the rage for natural history has so victoriously pervaded all ranks of people in the republic, that almost every day in the week sends forth some of its journeymen to ransack the neighbouring cliffs, and transfix unhappy butterflies.

Silversmiths and toymen, possessed by the spirit of De Luc and De Saussure's lucubrations, throw away the light implements of their trade, and sally forth with hammer and pickaxe to pound pebbles and knock at the door of every mountain for information. Instead of furbishing up teaspoons and sorting watch-chains, they talk of nothing but quartz and feldspath. One flourishes away on the durability of granite, whilst another treats calcareous rocks with contempt; but as human pleasures are seldom perfect and permanent, acrimonious disputes too frequently interrupt the calm of the philosophic excursion. Squabbles arise about the genus of a coralite, or concerning that element which has borne the greatest part in the convulsion of nature. The advocate of water too often sneaks home to his wife with a tattered collar, whilst the partisan of fire and volcanoes lies vanquished in a puddle, or winding up the clue of his argument in a solitary

ditch. I cannot help thinking so diffused a taste for fossils and petrifactions of no very particular benefit to the artisans of Geneva, and that watches would go as well, though their makers were less enlightened.

LETTER II.

Chalet under the Beech-trees.

Solemnity of the Night. The Comedie. Relaxation of Genevese Morality.

It began to rain just as we entered the chalet under the beech-trees, and one of the dirtiest I ever crept into-it would have been uncharitable not to have regretted the absence of swine, for here was mud and filth enough to have insured their felicity. A woman, whose teeth of a shining whiteness were the only clean objects I could discover, brought us foaming bowls of cream and milk, with which we regaled ourselves, and then got into our vehicle. We but too soon left the smooth herbage behind, and passed about an hour in rambling down the mountain pelted by the showers, from which we took shelter under the limes at Moneti.

Here we should have drunk our tea in peace

and quietness, had it not been for the incursion of a gang of bandylegged watchmakers, smoking their pipes, and scraping their fiddles, and snapping their fingers, with all that insolent vulgarity so characteristic of the Rue-basse portion of the Genevese community. We got out of their way, you may easily imagine, as fast as we were able, and descending a rough road, most abominably strewn with rolling pebbles, arrived at the bridge d'Etrombieres just as it fell dark. The mouldering planks with which the bridge is awkwardly put together, sounded suspiciously hollow under the feet of our horses, and had it not been for the friendly light of a pine torch which a peasant brought forth, we might have been tumbled into the Arve.

It was a mild summer night, the rainy clouds were dissolving away with a murmur of distant thunder so faint as to be scarcely heard. From time to time a flash of summer lightning discovered the lonely tower of Moneti on the edge of the lesser Saleve. The ghostly tales, which the old curè of the mountains had told me at a period when I hungered and thirsted after supernatural narrations, recurred to my memory, in all

their variety of horrors, and kept it fully employed till I found myself under the walls of Geneva. The gates were shut, but I knew they were to be opened again at ten o'clock for the convenience of those returning from the Comedie.

The Comedie is become of wonderful importance; but a few years ago the very name of a play was held in such abhorrence by the spiritual consistory of Geneva and its obsequious servants, which then included the best part of the republic, that the partakers and abettors of such diversions were esteemed on the high road to eternal perdition. Though, God knows, I am unconscious of any extreme partiality for Calvin, I cannot help thinking his severe discipline wisely adapted to the moral constitution of this starch bit of a republic which he took to his grim embraces. But these days of rigidity and plainness are completely gone by; the soft spirit of toleration, so eloquently insinuated by Voltaire, has removed all thorny fences, familiarized his numerous admirers with every innovation, and laughed scruples of every nature to scorn. taire, indeed, may justly be styled the architect of that gay well-ornamented bridge, by which

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