honest industry. Whereas in Spain-at least so Laborde assures us,-the inhabitants have always fortitude enough to endure privations; but never courage enough to encounter work: and still less the power of surmounting the shame, he thinks attached to it. But the mountains of Asturias boast a soil productive in heroes and brave men.-Men, who were subjects neither to the Carthaginians, the Romans, or the Moors; men, in whose districts Pelagius laid the first foundations of the Spanish monarchy.

Are we at Grenada ?-we behold the luxury and magnificence of the Moorish dynasty, in one of the finest prospects in all Spain.-At Merida? It is a spot, where the Romans were ambitious of concentrating all their monuments. It is now full of ruins and fragments of columns, vases, statues, bas-reliefs, inscriptions, vestiges of a circus, a theatre, a naumachia, aqueducts, and triumphal arches. When Musa, the Moorish chief, first entered this city, after conquering the Goths, he is said to have been absolutely terrified at its grandeur.

Are we at Cordova? The whole reign of the Omniad Caliphs pass, in mental review, before us. Once the seat of Arabian art, gallantry, and magnificence, the southern kingdom of Spain was rich and flourishing. Agriculture was respected; the fine arts cultivated; gardens were formed; roads executed; palaces erected; and physics, geometry, and astronomy advanced. The inhabitants were active and industrious; accomplishments were held in esteem; and the whole state of society formed a striking contrast to that of every other in Europe.

Every thing, indeed, seems to have worn an air of enchantment. But these pictures wasted into air during the weak reign of a subsequent prince of the same dynasty.

XX.

Is the elegant traveller at Leyden, in the dull states of Holland? The first and the last impression is associated with the magnanimous Adrian de Verf. During a period of famine, the inhabitants insisted on surrendering their town to the Spaniards. "Friends!". exclaimed he, "here is my body. If you are hungry, divide it among yourselves, and satisfy your appetites; but never think for one moment, of surrendering yourselves to the Spaniards." They took his advice; and the town was saved. With this famine is connected one of the most beautiful passages in Darwin's Economy of Vegetation. The plague being at its height, a young man was seized with it, and retired into a garden to die, or to recover alone. Thither he was followed by a young lady, to whom he was betrothed.

"With meek unsteady step, the fainting maid
"Seeks the cold garden's solitary shade:
"Sinks on the pillowy moss her drooping head,

"And prints with lifeless limbs her leafy bed.

"On wings of love her plighted swain pursues;

"Shades her from winds; and shelters her from dews;

"Breathes with soft kiss, with tender accents charms;

"And clasps the bright perfection in his arms.
"With pale and languid smiles, the grateful fair
"Applauds his virtues and rewards his care.
"Love round their couch effused his rosy breath,

"And with his keener arrows conquer'd DEATH."

XXI.

Switzerland is a country, so interesting for the variety and beauty of its lakes, vallies and mountains; for the number of its illustrious writers; and for its arduous struggles for the best of all national properties, that we naturally associate it with Greece, with Rome, and with Britain. Who, therefore, breathes not with renovated satisfaction, when he stands on the fields, which are immortalized by those heroic actions, which confirmed to the Swiss the liberties they enjoy? And when do we feel the full value of the human character more, than when we stand upon the heights of Morgarten, where Leopold, Duke of Austria, with an army of twenty thousand men, were totally defeated by one thousand three hundred Swiss,' advantageously posted upon the rocks and mountains? At Sempach, in the Canton of Lucerne, another Austrian duke was slain; and the liberties of the Swiss established2. At Nofels, in the Canton of Glarus, three hundred and fifty Glarians and fifty Switzers routed a large Austrian army3; and on the burial ground near Basle a battle was fought between the Swiss and the Dauphin of France, equal in almost every respect to that of Thermopylæ. The spot is planted with vineyards: and the natives of Basle resort every year to an inn, in its neighbourhood, to celebrate the event; and the wine of the vineyards is called the blood of the Swiss.

1 A. D. 1315.

2 A.D. 1386.

3 A. D. 1388.

But the charm of this country arises, principally, out of the beauty and magnificence of its scenery. There almost every object constitutes a picture. The negligent graces of Nature are but little embellished with the nice discretion of art; but the maiden turf of the hills gently undulating; sylvan sides and slopes; cottages and spires in diminished perspective ;-all exhibited among snows, without feeling the presence of winter, present a region of enchantment, worthy of being styled the paradise of the elegant in the golden days of poetry. The vales of Usk, of Glamorgan, of the Towy, of Langollen, Llandisilio and Ffestiniog, are remembered with delight; because they belong to the land of our forefathers: but they yield to a country,

Where rocks and forests, lakes and mountains grand,
Mark the true majesty of Nature's hand.

Ridge, rising behind ridge, succeed on the vision. These adamantine masses inspire terrific ideas, and awaken terrific sensations. All is wild, capricious, and sometimes even grotesque. Nature clothes herself in her rudest form, and in some instances the mind is even repelled by scenes of hopeless sterility :-scenes,

Stiff with eternal ice; and hid in snow,
That fell a thousand centuries ago.

Deep caverns, contracted lakes, fragments of ice, projecting crags, and impending avalanches; and summits of distant mountains, rising in rude majesty till they are lost in mists and clouds, rolling over their

summits like the waves of the ocean, realize scenes, so transcendant, that the traveller seems passing, as it were, from one world into another. And a magnificence is imparted to his imagination, beyond the descriptive genius even of Arabian poets. Every object seems to have existed in their present form and station from the first construction of the globe; and furnishes presumptive evidence, that they will exist, if not to eternity, at least to its dissolution. The solitude is holy; every feature is, as it were, sacred; every thought arising out of their contemplation a hymn; and a sublime melancholy impresses itself upon the soul.

It is impossible to describe these scenes: and neither the pencils of Claude, of Salvator Rosa, or of Titian himself, could give an adequate sketch of them. All their efforts could only produce an outline: but as to the variety, the structure, and the colouring, it is Nature alone, that can do justice to her own works. They are beheld in silent transport, and in silent adoration ;-the only species of homage worthy an Omnipotent and Eternal Power. They acquire, too, additional value from the certainty, that they will be remembered to the last moment of life :-that they will constitute some of our most beautiful remembrances; and that they will rise to our imagination, in all their grandeur and majesty, to soothe and to enchant the soul; when it would otherwise be rivetted by the afflictions of life. And awakening a mild and awful gratitude for the wealth of mental acquirements, they teach us to acknowledge, that positive wealth exists only in a pure conscience, and a cultivated mind.