would be themselves most afflicted if they heard of my fall from the good dispositions which they had known in me; partly from a fear of ridicule, even from the profligate, if, after all, I was to fell; partly by the wonderful providence of God, which (I acknowledge) most wisely and most tenderly, yet strongly interposed at times to baffle the madness of my designs when about to be accomplished--if, I say, thus I have been in a degree preserved, God knows I have no credit due to me: God knows that from my heart I take only shame and confusion of face to myself in the remembrance, of my very preservation. Towards the latter part of my stay abroad, I began to be in some way weary of this uncertain state of mind. I {69} was always expecting to take Orders when I should reach the age; and as I knew that then I should not be expected by the world to join in its fashionable vices, and should even suffer in public estimation if I did, my thoughts began to be rather better directed, and I took pains from time to time to overcome some of the evil that was in me." "It is wonderful that any good disposition should have lived within me, when every remembrance of religion seems to have been put out of my mind. I now could hardly understand how this should have indeed been the case, if I had not a clear remembrance of certain circumstances which plainly show what was the state of my mind. On the 27th January, 1820, I went up Mount Vesuvius with Dr. Wilson, when, as we were looking into the crater of the volcano, a discharge of red-hot stones took place. I heard them whistle by me as they ascended, and though it was of no use to attempt to get out of the way, I hurried back a few steps by a natural impulse, and immediately saw a lump of red-hot stuff twice the size of one's head fall on the spot where I had been standing just before. We immediately ran down the side of the mountain, and reached a place about a quarter of a mile distant from the mouth of the crater, from whence we could see the upper cone of the mountain. Just then a grand explosion took place, which shook the whole mountain, and a vast quantity of these masses of fiery red stuff was spouted out from the crater, which in its return appeared entirely to cover the whole space over which we had been running five minutes before. Here was an evident escape which, in a mind possessed with any religion at all, could not fail of awakening some serious reflections. Alas! I never thought of the abyss into which I must have fallen had not the good angel, who watched and guided me through so many perils which I thought not of, then preserved me. When I came down in the evening to Naples, the only effect was that I was pleased and vain at having a good adventure to relate, and showing off a spirit of bravery and indifference, when some blamed me for my rashness.