ed; and I cannot help thinking of the mercenary Swiss of Novara and Marignano, and of the oppression exercised over the Italian bailiwicks and the Pays de Vaud, and all the tyrannical exclusiveness of these little barren oligarchies, as much as of the heroic deeds of the three men, Tell and his comrades, or of the self-devotion of my namesake of Winkelried, when at Sempach he received into his breast" a sheaf of Austrian spears." Steamer on the Lake of Luzern, July 29, 1840. 18. We arrived at Fluelen about half-past eight, and having had some food, and most commendable food it was, we are embarked on the Lake of Luzern, and have already passed Brünnen, and are outside the region of the high Alps. It would be difficult certainly for a Swiss to admire our lakes, because he would ask, what is there here which we have not, and which we have not on a larger scale. I cannot deny that the meadows here are as green as ours, the valleys richer, the woods thicker, the cliffs grander, the mountains by measurement twice or three times higher. And if Switzerland were my home and country, the English lakes and mountains would certainly never tempt me to travel to see them, destitute as they are of all historical interest. In fact, Switzerland is to Europe, what Cumberland and Westmoreland are to Lancashire and Yorkshire; the general summer touring place. But all country that is actually beautiful, is capable of affording to those who live in it the highest pleasure of scenery, which no country, however beautiful, can do to those who merely travel in it; and thus while I do not dispute the higher interest of Switzerland to a Swiss, (no Englishman ought to make another country his home, and therefore I do not speak of Englishmen,) I must still maintain that to me Fairfield is a hundred times more beautiful than the Righi, and Windermere than the Lake of the Four Cantons. Not that I think this is overvalued by travellers, it cannot be so; but most people undervalue greatly what mountains are, when they form a part of our daily life, and combine not with our hours of leisure, of wandering, and of enjoyment, but with those of home life, of work and of duty. Luzern, July 29. We accomplished the passage of the lake in about three hours, and most beautiful it was all the way. And now, as in 1827, I recognise the forms of our common English country, and should be bidding adieu to mountains, and preparing merely for our Rugby lanes and banks, and Rugby work, were it not for the delightful excrescence of a tour which we hope to make to Fox How, and three or four days' enjoyment of our own mountains, hallowed by our English Church, and hallowed scarcely less by our English Law. Alas, the difference between Church and Law, and clergy and lawyers; but so in human things the concrete ever adds unworthiness to the abstract. I have been sure for many years that the subsiding of a tour, if I may so speak, is quite as delightful as its swelling; I call it its subsiding, when one passes by common things indifferently, and even great things with a fainter interest, because one is so strongly thinking of home and of the returning to ordinary relations and duties. August 6, 1840. 19. Arrived at St. Omer-And Pavé is dead, and we have left our last French town except Calais, and all things and feelings French seem going to sleep in me,-cares of carriage-cares of passport-cares of inns-cares of postillions and of Pavé, and there revive within me the habitual cares of my life, which for the last seven weeks have slumbered. In many things the beginning and end are different, in few more so than in a tour. "Cœlum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt," is in my case doubly false. My mind changes twice, from my home self to my travelling self, and then to my home self back again. On this day seven weeks I travelled this very stage; its appearance in that interval is no doubt altered; flowers are gone by, and corn is yellow which was green; but I am changed even more-changed in my appetites and in my impressions; for then I craved locomotion and rest from mental work-now I desire to remain still as to place, and to set my mind to work again;— then I looked at every thing on the road with interest, drinking in eagerly a sense of the reality of foreign objects-now I only notice our advance homeward, and foreign objects seem to be things with which I have no concern. But it is not that I feel any way tired of things and persons French, only that I do so long for things and persons English. I never felt more keenly the wish to see the peace between the two countries perpetual; never could I be more indignant at the folly and wickedness which on both sides of the water are trying to rekindle the flames of war. The one effect of the last war ought to be to excite in both nations the greatest mutual respect. France, with the aid of half Europe, could not conquer England; England, with the aid of all Europe, never could have overcome France, had France been zealous and united in Napoleon's quarrel. When Napoleon saw kings and princes bowing before him at Dresden, Wellington was advancing victoriously in Spain; when a million of men in 1815 were invading France, Napoleon engaged for three days with two armies, each singly equal to his own, and was for two days victorious. Equally and utterly false are the follies uttered by silly men of both countries, about the certainty of one beating the other. Οὐ πόλυ διαφέρει ἄνθρωπος ἀνθρώπου, is especially applicable here. When Englishmen and Frenchmen meet in war, each may know that they will meet in the other all a soldier's qualities, skill, activity, and undaunted courage, with bodies able to do the bidding of the spirit either in action or in endurance. England and France may do each other incalculable mischief by going to war, both physically and morally; but they can gain for themselves, or hope to gain nothing. It were an accursed wish in either to wish to destroy the other, and happily the wish would be as utterly vain as it would be wicked. August 6, 1840. 20. Left Dover, 7.45. What am I to say of this perfect road and perfect posting; of the greenness and neatness of every thing, the delicate miniature scale of the country,-the art of the painter held in honour, and extending even to barns and railings, of the manifest look of spring and activity and business which appears in every body's movements? The management of the Commissioner at Dover in getting the luggage through the Custom House, was a model of method and expedition, and so was the attendance at the inns. All this fills me with many thoughts, amongst which the prevailing one certainly is not pride; for with the sight of all this there instantly comes into my mind the thought of our sad plague spots, the canker worm in this beautiful and goodly fruit corrupting it within. But I will not dwell on this now,-personally, I may indulge in the unspeakable delight of being once again in our beloved country, with our English Church and English Law. August 9, 1840. 21. Left Milnthorpe, 6.21. My last day's journal, I hope, dearest, and then the faithful inkstand which has daily hung at my button-hole may retire to his deserved rest. Our tea last night was incomparable; such ham, such bread and butter, such cake, and then came this morning a charge of 48. 6d. for our joint bed and board; when those scoundrels in Italy, whose very life is roguery, used to charge double and triple for their dog fare and filthy rooms. Bear witness Capua, and that vile Swiss-Italian woman whom I could wish to have been in Capua (Casilinum) when Hannibal besieged it, and when she must either have eaten her shoes, or been eaten herself by some neighbour, if she had not been too tough and indigestible. But, dearest, there are other thoughts within me as I look out on this delicious valley (we are going down to Levens) on this Sunday morning. How calm and beautiful is every thing, and here, as we know, how little marred by any extreme poverty. And yet do these hills and valleys, any more than those of the Apennines, send up an acceptable incense? Both do as far as nature is concerned-our softer glory and that loftier glory each in their kind render their homage, and God's work so far is still very good. But with our just laws and pure faith, and here with a wholesome state of property besides, is there yet the Kingdom of God here any more than in Italy? How can there be? For the Kingdom of God is the perfect development of the Church of God: and when Priestcraft destroyed the Church, the Kingdom of God became an impossibility. We have now entered the Winster Valley, and are got precisely to our own slates again, which we left yesterday week in the Vosges. The strawberries and raspberries hang red to the sight by the road side; and the turf and flowers are more delicately beautiful than any thing which I have seen abroad. The mountains, too, are in their softest haze; I have seen Old Man and the Langdale Pikes rising behind the nearer hills most beautifully. We have just opened on Windermere, and vain it is to talk of any earthly beauty ever equalling this country in my eyes; when mingling with every form and sound and fragrance, comes the full thought of domestic affections, and of national, and of Christian; here is our own house and home-here are our own country's laws and language, and here is our English Church. No Mola di Gaeta, no valley of the Velino, no Salerno or Vietri, no Lago di Pie di Lugo can rival to me this vale of Windermere, and of the Rotha. And here it lies in the perfection of its beauty, the deep shadows on the unruffled water-the haze investing Fairfield with every thing solemn and undefined. Arrived at Bowness, 8.20. Left it at 8.31. Passing Ragrigg Gate, 8.37. On the Bowness Terrace, 8.45. Over Troutbeck Bridge, 8.51. Here is Ecclerigg, 8.58. And here Lowood Inn, 9.4. And here Waterhead and our Auckingbench, 9.12. The valley opens-Ambleside, and Rydal Park, and the gallery on Loughrigg. Rotha Bridge, 9.16. And here is poor humbled Rotha, and Mr. Brancker's cut, and the New Millar Bridge, 9.21. Alas! for the aiders gone and succeeded by a stiff wall. Here is the Rotha in his own beauty, and here is poor T. Flemming's field, and our own mended gate. Dearest children, may we meet happily. Entered FOX HOW, and the birch copse at 9.25, and here ends journal.-Walter first saw us, and gave notice of our approach. We found all our dear children well, and Fox How in such beauty, that no scene in Italy appeared in my eyes comparable to it. We breakfasted, and at a quarter before eleven, I had the happiness of once more going to an English Church, and that Church our own beloved Rydal Chapel. X. TOUR IN SOUTH OF FRANCE. Between Angoulême and Bordeaux, July 7, 1841. 1. Left Barbiceaux 10.35, very rich and beautiful. It is not properly southern, for there are neither olives nor figs; nor is it northern, for the vines and maize are luxuriant. It is properly France, with its wide landscapes, no mountains, but slopes and hills; its luminous air, its spread of cultivation, with the vines and maize and walnuts, mixed with the ripe corn, as brilliant in colouring as it is rich in its associations. I never saw a brighter or a fresher landscape. Green hedges line the road; the hay, just cut, is fragrant; every thing is really splendid for man's physical well being-it is Kent six degrees nearer the sun. Nor are there wanting church towers enough to sanctify the scene, if one could believe that with the stone church there was also the living Church, and not the accursed Priestcraft. But, alas! a Priest is not a Church, but that which renders a Church impossible. St. Jean de Luz, July 11, 1841. 2. It is this very day year that we were at Mola di Gaeta together, and I do not suppose it possible to conceive a greater contrast than Mola di Gaeta on the 11th of July, 1840, and S. Jean de Luz on the 11th of July, 1841. The lake-like calm of that sea, and the howling fury of this ocean, the trees few and meagre, shivering from the blasts of the Atlantic, and the umbrageous bed of oranges, peaches and pomegranates, which there delighted in the freshness of that gentle water;-the clear sky and bright moon, and the dark mass of clouds and drizzle,-the remains of Roman palaces and the fabled scene of Homer's poetry, and a petty French fishing town, with its coasting Chasse Marées; these are some of the points of the contrast. Yet those vile Italians are the refuse of the Roman slaves, crossed by a thousand conquests; and these Basques are the very primeval Iberians, who were the most warlike of the nations of the West, before the Kelts had ever come near the shores of the Mediterranean. And the little pier, which I have been just looking at, was the spot where Sir Charles Penrose found the Duke of Wellington alone at the dead of night, when anxious about the weather for the passage of the Adour, he wished to observe its earliest signs before other men had left their beds. Near Agen, July 14. 3. For some time past the road has been a terrace above the lower bank of the Garonne, which is flowing in great breadth and majesty below us. From these heights, in clear weather, you can see the Pyrenees, but now the clouds hang darkly over them. One thing I should have noticed of Agen, that it is the birth-place of Joseph Scaliger, in some respects the Niebuhr of the seventeenth century, but rather the Bentley morally far below Niebuhr; and though, like Bentley, almost rivalling him in acuteness, and approaching somewhat to him in knowledge, yet altogether without his wisdom. Auch, July 14, 1841. 4. At supper we were reading a Paris paper, Le Siècle; but the one thing which struck me, and rejoiced my very heart, was an advertisement in it of a most conspicuous kind, and in very large letters, of LA SAINTE BIBLE, announcing an edition, in numbers, of De Sacy's French translation of it. I can conceive nothing but good from such a thing. May God prosper it to His glory, and the salvation of souls; it was a joyful and a blessed sight to see it. Bourges, July 18. 5.. We found the afternoon service going on at the Cathedral, and the archbishop, with his priests and the choristers, were going round the church in procession, chanting some of their hymns, and with a great multitude of people following them. The effect was very fine, and I again lamented our neglect of our cathedrals, and the absurd confusion in so many men's minds between what is really Popery and what is but wisdom and beauty, adopted by the Roman Catholics and neglected by us. Paris, July 20, 1841. 6. I have been observing the people in the streets very carefully, and their general expression is not agreeable, that of the young men especially. The newspapers seem all gone mad together, and these disturbances at Toulouse are very sad and unsatisfactory. If that advertisement which I saw about La Sainte Bible be found to answer, that would be the great specific for France. And what are our prospects at home with the Tory government? and how long will it be before Chartism again forces itself upon our notice? So where is the hope, humanly speaking, of things bettering, or are the λοιμοί and λιμοι, πόλεμοι and ἀκοαὶ Roλéμov, ready to herald a new advent of the Lord to judgment? The questions concerning our state appear to me so perplexing, that I cannot even in theory see their solution. We have not and cannot yet solve the problem, how the happiness of mankind is reconcileable with the necessity of painful labour. The happiness of a part can be secured easily enough, their ease being provided for by others' labour; but how can the happiness of the generality be secured, who must labour of necessity painfully? How can he who labours hard for his daily bread-hardly, and with doubtful success-be made wise and good, and therefore how can he be made happy? This question undoubtedly the Church was meant to solve; for Christ's Kingdom was to undo the evil of Adam's sin; but the Church has not solved it, nor attempted to do so; and no one else has gone about it rightly. This is the great bar to education. How can a poor man find time to be educated? You may establish schools, but he will not have time to attend them, for a few years of early boyhood are no more enough to give education, than the spring months can do the summer's work when the summer is all cold and rainy. But I must go to bed, and try to get home to you and to work, for there is great need of working. God bless you, my dearest wife, with all our darlings. |