of indisputable promise: particularly by applying, in its utmost possible extent, that system of tuition whose master-spring is a habit of gradually enlightened subordination;-by imparting knowledge, civil, moral, and religious, in such measure that the mind, among all classes of the community, may love, admire, and be prepared and accomplished to defend, that country under whose protection its faculties have been unfolded, and its riches acquired; by just dealing towards all orders of the state, so that, no members of it being trampled upon, courage may everywhere continue to rest immoveably upon its ancient English foundation, personal self-respect;-by adequate rewards, and permanent honours, conferred upon the deserving;-by encouraging athletic exercises and manly sports among the peasantry of the country; and by especial care to provide and support institutions, in which, during a time of peace, a reasonable proportion of the youth of the country may be instructed in military science. I have only to add, that I should feel little satisfaction in giving to the world these limited attempts to celebrate the virtues of my country, if I did not encourage a hope that a subject, which it has fallen within my province to treat only in the mass, will by other poets be illustrated in that detail which its importance calls for, and which will allow opportunities to give the merited applause to PERSONS as well as to Page 202. Bruges." This is not the first poetical tribute which in our times has been paid to this beautiful city. Mr Southey in the Poet's Pilgrimage "speaks of it in lines which I cannot deny myself the pleasure of connecting with my own. "Time hath not wronged her, nor hath ruin sought Rudely her splendid structures to destroy, Save in those recent days, with evil fraught, When mutability, in drunken joy Triumphant, and from all restraint released, Let loose her fierce and many-headed beast. But for the scars in that unhappy rage Inflicted, firm she stands and undecayed: Like our first Sires, a beautiful old age Is hers in venerable years arrayed: And yet, to her, benignant stars may bring, What fate denies to man.-a second spring. | When I may read of tilts in days of old, In this city are many vestiges of the splendour of the Burgundian Dukedom, and the long black mantle universally worn by the females is probably a remnant of the old Spanish connection, which, if I do not much deceive myself, is traceable in the grave deportment of its inhabitants. Bruges is comparatively little disturbed by that curious contest, or rather conflict, of Flemish with French propensities in matters of taste, so conspicuous through other parts of Flanders. The hotel to which we drove at Ghent furnished an odd instance. In the passages were paintings and statues, after the antique, of Hebe and Apollo; and in the garden, a little pond, about a yard and a half in dia meter, with a weeping willow bending over it, and under the shade of that tree, in the centre of the pond a wooden painted statue of a Dutch or Flemish boor, looking ineffably tender upon his mistress, and embracing her. A living duck, tethered at the feet of the sculptured lovers, alternately tormented a miserable eel and itself with endeavours to escape from its bonds and prison. Had we chanced to espy the hostess of the hotel in this quaint rural retreat, the exhibition would have been complete. She was a true Flemish figure, in the dress of the days of Holbein; her symbol of office, a weighty bunch of keys, pendent from her portly waist. In Brussels, the modern taste in costume, architecture, &c., has got the mastery; in Ghent there is a struggle: but in Bruges old images are still paramount, and an air of monastic life among the quiet goings-on of a thinly-peopled city is inexpressibly soothing; a pensive grace seems to be cast over all, even the very children.Extract from Journal. Page 203. "Where unremitting frosts the rocky Crescent bleach. "Let a wall of rocks be imagined from three to six hundred feet in height, and rising be tween France and Spain, so as physically to separate the two kingdoms-let us fancy this wall curved like a crescent, with its convexity towards France. Lastly, let us suppose, that in the very middle of the wall, a breach of 300 feet wide has been beaten down by the famous Roland, and we may have a good idea of what the mountaineers call the BRECHE DE RCLAND.'"-Raymond s Pyrenees. Page 204. "Miserere Domine." See the beautiful Song in Mr Coleridge's Tragedy, "THE REMORSE." Why is the harp of Quantock silent? Page 204. "Not, like his great Compeers, indignant.4 Doth Danube spring to life!" Before this quarter of the Black Forest was inhabited, the source of the Danube might have suggested some of those sublime images which | Page 204. 505 It is true found fault with by persons whose exclusive Page 210. "Still, with those white-robed Shapes-a living Stream, The glacier pillars join in solemn guise" "The Staub-bach" is a narrow Stream, which, after a long course on the heights, comes to the sharp edge of a somewhat overhanging precipice, overleaps it with a bound, and, after a fall of 930 feet, forms again a rivulet. The vocal powers of these musical Beggars may seem to be exaggerated; but this wild and savage air was utterly unlike any sounds I had ever heard; the notes reached me from a distance, and on what occasion they were sung I could not guess, only they seemed to belong, in some way or other, to the Waterfall-and reminded me of religious services chanted to Streams and Fountains in Pagan times. Mr Southey has thus accurately characterised the peculiarity of this music: While we were at the Waterfall, some half-score peasants, chiefly women and girls, assembled just out of reach of the Spring, and set up-surely, the wildest chorus that ever was heard by human ears,-a song not of articulate sounds, but in which the voice was used as a mere instrument of music, more flex-sublimity of the surrounding scenery); it wanted ible than any which art could produce,-sweet, powerful, and thrilling beyond description.". See Notes to "A Tale of Paraguay." Page 208. Though searching damps and many an envious flaw Have marred this Work;" This picture of the Last Supper has not only been grievously injured by time, but the greatest part of it, if not the whole, is said to have been retouched, or painted over again, These niceties may be left to connoisseurs,-I speak of it as I felt. The copy exhibited in London some years ago, and the engraving by Merghen, are both admirable; but in the original is a power which neither of those works has attained, or even approached. Page 208. "Of figures human and divine," The Statues ranged round the spire and along the roof of the Cathedral of Milan, have been This Procession is a part of the sacramental service performed once a month. In the valley of Engelberg we had the good fortune to be present at the Grand Festival of the Virginbut the Procession on that day, though consisting of upwards of 1000 persons, assembled from all the branches of the sequestered valley, was much less striking (notwithstanding the both the simplicity of the other and the accom. paniment of the Glacier-columns, whose sisterly resemblance to the moving Figures gave it a most beautiful and solemn peculiarity. Page 212. Sonnet xxxv. Near the town of Boulogne, and overhanging the beach, are the remains of a tower which bears the name of Caligula, who here termin ated his western expedition, of which these sea shells were the boasted spoils. And at no great distance from these ruins, Buonaparte, standing upon a mound of earth, harangued his "Army of England," reminding them of the exploits of Cæsar, and pointing towards the white cliffs, upon which their standards were to float. He recommended also a subscription to be raised among the Soldiery to erect on that ground, in memory of the foundation of the Legion of Honour,' a Column-which was not completed at the time we were there. Page 212. “We mark majestic herds of cattle, free To ruminate." This is a most grateful sight for an Englishman returning to his native land. Every where one misses in the cultivated grounds abroad, the animated and soothing accompaniment of animals ranging and selecting their own food at will. Page 212. Far as St Maurice, from yon eastern LES FOURCHES, the point at which the two chains of mountains part, that inclose the Valais, which terminates at ST MAURICE. Page 212. ye that occupy Your Council-seats beneath the open sky, Sarnen, one of the two capitals of the Canton of Underwalden; the spot here alluded to is close to the town, and is called the Landenberg, from the tyrant of that name, whose château formerly stood there. On the 1st of January, 1308, the great day which the confederated Heroes had chosen for the deliverance of their country, all the castles of the Governors were taken by force or stratagem: and the Tyrants themselves conducted, with their creatures, to the frontiers, after having witnessed the destruction of their strong-holds. From that time the Landenberg has been the place where the Legislators of this division of the Canton assemble. The site, which is well described by Ebel, is one of the most beautiful in Switzerland. Page 213. "Calls me to pace her honoured Bridge-" The bridges of Lucerne are roofed, and open at the sides, so that the passenger has, at the same time, the benefit of shade, and a view of the magnificent country. The pictures are attached to the rafters; those from Scripture History, on the Cathedral-bridge, amount according to my notes, to 240. Subjects from the Old Testament face the passenger as he goes towards the Cathedral, and those from the New as he returns. The pictures on these bridges, as well as those in most other parts of Switzerland, are not to be spoken of as works of art; but they are instruments admirably answering the purpose for which they were designed. Page 215. Twill be another Yarrow." These words were quoted to me from "Yarrow Unvisited," by Sir Walter Scott, when I visited him at Abbotsford, a day or two before his departure for Italy; and the affecting condition in which he was when he looked upon Rome from the Janicular Mount, was reported to me by a lady who had the honour of conducting him thither. Page 216. of these verses in 1837, has made itself felt, more or less strongly, throughout the English Church-a movement that takes, for its first principle, a devout deference to the voice of Christian antiquity. It is not my office to pass judgment on questions of theological detail; but my own repugnance to the spirit and system of Romanism has been so repeatedly and, I trust, feelingly expressed, that I shall not be suspected of a leaning that way, if I do not join in the grave charge, thrown out, perhaps in the heat of controversy, against the learned and pious men to whose labours I allude speak apart from controversy; but, with strong faith in the moral temper which would elevate the present by doing reverence to the past, I would draw cheerful auguries for the English Church from this movement, as likely to restore among us a tone of piety more earnest and real than that produced by the mere formalities of the understanding, refusing, in a degree which I cannot but lament, that its own temper and judgment shall be controlled by those of antiquity. Page 217. Within a couple of hours of my arrival at Rome, I saw from Monte Pincio the Pine tree as described in the sonnet; and, while expressing admiration at the beauty of its appearance, I was told by an acquaintance of my fellowtraveller, who happened to join us at the moment, that a price had been paid for it by the proprietor should not act upon his known the late Sir G. Beaumont, upon condition that intention of cutting it down. Page 220. "Camaldoli.” This famous sanctuary was the original establishment of Saint Romualdo, (or Rumwald, as our ancestors saxonised the name) in the 11th century, the ground (campo) being given by a Count Maldo. The Camaldolensi, however, have spread wide as a branch of Benedictines, and may therefore be classed among the gentlemen of the monastic orders. The society comprehends two orders, monks and hermits; symbolised by their arms, two doves drinking out of the same cup. The monastery in which the monks here reside is beautifully situated, but a large unattractive edifice, not unlike a factory. The hermitage is placed in a loftier and wilder region of the forest. It comprehends between 20 and 30 distinct residences, each including for its single hermit an inclosed piece of ground and three very small apartments. There are days of indulgence when the hermit may quit his cell, and when old age arrives, he descends from the mountain and takes his abode among the monks. My companion had, in the year 1831, fallen "His sepulchral verse." If any English reader should be desirous of knowing how far I am justified in thus describ-in with the monk, the subject of these two ing the epitaphs of Chiabrera, he will find translated specimens of them in this Volume, under the head of "Epitaphs and Elegiac Pieces." hermits. It is from him that I received the sonnets, who showed him his abode among the following particulars. He was then about 40 years of age, but his appearance was that of an older man. He had been a painter by profes sion, but on taking orders changed his name from Santi to Raffaello, perhaps with an unconscious reference as well to the great Sanzio d'Urbino as to the archangel. He assured my friend that he had been 13 years in the hermitage and had never known melancholy or ennui. In the little recess for study and prayer, there was a small collection of books. "I read only," said he, "books of asceticism and mysical theology." On being asked the names of the most famous mystics, he enumerated Scaramelli, San Giovanni della Croce, St Dionysius the Areopagite (supposing the work which bears his name to be really his), and with peculiar emphasis Ricardo di San Vittori. The works of Saint Theresa are also in high repute among ascetics. These names may interest some of my readers. Page 228. "The River Duddon." A Poet, whose works are not yet known as they deserve to be, thus enters upon his description of the "Ruins of Rome:' "The rising Sun Flames on the ruins in the purer air and ends thus "The setting Sun displays His visible great round, between yon towers, As through two shady cliffs." Poem, "Lewesdon Hill," is still more exMr Crowe, in his excellent loco-descriptive peditious, finishing the whole on a May-morn We heard that Raffaello was then living in the convent; my friend sought in vain to renew his acquaintance with him. It was pro-ing, before breakfast. bably a day of seclusion. The reader will perceive that these sonnets were supposed to be written when he was a young man. Page 220. "What aim had they the pair of Monks?" In justice to the Benedictines of Camaldoli, by whom strangers are so hospitably entertained, I feel obliged to notice, that I saw among them no other figures at all resembling, in size and complexion, the two Monks de scribed in this Sonnet. What was their office, or the motive which brought them to this place of mortification, which they could not have approached without being carried in this or some other way, a feeling of delicacy prevented me from inquiring. An account has before been given of the hermitage they were about to enter. It was visited by us towards the end of the month of May; yet snow was lying thick under the pine-trees, within a few yards of the The name of Milton is pleasingly connected with Vallombrosa in many ways. The pride with which the Monk, without any previous question from me, pointed out his residence, I shall not readily forget. It may be proper here to defend the Poet from a charge which has been brought against him, in respect to the passage in "Paradise Lost" where this place is mentioned. It is said, that he has erred in speaking of the trees there being deciduous, whereas they are, in fact, pines. The fault finders are themselves mistaken; the natural woods of the region of Vallombrosa are deciduous, and spread to a great extent; those near the convent are, indeed, mostly pines; but they are avenues of trees planted within a few steps of each other, and thus composing large tracts of wood; plots of which are periodically cut down. The appearance of those narrow avenues, upon steep slopes open to the sky, on account of the height which the trees attain by being forced to grow upwards, is often very impressive. My guide, a boy of about fourteen years old, pointed this out to me in several places. Page 222. "More high the Dacian force, To hoof and finger mailed!"¡¡ere and infra, see Forsyth. "To-morrow for severer thought, but now No one believes, or is desired to believe, that those Poems were actually composed within such limits of time; nor was there any reason why a prose statement should acquaint the Reader with the plain fact, to the disturbance of poetic credibility. But, in the present case, I am compelled to mention, that the above series of Sonnets was the growth of many years;-the one which stands the 14th was the first produced; and others were added upon occasional visits to the Stream, or as reened a wish to describe them. collections of the scenes upon its banks awak. In this manner I had proceeded insensibly, without perceiving that I was trespassing upon ground pre-occupied, at least as far as intention went, by Mr Coleridge; who, more than twenty years ago, used to speak of writing a rural Poem, to be entitled "The Brook," of which he has given a sketch in a recent publication. But a particular subject cannot, I think, much interfere with a general one; and I have been further kept from encroaching upon any right Mr C. may still wish to exercise, by the restriction which the frame of the Sonnet imposed upon me, narrowing unavoidably the range of thought, and precluding, though not without its advantages, many graces to which a freer movement of verse would naturally have led. May I not venture, then, to hope, that, instead of being a hindrance, by anticipation of any part of the subject, these Sonnets may remind Mr Coleridge of his own more comprehensive design, and induce him to fulfil it? -There is a sympathy in streams,--"one calleth to another;' and I would gladly believe, that "The Brook" will, ere long, murmur in concert with "The Duddon." But, asking pardon for this fancy, I need not scruple to say, that those verses must indeed be ill-fated which can enter upon such pleasant walks of nature, without receiving and giving inspiration. The power of waters over the minds of Poets has been acknowledged from the earliest ages-through the "Flumina amem sylvasque ingiorius" of Virgil, down to the sublime apostrophe to the great rivers of the earth, by Armstrong, and the simple ejaculation of Burns, (chosen, if I recollect right, by Mr Coleridge, as a motto for his embryo "Brook,") "The Muse nae Poet ever fand her, Page 229. "There bloomed the strawberry of the wilder ness, The trembling eyebright showed her sapphire blue." These two lines are in a great measure taken from The Beauties of Spring, a Juvenile Poem," by the Rev. Joseph Sympson. He was a native of Cumberland, and was educated in the vale of Grasmere, and at Hawkshead school: his poems are little known, but they contain passages of splendid description; and the versification of his "Vision of Alfred" is harmonious and animated. In describing the motions of the Sylphs, that constitute the strange machinery of his Poem, he uses the following illustrative simile : "Glancing from their plumes A changeful light the azure vault illumes. curves, Sees at a glance, above him and below, He was a man of ardent feeling, and his faculties of mind, particularly his memory, were extraordinary. Brief notices of his life ought to find a place in the History of West moreland. people "Hardknot Castle," is most impres sively situated half-way down the hill on the right of the road that descends from Hardknot into Eskdale. It has escaped the notice of most antiquarians, and is but slightly mentioned by Lysons.-The DRUIDICAL CIRCLE is about half a mile to the left of the road ascending Stone-side from the vale of Dudden: the country people call it “Sunken Church.” The reader who may have been interested in the foregoing Sonnets, (which together may be considered as a Poem,) will not be displeased to find in this place a prose account of the Duddon, extracted from Green's comprehensive Guide to the Lakes, lately published. "The road leading from Coniston to Broughton is over high ground, and commands a view of the River Duddon; which, at high water, is a grand sight, having the beautiful and fertile lands of Lancashire and Cumberland stretching each way from its margin. In this extensive view, the face of nature is displayed in a wonderful variety of hill and dale; wooded grounds and buildings; amongst the latter Broughton Tower, seated on the crown of a hill, rising elegantly from the valley, is an object of extraordinary interest. Fertility on each side is gradually diminished, and lost in the superior heights of between Kirkby and Ulverstone. Blackcomb, in Cumberland, and the high land "The road from Broughton to Seathwaite is on the banks of the Duddon, and on its Lanca shire side it is of various elevations. The river is an amusing companion, one while brawling and tumbling over rocky precipices, until the agitated water becomes again calm by arriving at a smoother and less precipitous bed, but its course is soon again ruffled, and the current thrown into every variety of foam which the rocky channel of a river can give to water."— Vide Green's Guide to the Lakes, vol. i. pp. 98-100. After all, the traveller would be most gratified who should approach this beautiful Stream, neither at its source, as is done in the Sonnets, nor from its termination; but from Coniston Page 231. Sonnets XVII. and xvIII. over Walna Scar; first descending into a little The EAGLE requires a large domain for its circular valley, a collateral compartment of the support: but several pairs, not many years long winding vale through which flows the ago, were constantly resident in this country, Duddon. This recess, towards the close of building their nests in the steeps of Borrow- September, when the after-grass of the meadows dale, Wastdale, Ennerdale, and on the eastern is still of a fresh green, with the leaves of many side of Helvellyn. Often have I heard anglers of the trees faded, but perhaps none fallen, is speak of the grandeur of their appearance, as truly enchanting. At a point elevated enough they hovered over Red Tarn, in one of the to show the various objects in the valley, and coves of this mountain. The bird frequently not so high as to diminish their importance, the returns, but is always destroyed. Not long stranger will instinctively halt. On the foresince, one visited Rydal lake, and remained ground, a little below the most favourable stasome hours near its banks: the consternation tion, a rude foot-bridge is thrown over the bed which it occasioned among the different species of the noisy brook foaming by the way-side. of fowl, particularly the herons, was expressed Russet and craggy hills, of bold and varied outby loud screams. The horse also is naturally line, surround the level valley, which is beafraid of the eagle.-There were several Roman sprinkled with grey rocks plumed with birch stations among these mountains; the most con- trees. A few homesteads are interspersed, in siderable seems to have been in a meadow at some places peeping out from among the rocks the head of Windermere, established, undoubt-like hermitages, whose site has been chosen for edly, as a check over the Passes of Kirkstone, Dunmail-raise, and of Hardknot and Wrynose. On the margin of Rydal lake, a coin of Trajan was discovered very lately.. -The ROMAN FORT here alluded to, called by the country' the benefit of sunshine as well as shelter; in other instances, the dwelling-house, barn, and byre, compose together a cruciform structure, which, with its embowering trees, and the ivy clothing part of the walls and roof like a fleece, |