The following Sunday found me alone-alas! no unusual circumstance with me and having paid my usual visit to my café, and attended the services of Cheneviere, père, at the cathedral, I began to think of something wherewith to fill up the five long hours which must elapse before dinner. What shall I do?-idle on the quay, or mingle with the crowds who now are thronging from the churches to gossip on the promenades?-not without amusement, indeed, in company of a keen observer, but alone!—alone!—no, no, it will only make my solitude more sensible. So I finally arranged with myself to take a walk. I will push out, said I, into the country and enjoy the fresh air, and from a distance look back upon this Babel, which now oppresses me with a sense of solitude. Now there is apparently just outside the Boulevards, though in fact five miles distant, a long, walllike ridge of limestone mountains which had often piqued my curiosity and sometimes awakened less Christian feelings. How well do I remember one evening in particular! I was sitting on the Bastion de Chante Poulet in that dreamy kind of humour which can scarcely bear any interruption to the soothing stillness of the summer air farther than the humming of a gnat, when above that white wall rose the gorgeous summit of Mont Blanc, surrounded by the Aiguilles, and glowing successively with the gold and pink hues shed upon it by the setting sun. It was a scene of beauty never to be forgotten; and leaning over the rail which separated me from the Lake, I gazed and gazed until I was so absorbed by the loveliness and grandeur of the view, that a footfall or the touch of a finger would have sent me leaping into the water beneath me! What a splendid object, thought I, would Mont Blanc now present, could it be seen from the summit to the base; and but for that limestone mass, this miracle of, beauty would be reIvealed to me. To scale this mass, then, and look upon the monarch in his very courts, had long been a cherished object with me; and like a child who longs to see the golden dreams of his infancy reduced to as many golden realities on the map of futurity, so I desired from those envious heights to look down on the bright and varied prospect, and over to that giant mountain around whose fancied wonders my imagination had long played. Well, said I, there may be time to reach it; at all events, I will walk in the direction of the Saleve, and threaten it, and tell it how great the grudge I owe it for having shut me out from so much enjoyment. And so I took the road towards Annecy, and for a moment forgot Saleve and Mont Blanc in thinking of Rousseau; for Annecy, as you know, is sacred to the memory of that unhappy, morbid genius. In every village, as I passed it, the people were swarming out of church and enacting on a small scale the same part which was being enacted in the great city; for man is the same wherever you find him; and thus at Carouge, just as at Geneva, the distingués of the little town were flocking to the Plâce to gossip over the events of the week, and gleam for one short hour in all their scanty finery before the astonished eyes of the awe-struck peasantry. However much I might have desired to go on to Annecy or linger in the Plâce of Carouge, I determined to keep my first object in view; so turning off to the left by a short ascent, I entered on a wild, heathery kind of plain which extended to the foot of the Saleve. The view hence back upon Geneva is very striking, and the wider field of pros

pect I had now gained was just enough to make me jump and desire to gain still a greater height, in order to look down upon beauties which were dwarfed whilst I was in the midst of them, or lost when seen in detail. Just as in life we pass through many a flowery mead and through many a shady lane all overbranched by trees and odorous of a thousand flowers, almost unconscious of the blessings of our lot, so I wandered on from shrub to shrub, not dreaming of what a scene of loveliness these would grow into when I had passed them by and looked down upon them en masse. Yet, in self-defence, I must say that I had some idea of it; for, as I told you, I jumped, thinking thus to have a larger field of view. Ah, how much happier should we be if each would take this jump in the daily walks of life, and gain a sight collectively of blessings which, by reason of their very minuteness and frequency and vicinity, are now lost-passed unheeded by! In Geneva I had felt solitary; but this feeling had long passed away; and, accompanied by an infinity of living creatures which, as on a gala day, had come out in their richest attire and were filling the air with their varied melodies, I pushed on my road towards Veyrier. Sometimes a light cart passed me, bearing from the city, whither he had gone up to worship, some substantial farmer or village shopkeeper, together with his family; and a 'pleasant sight it was, and much rather would I have looked upon it than on a royal equipage filled with gilded greatness. Thus stealing on from one point to another, unconscious of the lapse of time, and meeting at every step some fresh object of interest, I came face to face with that great mountain-wall which now shot up his giant proportions higher and higher, as if determined to dispute my passage. Braggart as thou art, said I, thy sides shall soon be scaled; and so, like another David, I girded up my loins for the encounter, which I assure you is not a slight one unless your chest be very strong. About a mile from the base, the road descends into rather a deep hollow; and on the declivity is the little village of Veyrier, the first, I believe, in this direction, in Savoy; and indeed, it was easy to see that two hours had produced a material change in the moral and religious aspect of the country through which I was passing. Here and there was fixed a cross or a Salvator Mundi; and as I stood before the church door, the peasants were repeating their rosario; and in the humble cemetery around the church each grave had, not its head-stone, but a cross-an eloquent and appropriate ornament, I have always thought, as if intended to shed the light of Christian hope and faith even on the darkness and the silence of the tomb. Once more, then, I was in a Catholic country; and with this conviction, every thing seemed to assume a new character. Nor was this change ideal merely; for so completely does religion modify the sentiments and habits of a people, that even in the outward circumstances of a Catholic and a Protestant country there exist differences wide as those which separate and distinguish the respective faiths. I had skirted round the church, and was passing under the wall of a shrubbery, when I heard a female voice reading English; and looking up, saw there the sweet face of one of my own charming, unrivalled country women. No extraordinary circumstance, indeed, in so lovely a spot, and so near Geneva; but just at that moment it startled as much as it pleased me. Had she been of any other country than my own, I should have raised my hat; but,

being an Englishwoman, it would have been mistaken for impertinence or servility; so I passed on, and, arriving at the base of the mountain, began the weary ascent. The path, which is in some parts nearly perpendicular, is cut in the rock, and is not a little fatiguing; but who thinks of the fatigue as he sees the prospect growing beneath his feet? What a sense of power I had as I mounted, and at every step created a landscape brighter, and more varied and more extended, than ever artist painted or poet dreamt of! Sometimes poising myself on one foot, and alternately rising or descending, I seemed to measure the effect which my power could produce, just as the painter lays aside his pencil now and then, and surveys each stroke with a not unpleased eye; and then again resuming my ascent, with more energy than before, I exulted in the wondrous scene of beauty which I had called into being. Yet I had passed through much of what I was now looking down upon during the morning's walk, unconscious of the beauty when presented in detail; but now that objects were seen in every lovely combination of form and colouring, I was more enchanted than I can tell you. There was between these several aspects the relation of the Present to the Past. The plain is the present hour. How flat and monotonous every object and incident appears! But mount the hills and look back. Lift your head from your pillow to-morrow morning, and review the events of yesterday. I must confess that I had not a little pleasure in overcoming, as I called it, the pertinacious obstinacy of the mountain. Ha! ha! said I, at every step I firmly fixed in his limestone sides, you would for ever have hidden from my view those wonders. But feel what the spirit of a man can do: if it cannot move mountains, it can overcome them; and so I mounted with fresh energy, almost smiling at the triumph I was accomplishing. At length I arrived at a large piece of table-land, the view whence, it is needless to say, is remarkably fine. Geneva in the distance, backed by the Jura and the silvery Lake, bordered by towns and villages, and specked with many a sail; and then, in the intervals between the great city and the mountain on which I stood, a rich and widely-extended plain, with patches of meadow ground and squares of yellow corn, all girdled round with trees. As yet, however, the snowy mountains are not visible; for this tableland leads into a narrow valley between two ridges of rocky mountain, which must be scaled before Mont Blanc can be seen. Somewhat it reminded me of the Valley of Rocks at Linton, in Devonshire; though here, perhaps, there was more of cultivated beauty, for the base of the ridges were yellow with corn, and in the distance might be seen some gardens surrounding a number of cottages. To-day, it was by no means a solitary if a rocky valley, for there were many there, grouped about in different directions-some seated in a mysterious circle under an old tree, discussing, as I discovered on approaching them, the contents of several covered baskets and well-corked bottles; others had finished their repast, and were bounding here and there in all the merry, enviable thoughtlessness of youth, or else strolling sentimentally along, uttering a thousand tender nothings. It was a pleasant sight to witness so much happiness on the sabbath morn; and I could not help thinking that He who had created this lovely valley, and had shed upon it so much beauty, must have felt some of the objects of His benevolence accomplished in the enjoyment which was every where visible.

Farther on in the valley there is a neat house, half-inn, half-farm, where I had intended to repose; but wishing to finish my labours first, I set out on another ascent, yet longer and more severe. After climbing from one to two hours more, the summit was at length attained; and though I have been on much loftier eminences, yet seldom have I witnessed a view so varied and perfect in all its details. I was now on the very highest point of the ridge to which I had often looked over with feelings almost approaching to personal wrath. Two vast plains lay beneath me, on my right and left; one bounded by the Jura, the other by the snowy mountains which shot up their peaks into the very heavens, as if in rivalry of their monarch, whose mighty mass now stood out in all its grandeur. Fill up these plains with town and village, and wood and meadow; imagine a great portion of the Lake, too, spread out to view, on which Geneva and Lausanne form prominent objects; add the effects of light and shade, aerial tints which the pen cannot describe, and you have at once the view from the Saleve. The panorama was perfect, embracing at once some of the grandest and loveliest objects in the world; and, unable to exhaust the scene, I kept turning with a restless eye from one point to another, till I became wearied with the very intensity of my enjoyment. It was far past mid-day; and certain strong symptoms of materiality warning me to descend, I turned to salute all the bright revelations of God's power and goodness which were there unfolded to me, and then, to render myself less conscious of what I was every moment losing, I set out on a good sharp run. In about half the time that I had taken to ascend, I arrived at Monetier; and entering a garden, around which were seated parties at separate tables, I found my way to the house I have already described as half-farm, half-inn. In the remotest corner of this rustic dwelling-place was what in an English country inn would be called the parlour-sacred to the potations of the guager and the clerk, or the more awful deliberations of their worships; and in this parlour were seated a very old man between two young damsels in all the flush and blossom of early youth. Like three lovers, there they sate (if Cupid can be supposed to admit of trios within his wide domains); the old man, like some spruce young beau, paying each the most accurate attentions, and carefully selecting for them from their slender meals all the best bonnes bouches; whilst they, on either side, seemed to cling to him for very affection, and, chatting away artlessly and cheerfully, looked up into his benevolent face with almost the adoration of lovers. It was a picture which interested me vastly; and I gazed upon it as a study which a Rembrandt might have made much of, regarded as to its externals merely. But, besides the beauty of grouping, there was a sentiment which so much riveted me, that I cannot tell you with how much pleasure I sate and gazed. Youth and Age thus coming out on a summer's day to enjoy the romance of life, to cull flowers and listen to the song of birds, and look, apparently with the same hopeful feelings, on the loveliness of Nature! In him, though time had silvered over his head, yet it had not numbed his powers of enjoyment, for he smiled and chatted as if his sensibilities were as lively as ever; and they, too, seemed gayer and happier in the thought that age had not separated a father, and the father of her friend, from their sympathies. What a pretty picture it was, and how full of encouragement to those

who stand on the summit of the hill of life! For if in age there be to me any thing more repulsive than another, it is that feeling which, as if by common consent, forbids it to share in the simplicity and confidingness and sensibility of youth-which represents the old man as necessarily the feeble, drivelling imbecile, or the harsh, unsympathizing and fretful censor. Such a scene as that, then, on which I now gazed, in which the bright and glowing colours of youth blended insensibly with the more softened tints of age, instead of repulsing, rather reconciled me to that state to which I shall one day arrive if God's goodness spare me. I laughed at "the burden of the grasshopper," and called "the lean and slippered pantaloon" a caricature. "The daughters of music shall not be brought low," I said, and should those "that look out of windows be darkened,"

It was difficult to resist making their acquaintance, though there was a fear of disturbing the harmony of their enjoyment; so trying to imagine some little inattention, I asked mille pardons, and found them with a courteous bow and smile; and then, one word growing out of another, I was shortly established as one of the party. Monetier, or at all events this one inn, I ascertained, was generally full during the summer months, being much resorted to by the Genevese; the kitchen was excellent, my new acquaintance told me, and the price en pension 4 francs a day. What a lovely retreat for one who desired to economise and explore this portion of the country! We finished our meal, and then went out to wander in the Valley of Rocks, I will call it, the old man acting as cicerone. With all the enthusiasm of youth, he pointed out each beauty in the prospect, till, fixing his eye more intently upon one village in particular, he said, "And that is my home; it is not far distant; and here I often bring these girls on a summer's evening." What a blessed mode of consecrating the sabbath! I thought, but did not say; for he would not have understood the train of thought that suggested the idea, as to him it appeared as natural as feeling thus to spend the sabbath—a stranger to that piety which closes its eyes on God's works one day in the seven by way of doing honour to the Creator! So here we stood gazing on the setting sun, which was shedding its bright effulgence upon the Lake, and tinting each snowy peak with pink, till, as the hues of evening became more mellowed and faded into grey, and the mountain breezes began to chill us, we descended to the foot of the mountain, where, my companion told me, he had ordered his carriage to wait for him, and farther offered to put me on my road to Geneva as far as he was going. It was with real regret that I at length parted from this interesting group-one of those short-lived acquaintances that often cross our path, fleeting as the shadows which chase one another over the mountain side, yet telling, as do these same shadows, of all that is bright and hopeful. Adieu, thou good old man! Should life be so long protracted, may God grant me an old age like thinequick to feel whatever is lovely in nature and art, to sympathize with the pleasures of youth, and have my claims upon their sympathies allowed!