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And the twilight shade of thy pensive brow Is sweeter to me than a noon of smiles.

Thy fine-toned heart, like the harp of the winds, Answers in sweetness each breeze that sings; And the storm of grief, and the breath of joy, Draw nothing but music from its strings.

The bird that skimm'd the shoreless deep,

Saw but one ark where its rest might be ; And the heart that has roved through a desert world, Has never met aught in that world like thee.

My spirit may soar to brighter worlds,

And rest in the isles of some happy sea; But where, in the brightest of worlds, shall it meet Another spirit as pure as thee?

SONNETS ILLUSTRATIVE of an EXCURSION TO WESTMORELAND.

1. THE DEPARTURE.

EDINA! desert of forsaken stone!

(Yet fair in all thy summer emptiness,) Why should I wander through thy streets alone,Among the tombs a ghost companionless? There's not a lawyer's clerk but has gone off, Like an ill-loaded gun, straight to some moor; There's not a tailor, to escape the scoff

Of brother tailors, but now takes a tour. One cow would dine the people who remain

For a whole week ;-one baker bake too much :

I hold him, therefore, perfectly insane,

Or lazier than the laziest of the Dutch,
Who longer can the season's law withstand,
A coach! a coach! I'm off for Westmoreland!

II. SCOTCH TOWNS.

Accept a catalogue of the Scottish towns
In which I gain'd the gaze of gaping clowns;
Dalkeith, deck'd out to do her Duke due duty,
But lately wed to youth, and worth, and beauty;
Poor Pennycuik, with its French-prisoner face,
A puny, piddling, paltry, paper place;
Selkirk, with souters sewing soft-soled shoes,
Most mongrel monsters mock'd by many a muse;
Hush'd, happy Hawick, hale and hearty home
Of roguish rustics rarely given to roam;
Low-lying Langholm, lively, though not large,—
The soldier-landlord still knows how to charge:
And these were all (I give them in their order)
Until, with bounding heart, I cross'd the Border.

III. ON CROSSING THE BORDER.

Bright, merry England! mountainless and green,
Stretching in champagne beauty far away!
Welcome to one too long condemn'd to stray
In yon bleak clime of whisky, mist, and spleen!
Welcome, with all thy hedgerows mapping out
Into rich meadows thy delightful land;
Welcome, with thy hot muffins and brown stout,
Thy bold glad voices, and thy breezes bland;
Welcome, with thy brick houses and fat pork,

Thy tidy damsels, and thy bluff John Bulls; Welcome thy cities, from Carlisle to York,

Thy hamlet spires, and busy village schools; And welcome, O ! more welcome than all these, Thy ale delicious and thy Stilton cheese!

IV. PENRITH.

Were I to choose a country town to live in,
I think I'd fix on Penrith; for to it
A soft and tranquil beauty has been given

That soothes me like the page of Holy Writ:
It was a summer evening, about seven,

When I first enter'd it, and the glad sun threw, Down from the clouds, with which he long had striven, A smile, that fell upon the land like dew.

O! little was there of an earthly leaven

In the deep thoughts that fill'd my bosom here!
The coachman, too, by whom I had been driven,
Stopp'd at the inn to take a glass of beer;
And what a Hebe brought it him! By heaven!
Her eye was worth five thousand pounds a-year.

V. COUNTRY TOWNS.

But, God forbid that ever I should dwell,
A piddling blockhead in a country town!
Within the hearing of its crack'd church-bell,
A vegetating thing-a neuter noun !
A scandal-talker, and a theme for scandal,
An undervaluer of my neighbours' wares,
A cynic, searching with a lighted candle

In all men's necks, in hopes to find out hairs;
The old maid's best companion, a poor driveller,
Haggling with butchers, quarrelling with bakers,
Without a friend but some psalm-singing sniveller,
Whose family is like a bunch of undertakers :—
Rather than suffer such a life as this,

I'd, squib-like, leave the world with one small crack and hiss.

VI. WESTMORELAND.

Away-away into the land of lakes!

Away into the depths of mountain scenery!
Where Nature's face a wilder aspect takes,
And all she does is with enlarged machinery.
The world is here shut out. The busy road
Of hope and disappointment is forgot;
Pale-faced Ambition lays aside his load,

And Grandeur learns to moralise his lot.
One sunset smile on Grassmere's lilied breast,—
One muttering storm that sails down Tilberthwaite,—
One hour in Yewdale of hush'd Sabbath rest,

Mocks with resistless satire life's vain state; Let pomp fall prostrate on the mountain sod, And feel the presence of the unseen God.

VII. WINDERMERE.

Afloat! afloat! on sunny Windermere,

With Bowness gleaming on the wooded shore, And all the high hills rising bright and clear,

As in my dreams I pictured them of yore!
Fair lake! thou art among the sights that bring
No sad conviction how the fancy cheats;

I read of thee in life's romantic spring,
And even now my sober'd spirit greets
Thy deep-abiding loveliness, and drinks
In rapt delight a gushing tide of joy;
No more my heart in secret sorrow sinks,-
It throbs! it bounds! I am again a boy!
And like fresh youth, even when my leaf is sere,
Will come the thought of thee-bright, glorious Winder-
mere !

VII. ELLERAY.*

A poet's home! and worthy so to be !Such as is seen by Arno's classic stream,

* The seat of Professor Wilson.

Or gleaming on the blue Ionian sea

From some rich wooded height, of which we dream
In northern climes amidst a city's smoke,

And wish that we had wings that we might flee,
Or more than mortal strength to break the yoke
That binds us to life's painful drudgery :-
A poet's home upon the breezy hill!

With all that breathes of poetry around,
And hearts within which earth can never chill,-
Pure limpid streams with glad enduring sound
Sparkling unceasingly!-Flow on! flow on!
Where shall we find your like when ye are gone?

IX. MEN OF GENIUS.

Know ye the signs that mark a master mind?—

Oft ye may read them struggling through the clay, For oft the soul within that clay enshrined,

Seems half material in the lofty play Of noble features. Look into the eye,

And quail before its glance of fire, or feel
The softer influence of the thoughts that lie

Far in its dreamy depths. Behold the seal
Of genius stamp'd upon the high-arch'd brow.
Note well the energy of action. Hear
The voice's various cadences, which now

Are deep and thrilling, now full-toned and clear ;-
These were to Byron as a sacred sign,

And more than all thy compeers, Wilson! these are thine.

X. A REGATTA.

I wish, dear Bessy, thou hadst been with me
At Keswick on the day of the Regatta ;

The royal lake shone like an inland sea

All lighted up with sails, and heaven knows what a
Countless collection of small boats and wherries,
Dancing in gladness o'er the little billows,
While each a gallant crew exultant carries,
Bending upon their rapid oars like willows.
And then the races with the Cambridge men,
Who boldly down the gage of challenge flung!
And then our dinner in the island glen !

And then the music of the English tongue!-
O Bessy! hadst thou that day been on Keswick—
Thou wouldst have seen a Cockney who was sea-sick!

XI. THE SEVEN SINGERS.

I heard them all upon that fairy lake

The seven singers! and they sang together! The music such, it would have power to make The gayest sunshine of the wintriest weather. And ne'er were sounds in such sweet unison

With the bright loveliness of those who sang; Gazing I heard, and hearing still gazed on,—

My eye was dazzled, and my charm'd ear rang!
Yet one there was, whose melody to me

Rose well distinguish'd from the sister notes,
Clear, rich, and glorious though these strains might be,
As golden birds were warbling in their throats,—
That thrilling voice-that heart-awakening lay-
Whose could it be but thine, Margaret of Elleray!

XII. THE RETURN.

At home again!—the glad familiar faces !———
My dog, my cat, my slippers, and my study!—
My books and papers all in their old places,

And my own cheek more juvenile and ruddy!
It needs no poetry to feel the charm

Friends of my soul! not mine the studied phrase
That blazons forth what should be felt, not spoken;
Yet trust me, chance, and change, and length of days,
Shall ever find the golden link unbroken,

That long has bound my summer years to you,
Whence all my cares I hush'd-whence all my joys I
drew.
H. G. B.

TO MY HEART.

THOU art no captive in chains to pine,

Mine own art thou still, and hast ever been mine;
And here in my breast shalt thou aye dwell free,
Till I find thee a home that is worthy of thee!

The bird that springs from his tufted nest,
Will return from his wanderings in peace to rest;
But ah! my heart, I feel when we sever

Thou wilt never return-I shall lose thee for ever!

And whenever I think of the proud control
Another may hold o'er a free-born soul,—
On the power of deep love, so fearful—so fair,
O'er thy fortunes, I ponder in fear and in prayer.

Thou art proud, young heart! but thou art not cold,
And I'll watch thee as miser would watch his gold;
All my wealth is in thee all my world thou art
And deep will the spell be that e'er bids us part!

Nor gold shall allure thee, nor flattery shall win,
Not splendour without-but true value within;
The treasure thou lov'st is the wealth of the mind-
Thy riches, the smiles of the good and the kind.

O show me the breast, like the deep hidden mine,
Where the gems of pure truth and simplicity shine;
Where honour, high worth, and sincerity dwell,
Which the world can ne'er dim, nor its fashions dispel ;

There there would I shrine thee, thou faithful heart,
In chains, and a captive all proud as thou art;
But here in my breast shalt thou aye dwell free,
Till I find thee a home so worthy of thee!

GERTRUDE.

LITERARY CHIT-CHAT AND VARIETIES.

THE LITERARY SOUVENIR FOR 1830.-We are glad to understand that this our favourite Annual is likely, in all respects, to support the high character it has already attained when it re-appears next November. We are enabled to state the subjects of the embellishments, many of which will be exquisitely beautiful:-1st, A Fancy Head, by Leslie, R.A. 2d, Oberon squeezing the juice of the flower into Titania's eyes, by H. Howard, R.A. 3d, The Sale of the Pet Lamb, by W. Collins, R.A. 4th, Jacob's Dream-a magnificent picture-by W. Alston, A.R.A. 5th, La Fille bien Gardée, by A. Chalon, R.A. 6th, A group of Trojan Women looking on the burning of Troy, by G. Jones, R.A. 7th, The Passage of Arms at Ashby de la Zouch, by John Martin. 8th, Mrs Siddons, in the character of Lady Macbeth, by H. Harlowe. 9th, The Discovery, by Stephanoff. 10th, The Greek Sisters, by Phalippin-a French artist. 11th, Carthage, by W. Linton. 12th, The Lady and the Wasp, by A. E. Chalon. 13th, Childe Harold and Ianthe, by R. Westall, R.A. 14th, The Bandit's Bride, by T. Uwins.-The literary department of the Souvenir will also, we understand, be highly interesting.

THE KEEPSAKE FOR 1830.-The Keepsake is in a state of great forwardness. Among the contributors' names are the following:Sir Walter Scott, Lord Byron, Lord Holland, Lord Normanby, Lord Morpeth, Lord Porchester, Lord Nugent, Hon. George Agar Ellis, Hon. Charles Phipps, Hon. Henry Liddel, R. Bernall, M.P., Theodore Hook, S. T. Coleridge, Archdeacon Spencer, J. R. Gower, William Roscoe, W. Jerdan, Lady Caroline Lamb, Miss Landon, Thomas Haynes Bayly, Charles Brinsley Sheridan, the Authors of Frankenstein," "Anastasius," "Granby," "O'Hara Tales," " "Hungarian Tales," and "Hajji Baba." Sir Walter Scott's contribution is a dramatic romance or tragedy, in five acts, written in imitation of the German, and founded on the Free Knights; and Lord Byron's are ten letters of an interesting nature, written between There are at present seven young ladies living on the banks of the period of his settlement at Pisa in 1821, and his death at Misso Windermere, each of whom sings delightfully.

Sweetening, as dew does flowers, the name of home, And clasping with affection's twining arm

All that the heart recurs to when we roam.

longhi in April 1821.

THE FORGET-ME-NOT FOR 1830.-- Lord Byron's first known attempt | playing at Hull and other towns in the neighbourhood. The Eng at poetry will form, we understand, one of the articles in the forthcom- lish company at Paris have felt her absence much, and having met ming volume of the Forget-me-Not. It is copied from the auto- with a very unfavourable reception, are on their way home-Argraph of the noble poet, and certified by the lady to whom it was ad-rangements are said to have been made for the performance of Itadressed-the "Mary" who was the object of his earliest attachment, and whom he has celebrated in several of his poems. It was written on his leaving Annesley, the residence of her family.

The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge are about to publish a series of Maps, of an intermediate size between the large and expensive maps fit only for libraries, and that smaller sort usually adopted in Schools. They are to be of unexampled cheapness, yet finished in the best manner. Two of them are to be delivered in a wrapper for one shilling; or with the outlines coloured, for one shilling and sixpence. The series will consist of about fifty plates, and a number will appear at intervals of at most two months.

SCOTTISH ANTIQUITIES.-Dr Lappenberg, of Hamburg, in some recent researches amongst the ancient records of that city, has discovered a letter of the date of 1287, addressed by Robert Wallace and Andrew Murray to Hamburg and Lubeck. Some English records were also amongst his discoveries. They are all to be embodied in his erudite work on the origin of the Hanseatic League.

CONTINENTAL REVIEWS.-Some of these works are now before us. Had they contained any thing of interest, we should have taken care to communicate it to our readers. One of their practices might be advantageously adopted in this country. When any good article appears in the English periodicals, it is immediately translated, and appears in a German or French miscellany, with a note, acknowledging the source from which it is taken.

The Americans are said to possess upwards of 1600 newspapers. Pennsylvania alone has 150.

FRENCH NEWSPAPERS.-Of the proprietors of seventeen political journals, published in Paris, at least one-third are noblemen, or persons of great distinction in the scientific or literary world. The proprietors of one paper, who are three in number, are said to be a Duke, a Count, and a Baron. To be a known writer in a respectable periodical, is said to be the best passport to good society in Paris.

MR BUCKINGHAM.-After a very successful tour through Scotland, Mr Buckingham is to return to Edinburgh, for the purpose of giving one more lecture on the question-"What is to be done with India?" It is to be delivered on the evening of the 7th September, in the Waterloo Hotel.

MINIATURE STEAM-ENGINE.-A high-pressure engine, forming a complete working model, has been constructed by an iron and brassfounder, at Bradford, the cylinder of which is only 1-16th part of an inch in diameter, and the whole weight of the engine is only one ounce! This very diminutive, but very ingenious, piece of mechanism, though the smallest steam-engine ever made, is perfect in all its parts, and works with as much precision as any engine of ten-horse power.

THE DRAMA IN FRANCE.-A report was in circulation in Paris, in the beginning of the present month, that a company had been formed with a view of uniting into one establishment the four theatres set apart for the performance of Vaudevilles. The proprietors of the "Salle du Vaudeville" have published a denial, in which they maintain, that any such enterprize would be an infringement on their vested rights. It is, however, still probable that some such plan is contemplated by lovers of the drama, in the hopes of rendering the dramatic talent of the capital more efficient by concentrating it under one management.-A new opera, "Guillaume Tell," has been produced at the " Academie Royale de Musique." The music is by Rossini. The public is already aware of the enthusiastic reception this celebrated composer met with at Paris, but it may perhaps be as little prepared as we were to hear him called by the French critics-" Le rival, le vainqueur de Mozart et Cimarelli." But the secret reason for sacrificing the memory of the mighty dead before their new idol, peeps out unconsciously in the naive parenthesis"un compositeur qu'on peut desormais appeller français." The samé learned critic, in speaking of Mlle. Zaglioni, gives us the following account of the principles according to which he criticises dancing;-" Nous ne savons si elle danse mieux que les autres; elle danse autrement; et en toutes choses, il nous faut du nouveau, surtout dans les arts futiles et secondaires."-The "Theatre des Varietés" has brought a dog-fight on the stage, in a kind of Tom and Jerry piece.-A tragedy, founded on the story of the false Czar Demetrius, has been successful. The author is a M. Leon Halery.

Theatrical Gossip.-A three-act drama, by Mr Peake, called "The Spring Lock," has been successful at the English Opera House.Liston is delighting the Londoners at the Haymarket.+Miss Paton has been playing to brilliant houses at Norwich.-Kean has been performing his favourite characters at Manchester, with but little apparent diminution of his usual vigour. Elliston has offered him £700 for a month's performances at the Surrey.-Sontag and her sister gave some concerts at Manchester last week: on Saturday, the night of her benefit, there was a very thin audience,-Miss Smithson is

lian operas at the Argyll-rooms during the ensuing winter.-The approaching Musical Festivals at Birmingham and Chester are expected to be unusually attractive. The German company is engaged for them, and Malibran, Sontag, and Paton, are to assist.-Pasta, who has just purchased a villa on the Lake of Como, has been performing Tancredi at her native town of Como, for the benefit of the poor of the place. She is exceedingly popular in Italy. We observe that Mr Bass, the manager of the Caledonian Theatre, has announced his benefit for the 2d of September, and we conclude that he intends to close the house shortly afterwards. This is wise. The author of "The Gowrie Conspiracy" and "Margaret of Anjou" is to have a night towards the end of next week, when both these pieces will be performed, and an address will be delivered, and several songs will be sung, written by himself, for the occasion. His activity and talen ́s entitle him to the public patronage.—Stanley, who has been performing in the Stirling Theatre, of which he has taken a lease, with a considerable number of the Edinburgh company, has been well supported, and is not likely, we believe, to regret the speculation.-Mr Roberts, the Elocutionist, has been giving Readings in Berwick. We understand that it is his intention to give a series of Lectures and Readings in the Hopetoun Rooms during the ensuing winter, on a more extended scale than he has yet attempted in Edinburgh." Several causes," says a French periodical, " combine to render the management of theatres more difficult at the present period than formerly. These are 1. The scarcity of good authors, arising from the circumstance that minds of a high order have turned their attention to moral and political science. 2. The equal scarcity of good actors. 3. The fastidiousness of the public, which is more difficult to please the more civilised it becomes. 4. The influence of the Congregations upon society; which is so widely extended, that most of the public functionaries scarcely dare show themselves at the theatre, and many females are turned away from it by the religious terror excited in their minds."

TO OUR CORRESPONDENTS.

NOTWITHSTANDING the additional space of which we have this week availed ourselves, to the exclusion of our advertisements, a number of interesting articles still stand over. Among these ate communications, both in prose and verse, from the Ettrick Shepherd, from Professor Gillespie, from the Author of the "Traditions of Edinburgh," and others, all of which shall appear as soon as possible.

"The Editor in his Slippers, No. IV." in an early number.-We shall endeavour to comply with the wish of "J. H." of Glasgow next week.-The letter on the Hebrew Language is in types.

In the volume of manuscript Poetry sent us from Callendar, there are several piece of very considerable merit.-" The Speech of the Blasted Tree," and "The Student," by "S. S." of Glasgow shall have a place.-We do not know what pleasure "B. D." can have in sending, as an original, a Poem by Pekin, which appeared in print months ago. There is a good deal of merit in the verses by "D." of Leith; but they hardly come up to our standard.-" Julius" will not suit us.

We must request that they who favour us with short Poems will always keep copies, as we can, in no case of this kind, undertake to return the manuscript.

ERRATA IN OUR LAST.-In the article entitled "The importance of the German Language," &c. for Burchen read Burschen, passim, The quotation from Schiller, in the same article, ought to be

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LITERARY CRITICISM. Seeing, therefore, that it is beyond all matter of dispute that one must be off to the country, and business left to ITINERARIES, GUIDE AND ROAD Books.-Reichard's De- shift for itself, and the affairs of the world to proceed as scriptive Road Book of France. London. Samuel best they may, (for who cares about the civil or political Leigh. 1829.-The Englishman's Guide to Calais state of Europe in summer?) the only remaining quesand Paris. By James Albany, Esq. London. Hurst, tion is-where is one to go? If you are a married man, Chance, and Co. 1829.-Ebel's Traveller's Guide with a large small family, and limited income, c'en est You must take a cotthrough Switzerland.- Vasi's Picture of Rome.-Vasi's fait-there need be no hesitation. Picture of Naples.-Leigh's Road Book of England tage of three rooms and a kitchen in some sea-bathing and Wales.-Paterson's Roads in England and Wales. village, into which, upon some high-pressure principle, you -Leigh's Road Book of Scotland.-The Traveller's must squeeze your whole community, together with seveGuide through Scotland. Ninth Edition. Edinburgh. ral cart-loads of furniture; and for six weeks or so you John Thomson. 1830. The Scottish Tourist and must duly plunge the small fry into that part of the ocean Itinerary. Edinburgh. Stirling and Kenney.-Plea- which breaks into muddy foam upon the shore, and consure Tours in Scotland. Edinburgh. John Thom-tains a proper mixture of sand and sea-weed,-whilst you -Stark's Picture of Edinburgh. Edinburgh. yourself may find some favourite pool among the rocks, John Anderson. 1829. covered with limpets, tangle, and young crabs, and dabble in it for half an hour every morning and evening, to We are able to state, upon the most indubitable autho- the great refreshment of your corporeal frame. rity, that the only literary works which sell at this sea- the fates have allowed you twelve, instead of three hunson of the year are the EDINBURGH LITERARY JOURNAL, dred a-year, and if they have either kept you out of and the books for tourists, whose titles we have copied the treacherous Corrievreckan of matrimony altogether, above. It is right that it should be so; for, in the merry or blessed you with a fair and gentle being, who has hapmonths of June, and the three which follow, external na-pily not yet begun to show any symptoms of having overture is an unbought book, opened at its brightest and most illuminated page, which they who run may read, and which none can read without imbibing deep draughts of health and happiness. The summer of the visible world communicates, by some invisible process, its sunshine to the soul of man; and, passing as it were into a new state of existence, who does not earnestly long for a “beaker full of the warm south,”—

son.

"Tasting of Flora and the country green,

But if

prolific tendencies, then you are a freer and a much more to be envied man; and a far wider range is within your choice.

Perhaps you may wish to visit France? Then take Reichard's Descriptive Road Book, and Albany's Guide to Calais, in your pocket, and you cannot go wrong. Sunny France! we know thee thoroughly; and now that Bonaparte is dead, and his flat-bottomed boats are no longer in the harbour of Boulogne, and that England Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth ?" is thy sister-not thy foe-we care not though we tell In more homely phrase, the town becomes too hot to thee that we love thee passing well. It was in the early hold us, and away we dash into the breezy fields in old part of the year 1816 that we first sailed from Ramsgate family chariots, in stage-coaches, on the tops of mails, in to Ostend, to visit thee. We took a short peep into the gigs, in curricles, in stanhopes, in dennets, in waggons, Netherlands and Holland, and then came back to thee by and in carts. All congregations of houses are left silent the way of Rouen. On a delightful morning in May and deserted,-nuts without their kernels, cages with- we crossed the floating bridge at that city, and gained the out their birds,-shells without their fish. From the heights on the left banks of the Seine. We shall be dead. time the sun enters Cancer, until he leaves Scorpio, it is to every feeling of the beautiful in nature, when we forin vain to look for human beings in cities. You may find get the view which then burst upon us, a catalogue of them on the tops of hills,-you may find them in the whose leading features would convey no idea of the picdepths of woods, you may find them up to the middle ture as a whole, nor enable the reader to understand how in running streams,-you may find them buried among finely the majestic river, flowing through an expansive clover, you may catch them floating upon lakes, -you valley, whose woods and fields smiled in the luxuriance may start them amidst the Righi solitudes, or see them of early summer, contrasted with the sombre and halfpassing in shoals through the Trosachs; but hope not to melancholy city,-its venerable cathedral, its long narrow encounter them in their accustomed walk "on the Rialto." streets, and its high antique houses. Then on to Paris. There is a principle in human nature which loathes the And from Paris, in our voiture, to Orleans, Nevers, and dust and the heat, the fever and the fret, of a metropolis, Moulins, till we joined the "arrowy Rhone" at Lyons, whilst the merry birds are abroad in the blue or dappled where it is no more "arrowy" than the Tweed is at sky, whilst the mountain bee is wending his devious Peebles, or the Clyde at Glasgow. Down the Rhone we way with an unceasing hum of joy over the heath and went to Avignon, then away south by Montpelier to heather, whilst "the mower whets his scythe, and the Toulouse, and then into the Hautes Pyrenees, where we milk-maid singeth blythe,” and visions for ever haunt our saw, from the summit of the Pic du Midi, the far-off sleep of ocean, the shining and winding Garonne, and that noble amphitheatrical chain of mountains which stretch away towards the frontiers of Spain. Our road homewards

some melodious plot

Of beechen green, and shadows numberless."

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whole, we envy the fate of Master Augustus Fitzbubble. It was at all events preferable to that of a young and ambitious poet who had already distinguished himself in many a lady's Album, and who, as he walked along the Jungfrau, was in the very act of composing something delightful, when he stepped over a precipice, and had just time to wonder what he had done with himself, before he was dashed into fragments, like the wave of a descending cataract. The consequence was, that he never wrote ano

lay through Bourdeaux, Poitiers, Tours, Alençon, Caen,
and Havre-de-Grace. This was our first Continental
summer, and we shall never spend such a summer again
in this unsatisfactory world. It was all one gleam of
sunshine, for it was at a period when our heart was easi-
ly touched, and our feelings quickly awakened. No won-
der we love the ancestral woods and chateaux of the Saone
and Loire, of Vaucluse and Dordogne! No wonder that
the lovely scenes of Guienne, and Anjou, and pastoral
Normandy, still come back to us through the vista ofther line in a lady's Album.
years! We could at this moment take the longest quill
in our writing-desk, make it into a pen, and write straight
on with it till it became a stump, pouring forth from it
all the time the most glowing descriptions of five hundred
individual scenes, all bright in our memory. But we
must check our enthusiasm, and change the theme.

Perhaps you may wish to visit Italy? By all means! Off with you instantly! Take Vasi's Pictures of the principal cities with you; but, for heaven's sake, do not go to Italy simply to see sights,-to go through all the hackneyed routine of wonder and admiration, and, like the sybarite who was smothered in roses, to kill yourself with the fatigue of pleasurable emotions, afterwards to be dragged an inanimate corpse at the tail of a parrottongued cicerone. Enter Italy with your own wellstored mind, your own free thoughts, your guide-book, and your map. The most glorious land in all the world lies before you, bending, like a fruit-tree in autumn, under a load of golden associations, which you may shake at will into your own lap, and of which you can never diminish the number, for, " uno avulso, non deficit alter." Neither tie yourself down to any slavish system, nor make it a rule to be delighted because others are delighted. The great mob of persons who visit Italy have about as much soul as their portmanteaus. Their impudence in going thither, where they have no more right to be than in the garden of the Hesperides, is rank and glaring. There are scenes which lose some of their hallowing influence, when we know that stock-brokers and common-councilmen have cast their evil eyes upon them. To travel worthily through Italy is no slight task, and implies a mind of no mean intellectual powers and attainments. All animals who affix an aspirate to words and hung in chains on the frontiers, in terrorem. All animals who affect to admire what they do not understand, who know nothing of the ancient Roman tongue, who take no interest in the fine arts, to whom poetry is a dead letter, and music an annoyance, who think all rivers very much alike, and the Appian way greatly inferior to Fleet Street, should be treated after a similar fashion, with this difference, that their bodies should be given for dissection, to prevent the anatomical lecturers from complaining any longer of a dearth of subjects.

Perhaps you may wish to visit Switzerland? Your soul may long with a deep longing for the Alps, the Simplon, and the Glaciers,-for one intense gaze on the Rhine, Geneva, and Lucerne, one glorious ramble through Clarens and Lausanne. Then take with you Wall's new edition of Ebel's Guide through Switzerland, and you may safely plunge away into the abysses of the Julian, Noric, Carnic, Rhetian, and Helvetic Alps. If you are lost in the Canton of Zug, or frozen to death, on the 22d of July, on St Gothard, or get yourself jammed in, as we once did for three hours, in the entrance to the Grotto of Balme, or slip through a cleft of the Glaciers, or tumble over the Devil's Bridge,-it must be your own fault. Besides, your death will be a picturesque one, and ten to one whether you will ever be missed. The number of tourists who are swallowed up by avalanches, or who fall over icy precipices every year in Switzerland, is immense; and, on the whole, it is an easy and desirable mode of death. Look at that pic-nic party, for example, -consisting of one or two chatty elderly ladies, with their well-fed, goodnatured-looking husbands-old baronets, perhaps, and shareholders in a respectable banking esta-beginning with a vowel, should be whipped out of it, blishment in London, fat and comfortable,—their daughters, and their daughters' friends, their sons, and their sons' friends, the young ladies all very gay in white safin bonnets, pelerins, and parasols,—and the young gentlemen exceedingly smart, each in a fashionable summer costume ;—well, this pic-nic party, having selected a delightful spot to spread their table-cloth in the valley of Grindelwald, and having produced their cold fowls and their Johannisberg, are quite enraptured with the surrounding scene, and prodigiously hungry, and all very witty; and Master Augustus Fitzbubble is in the very act of pulling a merry-thought with Miss Celestina Amelia Tims, when a queer sort of noise is heard above on the Shreckhorn. Every body looks up; but, just as they look up, down comes an avalanche or a bit of a glacier! and in one moment the chatty elderly ladies are no more, and the worthy baronets, rather inclining to be roundbellied, are as flat as pancakes, and not a whit liker baronets than they are like beer-barrels, and the young ladies in the white satin bonnets, and the young gentlemen, each in a fashionable summer costume, are all as completely dead, and as thoroughly ground to powder, as if they had lain in the earth a hundred years, and Master Augustus Fitzbubble and Miss Celestina Amelia Tims are, in every human probability, still grasping the chicken's merrythought twenty fathoms down under the mountainous mass of ice; and of all the pic-nic party nothing now is visible but a single blue plate containing a small slice of cold tongue, which, by some unaccountable mystery, has escaped untouched. Yet there is the Shreckhorn, and the Wetterhorn, and the Mettenberg, still lifting calmly their sunny peaks far into the blue sky, and looking perfectly innocent and unconscious of the catastrophe which has taken place. And why should they not? Is it not as well that our pic-nic party has died in the valley of the Grindelwald, as of a set of painful and lingering diseases in their respective beds? On the

Perhaps, being a Scotchman, you may wish to visit England? It is a highly proper wish, and cannot be too speedily gratified. The indefatigable Samuel Leigh will supply you with an admirable pocket road-book; or, what do you think of the eighteenth edition of Paterson's Roads, one of the very best itineraries in any language? With regard to your route, if you ask our private and confidential opinion as a friend, we seriously advise you to limit yourself this season to Westmoreland. There you will find yourself in the midst of enchantment and variety enough to last you for months. If you start from Edinburgh, one day takes you to either Penrith or Kendal, and from either of these places, the Lakes and all their beautiful scenery are at your command. Suppose you set out from Penrith ;-you cross the country (and a rich and fertile country it is) to Ulls Water; you sail up Ulls Water, (about nine miles,) and, when you come in sight of Patterdale, and the mountains at the head, with the long glens running up between them, in several instances wild and profound, and in others soft and green, and full of trees and cottages, if you are not smitten with deep delight, not unsanctified with a touch of awe, you may as well come back to Edinburgh with all expedition, drink thirteen bottles of port at a sitting, and be found dead in your bed next morning. Hark! there is thunder among the mountains ;-how splendidly the echoes prolong the peal! Is it not noble thus to stand on the summit of

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