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 corn. 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. August 6, 1840. cares of 24. 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,carriage, cares of passport, cares of inns, cares of postilions 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. "Coelum 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 everything 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 πολυ διαφέρε 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.. 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 honor, 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 plaguespots, 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 neighborhood 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 revisit it; and foreign parts, having now all Londr 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 country 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 neighbor, 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 whole some 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 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 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 Bow ness 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. Between Angoulême and Bordeaux, July 7, 1841. 2. 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 coloring 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; everything 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. July 10, 1841. 3. I find that the dialect here is not Basque after all, but Gascon, that is, merely a Lingua Romana, more or less differing from the northern French. I fancied that I could understand some of the words, which I certainly could not have done in Basque. The postmaster of S. Paul les Dax, a good-humored, loquacious old gentleman, told me that "une femme" in their patois was une Henne," a curious instance of the II taking place of the F, as in Spanish, Hijo for Filius. Close by the last post we saw the church-spire of Pouy, the native place of Vincentius of Paula, a man worthy of all memory. I have just seen the PYRENEES, lowering down 66 |