In reply to H. R. NEE F., I beg to state that the writer of the remarks alluded to, on Brydone's _Tour in Sicily and Malta_, was the Rev. Robert Finch, M.A., formerly of Balliol College in this University, and who died about the year 1830. When I met with Mr. Finch's honest and somewhat blunt expression of opinion, recorded in a {306} copy which once belonged to him, of Brydone's _Tour_, I was quite ignorant of the hostile criticisms that had appeared at different times on that once popular work; but knowing Mr. Finch's high character for scholarship, and a knowledge of Italy, I thought his remark worth sending to a publication intended, like "N. & Q.," as "A Medium of Intercommunication for Literary Men, Antiquaries," &c., who are well able to examine a Note of the kind; and either to accept it as valid, or to reject it as untenable. On referring now to some standard works, in order to discover the opinions of learned men respecting Mr. Brydone's _Tour_, the first work I looked into was the _Biographie Universelle_ (in eighty-three volumes, and not yet completed, Paris, 1811-1853), in vol. lix. of which the following observations occur, under the name of BRYDONE (Patrice): "On lui a reproche d'avoir sacrifie la verite au plaisir de raconter des choses piquantes. On l'avait accuse aussi d'avoir, par son indiscretion, suscite a l'Abbe Recupero, Chanoine de Catane, une persecution de la part de son eveque. Cette indiscretion n'eut pas heureusement un resultat aussi facheux; mais ses erreurs sur plusieurs points sont evidentes; il donne 4000 toises de hauteur a l'Etna qui n'en a que 1662; il commet d'autres fautes qui ont ete relevees par les voyageurs venus apres lui. Bartels (_Briefe ueber Kalabrien und Sicilien_, 2te Auflage, 3 Bd., 8vo., Goetting. 1791-92) est meme persuade que le voyage au sommet de l'Etna, chef-d'oeuvre de narration, n'est qu'un roman, et cet avis est partage par d'autres." Goethe says (_Werke_, Band xxviii. pp. 189, 190.: Stuttgart, 1830) that when he inquired at Catania respecting the best method of ascending Mount Etna, Chevalier Gioeni, the professor of natural history there, gave him the following advice and information: "Als wir den Ritter um die Mittel befragten wie man sich benehmen muesse um den Aetna zu besteigen, wollte er von einer Wagniss nach dem Gipfel, besonders in der gegenwaertigen Jahreszeit gar nichts hoeren. Ueberhaupt, sagte er, nachdem er uns um Verzeihung gebeten, die hier ankommenden Fremden sehen die Sache fuer allzuleicht an; wir andern Nachbarn des Berges sind schon zufrieden, wenn wir ein paarmal in unserm Leben die beste Gelegenheit abgepasst und den Gipfel erreicht haben. Brydone, der zuerst durch seine Beschreibung die Lust nach diesem Feuergipfel entzuendet, ist gar nicht hinauf gekommen."