an island in the Adriatic, which, together with several rocks that appear above water near it, are the remains of an ancient volcano. "I will not affirme you (says Fortis) that it was thrown up out of the sea like several other islands in the Archipelago, though there is some ground to suspect this to have been the case; because we find no precise mention of it in the most ancient geographers. It should seem that it ought not to be confounded with the Diomedes, from which it is 30 miles distant; yet it is not impossible that they have reckoned it among them. The lava which forms the substance of this island, is perfectly like the ordinary lava of Vesuvius, as far as I could discover in passing near it. If a naturalist should land there, and visit on purpose the highest parts of the island, perhaps we might then know whether it has been thrown up by a submarine

Vol. XVI. Part I.

is a translation; and that he was born on the 13th of November A.D. 354, the same day with his great antagonist St Augustine. The same learned historian gives us the following account of Pelagius and his great coadjutor Celestius. "He received a learned education in his own country, most probably in the great monastery of Banchor near Chester, to the government of which he was advanced A.D. 404. He was long esteemed and loved by St Jerome and St Augustine, who kept up a friendly correspondence with him by letters before they discovered the heretical pravity of his opinions; for Pelagius, being a cautious and artful man, for some time vented his peculiar notions as the sentiments of others, without discovering that they were his own. At length, however, he threw off the mask, and openly published and defended his doctrines at Rome about the beginning of the fifth century. This involved him in many troubles, and drew upon him the indignation of his former friends St Jerome and St Augustine, who wrote against him with great acrimony. He is acknowledged, even by his adversaries, to have been a man of good sense and great learning, and an acute disputant, though they load him with the most bitter reproaches for his abuse of these talents. His personal blemishes are painted in very strong colours; and he is represented by these good fathers, in the heat of their zeal, as a very ugly fellow, 'broad-shouldered, thick-necked, fat-headed, lame of a leg, and blind of an eye.' Even the most northern parts of this island (Britain) produced some men of learning in this period. Celestius, the disciple and friend of Pelagius, was a Scotman, who made a prodigious noise in the world by his writings and disputations about the beginning of the fifth century. He defended and propagated the peculiar opinions of his master Pelagius with so much learning, zeal, and success, that those who embraced these opinions were frequently called Celestians. Before he became acquainted with these doctrines he wrote several books, which were universally admired for their orthodoxy, learning, and virtuous tendency. After he had spent his youth in his own country in a studious privacy, he travelled for his further improvement to Rome, where he became acquainted with Rufinus and Pelagius, and was by them infected with their heresies. From that time he became the most indefatigable and undaunted champion of these heresies, and thereby brought upon himself the indignation of the orthodox fathers of these days, who gave him many very bad names in their writings. St Jerome, whose commentaries on the Ephesians he had presumed to criticize, calls him, 'an ignorant, stupid fool, having his belly swelled and distended with Scots potage; a great, corpulent, barking dog, who was fitter to kick with heels than to bite with his teeth; a Cerberus, who, with his master Pluto (Pelagius), deserved to be knocked on the head, that they might be put to eternal silence.' Such were the flowers of rhetoric which these good fathers employed against the enemies of the orthodox faith! But candour obliges us to observe, that this was perhaps more the vice of the age in which they lived than of the men. Both Pelagius and Celestius were very great travellers; having visited many different countries of Asia and Africa, as well as Europe, with a view to elude the persecutions of their enemies, and to propagate their opinions. It is no inconsiderable evidence of their superior learning and abilities, that their opinions gained great ground in all the provinces both of the eastern and western empire, in spite of the writings of many learned fathers, and the decrees of many councils against them. 'The Pelagian and Celestian heresy (says Photius) not only flourished in great vigour in the West, but was also propagated into the East.' PEL

rime volcanic, as the island near Santorini was in our age; or if we ought to believe it the top of some ancient volcanic mountain, of which the roots and sides have been covered by the waters, which divided Africa from Spain, forming the straits of Gibraltar; an invasion that no one can doubt of who has examined the bottoms and shores of our sea. The Lillian fishermen say, that Pelagia is subject to frequent and violent earthquakes; and the aspect of the island proves at first sight, that it has suffered many revolutions; for it is rugged, ruinous, and subverted.