place you hold in my esteem, I should have been cautious of wounding your delicacy by thus publicly addressing you, had not the circumstance of our having been companions among the Alps seemed to give this dedication a propriety sufficient to do away any scruples which your modesty might otherwise have suggested.

In inscribing this little work to you, I consult my heart. You know well how great is the difference between two companions lolling in a post-chaise, and two t.avellers plodding slowly along the road, side by side, each with his little knapsack of necessaries upon his shoulders. How much more of

heart between the two latter !

I am happy in being conscious, that I shall have one reader who will approach the conclusion of these few with regret. pages You they must certainly interest, in reminding you of moments to which you can hardly look back without a pleasure not the less dear from a shade of melancholy. You will meet with few images without recollecting the spot where we observed them together; consequently, whatever is feeble in my design, or spiritless in my coloring, will be amply supplied by your own memory.

With still greater propriety I might have inscribed to you a description of some of the features of your native mountains, through which we have wandered together, in the same manner, with so much pleasure. But the sea-sunsets, which give such splendor to the vale of Clwyd, Snowdon, the chair of Idris, the quiet village of Bethge. lert, Menai and her Druids, the Alpine steeps of the Conway, and the still more interesting windings of the wizard stream of the Dee, remain yet untouched. Apprchensive that my pencil may never be exercised on these subjects, I cannot let slip this opportunity of thus publicly assuring you with how much affection and esteem

I am, dear Sir,

Most sincerely yours,

London, 1793.

W. WORDSWORTH.

Happiness (if she had been to be found on earth) among the charms of NaturePleasures of the pedestrian TravellerAuthor crosses France to the Alps-Present state of the Grande Chartreuse Lake of Como-Time, Sunset-Same Scene, Twilight-Same Scene, Morning;

its voluptuous Character; Qld man and forest-cottage music-River Tusa-Via Mala and Grison Gipsy- Sckellenen-thal -Lake of Uri-Stormy sunset-Chapel of William Tell-Force of local emotion -Chamois-chaser-View of the higher Alps-Manner of life of a Swiss mountaineer, interspersed with views of the higher Alps-Golden age of the AlpsLite and views continued-Ranz des Vaches, famous Swiss Air-Abbey of Einsiedlen and its pilgrims-Valley of Chamouny Mont Blanc-Slavery of Savoy-Influence of liberty on cottagehappiness-France-Wish for the Extir pation of Slavery-Conclusion.

Host of his welcome inn, the noon-tide bower,

To his spare meal he calls the passing poor; He views the sun uplift his golden fire, Or sink, with heart alive like Memnon's lyre; [ray, Blesses the moon that comes with kindly To light him shaken by his rugged way. Back from his sight no bashful children steal;

He sits a brother at the cottage-meal;

His humble looks no shy restraint impart; Around him plays at will the virgin heart. While unsuspended wheels the village dance, The maidens eye him with enquiring glance, Much wondering by what fit of crazing care, Or desperate love, bewildered, he came there.

led;

And start the astonished shades at female eyes.

From Bruno's forest screams the affrighted jay,

And slow the insulted eagle wheels away.
A viewless flight of laughing Demons mock
The Cross, by angels planted * on the aërial
rock.

The "parting Genius" sighs with hollow breath

Along the mystic streams of Life and Death.†

Swelling the outcry dull, that long resounds Portentous through her old woods' trackless bounds,

Vallombre,f 'mid her falling fanes, deplores, Forever broke, the sabbath of her bowers.

More pleased, my foot the hidden margin

roves

Of Como, bosomed deep in chestnut groves. No meadows thrown between, the giddy Tower, bare or sylvan, from the narrow steeps deeps.

complain,

By lonely farms and secret villages.

But lo! the Alps, ascending white in air, Toy with the sun and glitter from afar.

From ringing team apart and grating wain— To flat-roofed towns, that touch the water's bound,

Or lurk in woody sunless glens profound, Or, from the bending rocks, obtrusive cling, And o'er the whitened wave their shadows fling

The pathway leads, as round the steeps it twines;

And Silence loves its purple roof of vines. The loitering traveller hence, at evening,

sees

From rock-hewn steps the sail between the trees;

Or marks, 'mid opening cliffs, fair darkeyed maids

Tend the small harvest of their garden glades;

Or stops the solemn mountain-shades to view

Stretch o'er the pictured mirror broad and blue,

And track the yellow lights from steep to steep,

As up the opposing hills they slowly creep.

Alluding to crosses seen on the tops of the spiry rocks of Chartreuse.

† Names of rivers at the Chartreuse. Name of one of the valleys of the Chartreuse.

Aloft, here, half a village shines, arrayed
In golden light; half hides itself in shade:
While, from amid the darkened roofs, the
spire,

Restlessly flashing, seems to mount like fire:

There, all unshaded, blazing forests throw Rich golden verdure on the lake below. Slow glides the sail along the illumined shore,

And steals into the shade the lazy oar; Soft bosoms breathe around contagious sighs,

And amorous music on the water dies.

How blest, delicious scene! the eye that greets

Thy open beauties, or thy lone retreats; Beholds the unwearied sweep of wood that

Fixed on the anchor left by Him who saves Alike in whelming snows, and roaring

waves.

But soon a peopled region on the sight Opens-a little world of calm delight; Where mists, suspended on the expiring gale,

Spread roof-like o'er the deep secluded vale,
And teams of evening slipping in between,
Cently illuminate a sober scene:-
Here, on the brown wood-cottages they
sleep,

There, over rock or sloping pasture creep.
On as we journey, in clear view displayed,
The still vale lengthens underneath its
shade

Of low-hung vapor: on the freshened mead [recede.

The green light sparkles;-the dim bowers While pastoral pipes and streams the landscape lull,

And bells of passing mules that tinkle dull
In solemn shapes before the admiring. eye
Dilated hang the misty pines on high,
Huge convent domes with pinnacles and
towers,

And antique castles seen through gleamy

showers.

From such romantic dreams, my soul, awake!

To sterner pleasure, where, by Uri's lake
In Nature's pristine majesty outspread,
Winds neither road nor path for foot to
read:

The rocks rise naked as a wall, or stretch Far o'er the water, hung with groves of beech;

Aerial pines from loftier steeps ascend,
Nor stop but where creation seems tend.
Yet here and there, if 'mid the savage

scene

and wide Descend we now,

guide;

the maddened Reuss our

By rocks that, shutting out the blessed day,
Cling tremblingly to rocks as loose as they;
By cells upon whose image, while he prays,
The kneeling peasant scarcely dares to
gaze;

By many a votive death-cross planted near,
And watered duly with the pious tear,
That faded silent from the upward cye
Unmoved with each rude form of peril
nigh;

Up from the lake a zigzag path will creep To reach a small wood-hut hung boldly on

Behind his sail the peasant shrinks, to shun
The west, that burns like one dilated sun,
A crucible of mighty compass, felt
By mountains, glowing till they seem to
melt.

But, lo! the boatman, overawed, before The pictured fane of Tell suspends his oar; Confused the Marathonian tale appears. While his eyes sparkle with heroic tears. And who, that walks where men of ancient days

Have wrought with godlike arm the deeds of praise,

Feels not the spirit of the place control,
Or rouse and agitate his laboring soul?
Say, who, by thinking on Canadian hills,
Or wild Aosta lulled by Alpine rills,
On Zutphen's plain or on that Highland
dell,

Through which rough Garry cleaves his way

can tell

What high resolves exalt the tenderest thought

Of him whom passion rivets to the spot, Where breathed the gale that caught Wolfe's

happiest sigh,

And the last sunbeam fell on Bayard's eye; Where bleeding Sidney from the cup retired,

And glad Dundee in "faint huzzas❞ expired?