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.

Swiss Lowlands, July 29, 1840.

23... We have left the mountains and lakes of Switzerland, and are entering upon the Lowlands, which, like those of Scotland, are always unduly depreciated by being compared with their Highlands. The Swiss Lowlands are a beautiful country of hill or valley-never flat, and never barren;—a country like the best parts of Shropshire or Worcestershire. They are beautifully watered-almost all the rivers flowing out of lakes, and keeping a full body of water all the year, and they are extremely well wooded, besides the wooded appearance given to the country by its numerous walnut, pear, and apple trees. They are also a well inhabited and apparently a flourishing country; nor could I ever discern that difference between the Protestant and Catholic Cantons, under similar circumstances, which some of our writers have seen or fancied. As for the present aspect of the country-the corn is cutting but not cut; and much of it has been sadly laid. Vines there are none hereabouts, nor maize, but plenty of good grass, apple and pear trees, and walnuts numberless,-hemp, potatoes, and The views behind the mountains are and will be magnificent all the way till we get over the Hauenstein hills, the continuation of the Jura, and we are now ascending from the valley of the Reuss to get over to the feeder of the Aar-the great river of the Bernese Oberland and of Bern.

corn.

August 6, 1843 — St Omer-And Fare is dead, and we have left mrs Frai vi eny Odles and a dings and feelings Font sem gang segame-cares of carriage-cares of passpun—are if ms- £ postes and of Pavé-and there DE VILA me the hotel ars of my wish for the last sera veris late sumbered. In many things the beginning and ei in lå av ure so then it a tr - Cœlum non BLUMEN TITANS pu tas mate is in my case doubly false. ly not as we fra my bone self to my travelling self, and then as my bime self back ag On this day seven weeks I traveled the mAT SLE. is Epearance in that interval is no doubt Land, doves are gone by, and com is yellow which was green; bo I am thanged ea more-changed in my appetites and in my mpressus. fe then I maved beomotion and rest from mental ▼a—com I deure so reman still as to place, and to set my mind to với qua :—then I looked at everything on the road with interest, innking in eagerly a sense of the reality of foreign objects —Dow I only notice car 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 kong 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. Où mónu diapées äviewπos ávfgwπou, 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.

25. Left Dover, 7.45. What am I to say of this perfect road and perfect posting; of the greenness and neatness of everything, 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 everybody'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 7, 1840.

26. Even whilst I write, the houses of the neighbourhood of London are being left behind, and these bright green quiet fields of Middlesex are succeeding one another like lightning. So we have passed London -no one can tell when again I may re-visit it;—and foreign parts, having now all London between me and them, are sunk away into an unreality, while Rugby and Fox How are growing very substantial. We are now just at Harrow; and here too harvest, I see, has begun. And now we are in Hertfordshire, crossing the valley of the Coln at Watford. Watford station, 5.54. Left it, 5.56. Tring station, 6.28. Left it, 6.30. And now we are descending the chalk escarpment, and it may be some time before I set my eyes upon chalk again. Here, too, in Buckinghamshire, I see that the harvest is begun. Leighton Buzzard station, 6.48. Left it, 6.51. This speed is marvellous, for we have not yet been two hours on our journey, and here we are in the very bowels of the kingdom, above 110 miles from Dover, and not quite 240 from you, my boys. Here is the iron sand, and we shall soon come upon our old friend the

Oolite. The country looks delicious under the evening sun. SO green and rich and peaceful. Wolverton station and the food. 7.15. Left it, 7.27. Blisworth station, 7.53. Left it, 7.56. And now we are fairly in Northamptonshire, and in our own Rugby ecantry in a manner, because we come here on the Kingsthorpe clay.

August 9, 1840.

27. Left Milnethorpe, 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 treble 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 everything, 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 roadside; and the turf and flowers are more delicately beautiful than anything 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 everything 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, 9.41. 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.

XI.

TOUR IN SOUTH OF FRANCE.

July 4, 1841.

1. I have been reading Bunsen's Liturgy for the Holy or Passion Week, with his Introduction. He has spoken out many truths, which to the wretched theology of our schools would be startling and shocking: but they are not hard truths, but real Christian truths spoken in love, such as St. Paul spoke, and was called profane by the Judaizers for doing so. It will be a wonderful day when the light breaks in upon our High Churchmen and Evangelicals: how many it will dazzle and how many it will enlighten, God only knows but it will be felt, and the darkness will be broken up before it.

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