like silver among masses of clouds. The intervening wide space was a sea of vapour, but we stayed on the eminence till the sun had mastery of all beneath us, after a silent process of change and interchange-of concealing and revealing. I hope we were not ungrateful to the memory of past times when (standing on the summit of Helvellyn, Scaw Fell, Fairfield, or Skiddaw) we have felt as if the world itself could not present a more sublime spectacle.

Herzogenboschee.-At length we dropped asleep, but were soon roused by a fitful sound of gathering winds, heavy rain followed, and vivid flashes of lightning, with tremendous thunder. It was very awful. Mary and I were sitting together, alone, in the open street; a strange situation! yet we had no personal fear. Before the storm began, all the lights had been extinguished except one opposite to us, and another at an inn behind, where were turbulent noises of merriment, with singing and haranguing, in the style of our village politicians. These ceased; and, after the storm, lights appeared in different quarters; pell-mell rushed the fountain; then came a watchman with his dismal recitative song, or lay; the church clock telling the hours and the quarters, and house clocks with their silvery tone; one scream we heard from a human voice; but no person seemed to notice us, except a man who came out upon the wooden gallery of his house right above our heads, looked down this way and that, and especially towards the voitures. . . . The beating of the rain, and the rushing of that fountain were continuous, and with the periodical and the irregular sounds (among which the howling of a dog was not the least dismal), completed the wildness of the awful scene, and of our strange situation; sheltered from wet, yet in the midst of it—and exposed to intermitting blasts, though struggling with excessive heat-while flashes of lightning at intervals displayed the distant mountains, and the wide space between; at other times a blank gloom.

Berne. The fountains of Berne are ornamented with statues of William Tell and other heroes. There is a beautiful order, a solidity, a gravity in this city which strikes at first sight, and never loses its effect. The houses are of one grey hue, and built of stone. They are large and sober, but not heavy or barbarously elbowing each other. On each side is a covered passage under the upper stories, as at Chester, only wider, much longer, and with more massy supporters. . . . In all quarters we noticed the orderly decency of the passengers, the handsome public buildings, with appropriate decorations symbolical of a love of liberty, of order, and good government, with an aristocratic stateliness, yet free from show or parade. . . . The greentinted river flows below-wide, full, and impetuous. I saw the snows of the Alps burnished by the sun about half an hour before his setting. After that they were left to their wintry marble coldness, without a farewell gleam; yet suddenly the city and the cathedral tower and trees were singled out for favour by the sun among his glittering clouds, and gilded with the richest light. A few minutes, and that glory vanished. I stayed till evening gloom was gathering over the city, and over hill and dale, while the snowy tops of the Alps were still visible.

Sunday, August 6th.-Upon a spacious level adjoining the cathedral are walks planted with trees, among which we sauntered, and were much pleased with the great variety of persons amusing themselves in the same way; and how we wished that one, at least, of our party had the skill to sketch rapidly with the pencil, and appropriate colours, some of the groups or single figures passing before us, or seated in sun or shade. Old ladies appeared on this summer parade dressed in flycaps, such as were worn in England fifty years ago, and broad-flowered chintz or cotton gowns; the bourgeoises, in grave attire of black, with tight white sleeves, yet seldom

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without ornament of gold lacing, or chain and ear-rings, and on the head a pair of stiff transparent butterfly wings, spread out from behind a quarter of a yard on each side, which wings are to appearance as thin as gauze, but being made of horse-hair, are very durable, and the larger are even made of wire. Among these were seen peasants in shepherdess hats of straw, decorated with flowers and coloured ribands, pretty little girls in grandmothers' attire, and ladies à la française. noticed several parties composed of persons dressed after these various modes, that seemed to indicate very different habits and stations in society-the peasant and the lady, the petty shopkeeper and the wealthy tradesman's wife, side by side in friendly discourse. But it is impossible by words to give a notion of the enlivening effect of these little combinations, which are also interesting as evidences of a state of society worn out in England. Here you see formality and simplicity, antiquated stateliness and decent finery brought together, with a pervading spirit of comfortable equality in social pleasures.

Monday, August 7th. I sate under an elm-tree, looking down the woody steep to the lake, and across it, to a rugged mountain; no villages to be seen, no houses; the higher Alps shut out. I could have forgotten Switzerland, and fancied myself transported to one of the lonesome lakes of Scotland. I returned to my open station to watch the setting sun, and remained long after the glowing hues had faded from those chosen summits that were touched by his beams, while others were obscurely descried among clouds in their own dark or snowy mantle. . . . Met with an inscription on a grey stone in a little opening of the wood, and would have copied it, for it was brief, but could not see to read the letters, and hurried on, still choosing the track that seemed to lead most directly downwards, and was indeed glad when I found

myself again in the public road to the town. . . . Late as it was, and although twilight had almost given place to the darkness of a fine August night, I was tempted aside into a broad flat meadow, where I walked under a row of tall poplars by the river-side. The castle, church, and town appeared before us in stately harmony, all hues of red roofs. and painting having faded away. Two groups of giant poplars rose up, like Grecian temples, from the level between me and the mass of towers and houses. In the smooth water the lingering brightness of evening was reflected from the sky; and lights from the town were seen at different heights on the hill.

Thun, Tuesday, August 8th.-The Lake of Thun is essentially a lake of the Alps. Its immediate visible boundary, third or fourth-rate mountains; but overtopping these are seen the snowy or dark summits of the Jungfrau, the Eiger, the Stockhorn, the Blumlis Alp, and many more which I cannot name; while the Kander, and other raging streams, send their voices across the wide waters. The remains of a ruined castle are sometimes seen upon a woody or grassy steep-pleasing remembrances of distant times, but taking no primary place in the extensive landscape, where the power of nature is magisterial, and where the humble villages composed of numerous houses clustering together near the lake, do not interfere with the impressions of solitude and grandeur. Many of those villages must be more than half-deserted when the herdsmen follow their cattle to the mountains. Others of their numerous inhabitants find subsistence by fishing in the lake. We floated cheerfully along, the scene for ever changing. On the eastern side, to our left, the shores are more populous than on the western; one pretty village succeeded another, each with its spire, till we came to a hamlet, all of brown wood houses, except one large white dwelling, and

no church. . . . The boatmen directed our ears to the sound of waterfalls in a cleft of the mountain; but the sight of them we must leave to other voyagers.

The broad pyramidal mountain, Neisen, rising directly from the lake on the western side towards the head, is always a commanding object. Its form recalled to my remembrance some of the stony pyramids of Glencoe, but only its form, the surface being covered with green pasturage. Sometimes, in the course of the morning, we had been reminded of our own country; but transiently, and never without a sense of characteristic difference. Many of the distinctions favourable to Switzerland I have noticed; and it seems as if I were ungrateful to our own pellucid lakes, those darlings of the summer breezes! But when floating on the Lake of Thun we did not forget them. The greenish hue of its waters is much less pleasing than the cerulean or purple of the lakes of Cumberland and Westmoreland; the reflections are less vivid; shore and water do not so delicately blend together; hence a coasting voyage cannot be accompanied with an equal variety of minute objects. And I might add many other little circumstances or incidents that enliven the banks of our lakes. For instance, in a summer forenoon, the troops of cattle that are seen solacing themselves in the cool waters within the belt of a pebbly shore; or, if the season do not drive them thither, how they beautify the pastures, and rocky unenclosed grounds! While on the Lake of Thun we did not see a single group of cattle of any kind. I have not spoken of that other sky, 'received into the bosom' of our lakes, on tranquil summer evenings; for the time of day prevented our being reminded in the same degree of what we have so often beheld at such. times; but it is obvious that, though the reflections from masses of brilliant clouds must often be very grand, the clouds in their delicate hues and forms cannot be seen, in the same soft distinctness, 'bedded in another sky.' . . .