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. Οι 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 4s. 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 homeare 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 ducking bench, 9.12. The valley opens-Ambleside, and Rydal Park, and the gallery on Loughrigg. Rotha Bridge, 9.16. And here is the poor humbled Rotha, and Mr. Brancker's Cut, and the new Millar Bridge, 9.21. Alas! for the alders 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. St. Jean de Luz, July 11th, 1841. 1. It is this very day year that we were at Mola da Gaeta together, and I do not suppose it possible to conceive a greater contrast than Mola da 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. Auch, July 14, 1841. 2. 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. Between Angoulême and Bordeaux, July 7, 1841. 3. 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. 4. .... Bourges, July 18. 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, chaunting 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. Near Agen, July 14. 5. 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 Nie |