Lucerne is a picturesque and lovely village situated like Geneva at the effluence of a sea-green river from an azure lake, and having many of the constituents of beauty and romance that make Geneva such an earthly paradise, and some elements of originality that Geneva does not possess. There is no Mont Blanc, hanging its piles of snow in the heavens on one side, nor any Jura range, skirting the golden sunset sky and shadowy earth with its green fringe on the other; but there are grand and varied mountains, gazing into the crystal depths; there is an arrowy river, dividing the town, having journeyed all the way through heroic lands down the valley of the St. Gothard from a little tarn among the mountain summits; there are picturesque old feudal walls and watch-towers; there are long bridges, which are covered galleries of antique paintings; and there are many points of interest and of beautiful scenery, with wild wood-walks, and sudden openings, and rich panoramas, where morning wakes the world to music and beauty, and where at evening the western clouds, mountains, groves, orchards, and all the shadow-dappled foliage, burn richly in "the slant beams of the sinking sun."

"My friends emerge

Beneath the wide, wide heaven, and view again

The many-steepled tract magnificent

Of hilly fields and meadows, and the lake

With some fair bark perhaps, whose sails light up
The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two isles
Of purple shadow."

Here a man, whose misfortune it may have been to be born in the heartless heart of some great city, might, if it were not for the demon of intolerance, find a spot for his family, to grow up quietly under all the influences of nature. And if he have a dear child like the Poet's, here he may muse, whether amidst the Frost at Midnight, or the summer stars, and watching the slumbers of his cradled infant, may say,

PART II.

"Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side, Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm, Fill up the interspersed vacancies

And momentary pauses of the thought,

My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart

10

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