Brydone, Patrick; Beckford, William: A Tour Through Sicily And Malta: in a series of letters to William Beckford ; in 2 vol. (Band 1) (1775)

SICILY AND MALTA. 55
represented by their authors, as the most
tremendous passage in the world. Ariflotle
gives a long and a formidable description
of it in his 125th chapter De Admirandis,
which I find transsated in an old Sicilian
book I have got here. It begins, " Adeo
" profundum, horridumque spectaculum,
" &c." but it is too long to transcribe. It
is likewise described by Homer *, 12th of
the Odyssey; Virgil f, 3d iEneid; Lucre-
tius,

• Dire Scylla there a scene of horror forms,
And here Charybdis fills the deep with storms:
When the tide rushes from her rumbling caves,
The rough rock roars; tumultuous boil the waves;
They toss, they foam, a wild confusion raise,
Like waters bubbling o'er the siery blaze;
Eternal mists obseure th' aereal plain,
And hioh above the rock file spouts the main.
When in her gulphs the russiing sea subsides,
She drains the ocean with her ressuent tides.
The rock re-bellows with a thundering sound ;
Deep, wondious deep, below appears the ground.
Pope.
•f That realm of old, a ruin huge was rent,
In length of ages from the continent.
With force convulsive burlt the isse away ;
Through the dread opening broke the thundering sca.
E 4 At