a good deal at Copet, where I have met him a few times. All there are well, except Rocca, who, I am sorry to say, looks in a very bad state of health. Schlegel is in high force, and Madame as brilliant as ever. “I came here by the Netherlands and the Rhine route, and Basle, Berne, Morat, and Lausanne. I have circumnavigated the Lake, and go to Chamouni with the first fair weather; but really we have had lately such stupid mists, fogs, and perpetual density, that one would think Castlereagh had the Foreign Affairs of the kingdom of Heaven also on his hands. I need say nothing to you of these parts, you having traversed them already. I do not think of Italy before September. I have read Glenarvon, and have also seen Ben. Constant's Adolphe, and his preface, denying the real people. It is a work which leaves an unpleasant impression, but very consistent with the consequences of not being in love, which is perhaps as disagreeable as any thing, except being so. I doubt, however, whether all such liens (as he calls them) terminate so wretchedly as his hero and heroine's. "There is a third Canto (a longer than either of the former) of Childe Harold finished, and some smaller things,-among them a story on the Chateau de Chillon; I only wait a good opportunity to transmit them to the grand Murray, who, I hope, flourishes. Where is Moore? Why is he not out? My love to him, and my perfect consideration and remembrances to all, particularly to Lord and Lady Holland, and to your Dutchess of Somerset. "Ever, &c. "P.S. I send you a fac simile, a note of Bonstetten's, thinking you might like to see the hand of Gray's correspondent." LETTER CCXLV. TO MR. MURRAY. "Diodati, Sept. 29th, 1816. "I am very much flattered by Mr. Gifford's good opinion of the MSS., and shall be still more so, if it answers your expectations and justifies his kindness. I liked it myself, but that must go for nothing. The feelings with which most of it was written need not be envied me. With regard to the price, I fixed none, but left it to Mr. Kinnaird, Mr. Shelley, and yourself, to arrange. Of course, they would do their best; and as to yourself, I knew you would make no difficulties. But I agree with Mr. Kinnaird perfectly, that the concluding five hundred should be only conditional; and for my own sake, I wish it to be added, only in case of your selling a certain number, that number to be fixed by yourself. I hope this is fair. In every thing of this kind there must be risk; and till that be past, in one way or the other, I would not willingly add to it, particularly in times like the present. And pray always recollect that nothing could mortify me more-no failure on my own part-than having made you lose by any purchase from me. "The Monody was written by request of Mr. Kinnaird for the * A Monody on the death of Sheridan, which was spoken at Drury-lane theatre. theatre. I did as well as I could; but where I have not my choice, I pretend to answer for nothing. Mr. Hobhouse and myself are just returned from a journey of lakes and mountains. We have been to the Grindelwald, and the Jungfrau, and stood on the summit of the Wengen Alp; and seen torrents of nine hundred feet in fall, and glaciers of all dimensions; we have heard shepherd's pipes, and avalanches, and looked on the clouds foaming up from the valleys below us, like the spray of the ocean of hell. Chamouni, and that which it inherits, we saw a month ago; but, though Mont Blanc is higher, it is not equal in wildness to the Jungfrau, the Eighers, the Shreckhorn, and the Rose Glaciers. "We set off for Italy next week. The road is within this month infested with bandits, but we must take our chance and such precautions as are requisite. "P.S. My best remembrances to Mr. Gifford. can be said from me to him. "Ever, &c. Pray say all that "I am sorry that Mr. Maturin did not like Phillips' picture. I thought it was reckoned a good one. If he had made the speech on the original, perhaps he would have been more readily forgiven by the proprietor and the painter of the portrait." LETTER CCXLVI. TO MR. MURRAY. "Diodati, Sept. 30th, 1816. "I answered your obliging letters yesterday: to-day the Monody arrived with its title-page, which is, I presume, a separate publication, The request of a friend :' 'Obliged by hunger and request of friends." I will request you to expunge that same, unless you please to add, by a person of quality,' or 'of wit and honour about town.' Merely say, written to be spoken at Drury-lane.' To-morrow I dine at Copet. Saturday I strike tents for Italy. This evening, on the lake in my boat with Mr. Hobhouse, the pole which sustains the mainsail slipped in tacking, and struck me so violently on one of my legs (the worst, luckily), as to make me do a foolish thing, viz. to faint-a downright swoon; the thing must have jarred some nerve or other, for the bone is not injured, and hardly painful (it is six hours since), and cost Mr. Hobhouse some apprehension and much sprinkling of water to recover me. The sensation was a very odd one: I never had but two such before, once from a cut on the head from a stone, several years ago, and once (long ago also) in falling into a great wreath of snow--a sort of gray giddiness first, then nothingness and a total loss of memory on beginning to recover. The last part is not disagreeable, if one did not find it again. "You want the original MSS. Mr. Davies has the first fair copy in my own hand, and I have the rough composition here, and will send or save it for you, since you wish it. "With regard to your new literary project, if any thing falls in the way which will, to the best of my judgment, suit you, I will send you what I can. At present I must lay by a little, having pretty well exhausted myself in what I have sent you. Italy or Dalmatia and another summer may, or may not, set me off again. I have no plans, and am nearly as indifferent what may come as where I go. I shall take Felicia Heman's Restoration, &c. with me; it is a good poem-very. "Pray repeat my best thanks and remembrances to Mr. Gifford for all his trouble and good-nature towards me. "Do not fancy me laid up, from the beginning of this scrawl. I tell you the accident for want of better to say; but it is over, and I am only wondering what the deuse was the matter with me. "I have lately been over all the Bernese Alps and their lakes. I think many of the scenes (some of which were not those usually frequented by the English) finer than Chamouni, which I visited some time before. I have been to Clarens again, and crossed the mountains behind it: of this tour I kept a short journal for my sister, which I sent yesterday in three letters. It is not all for perusal; but if you like to hear about the romantic part, she will, I dare say, show you what touches upon the rocks, &c. "Christabel-I won't have any one sneer at Christabel: it is a fine wild poem. "Madame de Staël wishes to see the Antiquary, and I am going to take it to her to-morrow. She has made Copet as agreeable as society and talent can make any place on earth. "Yours, ever, "N." From the Journal mentioned in the foregoing letter, I am enabled to give the following extracts. EXTRACTS FROM A JOURNAL. "September, 18th, 1816. "Yesterday, September 17th, I set out with Mr. Hobhouse on an excursion of some days to the mountains. "September 17th. "Rose at five; left Diodati about seven, in one of the country carriages (a char-à-banc), our servants on horseback. Weather very fine; the lake calm and clear; Mont Blanc and the Aiguille of Argentières both very distinct; the borders of the lake beautiful. Reached Lausanne before sunset; stopped and slept at Went to bed at nine; slept till five o'clock. "September 18th. "Called by my courier; got up. Hobhouse walked on before. A mile from Lausanne, the road overflowed by the lake; got on horseback, and rode till within a mile of Vevay. The colt young, but went very well. Overtook Hobhouse, and resumed the carriage, which is an open one. Stopped at Vevay two hours (the second time I had visited it); walked to the church; view from the churchyard superb; within it General Ludlow (the regicide's) monument-black marble long inscription-Latin, but simple; he was an exile two-and-thirty years-one of king Charles's judges. Near him Broughton (who read King Charles's sentence to Charles Stuart) is buried, with a queer and rather canting, but still a republican, inscription. Ludlow's house shown; it retains still its inscription- Omne solum forti patria.' Walked down to the lake side; servants, carriage, saddle-horses— all set off and left us plantés là, by some mistake, and we walked on after them towards Clarens; Hobhouse ran on before, and overtook them at last. Arrived the second time (first time was by water) at Clarens. Went to Chillon through scenery worthy of I know not whom; went over the Castle of Chillon again. On our return met an English party in a carriage; a lady in it fast asleep-fast asleep in the most anti-narcotic spot in the world-excellent! I remember at Chamouni, in the very eyes of Mont Blanc, hearing another woman, English also, exclaim to her party, 'Did you ever see any thing more rural?-as if it was Highgate, or Hampstead, or Brompton, or Hayes -Rural quotha?-Rocks, pines, torrents, glaciers, clouds, and summits of eternal snow far above them—and ‘rural!' "After a slight and short dinner we visited the Chateau de Clarens ; an English woman has rented it recently (it was not let when I saw it first); the roses are gone with their summer; the family out, but the servants desired us to walk over the interior of the mansion. Saw on the table of the saloon Blair's Sermons, and somebody else (I forget who's) sermons, and a set of noisy children. Saw all worth seeing, and then descended to the Bosquet de Julie,' &c. &c.; our guide full of Rousseau, whom he is eternally confounding with St. Preux, and mixing the man and the book. Went again as far as Chillon to revisit the little torrent from the hill behind it. Sunset reflected in the lake. Have to get up at five to-morrow to cross the mountains on horseback; carriage to be sent round; lodged at my old cottage-hospitable and comfortable; tired with a longish ride on the colt, and the subsequent jolting of the char-à-banc, and my scramble in the hot sun. "Mem. The corporal who showed the wonders of Chillon was as drunk as Blucher; he was deaf also, and thinking every one else so, roared out the legends of the castle so fearfully. However, we saw things from the gallows to the dungeons (the potence and the cachots), and returned to Clarens with more freedom than belonged to the fifteenth century. "September 19th. "Rose at five. Crossed the mountains to Montbovon on horseback, and on mules, and, by dint of scrambling, on foot also; the whole route beautiful as a dream, and now to me almost as indistinct, I am so tired; for though healthy, I have not the strength I possessed but a few years ago. At Montbovon we breakfasted; afterward, on a steep ascent, dismounted; tumbled down; cut a finger open; the baggage also got loose and fell down a ravine, till stopped by a large tree; recovered baggage; horse tired and drooping; mounted mule. At the approach of the summit of Dent Jument* dismounted again with Hobhouse and all the party. Arrived at a lake in the very bosom of the mountains; left our quadrupeds with a shepherd, and ascended farther; came to some snow in patches, upon which my forehead's perspiration fell like rain, making the same dints as in a * Dent de Jaman, ' sieve; the chill of the wind and the snow turned me giddy, but 1 scrambled on and upwards. Hobhouse went to the highest pinnacle; I did not, but paused within a few yards (at an opening of the cliff). In coming down, the guide tumbled three times; I fell a laughing, and tumbled too-the descent luckily soft, though steep and slippery: Hobhouse also fell, but nobody hurt. The whole of the mountains superb. A shepherd on a very steep and high cliff playing upon his pipe; very different from Arcadia, where I saw the pastors with a long musket instead of a crook, and pistols in their girdles. Our Swiss shepherd's pipe was sweet, and his tune agreeable. I saw a cow strayed; am told that they often break their necks on and over the crags. Descended to Montbovon; pretty scraggy village, with a wild river and a wooden bridge. Hobhouse went to fish-caught one. Our carriage not come; our horses, mules, &c. knocked up; ourselves fatigued. "The view from the highest points of to-day's journey comprised on one side the greatest part of Lake Leman; on the other, the valleys and mountain of the canton of Fribourg, and an immense plain, with the lakes of Neufchâtel and Morat, and all which the borders of the Lake of Geneva inherit; we had both sides of the Jura before us in one point of view, with Alps in plenty. In passing a ravine, the guide recommended strenuously a quickening of pace, as the stones fall with great rapidity and occasional damage; the advice is excellent, but, like most good advice, impracticable, the road being so rough that neither mules, nor mankind, nor horses, can make any violent progress. Passed without fractures or menace thereof. "The music of the cow's bells (for their wealth, like the patriarch's, is cattle) in the pastures, which reach to a height far above any mountains in Britain, and the shepherds shouting to us from crag to crag, and playing on their reeds where the steeps appeared almost inaccessible, with the surrounding scenery, realized all that I have ever heard or imagined of a pastoral existence:-much more so than Greece or Asia Minor; for there we are a little too much of the sabre and musket order, and if there is a crook in one hand, you are sure to see a gun in the other:-but this was pure and unmixed-solitary, savage, and patriarchal. As we went, they played the 'Rans des Vaches' and other airs, by way of farewell. I have lately repeopled my mind with nature. sea. 66 September 20th. "Up at six; off at eight. The whole of this day's journey at an average of between from 2700 to 3000 feet above the level of the This valley, the longest, narrowest, and considered the finest of the Alps, little traversed by travellers. Saw the bridge of La Roche. The bed of the river very low and deep, between immense rocks, and rapid as anger;-a man and mule said to have tumbled over without damage. The people looked free, and happy, and rich (which last implies neither of the former); the cows superb; a bull nearly leaped into the char-à-banc-agreeable companion in a postchaise;' goats and sheep very thriving. A mountain with enormous glaciers to the right-the Klitzgerberg; farther on, the Hockthorn-nice names-so soft!-Stockhorn, I believe, very lofty and scraggy, patched with snow only; no glaciers on it, but some good epaulettes of clouds. "Passed the boundaries, out of Vaud and into Berne canton; French exchanged for bad German; the district famous for cheese, liberty, |