You see, that he, who had the impudence to forge this imposture, had likewise the stupidity to date it by two _epochas_, the latter of which did not commence before the reign of _Constantine the Great_, and the former not till that of _Justinian_. The Hebrew original they confess not to be now extant. And as to this, which they call the authentic translation, it would be impossible to beleive them serious in venting so foul a cheat; but that they pompously expose it to all the world in their metropolitan church, and celebrate it by a yearly feast, and public rejoicings of a whole month’s continuance; that it has been confirmed by repeated indulgences from the court of _Rome_; and that at the west end of the church there are divers solemn inscriptions, importing, that in some general calamities of _Sicily_, there particularly specified, the _Virgin_ still protected her _Messina_, according to her most faithful promise in the _Holy Letter_. This naturally brings to one’s mind the antient devotion of the same place towards _Ceres_ and _Proserpina_, as mentioned by _Cicero_, when he says: _Vetus est haec opinio, quae constat ex antiquissimis Graecorum literis et monumentis, insulam Siciliam totam esse Cereri et Proserpinae consecratam. Hoc cum ceterae gentes sic arbitrantur; tum ipsis Siculis tam persuasum est, ut animis eorum insitum et innatum esse videatur_[149]. It is to be wondered at, that these people have not yet registered an accident, of which as to the fact our English merchants were eye witnesses, namely; that in the late repeated earthquakes of _Sicily_ in 1693 the tower of this cathedral, which stands at the west end distinct from the body of the church, was so distorted by one shock, that it stood very dangerously in an oblique declining posture; but that about a week afterwards another shock restored it to its former true perpendicular situation.