Empire by the operation of the first trumpet, they became a proper region whence the south-wind might blow upon the remains of the Empire in Italy and Greece: and thus, when the western provinces were similarly rent from the Empire, they became the only region whence it was possible for the westwind to blow upon what remained of the Empire; for, beyond those provinces toward the west, there was nothing save the Atlantic ocean.

This distinction must be carefully borne in mind, while the plagues of the second and third trumpets are discussed.

2. As the poetical imagery of the hail-storm is borrowed from the physiology of the north, so is that of the burning mountain borrowed from the physiology of the south.

By the operation of the first trumpet, the African provinces were rent away from the Empire. Consequently, the leading symbol of the second trumpet is to be sought, not to the south of the African provinces, but only to the south of the Roman Empire in Europe : and, analogously, the southwind must be viewed as blowing, not from the heart of Africa, but from the now dismembered African provinces themselves.

On this obvious principle, the prototype of the burning mountain, so far as the poetical machinery of the oracle is concerned, is clearly the volcano of Etna, which lies directly to the south of Italy. When the second trumpet sounds, the prophet beholds, not merely an irruption of the mountain,

on either side, by the sandy desert and the Mediterranean. The discovery and conquest of the -black nations, that might dwell beneath the torrid kone, could not tempt the rational ambition of Genseric: but he cast his eyes toward the sea; The resolved to create a naval power; and his bold resolution was executed with steady and active perseverance. The woods of mount Atlas of forded an inexhaustible nursery of timber : his new subjects were skilled in the arts of navigation and ship-building: he animated his daring Vandals to embrace a mode of warfare, which would render every maritime country accessible to their arms : the Moors and Africans were allured by the hopes of plunder : and, after an interval of six centuries, the fleets, that issued from the port of Carthage, again claimed the empire of the Mediterranean. The kingdom of Italy, a name to which the Western Empire was gradually reduced, was afflicted by the incessant depredations of the Vandal pirates. In the spring of each year, they equipped a formidable navy in the port of Carthage : and Genseric himself, though in a very advanced age, still commanded in person the most important expeditions. His designs were concealed with impenetrable secrecy, till the moment that he hoisted sail. When he was asked by his pilot, what course he should steer; Leave the determination to the winds, replied the barbarian with pious arrogance : THEY will transport us to the guilty coast whose

These facts require very little application. The naval eruption of the Vandals from Africa is evidently the plague of the south-wind : and it is symbolised by a circumstance yet more dreadful than an ordinary eruption of the southern volcano mount Etna. As this burning portent might be torn up by an earthquake and hurled into the Mediterranean : so, from the year 439 to the year 477, did the Vandalic pirates throw themselves upon the allegorical sea of the Roman world, or upon the people of the Roman Empire distracted by the wars and revolutions produced by the first trumpet. They made no attempt to conquer the earth or the northern territorial platform of the Empire : they confined their incursions to the figurative sea, or the wardistracted inhabitants of the countries which acknowledged the Roman sovereignty. As they were more ambitious of spoil than of glory, they seldom attacked any fortified cities, or engaged any regular troops in the open field: but the celerity of their motions enabled them, almost at the same time, to threaten and to attack the most distant objects which attracted their desires ; and, as they always embarked a sufficient number of

The imagery, employed in the oracle of the second trumpet, cannot justly be deemed an unnatural physiological exaggeration. Humboldt mentions a volcano in America, 263 toises in height, or triple in height to the Monte Nuovo of Puzzuola, which was thrown up or produced, by the action of subterraneous fire, in the single night of September 29, 1759. See Research. vol. ii. p. 101-103.