ing carnival, in the prince of Bisca•i's theatre ; an acade mia, wherein the prcfessori meet not in toe olri-lashioned way of the Greek philosophers, quercri verum inter sylvas academi—it be it known to the etrader, that arad,mia is neither more nor less th.o) a concert, the the performers, and the virtuosi the audience.
The ancient Catina produced Carondas the legislator. so much commended by Plato; and Stesichorus the lyric poet, who introduced singing with the accompaniment of the cithara into the chorus.
The Sem2etus, now the Giaratta, sung by Theocritus, flows through the plains of Catania at some distance from the town. The Naphtha lake, the seat of the oracle of the Palici, hardly second in repute to that of Delphos for its responses, is in the neighbourhood of Catania.
From Catania, Adrian the emperor ascended Etna, ut solis ortum viderct." But this city is so often men tioned by the ancient writers, and the natural phenomena that characterise it are so intimately interwoven with the allegory and fable of ancient mythology, that every stream and fountain in its neighbourhood bear record of its an tiquity.* (w)