With tender gladness, thus to look at thee
And think that thou shalt learn far other lore
And in far other scenes! For I was reared
In the great city, pent mid cloisters dim,
And saw naught lovely but the sky and stars.
But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze,
By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags
Of ancient mountains, and beneath the clouds,
Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores
And mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear
The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible
Of that eternal language, which thy God
Utters, who from eternity doth teach
Himself in all, and all things in himself.
Great Universal Teacher! He shall mould
Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask.

"Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether the Summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch

Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch

Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall,
Heard only in the trances of the blast,

Or if the secret ministry of Frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,

Quietly shining to the shining moon."

I say, were it not for the demon of intolerance, the binding of the conscience in the fetters of Church and State. This is the pest that still afflicts Switzerland, worse by far than the scourge of Cretinism and the goitre, and accompanied, in this region of Lucerne, with an unaccountable passion for the Jesuits, whose teachings in morality and political science are so at war with the immemorial freedom of Tell's mountains. Lucerne is one of the three towns, with Berne and Zurich, where the confederative Diet holds its sessions. It is styled "Town and Republic," having a Council of One Hundred for its government, divided into a daily Council of thirty-six, and the larger Council of sixty-four, the whole Hundred meeting every three years, or, if the daily Council require it, oftener. At the head of the Council is a Chief Magistrate, called the Avoyer. The number of inhabitants in the town is about 8000 Romanists, and two hundred

Protestants, the Protestants being excluded from all participation in the rights of citizens, and only admitted on sufferance. How different from the manner in which we receive Romanists in our own country! When will the example of equal citizenship among all religionists be followed abroad, by Romanists towards Protestants?

There is an arsenal in Lucerne well worth visiting for its historical trophies. Here you may see the very shirt of mail in which Duke Leopold of Austria was struck down at the great battle of Sempach. There is also the monument of Thorwaldsen to the memory of the Swiss guards, one of the finest things of the kind in the world, one of the few monuments of simple grandeur and pathos speaking at once to the heart, and needing neither artist nor critic to tell you it is beautiful. There are the curious old bridges, like children's picture-books, amusing you much in the same manner, where indeed you can scarcely get across the bridge, you are so taken with examining the rude old sketches. There are all the scenes of the Old Testament hanging above you, as you pass one way, and all the scenes of the New as you pass the other. This Scriptural bridge was 1380 fee in length, and when you are tired with looking at the pictures, you may rest your eyes by leaning on the parapet, and gazing over the lovely Lake, with the sail-boats flitting across it, and the distant mountains towering above it. In the roof of another bridge are represented the heroic passages of native Swiss history, and in yet another the whole curious array of Holbein's Dance of Death.

Wordsworth says truly that "these pictures are not to be spoken of as works of Art, but they are instruments admirably answering the purpose for which they were designed." And indeed when they were first painted, and for a long time after, how deep must have been the impression made by them on the people's mind, especially the hearts of the children. Fathers and mothers with their little ones in hand, from far and near, wandered up and down in these picture-books of the history of Christ and of the country, telling their stories and their lessons. It was a singular conception, and a very happy one, "turning common dust to gold," and inviting every passenger of the bridge to get more

than the value of his toll (if there ever was any) by thinking on his pilgrimage. Wordsworth says that the sacred pictures are 240 in number. His lines are beautiful, produced by the remembrance of them.

"One after one, its Tablets that unfold

The whole design of Scripture history;
From the first tasting of the fatal Tree,
Till the bright star appeared in eastern skies,
Announcing One was born mankind to free;
His acts, his wrongs, his final sacrifice;
Lessons for every heart, a Bible for all eyes.

"Long may these homely works devised of old,
These simple efforts of Helvetian skill,
Aid, with congenial influence, to uphold
The State, the Country's destiny to mould;
Turning, for them who pass, the common dust
Of servile opportunity to gold;

Filling the soul with sentiments august,

The beautiful, the brave, the holy, and the just!"

Mount Pilatus is the Storm King of the Lake, always brewing mischief; and a good reason for it, according to the strange old legend that he who washed his hands of Christ's blood before all the people, and yet delivered him up to the people, drowned himself in a black lake on the top of the mountain. How he came to be there is accounted for by his being banished into Gaul by Tiberius, and into the mountains by Conscience. There still his vexed spirit wanders, and invites the tempest. If ever in the morning sunshine you get upon the forehead of the mountain, you are sure to have bad weather afterwards, but if in the evening it is clear, this is a good prophecy. Translating the common proverb of the people concerning it in the reverse order,

"When Pilatus doffs his hat,

Then the weather will be wet."

But when he keeps his slouched cloud-beaver over his brows all day, you may expect fair weather for your excursions, the stormspirit not being abroad, but brooding.

CHAPTER XXXI.

Ascent of the Righi. Extraordinary glory of the view.

If you are favored with a fine clear sunrise, then, of all excursions from Lucerne, that to the summit of the Righi is unrivalled in the world for its beauty. It is comparatively rare that travellers are so favored, and the Guide-books warn you not to be disappointed, by quoting, as the more common fate, the sad Orphic ululation of some stricken poet, who came down ignorant of sunrise, but well acquainted with the rain.

"Seven weary up-hill leagues we sped,

The setting sun to see;

Sullen and grim he went to bed,

Sullen and grim went we.

Nine sleepless hours of night we passed

The rising sun to see;

Sullen and grim he rose again,

Sullen and grim rose we."

After hesitating some days, because of unpromising responses from the cloud-sybils, we at length resolved to try it, for the ascent is worth making, at all events. We chose the way across

the Lake by the village of Weggis, which place we reached by a lovely sail in a small boat with two rowers, a thousand fold pleasanter way, and more in keeping with the wild sequestered scenery, than a noisy crowded steamer. There are several other routes, as you may learn by the Guide-books, but I shall mention only ours. Landing at Weggis, you immediately commence the ascent of the mountain, fatiguing to the uttermost on a warm afternoon, but filled with views all the way up, of Lake and snowy mount, and wild-wood scenery, beautiful enough to pay you abundantly, even if you saw nothing at the summit but the ground you tread upon. We made our ascent in the afternoon, so as to be upon the mountain by night, all ready for the morn

ing's glorious spectacle; but it would have been far more comfortable to have come up one morning, and stayed till the next.

The sunset was one of extraordinary splendor, as regards the clouds and their coloring in the golden West, and we enjoyed also a very extensive view, but not the view. We had set out from Lucerne with a burden of forebodings, almost every party that had made the ascent for weeks having returned with a load of disappointments; and though the evening was now fine, the next morning might be cloudy. It is an excursion for which you must have clear weather, or, as to the particular scene of glory for which you make it, which is the sunrise upon the vast range of mountains visible from the Righi, it is nothing. An ordinarily fine morning will not answer; you must have a clear sky the moment the sun rises into it. Though the whole heavens beside be fair, yet if there happen to be a stripe or bank of clouds lying along the eastern horizon, your sport is up, you lose the great spectacle. The fog, which sometimes breeds in fine weather, is still more destructive. You might as well be abed under your blanket. So it may easily be conceived that of the many thousands, who travel thither, very few obtain the object of their journey. Nevertheless, in other respects, as I have said, the mountain is well worth ascending. A clear sunset, together with the prospects bursting on you in your way up, are rewards to give a day for, and a hard journey.

The brow of the mountain is as perpendicular as Arthur's Crag at Edinburgh, almost cresting over like the sea-surf, or a wave in mid ocean. In the evening, walking along the edge of the precipice, the vast scene is of a deep and solemn beauty, though you are waiting for the dawn to reveal its several features. The lights in so many villages far below, over so great an extent, produce a wild and magic picturesqueness. There at our left is Lucerne, here at our feet is Kussnacht, a few steps to the right and Arth is below you, with many glancing lights in the surrounding chalets. The evening church bells are ringing, and the sound comes undulating upward, so deep, so musical! There is no moon, but the stars are out, and methinks they look much brighter, more startling, more earnest, than they do from the world below. How far we are above that world! How pure