CHAPTER XXV

We left the inn at Brigg, after having stopped there above a week, and proceeded on our way to Vevey, which had always been an interesting point in the horizon, and a resting-place to the imagination. In travelling, we visitnamesas well as places; and Vevey is the scene of theNew Eloise. In spite of Mr. Burke’s philippic against this performance, the contempt of theLake School, and Mr. Moore’s lateRhymes on the Road, I had still some overmastering recollections on that subject, which I proposed to indulge at my leisure on the spot which was supposed to give them birth, and which I accordingly did. I did not, on a re-perusal, find my once favourite work quite so vapid, quite so void of eloquence or sentiment as some critics (it is true, not much beholden to it) would insinuate. The following passage, among others, seemed to me the perfection of style:—‘Mais vois la rapidité de cet astre, qui vole et ne s’arrête jamais; le tems fuit, l’occasion échappe, ta beauté, ta beauté même aura son terme, elle doit flétrir et périr un jour comme un fleur qui tombe sans avoir été cueilli!’ What a difference between the sound of this passage and of Mr. Moore’s verse or prose! Nay, there is more imagination in the single epithetastre, applied as it is here to this brilliant and fleeting scene of things, than in all our fashionable poet’s writings! At least I thought so, reading St. Preux’s Letter in the wood near Clarens, and stealing occasional glances at the lake and rocks of Meillerie. But I am anticipating.

The mountains on either side of the Valley of the Simplon present a gloomy succession of cliffs, often covered with snow, and contrasting by no means agreeably with the marshy grounds below, through which the Rhone wanders scarce noticed, scarce credited. It is of a whitish muddy colour (from the snow and sand mingled with its course, very much as if had been poured out of a washing-tub), and very different from the deep purple tint it assumes on oozing out from the other side of the Lake, after having drank its cerulean waters. The woods near the lofty peaks of the Clise-Horn, and bordering on Monteroso, are said to be still the frequent haunt of bears, though a price is set upon their heads. As we advanced farther on beyond Tortomania, the whole breadth of the valley was sometimes covered with pine-forests, which gave a relief to the eye, and afforded scope to the imagination. The fault of mountain scenery in general is, that it is too barren and naked, and that the whole is exposed in enormous and unvarying masses to the view at once. The clothing of trees is no less wanted as an ornament than partially to concealobjects, and thus present occasional new points of view. Without something to intercept and break the aggregate extent of surface, you gain no advantage by change of place; the same elevation and ground-plan of hill and valley are still before you—you might as well carry a map or landscape in your hand. In this part of our journey, however, besides the natural wildness and grandeur of the scenery, the road was rough and uneven, and frequently crossed rude bridges over the Rhone, or over rivulets pouring into it: the gloomy recesses of the forests might be the abode of wild beasts or of the lurking robber. The huge fragments of rock that had tumbled from the overhanging precipices often made a turning in the road necessary, and for a moment interrupted the view beyond; the towns, built on the sides of the hills, resembled shattered heaps of rock, scarcely distinguishable from the grey peaks and crags with which they were surrounded, giving an agreeable play to the fancy; while the snowy tops of the Simplon mountains, now coming in sight, now hidden behind the nearer summits, threw us back to the scenes we had left, and measured the distance we had traversed. The way in which these mighty landmarks of the Alpine regions ascertain this point is, however, contrary to the usual one: for it is by appearing plainer, the farther you retire from them. They tower with airy shape and dazzling whiteness above the lengthening perspective; and it is the intervening objects that dwindle in the comparison, and are lost sight of in succession. In the midst of the most lonely and singular part of this scene, just as we passed a loose bridge of rough fir-planks over a brawling brook, and as a storm seemed to threaten us, we met a party of English gentlemen in an open carriage, though their courteous looks and waving salutation almost ‘forbade us to interpret them such.’ Certainly there is no people in whom urbanity is more a duty than the English; for there is no people that feel it more. Travelling confounds our ideas, not of place only, but of time; and I could not help making a sudden transition from the party we had by chance encountered to the Chevalier Grandison and his friends, paying their last visit to Bologna. Pshaw! Why do I indulge in such idle fancies? Yet why in truth should I not, when I am a thousand miles from home, and when every object one meets is like a dream?Passe pour cela.

We reached Sion that evening. It is one of the dirtiest and least comfortable towns on the road; nor does the chief inn deserve the epithet so applicable to Swiss inns in general—simplex munditiis. It was here that Rousseau, in one of his early peregrinations, was recommended by his landlord to an iron-foundry in the neighbourhood (the smoke of which, I believe, we saw at a little distance), wherehe would be likely to procure employment, mistaking ‘the pauper lad’ for a journeyman blacksmith. Perhaps the author of theRhymes on the Roadwill think it a pity he did not embrace this proposal, instead of forging thunderbolts for kingly crowns. Alas! Mr. Moore would then never have had to write his ‘Fables for the Holy Alliance.’ Haunted by some indistinct recollection of this adventure, I asked at the Inn, ‘If Jean Jacques Rousseau had ever resided in the town?’ The waiter himself could not tell, but soon after brought back for answer, ‘That Monsieur Rousseau had never lived there, but that he had passed through about fourteen years before on his way to Italy, when he had only time to stop to take tea!’—Was this a mere stupid blunder, or one of the refractions of fame, founded on his mission as Secretary to the Venetian Ambassador a hundred years before? There is a tradition in the neighbourhood of Milton’s house in York-street, Westminster, that ‘one Mr.Milford, a celebrated poet, formerly lived there!’ We set forward the next morning on our way to Martigny, through the most dreary valley possible, and in an absolute straight line for twelve or fifteen miles of level road, which was terminated by the village-spire and by the hills leading to the Great St. Bernard and Mont-Blanc. The wind poured down from these tremendous hills, and blew with unabated fury in our faces the whole way. It was a most unpleasant ride, nor did the accommodations at the inn (the Swan, I think) make us amends. The rooms were cold and empty. It might be supposed that the desolation without had subdued the imagination to its own hue and quality, so that it rejected all attempts at improvement; that the more niggard Nature had been to it, the more churlish it became to itself; and through habit, neither felt the want of comforts nor a wish to supply others with them. Close to the bridge stands a steep rock with a castle at the top of it (attributed to the times of the Romans). At a distance it was hardly discernible; and afterwards, when we crossed over to Chamouni, we saw it miles below us like a dove-cot, or a dirt-pye raised by children. Yet viewed from beneath, it seemed to present an imposing and formidable attitude, and to elevate its pigmy front in a line with the stately heights around. So Mr. Washington Irvine binds up his own portrait with Goldsmith’s in the Paris edition of his works, and to many people seems thegenteelerman! From the definite and dwarfish, we turned to the snow-clad and cloud-capt; and strolled to the other side of the village, where the road parts to St. Bernard and Chamouni, anxiously gazing at the steep pathway on either side, and half tempted to launch into that billowy sea of mist and mountain: but we reserved this for a subsequent period. As we were loitering at the foot of the dizzy ascent, ourpostilion, who had staid behind us a couple of hours the day before to play at bowls, now drove on half an hour before his time, and when we turned a corner which gave us a view of our inn, no cabriolet was there. He, however, soon found his mistake, and turned back to meet us. The only picturesque objects between this and Bex are a waterfall about two hundred feet in height, issuing through the cavities of the mountain from the immense glacier in the valley of Trie, and the romantic bridge of St. Maurice, the boundary between Savoy and the Pays de Vaud. On the ledge of a rocky precipice, as you approach St. Maurice, stands a hermitage in full view of the road; and possibly the inmate consoles himself in his voluntary retreat by watching the carriages as they come in sight, and fancying that the driver is pointing out his aërial dwelling to the inquisitive and wondering traveller! If a man could transport himself to one of the fixed stars, so far from being lifted above this sublunary sphere, he would still wish his fellow-mortals to point to it as his particular abode, and the scene of his marvellous adventures. We go into a crowd to be seen: we go into solitude that we may be distinguished from the crowd, and talked of. We travel into foreign parts to get the start of those who stay behind us; we return home to hear what has been said of us in our absence. Lord Byron mounted on his pedestal of pride on the shores of the Adriatic, as Mr. Hobhouse rides in the car of popularity through the streets of Westminster. The one object could be seen at a distance; the other, whose mind is more Sancho-Panza-ish andpug-featured, requires to be brought nearer to the eye for stage-effect! Bex itself is delicious. It stands in a little nook of quiet, almost out of the world, nestling in rural beauty, in mountain sublimity. There is an excellent inn, a country church before it, a large ash tree, a circulating library, a rookery, every thing useful and comfortable for the life of man. Behind, there is a ridge of dark rocks; beyond them tall and bare mountains—and a higher range still appears through rolling clouds and circling mists. Our reception at the inn was every way what we could wish, and we were half disposed to stop here for some months. But something whispered me on to Vevey:—this we reached the next day in a drizzling shower of rain, which prevented our seeing much of the country, excepting the black masses of rock and pine-trees that rose perpendicularly from the roadside. The day after my arrival, I found a lodging at a farm-house, a mile out of Vevey, so ‘lapped in luxury,’ so retired, so reasonable, and in every respect convenient, that we remained here for the rest of the summer, and felt no small regret at leaving it.

The country round Vevey is, I must nevertheless own, the leastpicturesque part of the borders of the Lake of Geneva. I wonder Rousseau, who was a good judge and an admirable describer of romantic situations, should have fixed upon it as the scene of the ‘New Eloise.’ You have passed the rocky and precipitous defiles at the entrance into the valley, and have not yet come into the open and more agreeable parts of it. The immediate vicinity of Vevey is entirely occupied with vineyards slanting to the south, and inclosed between stone-walls without any kind of variety or relief. The walks are uneven and bad, and you in general see little (for the walls on each side of you) but the glassy surface of the Lake, the rocky barrier of the Savoy Alps opposite (one of them crowned all the year round with snow, and which, though it is twenty miles off, seems as if you could touch it with your hand, so completely does size neutralize the effect of distance), the green hills of an inferior class over Clarens, with the Dent de Jamant sticking out of them like an iron tooth, and the winding valley leading northward towards Berne and Fribourg. Here stands Gelamont (the name of theCampagnawhich we took), on a bank sloping down to the brook that passes by Vevey, and so entirely embosomed in trees and ‘upland swells,’ that it might be called, in poetical phrase, ‘the peasant’s nest.’ Here every thing was perfectly clean and commodious. Thefermieror vineyard-keeper, with his family, lived below, and we had six or seven rooms on a floor (furnished with every article or convenience that a London lodging affords) for thirty Napoleons for four months, or about thirty shillings a week. This first expense we found the greatest during our stay, and nearly equal to all the rest, that of a servant included. The number of English settled here had made lodgings dear, and an English gentleman told me he was acquainted with not less than three-and-twenty English families in the neighbourhood. To give those who may feel an inclination to try foreign air, an idea of the comparative cheapness of living abroad, I will mention that mutton (equal to the best Welch mutton, and fed on the high grounds near Moudon) is two batz, that is, threepence English per pound; and the beef (which is also good, though not of so fine a quality) is the same. Trout, caught in the Lake, you get almost for nothing. A couple of fowls is eighteen-pence. The wine of the country, which though not rich, is exceedingly palatable, is three pence a bottle. You may have a basket of grapes in the season for one shilling or fifteen pence.[48]The bread, butter and milk are equally cheap and excellent. They have not the art here of adulterating every thing. You find the same things as in England, served up in the same plain and decent manner, but in greater plenty, and generallyspeaking, of a better and more wholesome quality, and at least twice as cheap. In England they have few things, and they contrive to spoil those few. There is a good deal of ill-nature and churlishness, as well as a narrow policy in this. The trading principle seems to be to give you the worst, and make you pay as dear for it as possible. It is a vile principle. As soon as you land at Dover, you feel the force of thishometruth. They cheat you to your face, and laugh at you. I must say, that it appears to me, whatever may be the faults or vices of other nations, the Englishpopulationis the only one to which the epithetblackguardis applicable. They are, in a word, the only people who make a merit of giving others pain, and triumph in their impudence and ill-behaviour, as proofs of a manly and independent spirit. Afraid that you may complain of the absence of foreign luxuries, they are determined to let you understand beforehand, they do not care about what you may think, and wanting the art to please, resort to the easier and surer way of keeping up their importance by practising every kind of annoyance. Instead of their being at your mercy, you find yourself at theirs, subjected to the sullen airs of the masters, and to the impertinent fatuity of the waiters. They dissipate your theory of English comfort and hospitality at the threshold. What do they care that you have cherished a fond hope of getting a nice,snuglittle dinner on your arrival, better than any you have had in France? ‘The French may be d——,’ is the answer that passes through their minds—‘the dinner is good enough, if it is English!’ Let us take care, that by assuming an insolent local superiority over all the world, we do not sink below them in every thing, liberty not excepted. While the name of any thing passes current, we may dispense with the reality, and keep the start of the rest of mankind, simply by asserting that we have it, and treating all foreigners as a set of poor wretches, who neither know how, nor are in truth fit to live! Against this post, alas! John Bull is continually running his head, but as yet without knocking his brains out. The beef-steak which you order at Dover with patriotic tender yearnings for its reputation, is accordingly filled with cinders—the mutton is done to a rag—the soup not eatable—the porter sour—the bread gritty—the butter rancid. Game, poultry, grapes, wine it is in vain to think of; and as you may be mortified at the privation, they punish you for your unreasonable dissatisfaction by giving you cause for it in the mismanagement of what remains.[49]In the midst of this ill fare you meet with equallybad treatment. While you are trying to digest a tough beef-steak, a fellow comes in and peremptorily demands your fare, on the assurance that you will get your baggage from the clutches of the Custom-house in time to go by the six o’clock coach; and when you find that this is impossible, and that you are to be trundled off at two in the morning, or by the next day’s coach,ifit is notfull, and complain to that personification of blind justice, an English mob, you hear the archslangreply, ‘Do you think the Gentleman such a fool as to part with his money without knowing why?’ and should the natural rejoinder rise to your lips—‘Do you take me for a fool, because I did not take you for a rogue?’ the defendant immediately stands at bay upon the national character for honesty and morality. ‘I hope there are no rogues here!’ is echoed through the dense atmosphere of English intellect, though but the moment before they had been laughing in their sleeves (or out loud) at the idea of a stranger having been tricked by a townsman. Happy country! equally and stupidly satisfied with its vulgar vices and boasted virtues!

‘Oh! for a lodge in some vast wilderness,Some boundless continuity of shade!’

‘Oh! for a lodge in some vast wilderness,

Some boundless continuity of shade!’

Yet to what purpose utter such a wish, since it is impossible to stay there, and the moment you are separated from your fellows, you think better of them, begin to form chimeras with which you would fain compare the realities, find them the same as ever to your cost and shame—

‘And disappointed still, are still deceived!’

I found little of thistracasserieat Gelamont. Days, weeks, months, and even years might have passed on much in the same manner, with ‘but the season’s difference.’ We breakfasted at the same hour, and the tea-kettle was always boiling (an excellent thing in housewifery)—aloungein the orchard for an hour or two, and twice a week we could see the steam-boat creeping like a spider over the surface of the lake; a volume of the Scotch novels (to be had in every library on the Continent, in English, French, German, or Italian, as the reader pleases), or M. Galignani’s Paris and LondonObserver, amused us till dinner time; then tea and a walk till the moon unveiled itself, ‘apparent queen of night,’ or the brook, swoln with a transient shower, was heard more distinctly in the darkness, mingling with the soft, rustling breeze; and the next morning the song of peasants broke upon refreshing sleep, as the sun glanced among the clustering vine-leaves, or the shadowy hills, as the mists retired from their summits, looked in at our windows. The uniformity of this mode of life wasonly broken during fifteen weeks that we remained in Switzerland, by the civilities of Monsieur Le Vade, a Doctor of medicine and octogenarian, who had been personally acquainted with Rousseau in his younger days; by some attempts by our neighbours tolay us under obligations, by parting with rare curiosities to Monsieur l’Anglois for half their value; and by an excursion to Chamouni, of which I must defer the account to my next.

We crossed over in a boat to St. Gingolph, a little town opposite to Vevey, and proceeded on the other side of the lake to Martigny, from which we could pass over either on foot or by the help of mules to Mont-Blanc. It was a warm day towards the latter end of August, and the hills before us drew their clear outline, and the more distant Alps waved their snowy tops (tinged with golden sunshine) in the gently-undulating surface of the crystal lake. As we approached the Savoy side, the mountains in front, which from Vevey look like a huge battery or flat upright wall, opened into woody recesses, or reared their crests on high; rich streaks of the most exquisite verdure gleamed at their feet, and St. Gingolph came distinctly in view, with its dingy-looking houses and smoking chimneys. It is a small manufacturing town, full of forges and workshops, and the inn is dirty and disagreeable. The contrast to Vevey was striking. But this side of the lake is in the dominions of the King of Sardinia, and cleanliness seems to be in general the virtue of republics, or of free states. There is an air of desolation, sluttishness, and indifference, the instant you cross the water, compared with the neatness, activity, regularity, and cheerfulness of the Pays de Vaud. We walked out to take a view of the situation, as soon as we had bespoken our room and a supper. It was a brilliant sunset; nor do I recollect having ever beheld so majestic and rich a scene, set off to such advantage. A steep pathway led to a village embayed between two mountains, whose tops towered into the sky: conical hills rose to about half their height, covered with green copses: fields and cottages were seen climbing as it were the sides of others, with cattle feeding; the huge projecting rocks gave new combinations and a new aspect to the most picturesque objects; tall branching trees (ash, or beech, or chesnut) hung from green sloping banks over the road-side, or dipped their foliage in the transparent wave below: their bold luxuriant forms threw the rocks and mountains into finer relief, and elevated them into a higher atmosphere, so that they seemed trembling (another airyworld) over our heads. The lake shone like a broad golden mirror, reflecting the thousand dyes of the fleecy purple clouds, while Saint Gingolph, with its clustering habitations, shewed like a dark pitchy spot by its side; and beyond the glimmering verge of the Jura (almost hid in its own brightness) hovered gay wreaths of clouds, fair, lovely, visionary, that seemed not of this world, but brought from some dream of fancy, treasured up from past years, emblems of hope, of joy and smiling regret, that had come to grace a scene so heavenly, and to bid it a last, lingering farewell. No person can describe the effect; but so in Claude’s landscapes the evening clouds drink up the rosy light, and sink into soft repose! Every one who travels into Switzerland should visit this secluded spot, and witness such a sunset, with the heaven stooping its face into the lake on one side, and the mountains, rocks, and woods, lifting earth to heaven on the other. We had no power to leave it or to admire it, till the evening shades stole in upon us, and drew the dusky veil of twilight over it.

We had a pleasant walk the next morning along the side of the lake under the grey cliffs, the green hills and azure sky; now passing under the open gateway of some dilapidated watch-tower that had in former times connected the rocky barrier with the water, now watching the sails of a boat slowly making its way among the trees on the banks of the Rhone, like butterflies expanding their wings in the breeze, or the snowy ridges that seemed close to us at Vevey receding farther into a kind of lofty back-ground as we advanced. The speculation of Bishop Berkeley, or some other philosopher, that distance is measured by motion and not by the sight, is verified here at every step. After going on for hours, and perceiving no alteration in the form or appearance of the object before you, you begin to be convinced that it is out of ordinary calculation, or, in the language of theFancy, an ‘ugly customer;’ and our curiosity once excited, is ready to magnify every circumstance relating to it to an indefinite extent. The literal impression being discarded as insufficient, the imagination takes out an unlimited letter of credit for all that is possible or wonderful, and what the eye sees is considered thenceforward merely as an imperfect hint, to be amplified and filled up on a colossal scale by the understanding and rules of proportion. To say the truth, you also suffer a change, feel like Lilliputians, and can fancy yourselves transported to a different world, where the dimensions and relations of things are regulated by some unknown law. The inn where we stopped at Vionnax is bad. Beyond this place, the hills at the eastern end of the lake form into an irregular and stupendous amphitheatre; and you pass through long and apparently endless vistas of tall flourishing trees,without being conscious of making much progress. There is a glass-manufactory at Vionnax, which I did not go to see; others who have more curiosity may. It will be there (I dare say) next year for those who choose to visit it: I liked neither its glare nor its heat. The cold icy crags that hang suspended over it have been there a thousand years, and will be there a thousand years to come. Short-lived as we are, let us attach ourselves to the immortal, and scale (assisted by earth’s giant brood) the empyrean of pure thought! But the English abroad turn out of their way to see every pettifogging, huckstering object that they could see better at home, and are asfussyand fidgetty, with their smoke-jacks and mechanical inventions among the Alps, as if they had brought Manchester and Sheffield in their pockets! The finest effect along this road is the view of the bridge as you come near St. Maurice. The mountains on either side here descend nearly to a point, boldly and abruptly; the river flows rapidly through the tall arch of the bridge, on one side of which you see an old fantastic turret, and beyond it the hill called the Sugar-loaf, rising up in the centre of immense ranges of mountains, and with fertile and variously-marked plains stretching out in the intervening space. The landscape painter has only to go there, and make a picture of it. It is already framed by nature to his hand! I mention this the more, because that kind ofgroupingof objects which is essential to the picturesque, is not always to be found in the most sublime or even beautiful scenes. Nature (so to speak) uses a larger canvass than man, and where she is greatest and most prodigal of her wealth, often neglects that principle of concentration and contrast which is an indispensable preliminary before she can be translated with effect into the circumscribed language of art. We supped at Martigny, at the Hotel de la Poste (formerly a convent), and the next morning proceeded by the Valley of Trie and the Col de Peaume to Chamouni.

We left the great St. Bernard, and the road by which Buonaparte passed to Marengo, on our left, and Martigny and the Valley of the Simplon directly behind us. These last were also soon at an immeasurable depth below us; but the summits of the mountains that environed us on all sides, seemed to ascend with us, and to add our elevation to their own. Crags, of which we could only before discern the jutting tops, gradually reared their full stature at our side; and icy masses, one by one, came in sight, emerging from their lofty recesses, like clouds floating in mid-air. All this while a green valley kept us company by the road-side, watered with gushing rills, interspersed with cottages and well-stocked farms: fine elms and ash grew on the sides of the hills, under the shade of one of which wesaw an old peasant asleep. The road, however, was long, rough, and steep; and from the heat of the sun, and the continual interruption of loose stones and the straggling roots of trees, I felt myself exceedingly exhausted. We had a mule, a driver, and a guide. I was advised, by all means, to lessen the fatigue of the ascent by taking hold of thequeue of Monsieur le Mulet, a mode of travelling partaking as little of the sublime as possible, and to which I reluctantly acceded. We at last reached the top, and looked down on the Valley of Trie, bedded in rocks, with a few wooden huts in it, a mountain-stream traversing it from theGlacierat one end, and with an appearance as if summer could never gain a footing there, before it would be driven out by winter. In the midst of this almost inaccessible and desolate spot, we found a little inn or booth, with refreshments of wine, bread, and fruit, and a whole drove of English travellers, mounted or on foot.

‘Nor Alps nor Apennines can keep them out,Nor fortified redoubt!’

‘Nor Alps nor Apennines can keep them out,

Nor fortified redoubt!’

As we mounted the steep wood on the other side of the valley, we met several mules returning, with their drivers only, and looking extremely picturesque, as they were perched above our heads among the jagged pine-trees, and cautiously felt their perilous way over the edges of projecting rocks and stumps of trees, down the zigzag pathway. The view here is precipitous, extensive, and truly appalling, both from the size of the objects and their rugged wildness. The smell of the pine-trees, the clear air, and the golden sunshine gleaming through the dark foliage refreshed me; and the fatigue from which I had suffered in the morning completely wore off. I had concluded that when we got to the top of the wood that hung over our heads, we should have mastered our difficulties; but they only then began. We emerged into a barren heath or morass of a most toilsome ascent, lengthening as we advanced, with herds of swine, sheep, and cattle feeding on it, and a bed of half-melted snow marking the summit over which we had to pass. We turned aside, half-way up this dreary wilderness, to stop at achalet, where a boy, who tended the straggling cattle, was fast asleep in the middle of the day; and being waked up, procured us a draught of most delicious water from a fountain. We at length reached the Col de Peaume, and saw Mont Blanc, the King of Mountains, stretching away to the left, with clouds circling round its sides, and snows forever resting on its head. It was an image of immensity and eternity. Earth had heaved it from its bosom; the ‘vast cerulean’ had touched it with its breath. It was a meeting of earth and sky. Other peaked cliffs rose perpendicularlyby its side, and a range of rocks, of red granite, fronted it to the north; but Mont-Blanc itself was round, bald, shining, ample, and equal in its swelling proportions—a huge dumb heap of matter. The valley below was bare, without an object—no ornament, no contrast to set it off—it reposed in silence and in solitude, a world within itself.

‘Retire, the world shut out, thy thoughts call home.’

There is an end here of vanity and littleness, and all transitory jarring interests. You stand, as it were, in the presence of the Spirit of the Universe, before the majesty of Nature, with her chief elements about you; cloud and air, and rock, and stream, and mountain are brought into immediate contact with primeval Chaos and the great First Cause. The mind hovers over mysteries deeper than the abysses at our feet; its speculations soar to a height beyond the visible forms it sees around it. As we descended the path on foot (for our muleteer was obliged to return at the barrier between the two states of Savoy and Switzerland marked by a solitary unhewn stone,) we saw before us the shingled roofs of a hamlet, situated on a patch of verdure near inaccessible columns of granite, and could hear the tinkling bells of a number of cattle pasturing below (an image of patriarchal times!)—we also met one or two peasants returning home with loads of fern, and still farther down, found the ripe harvests of wheat and barley growing close up to the feet of the glaciers (those huge masses of ice arrested in their passage from the mountains, and collected by a thousand winters,) and the violet and gilliflower nestling in the cliffs of the hardest rocks. There are four of these glaciers, that pour their solid floods into the valley, with rivulets issuing from them into the Arbe. The one next to Chamouni is, I think, the finest. It faces you like a broad sheet of congealed snow and water about half-way up the lofty precipice, and then spreads out its arms on each side into seeming batteries and fortifications of undistinguishable rock and ice, as though winter had here ‘built a fortress for itself,’ seated in stern state, and amidst frowning horrors. As we advanced into the plain, and before it became dusk, we could discern at a distance the dark wood that skirts the glaciers of Mont-Blanc, the spire of Chamouni, and the bridges that cross the stream. We also discovered, a little way on before us, stragglers on mules, and a cabriolet, that was returning from the valley of Trie, by taking a more circuitous route. As the day closed in and was followed by the moonlight, the mountains on our right hung over us like a dark pall, and the glaciers gleamed like gigantic shrouds opposite. We might have fancied ourselves inclosed in a vast tomb,but for the sounding cataracts and the light clouds that flitted over our heads. We arrived at Chamouni at last, and found the three inns crowded with English. The entrance to that to which we had been recommended, or rather were conducted by our guide (the Hotel de Londres,) was besieged by English loungers, like a bazaar, or an hotel at some fashionable watering-place, and we were glad to secure a small but comfortable room for the night.

We had an excellent supper, the materials of which we understood came from Geneva. We proceeded the next morning to Saleges, on our way to this capital. If the entrance to the valley of Chamouni is grand and simple, the route from it towards Geneva unites the picturesque to the sublime in the most remarkable degree. For two or three miles you pass along under Mont-Blanc, looking up at it with awe and wonder, derived from a knowledge of its height. The interest, the pleasure you take in it is from conviction and reflection; but turn a corner in the road at a homely village and a little bridge, and it shoots up into the sky of its own accord, like a fantastic vision. Its height is incredible, its brightness dazzling, and you notice the snow crusted upon its surface into round hillocks, with pellucid shadows like shining pavilions for the spirits of the upper regions of the air. Why is the effect so different from its former desolate and lumpish appearance? Tall rocks rise from the roadside with dark waving pine-trees shooting from them, over the highest top of which, as you look up, you see Mont-Blanc; a ruined tower serves as a foil to the serene smiler in the clouds that mocks at the defences of art, or the encroachments of time. Another mountain opposite, part bare, part clothed with wood, intercepts the view to the left, giving effect to what is seen, and leaving more to the imagination; and the impetuous torrent roars at your feet, a hundred fathoms below, with the bright red clusters of the mountain-ash and loose fragments of rock bending over it, and into which a single step would precipitate you. One of the mightiest objects in nature is set off by the most appropriate and striking accidents; and the impression is of the most romantic and enchanting kind. The scene has an intoxicating effect; you are relieved from the toil of wishing to admire, and the imagination is delighted to follow the lead of the senses. We passed this part of the road in a bright morning, incessantly turning back to admire, and finding fresh cause of pleasure and wonder at every step or pause, loth to leave it, and yet urged onward by continual displays of new and endless beauties. Chamouni seems to lie low enough; but we found that the river and the road along with it winds and tumbles for miles over steep banks or sloping ground; and as you revert your eye, you find that which was a flat convertedinto atable-land; the objects which were lately beneath you now raised above you, and forming an intermediate stage between the spot where you are and the more distant elevations; and the last snow-crowned summits reflected in translucent pools of water by the roadside, with spots of the brightest azure in them (denoting mineral springs); the luxuriant branches of the ash, willow, and acacia waving over them, and the scarlet flowers of the geranium, or the water-lilies, ‘all silver white,’ stuck like gems in the girdle of old winter, and offering a sparkling foreground to the retiring range of icebergs andavalanches. This rapid and whirling descent continued almost to Saleges, about twenty miles from Chamouni. Here we dined, and proceeded that night to Bonneville, on nearly level ground; but still with the same character the whole way of a road winding through the most cultivated and smiling country, full of pastures, orchards, vineyards, cottages, villas, refreshing streams, long avenues of trees, and every kind of natural and artificial beauty, flanked with rocks and precipices (on each side) of the most abrupt and terrific appearance, and on which, from the beginning of time, the hand of man has made no impression, except that here and there you see a patch of verdure, a cottage, a flock of sheep, at a height which the eye can hardly reach, and which you think no foot could tread. I have seen no country where I have been more tempted to stop and enjoy myself, where I thought the inhabitants had more reason to be satisfied, and where, if you could not find happiness, it seemed in vain to seek farther for it. You have every kind and degree of enjoyment; the extremes of luxury and wildness, gigantic sublimity at a distance or over your head, elegance and comfort at your feet; you may gaze at the air-drawn Alps, or shut out the prospect by a flowering shrub, or by a well-clipped hedge, or neatly-wainscoted parlour: and you may vary all these as you please, ‘with kindliest interchange.’ Perhaps one of these days I may try the experiment, and turn my back on sea-coal fires, and old English friends! The inn at Bonneville was dirty, ill-provided, and as it generally happens in such cases, the people were inattentive, and the charges high. We were, however, indemnified by the reception we met with at Geneva, where the living was luxurious, and the expence comparatively trifling. I shall not dwell on this subject, lest I should be thought an epicure, though indeed I rather ‘live a man forbid,’ being forced to deny myself almost all those good things which I recommend to others. Geneva is, I think, a very neat and picturesque town, not equal to some others we had seen, but very well for a Calvinistic capital. It stands on a rising ground, at the end of the lake, with the purple Rhone running by it, and Mont-Blanc and theSavoy Alps seen on one side, and the Jura on the other. I was struck with the fine forms of many of the women here. Though I was pleased with my fare, I was not altogether delighted with the manners and appearance of the inhabitants. Their looks may be said to be moulded on the republican maxim, that ‘you are no better than they,’ and on the natural inference from it, that ‘they are better than you.’ They pass you with that kind of scrutinizing and captious air, as if some controversy was depending between you as to the form of religion or government. I here saw Rousseau’s house, and also read theEdinburgh Reviewfor May. The next day we passed along in the Diligence through scenery of exquisite beauty and perfect cultivation—vineyards and farms, and villas and hamlets of the most enviable description, succeeding each other in uninterrupted connexion, by the smooth margin of the silver lake. We saw Lausanne by moonlight. Its situation, as far as I could judge, and the environs were superb. We arrived that night at Vevey, after a week’s absence and an exceedingly delightful tour.

We returned down the Rhine through Holland. I was willing to see the contrast between flat and lofty, and between Venice and Amsterdam. We left Vevey on the 20th of September, and arrived in England on the 16th of October. It was at first exceedingly hot; we encountered several days of severe cold on the road, and it afterwards became mild and pleasant again. We hired achar-aux-bancsfrom Vevey to Basle, and it took us four days to reach this latter place; the expense of the conveyance was twenty-four francs a day, besides the driver. The first part of our journey, as we ascended from the Lake on the way to Moudon, was like an aërial voyage, from the elevation and the clearness of the atmosphere; yet still through the most lovely country imaginable, and with glimpses of the grand objects behind us (seen over delicious pastures, and through glittering foliage) that were truly magical. The combinations of language, however, answer but ill to the varieties of nature, and by repeating these descriptions so often, I am afraid of becoming tiresome. My excuse must be, that I have little to relate but what I saw. After mounting to a considerable height, we descended to Moudon, a small town situated in a most romantic valley. The accommodations at the inn here were by no means good, though it is a place of some pretensions. In proportion to the size of the houseand the massiveness of the furniture, the provisions of the kitchen appeared to be slender, and the attendance slack. The freshness of the air the next morning, and the striking beauty and rapid changes of the scenery, soon made us forget any disappointment we had experienced in this respect. As we ascended a steep hill on this side of Moudon, and looked back, first at the green dewy valley under our feet, with the dusky town and the blue smoke rising from it, then at the road we had traversed the preceding evening, winding among thick groves of trees, and last at the Savoy Alps on the other side of the Lake of Geneva (with which we had been familiar for four months, and which seemed to have no mind to quit us) I perceived a bright speck close to the top of one of these—I was delighted, and said it was Mont Blanc. Our driver was of a different opinion, was positive it was only a cloud, and I accordingly supposed I had taken a sudden fancy for a reality. I began in secret to take myself to task, and to lecture myself for my proneness to build theories on the foundation of my conjectures and wishes. On turning round occasionally, however, I observed that this cloud remained in the same place, and I noticed the circumstance to our guide, as favouring my first suggestion; for clouds do not usually remain long in the same place. We disputed the point for half a day, and it was not till the afternoon when we had reached the other side of the lake of Neufchatel, that this same cloud rising like a canopy over the point where it had hovered, ‘in shape and station proudly eminent,’ he acknowledged it to be Mont Blanc. We were then at a distance of about forty miles from Vevey, and eighty or ninety from Chamouni. This will give the reader some idea of the scale and nature of this wonderful scenery. We dined at Iverdun (a pretty town), at the head of the lake, and passed on to Neufchatel, along its enchanting and almost unrivalled borders, having the long unaspiring range of the Jura on our left (from the top of which St. Preux, on his return from his wanderings round the world, first greeted that country, where ‘torrents of delight had poured into his heart,’ and, indeed, we could distinguish theDent de Jamantright over Clarens almost the whole way), and on our right was the rippling lake, its low cultivated banks on the other side, then a brown rocky ridge of mountains, and the calm golden peaks of the snowy passes of the Simplon, the Great St. Bernard, and (as I was fain to believe) of Monteroso rising into the evening sky at intervals beyond. Meanwhile we rode on through a country abounding in farms and vineyards and every kind of comfort, and deserving the epithets, ‘verd et riant.’ Sometimes a tall rock rose by the road side; or a ruinous turret or a well-compacted villa attracted our attention. Neufchatel is larger and handsomer thanIverdun, and is remarkable for a number of those genteel and quiet-looking habitations, where people seem to have retired (in the midst of society) to spend the rest of their lives in ease and comfort: they are not for shew, nor are they very striking from situation; they are neither fashionable nor romantic; but the decency and sober ornaments of their exterior evidently indicate fireside enjoyments and cultivated taste within. This kind of retreat, where there is nothing to surprise, nothing to disgust, nothing to draw the attention out of itself, uniting the advantages of society and solitude, of simplicity and elegance, and where the mind can indulge in a sort of habitual and self-centred satisfaction, is the only one which I should never feel a wish to quit. Thegolden meanis, indeed, an exact description of the mode of life I should like to lead—of the style I should like to write; but alas! I am afraid I shall never succeed in either object of my ambition!

The next day being cloudy, we lost sight entirely of the highest range of Alpine hills, and saw them no more afterwards. The road lay for some miles through an open and somewhat dreary country, in which the only objects of curiosity were the tall peasant-girls working in the fields, with their black gauze head-dresses, sticking out from their matted hair like the wings of a dragon-fly. We, however, had the Lake of Bienne and Isle of St. Pierre in prospect before us, which are so admirably described by Rousseau, in his ‘Reveries of a Solitary Walker,’ and to which he gives the preference over the Lake of Geneva. The effect from the town of Bienne where we stopped to dine was not much; but in climbing to the top of a steep sandy hill beyond it, we saw the whole to great advantage. Evening was just closing in, and the sky was cloudy, with a few red streaks near the horizon: the first range of Alps only was discernible; the Lake was of a dull sombre lead colour, and the Isle of St. Pierre was like a dark spot in it; the hills on one side of the Lake ascended abrupt and gloomy; extensive forests swept in magnificent surges over the rich valley to our left; towns were scattered below us here and there, as in a map; rocky fragments hung over our heads, with the shattered trunks of huge pine-trees; a mountain-torrent rushed down the irregular chasm between us and the base of the mountain, that rose in misty grandeur on the opposite side; but the whole was in the greatest keeping, and viewed by the twilight of historic landscape. Yet amidst all this solemnity and grandeur, the eye constantly reverted to one little dark speck, the Isle of St. Pierre (where Rousseau had taken refuge for a few months from his sorrows and his persecutions) with a more intense interest than all the rest; for the widest prospects are trivial to the deep recesses of the human heart, and its anxiousbeatings are far more audible than the ‘loud torrent or the whirlwind’s roar!’ The clouds of vapours, and the ebon cloud of night prevented our having a distinct view of the road that now wound down to ——, where we stopped for the night. The inn here (the Rose and Crown), though almost a solitary house in a solitary valley, is a very good one, and the cheapest we met with abroad. Our bill for supper, lodging, and breakfast, amounted to only seven francs. Our route, the following morning, lay up a broad steep valley, with a fine gravelly road through it, and forests of pine and other trees, raised like an amphitheatre on either side. The sun had just risen, and the drops of rain still hung upon the branches. On the other side we came into a more open country, and then again were inclosed among wild and narrow passes of high rock, split either by thunder or earthquakes into ledges, like castle walls, coming down to the edge of a stream that winds through the valley, or aspiring to an airy height, with the diminished pines growing on their very tops, and patches of verdure and the foliage of other trees flourishing in the interstices between them. It was the last scene of the kind we encountered. I begin to tire of these details, and will hasten to the end of my journey, touching only on a few detached points and places.

Basle.—This is a remarkably neat town; but it lies beyond the confines of the picturesque. We stopped at the Three Kings, and were shewn into a long, narrow room, which did not promise well at first; but the waiter threw up the window at the further end, and we all at once saw the full breadth of the Rhine, rolling rapidly beneath it, after passing through the arches of an extensive bridge. It was clear moonlight, and the effect was fine and unexpected. The broad mass of water rushed by with clamorous sound and stately impetuosity, as if it were carrying a message from the mountains to the ocean! The next morning we perceived that it was of a muddy colour. We thought of passing down it in a small boat; but the covering was so low as to make the posture uncomfortable, or, if raised higher, there was a danger of its being overset by any sudden gust of wind. We therefore went by the Diligence to Colmar and Strasburg. I regretted afterwards that we did not take the right hand road by Freybourg and the Black Forest—the woods, hills, and mouldering castles of which, as far as I could judge from a distance, are the most romantic and beautiful possible. The tower at Strasburg is red, and has a singular appearance. The fortifications here, in time of peace, have an effect like the stillness of death.

Rastadt.—We crossed the Rhine at Strasburg, and proceeded through Rastadt and Manheim to Mayence. We stopped the first night at the Golden Cross at Rastadt, which is the very best inn Iwas at during the whole time I was abroad. Among other things, we hadchiffronsfor supper, which I found on inquiry were wood-partridges, which are much more highly esteemed than the field ones. So delicately do they distinguish in Germany! Manheim is a splendid town, both from its admirable buildings and the glossy neatness of the houses. They are too fine to live in, and seem only made to be looked at. Would that one of the streets could be set down in Waterloo-place! Yet even Manheim is not equal to the towns in Italy. There the houses are palaces.

Mayence is a disagreeable town. We half missed the scenery between this and Coblentz, the only part of the Rhine worth seeing. We saw it, however, by moonlight (which hung over it like a silver veil), with its nodding towers and dismantled fortresses over our heads, the steep woody banks on the opposite side, and the broad glittering surface of the Rhine, reflecting the white clouds or dark sail gliding by. It was like a brilliant dream; nor did the mellow winding notes of the horn, calling to the warders of the drawbridges as we passed along, lessen the effect. Ehrenbreitstein overlooks Coblentz, and crowns it with magnificence and beauty. The Duke of Wellington, I understood, had been here, and being asked by a French officer, ‘If it could be taken?’ answered, ‘Yes; in two ways, by hunger and gold.’ Did the Duke of Wellington make this answer? I cry you mercy—it was the Frenchman who gave the answer: the Duke said nothing.

Cologne is the birth-place of Rubens; and at one of the churches, there is aCrucifixionby him, which we did not see, for it being the time of divine service, the back was turned to the spectator, and only a copy of it was exhibited. The road from Cologne to Neuss is the only really bad one we found on the Continent; it is a mere sand-bank, and not likely to be soon mended, from its vicinity to the Rhine.

From Neuss to Cleves we went in the Royal Prussian Diligence, and from thence to Nimeguen, the first town in Holland. From a small tower here we had an admirable view of the country. It was nearly a perfect flat all round, as far as the eye could reach; yet it was a rich and animated, as well as a novel scene. You saw a greater extent of surface than is possible in a hilly country; all within the circumference of the horizon lay exposed to the eye. It was like seeing a section of the entire globe, or like ‘striking flat its thick rotundity.’ It was a fine clear afternoon, and in the midst of this uniformity of surface, you saw every other variety—rich meadows, with flocks and herds feeding, hedge-rows, willowy banks, woods, corn-fields, roads winding along in different directions, canals, boatssailing, innumerable villages, windmills, bridges, and towns and cities in the far-off horizon; but neither rock, nor mountain, nor barren waste, nor any object that prevented your seeing the one beyond it. There were no contrasts, no masses, but the immense space stretched out beneath the eye was filled up with dotted lines, and minute, detached, countless beauties. It was as if the earth were curiously fringed and embroidered. Holland is the same everywhere, except that it is often more intersected by canals; and that as you approach the sea, the water prevails over the land. We proceeded from Nimeguen to Utrecht and Amsterdam, by the stage. The rich uninterrupted cultivation, the marks of successful industry and smiling plenty, are equally commendable and exhilarating; but the repetition of the same objects, and the extent ofhomeview, become at last oppressive. If you see much at once, there ought to be masses and relief: if you see only detached objects, you ought to be confined to a few of them at a time. What is the use of seeing a hundred windmills, a hundred barges, a hundred willow-trees, or a hundred herds of cattle at once? Any one specimen is enough, and the others hang like a dead-weight on the traveller’s patience. Besides, there is something lumpish and heavy in the aspect of the country; the eye is clogged and impeded in its progress over it by dams and dykes, and the marshy nature of the soil damps and chills imagination. There is a like extent of country at Cassel in France; but from the greater number of woods and a more luxuriant vegetation (leaving the bare earth seldom visible,) the whole landscape seems in one glow, and the eye scours delighted over waving groves and purple distances. The towns and villas in Holland are unrivalled for neatness, and an appearance of wealth and comfort. All the way from Utrecht to Amsterdam, to the Hague, to Rotterdam, you might fancy yourself on Clapham Common. The canals are lined with farms and summer-houses, with orchards and gardens of the utmost beauty, and in excellent taste. The exterior of their buildings is as clean as the interior of ours; their public-houses look as nice and well-ordered as our private ones. If you are up betimes in a morning, you see a servant wench (the domestic Naiad,) with a leathern pipe, like that attached to a fire-engine, drenching the walls and windows with pail-fulls of water. With all this, they suffocate you with tobacco smoke in their stage-coaches and canal-boats, and you do not see a set of clean teeth from one end of Holland to the other. Amsterdam did not answer our expectations; it is a kind of paltry, rubbishly Venice. The pictures of Rembrandt here (some of which have little shade) are inferior to what we have in England. I was assured here that Rembrandt was the greatest painter in the world, and at Antwerp that Rubens was.The inn at Amsterdam (the Rousland) is one of the best I have been at; and an inn is no bad test of the civilization and diffusion of comfort in a country. We saw a play at the theatre here; and the action was exceedingly graceful and natural. The chimes at Amsterdam, which play every quarter of an hour, at first seemed gay and delightful, and in a day and a half became tedious and intolerable. It was as impertinent as if a servant could not come into the room to answer the bell without dancing and jumping over the chairs and tables every time. A row of lime-trees grew and waved their branches in the middle of the street facing the hotel. The Dutch, who are not an ideal people, bestow all their taste and fancy on practical things, and instead of creating the chimeras of poetry, devote their time and thoughts to embellishing the objects of ordinary and familiar life. Ariosto said, it was easier to build palaces with words, than common houses with stones. The Hague is Hampton-Court turned into a large town. There is an excellent collection of pictures here, with some of my old favourites brought back from the Louvre, by Rembrandt, Vandyke, Paul Potter, &c. Holland is, perhaps, the only country which you gain nothing by seeing. It is exactly the same as the Dutch landscapes of it. I was shewn the plain and village of Ryswick, close to the Hague. It struck me I had seen something very like it before. It is the back-ground of Paul Potter’sBull. From the views and models of Chinese scenery and buildings preserved in the Museum here, it would seem that Holland is the China of Europe. Delft is a very model of comfort and polished neatness. We met with a gentleman belonging to this place in thetrackschuyt, who, with other civilities, shewed us his house (a perfect picture in its kind,) and invited us in to rest and refresh ourselves, while the other boat was getting ready. These things are an extension of one’s idea of humanity. It is pleasant, and one of the uses of travel, to find large tracts of land cultivated, cities built and repaired, all the conveniences of life, men, women, and children laughing, talking, and happy, common sense and good manners on the other side of the English channel. I would not wish to lower any one’s idea of England; but let him enlarge his notions of existence and enjoyment beyond it. He will not think the worse of his own country, for thinking better of human nature! The inconveniences of travelling by canal-boats in Holland is, that you make little way, and are forced to get out and have your luggage taken into another boat at every town you come to, which happens two or three times in the course of the day. Let no one go to the Washington Arms at Rotterdam; it is only fit for American sea-captains. Rotterdam is a handsome bustling town; and on inquiring our way, we were accostedby a Dutch servant-girl, who had lived in an English family for a year, and who spoke English better, and with less of a foreign accent, than any French woman I ever heard. This convinced me that German is not so difficult to an Englishman as French; for the difficulty of acquiring any foreign language must be mutual to the natives of each country. There was a steam-boat here which set sail for London the next day; but we preferred passing through Ghent, Lille, and Antwerp. This last is a very delightful city, and the spire of the cathedral exquisitely light, beautiful, and well-proportioned. Indeed, the view of the whole city from the water-side is as singular as it is resplendent. We saw the Rubenses in the great church here. They were hung outside the choir; and seen against the huge white walls, looked like pictures dangling in a broker’s shop for sale. They did not form a part of the building. The person who shewed us the Taking Down from the Cross, said, ‘It was the finest picture in the world.’ I said, ‘One of the finest’—an answer with which he appeared by no means satisfied. We returned by way of St. Omers and Calais. I wished to see Calais once more, for it was here I first landed in France twenty years ago.

I confess, London looked to me on my return like a long, straggling, dirty country-town; nor do the names of Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, or Coventry, sound like a trumpet in the ears, or invite our pilgrim steps like those of Sienna, of Cortona, Perugia, Arezzo, Pisa and Ferrara. I am not sorry, however, that I have got back. There is an old saying,Home is home, be it never so homely. However delightful or striking the objects may be abroad, they do not take the same hold of you, nor can you identify yourself with them as at home. Not only is the language an insuperable obstacle; other things as well as men speak a language new and strange to you. You live comparatively in a dream, though a brilliant and a waking one. It is in vain to urge that you learn the language; that you are familiarized with manners and scenery. No other language can ever become our mother-tongue. We may learn the words; but they do not convey the same feelings, nor is it possible they should do so, unless we could begin our lives over again, and divide our conscious being into two different selves. Not only can we not attach the same meaning to words, but we cannot see objects with the same eyes, or form new loves and friendships after a certain period of our lives. The pictures that most delighted me in Italy were those I had before seen in the Louvre ‘with eyes of youth.’ I could revive this feeling of enthusiasm, but not transfer it. Neither would I recommend the going abroad when young, to become a mongrel being, half French, half English. It is better to be something than nothing. It is wellto see foreign countries to enlarge one’s speculative knowledge, and dispel false prejudices and libellous views of human nature; but our affections must settle at home. Besides though a dream, it is a splendid one. It is fine to see the white Alps rise in the horizon of fancy at the distance of a thousand miles; or the imagination may wing its thoughtful flight among the castellated Apennines, roaming from city to city over cypress and olive grove, viewing the inhabitants as they crawl about mouldering palaces or temples, which no hand has touched for the last three hundred years, and see the genius of Italy brooding over the remains of virtue, glory and liberty, with Despair at the gates, an English Minister handing the keys to a foreign Despot, and stupid Members of Parliament wondering what is the matter!

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