PROMENADE. 
 

PROMENADE 
 
 FROM DIEPPE TO THE 
 
 MOUNTAINS OF SCOTLAND. 
 
 BY CHARLES NODIER. 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH. 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD, EDINBURGH; 
 
 AND T. C A DELL, LONDON. 
 
 M.DCCC.XXII. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 IF the reader expects to find a 
 book of travels in this work, I beg 
 lie will throw it aside : It is nothing 
 but the pocket-book of a man who 
 passed rapidly through a country 
 quite new to him, and who writes 
 his sentiments rather than his ob- 
 servations. 
 
 There is no country more deserv- 
 ing of the attention of a traveller 
 than the mountains of the west and 
 
 735980 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 north of Scotland. They have in- 
 spired, however, so little curiosity 
 in French travellers, that Chantreau 
 disdained to make any progress 
 through them, and the learned Fau- 
 jas de Saint- Fond, who thought only 
 of geology, sought and saw nothing 
 in them but stones- Knox, whose 
 studies, entirely relative to political 
 economy, were confined to the fishe- 
 ries, speaks of nothing but fishes. 
 Gilpin is a landscape painter more 
 than a traveller. Abstracting from 
 the prejudices of a morose old man, 
 whose imagination had long lost all 
 its colouring, there are many useful 
 and interesting things in Johnson's 
 Tour, as in all his works. Pennant 
 alone has raised a monument perfect 
 in all its parts ; but I suspect these 
 two last authors have not had the 
 
PREFACE. VII 
 
 honour of a complete translation in- 
 to French. 
 
 There is still room, therefore, for 
 an excellent book on Scotland, un- 
 less it has appeared without my 
 knowledge ; but, independently of 
 the qualities necessary for making 
 an excellent book, one must have 
 seen again and again the country 
 one proposes to describe before one 
 can flatter oneself with 'being able to 
 give a just idea of it to others. This 
 little volume only promises what it 
 can give the hasty sketch of a rapid 
 promenade. May it even give what 
 it promises ! 
 
 However, as my journal is be- 
 come a sort of work, and is now 
 surrendered to the opinion of the 
 public, for which it was not com- 
 posed, I must shelter myself from 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 the risk of a reproach which would 
 give me more pain than any cri- 
 tical attacks that of ingratitude 
 towards individuals from whom we 
 received signal marks of politeness 
 and benevolence, all of whom I 
 should delight to mention, if the 
 multiplicity of attentions and servi- 
 ces did not render the task too diffi- 
 cult. I shall only name among our 
 own countrymen, Count Caraman, 
 French Charge d' Affaires in Lon- 
 don ; Mr. Hugot, Consul in Edin- 
 burgh ; Mr. Herman, Commercial 
 Agent at Glasgow ; and on the other 
 hand, Lord Fife in London, General 
 Duff in Scotland, and our invaluable 
 friend, Mr. Hulmandell, whose soli- 
 citude for our wants and pleasures 
 surpasses all expression. I will add, 
 in my own name, to this list, the 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 name of the celebrated Dr. Hooker, 
 who directed my excursions in the 
 county of Lennox and its environs, 
 and who loaded me, on my depar- 
 ture, with a rich harvest of rare plants 
 for our common friend Bory de Saint- 
 Vincent. The latter, in his turn, 
 helped me to unravel many notions 
 that were almost effaced from my 
 memory, by displaying that facility 
 of observation, and that clearness of 
 analysis, which give him such a dis- 
 tinguished rank among our very first 
 naturalists. 
 
 It would remain for me to give my 
 best thanks to my travelling compa- 
 nions, for the great assistance they 
 have given me, in rendering this 
 trifling performance at all worthy 
 of the public, if I could express all 
 that I owe to them without offend- 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 ing their modesty. Fortunately, I 
 am well enough acquainted with 
 their sentiments, to know that they 
 will be more obliged to me for a 
 simple expression of friendship than 
 for the most pompous eulogiums. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 I. To my Wife, 1 
 
 II. Passage from Dieppe to Brighton, . 8 
 
 III. Brighton Road, 13 
 
 IV. Brighton, 16 
 
 V. London, 20 
 
 VI. Public Buildings, 24 
 
 VII. The Docks. Greenwich, .... 33 
 
 VIII. The Theatres, 37 
 
 IX. The Museums, 46 
 
 X. Richmond, . 53 
 
 XL Oxford, 37 
 
 XII. From London to Edinburgh, ... t>9 
 
 XIII. Edinburgh, 76 
 
 XIV. Holyrood, 83 
 
Xll CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 XV. From Edinburgh to Glasgow, . . 92 
 
 XVI. Glasgow, 97 
 
 XVII. The Cathedral, ...... 104 
 
 XVIII. The Boxers, 108 
 
 XIX. Caledonia, . 110 
 
 XX. Loch Lomond, 116 
 
 XXI. Luss, 122 
 
 XXII. Tarhet, 126 
 
 XXIII. Natural Productions, . ' . . 131 
 
 XXIV. Ben Lomond, 144 
 
 XXV. From Ben Lomond to Loch 
 
 Kathrine, 153 
 
 XXVI. Loch Kathrine, ...... 157 
 
 XXVII. The Gipsies, 171 
 
 XXVIII. Loch Long, 176 
 
 XXIX. Ayr, 182 
 
 XXX. Gretna Green, 193 
 
 XXXI. From Cumberland to London, . 197 
 
 XXXII. Canterbury, 200 
 
 XXXIII. France, 208 
 
PROMENADS 
 
 FROM 
 
 DIEPPE 
 
 TO THE 
 
 MOUNTAINS OF SCOTLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 TO MY WIFE. 
 
 I CANNOT accustom myself to the idea of 
 being separated from you, of living and 
 thinking without you. Each new object 
 that presents itself to my view, seems a 
 theft from you; and when I think that 
 every thing I am going to see will be new 
 to me, that there will be no longer a com- 
 mon sensation between the multiplied sen- 
 sations of my days and those which fill 
 your recollections, I look upon this jour- 
 
TO MY WIFE. 
 
 ney with a sort of terror, as the essay of 
 eternal separation. For twelve years past, 
 associated' with all the vicissitudes of my 
 life, you have followed me in the rigorous 
 pilgrimages of exile, and in the more agree- 
 able excursions which I have undertaken 
 from my love of science and of the arts. 
 You have visited with me the smiling re- 
 gions of the south of France ; the austere 
 monuments of Normandy and Brittany ; 
 the majestic antiquities of Italy ; the ruins 
 of Magna Graecia, the useless patrimony of 
 barbarians. I told you the names of all 
 the places which recalled grand ideas, or 
 attested ancient glories. I taught our 
 dear little girl to lisp their solemn names 
 in a language different from that of her 
 nurse, and which struck her ear for the 
 first time. Now, I am alone : for though 
 friendship is a sweet auxiliary of happi- 
 ness, it still leaves very empty a heart that 
 is separated from what is most dear to it 
 in the world. I am alone ; and the im- 
 
TO MY WI 11. <> 
 
 pressions which had so many charms wlu n 
 you partook them with me, now find me 
 inattentive, and almost indifferent. Tlu> 
 names of places and of men only interest 
 me for a moment, like unknown words 
 the meaning of which is not worth seek- 
 ing. Though I arrived yesterday rather 
 early at Dieppe, it was only this morning 
 that I went on the sea-shore, and I scarce- 
 ly cast my eyes over the magnificent scene 
 which it here displays. My daughter has 
 never looked for shells on this shore. If 
 we thought of all this before we set out, 
 we should never go ; but what man is al- 
 ways happy with the happiness he has ? 
 
 However, I have hit upon a scheme 
 which delights my imagination : it is to 
 speak to you every moment as if you were 
 present, and neither to see nor to feel any 
 thing without transmitting it to you imme- 
 diately in idea. " See, Mary, how nice 
 it would be for you to play with your lit- 
 tle companions under those green arbours 
 
TO MY WIFE. 
 
 of Pavilly. And you, my dear, cast your 
 eyes on this view of Dieppe, and of the 
 sea, from the top of the hill of Bourdun, 
 which is considered to be one of the finest 
 sights in nature ; or amuse yourself with 
 the marvellous narrations of our driver, 
 who, though he is going on full speed, 
 relates with his hoarse accent the last ex- 
 ploits of the privateer Bolidar." In this 
 way you will travel with me even to the 
 distant shores towards which I am impell- 
 ed by the mania of seeing other countries, 
 and studying other manners. What re- 
 gions, so varied in their aspect and charac- 
 ter, shall we not go over together ! Ne- 
 vertheless, we will not stop to dwell on the 
 details. We go quick, because other 
 cares call us back, and because our hearth 
 is keeping for us treasures of tenderness 
 and happiness that are not here. Alas ! 
 may I find them again ! Moreover, we 
 have not the pretension to instruct. Our 
 -ambition is limited to the enjoyment of 
 
TO MY WIT!.. 
 
 what is beautiful, and the exertion of our 
 understanding to conversing about it. If 
 the journal which I trace as I run can 
 have any merit, it can only be that of re- 
 presenting, with naivete, free and natural 
 impressions. Almost a stranger to the 
 language, the history, and the manners of 
 the countries I am going to visit, I am 
 certain to speak of things less according to 
 the extent of their fame than the force of 
 my own sensations. Only do not reject 
 my poetical scraps. I write very rapidly, 
 and you know that my first thoughts are 
 always ready to accoutre themselves with 
 the tatters of the toilet of the Muses ; but 
 what would be a defect in a formal volume 
 is only a slight inconvenience in the fami- 
 liar impromptus of carelessness. The in- 
 difference with which a traveller makes 
 notes in his pocket-book, is the same as for 
 his clothes. He puts down what conic ^ 
 into his head as he takes what is lying 
 about him. After all, who knows what 
 
 B3 
 
6 
 
 TO MY WIFE. 
 
 this pocket-book may turn out ? A vo- 
 lume or nothing, I care little about it. It 
 will have fulfilled -all the hopes I formed 
 of it, if it succeeds sometimes in cheating 
 the torments of absence by one of those il- 
 lusions which I embrace so easily that they 
 are sometimes equivalent to enjoyment it- 
 self. 
 
 Come then, and quit me no more, for it 
 is eight in the evening. The tide is go- 
 ing out, and already leaves, for several fa- 
 thoms behind, an uneven, waving, sinu- 
 ous band of black fuci^ just like the irre- 
 gular projection of the last waves which ex- 
 pired in floods of foam on the sand. We 
 shall embark in the Unity corvette, Cap- 
 tain Holden ; it is that which you see from 
 here with the black and blue flag flying. 
 
 No, rather let us separate, I beseech 
 you, for this night. The sea is so rough 
 that the fishermen themselves have not 
 dared to attempt the daily navigation 
 which supplies the subsistence of their fa- 
 
TO MY WIFE. 7 
 
 milies. The immense surface is furrowed 
 all over with high and vertical mountains, 
 like the rocks of the coast, glittering white 
 like them, rushing, striking, mounting one 
 above the other, breaking and falling with 
 a tremendous roar on the beach. The 
 wind is contrary, and furious. The sea- 
 gull, which it drives along with impetuo- 
 sity, draws in his long wings, as the skil- 
 ful sailor does his canvas, and falling 
 obliquely by degrees, comes down quite on 
 the ground. Heaven forbid I should e*k. 
 pose you, my darling treasures, to the ca- 
 prices of this terrible element. In the 
 name of my rest, let us separate for this 
 night. I shall find you on the opposite 
 shores. 
 
 B 4 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 PASSAGE FROM DIEPPE TO BRIGHTON. 
 
 THIS passage, which is commonly per- 
 formed in ten hours, lasted thirty-two. It 
 was not yet midnight, when the black 
 cloud called le grain showed itself like a 
 point in the south ; by degrees it came 
 down, displaying irregular forms, and 
 pouncing upon us like a bird of prey which 
 grows larger as it approaches. It recalled 
 to my mind, in its sudden and gigantic in- 
 crease, those whimsical figures of optics, 
 the imperfect and often ridiculous exhibi- 
 tions of the phantasmagoria which rush 
 from the magical lantern of Robertson, ac- 
 quiring successively colours, appearances. 
 
DIEPPE TO BRIGHTON'. f) 
 
 figures, and at length go out close to tin- 
 face of the spectator, beating the oiled 
 paper of the frames with their pasteboard 
 wings. Unfortunately for us our demon 
 was more real, and for a long time made 
 us toil upon the waves, which mounted to 
 the shrouds. Every thing fell about in the 
 vessel, the utensils, the chairs and tables, 
 and the sailors. The rolling was so strong 
 that it drove us from our beds. Add to 
 all this, the flapping of the sails, the creak- 
 ing of the vessel, the maledictions of the 
 French passengers, the methodical and 
 energetic god-dems of the sailors, the con- 
 vulsive groans of the passengers who had 
 got the sea-sickness, the exclamations of 
 the ladies, who were praying with all the 
 fervour which fear can inspire ; for there 
 were ladies, and some very pretty indeed, 
 eyes of such soft melancholy, features of 
 such chaste purity, that mixture of the 
 ideal perfection of heaven and of earthly 
 passion which composes the physiognomy 
 B 5 
 
10 DIEPPE TO BRIGHTON. 
 
 of the heroines of romance. But heroines 
 of romance are quite out of the question 
 in a vessel that is on the point of sinking ! 
 All is reduced to that exchange of com- 
 passion and of services which engages the 
 strong in the defence of the weak in a com- 
 mon danger ; and which, in my opinion, 
 when the danger is inevitable, is the most 
 complete seal of the immortal destination 
 of man. The boasted philosophy of the 
 ancients would go no farther than to ad- 
 mire the impassibility of a brute in a 
 storm. 
 
 At sunrise we perceived that the storm 
 had driven us far out of our course. We 
 were obliged to return towards Brighton 
 by tacking, and waiting for the wind, which 
 had completely fallen. In vain did our 
 sailors whistle towards the south-east, the 
 breeze paid no attention to them ; and we 
 were reduced to the contemplation of the 
 gloomy stupor of the atmosphere, which 
 seemed to threaten a new storm, that would 
 
DlV.rPE TO BRIGIITOK. 1 I 
 
 have driven us again out to sea, or liavc 
 dashed us against the charming coast of 
 England, whose graceful contours winded 
 so near us, covered with green meadows 
 and picturesque woods. The sun had just 
 set in very sombre clouds, the moon had 
 risen broad and bloody, the sea was mo- 
 tionless like the basin of the Tuilleries; and 
 it seemed as if stretching out one^s arm one 
 would touch Brighton, while one of those 
 events which are not rare in the history of 
 navigation, might prevent our ever reaching 
 it. Such a situation appears to me more 
 terrible than even the anxieties of a storm. 
 The heart of man, I think, more easily 
 conceives the necessity of yielding to the 
 ravages of violence in nature, than to the 
 impossibility of conquering its immoveable 
 inertia. When he suffers by resistance, 
 his vanity is a compensation ; but when he 
 yields without a struggle, he loses even the 
 charms of danger, and feels an additional 
 torture in the exhaustion of his fallen, 
 6 
 
1 DIEPPE TO BRIGHTON. 
 
 energy. But this is a fine philosophical 
 speculation, to be sure, on the subject of a 
 dead calm in the English Channel ! Be- 
 sides, a favourable breeze is springing up, 
 the ship swims along, the shores fly away, 
 carrying along with them the famous field 
 of the battle of Hastings. We are in the 
 road. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 BRIGHTON ROAD. 
 
 AT four in the morning we had cast an- 
 chor in the road, for Brighton has no har- 
 bour. The custom-house sends off a boat 
 to the vessels, which receives the passen- 
 gers and their luggage ; but it cannot reach 
 the shore, on account of the shallowness of 
 the water. The passengers are obliged to 
 be carried on the robust shoulders of the 
 sailors, who, for this act of complaisance, 
 ask only the trifle of three shillings a-head. 
 We are in England, where the representa- 
 tive sign of the existence of a French fa- 
 mily for two or three days represents no- 
 thing. 
 
14 BRIGHTON ROAD, 
 
 These first details will no doubt appear 
 trifling, and particularly so, unless the 
 reader will have the kindness to recollect 
 that I am writing my journal, which con- 
 tains the history of all my impressions. 
 One of the most lively of them all is the 
 aspect of a new country ; and after having 
 been absolutely forced to travel from ad- 
 venture to adventure, through the rest of 
 Europe, I am now for the first time on the 
 soil of England. 
 
 The shore of Brighton is celebrated for 
 its sea-bathing, which attracts every year 
 the first company in the kingdom. It de- 
 serves this celebrity by the picturesque 
 elegance of its charming views, to which 
 no expression can do justice; especially, 
 when the ray of the rising sun, glittering 
 by degrees on the face of the waters which 
 are slowly illuminated, strike here and there 
 with their light, long zones of the sea, 
 which detach themselves from its obscure 
 extent like silver isles ; or else play among 
 
niuc.nrox novi). 15 
 
 the sails of a little bark, which floats in- 
 undated with brightness on a brilliant 
 plane, among innumerable vessels which 
 the light lias not yet touched. It is prin- 
 cipally on the horizon that the mixture of 
 departing darkness and advancing light is 
 remarkable. All the obscurities descend, 
 all the lights arise. The earth and the 
 firmament seem to have exchanged attri- 
 butes. In the air, a sombre vapour is 
 precipitated and dissolved ; on the earth, 
 a mild reflexion of light spreads, inces- 
 santly increasing in transparency and 
 warmth ; and the most distant line of the 
 dark ocean rises resplendent on the shades 
 of the sky. 
 
16 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 BRIGHTON. 
 
 THE extreme cleanliness of the towns in 
 England is so well known, that, on arriv- 
 ing at Brighton, I was astonished to find 
 myself still forced to be astonished. Ima- 
 gine to yourself an assemblage of decora- 
 tions full of grace and lightness, such as 
 the imagination would wish in a magical 
 theatre, and you will have some idea of 
 our first station. Brighton, however, pre- 
 sents no edifice worthy of remark, with the 
 exception of the king^s palace, which is 
 constructed in the Oriental style, and pro- 
 bably on the plan of some building in In- 
 dia. There is not much harmony between 
 
BRIGHTON. 
 
 17 
 
 this eastern style and the surrounding 
 houses, built like pretty Italian pavilions 
 under a northern sky ; but it is the mark 
 of a power which stretches its sceptre over 
 a part of the east, and draws from it the 
 principal elements of its prosperity. This 
 incoherence, .notwithstanding, has no bad 
 effect in a picture of illusions. Fairy 
 Land is not subject to the rule of the 
 unities. 
 
 I continued my journey along a road 
 without ruts, without jolting, without any 
 embarrassment, in a commodious elegant 
 vehicle, adorned with taste, drawn, or 
 rather carried away by four beautiful 
 horses, all alike, all with the same pace, 
 who devoured the distance, champing bits 
 of the most splendid polish, and starting 
 and snorting under a harness of a rich and 
 noble simplicity. A coachman in livery 
 drove them, and a handsome neat postilion 
 urged them on. Every two leagues, pos- 
 tilions, attentive, civil, neither impertinent 
 
18 BRIGHTON. 
 
 nor in liquor, brought out fresh horses 
 just like the first, which we could see 
 striking the ground at a distance, as if 
 eager and impatient for the career they 
 were to go through. Though the distance 
 to London is not great, no delicate atten- 
 tions which could embellish it were omitt- 
 ed by the enchanters who led me along. 
 Half-way, an officious major-domo intro- 
 duced me into a magnificent saloon, in 
 which were served all sorts of refresh- 
 ments limpid tea, which sparkled in 
 china ; frothy porter, which foamed in sil- 
 ver ; and, on another table, choice, copi- 
 ous, varied dishes, watered with Port. 
 After this I set out again, and the eager 
 coursers but perhaps it is time to take 
 breath, and to say, in more positive terms, 
 that England is the first country in the 
 world for its horses, public carriages, and 
 inns. The magnificent equipage I have 
 just mentioned was the diligence, and the 
 caravansera of the Arabian Nights, a cafe 
 
BRIGHTON. 19 
 
 on the high road. One might easily, in 
 the environs of London, comprehend the 
 mistake of Don Quixote, who took inns 
 for castles. 
 
 In fact, from Brighton to London, it is 
 merely a street of twenty leagues, border- 
 ed with parks, gardens, smiling farms, 
 pretty country houses, charming pavilions, 
 covered from top to bottom with hangings 
 of roses, and preceded by courts or terra- 
 ces shaded with cool bowers, under which 
 dance young girls, whom Raphael might 
 regret not to have seen. Youth is charm- 
 ing every where, but in England it is ra- 
 vishing. A plain girl under sixteen years 
 of age is almost a rarity. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 LONDON. 
 
 THE first aspect of London has some- 
 thing disagreeable. The houses, built of 
 dark or shining bricks like walls of polish- 
 ed lava, almost always without a rising 
 roof, as if they had lost a story, and in- 
 cessantly bathed with the heavy vapour of 
 the coal-smoke, give one the idea of a re- 
 cent conflagration. But the eye, soon ac- 
 customed to the ordinary style of the ar- 
 chitecture, to the disagreeable colour of 
 the houses, and the dismal monotony of 
 the atmosphere and sky, becomes more 
 and more astonished at the multitude of 
 those vast and superb streets, accompanied 
 
LONDON. 
 
 on each side with a broad footway, and 
 decorated with shops glittering with all 
 the treasures of industry, and all the 
 wonders of luxury ; immense promenades, 
 which bring the country and even solitude 
 into the centre of a town ; delicious inclo- 
 sures of verdure, called squares, which form 
 the ornament of the open spots, and are 
 the delight of their inhabitants. One then 
 feels that London wants nothing to be the 
 first city in the world but the sky of Ve- 
 nice or the horizon of Constantinople, the 
 antiquities of Rome, or the edifices of 
 Paris. 
 
 All populous states and great towns 
 have so many points of resemblance in an 
 advanced state of civilization, that it is im- 
 possible to fix the shades which character- 
 ize them, without descending into the most 
 minute details. This I have neither time, 
 nor inclination, nor power to undertake, 
 estranged as I am to the art of observing 
 facts which do not act immediately upon 
 
2% LONDON. 
 
 me, and do not make me feel a profound 
 sensation of enthusiasm or aversion. The 
 passing guest of a magnificent city, which, 
 however, speaks but little to my imagina- 
 tion and my heart, I feel that even the at- 
 traction of novelty, so interesting to man- 
 kind in general, would not have drawn me 
 to it, only that London happens to be on 
 the road to the mountains of Scotland. 
 Whether it be irritability or weakness, I 
 have never been capable of directing my 
 attention towards two objects at once, or 
 of being diverted from an object which I 
 had in view by others which separated me 
 from it. Another man would do other- 
 wise, and would do well ; but I am too 
 much absorbed in what I am seeking, to 
 be occupied with things which seek me. 
 The existence of the inhabitants of towns, 
 which always weighs upon me rather in a 
 disagreeable way, overwhelms me entirely 
 when I reflect that I have within my reach 
 a state of solitude and liberty. It is the 
 1 
 
LONDON 25 
 
 very most I can do if I can manage to fix 
 some lines of those days destitute of air, 
 sun, and poetry, and from which I am an- 
 xious to escape, because here, as elsewhere, 
 there is a tormenting security, and a tire- 
 some variety. What is admired in Lon- 
 don is certainly admirable ; but, after all, it 
 is only a town, an immense town. It is 
 nothing but London. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PUBLIC BUILDINGS. 
 
 HERE are subjects on which there is no- 
 thing to say, except that all has been said, 
 and that it would be more than a ridicu- 
 lous pretension to attempt to include in a 
 few lines the substance of a thousand vo- 
 lumes. I shall repeat it no more. 
 
 It is generally believed in France, that 
 England is the richest country in Europe 
 in Gothic buildings, and that this is owing 
 to the respect of the nation for the fine 
 arts ; a sentiment, it is added, carried so 
 far that the Reformers themselves did not 
 involve, in their fury against the papal 
 worship, the buildings consecrated to it. 
 
PUBLIC BUILDINGS. 25 
 
 An induction is drawn from this not at all 
 to the advantage of France, where nothing 
 has been spared ; but this is founded on 
 error. The revolutions of England, at the 
 period in question, were directed against 
 certain ancient institutions, and especially 
 against the Romish Church : but the new 
 religion required temples ; and it was evi- 
 dently its interest to preserve those in ex- 
 istence. This is what saved some of them, 
 and those among the rest which enjoyed a 
 great reputation, and attracted the admi- 
 ration of foreigners. Notwithstanding, the 
 greatest part of these buildings have been 
 destroyed. Travellers, and among them 
 some artists, have been deceived in this 
 respect by the multitude of churches in the 
 ancient style with which England is co- 
 vered, and which, though not Gothic by 
 antiquity, are so in their style. In fact, 
 the English architects have had the admi- 
 rable taste to feel that this mode of con- 
 struction is, as has been said, eminently 
 c 
 
26 PUBLIC BUILDINGS. 
 
 Christian, and that the sanctuary of the 
 holy of holies, could not, without a sort of 
 profanation, resemble the marble house of 
 the idols, Gothic churches are still con- 
 structed in England; and I have seen mo- 
 dern pointed arches spring up, carved 
 roses, and storied capitals in stone, just 
 come out of the quarry, as well as it was 
 done six hundred years ago, with the dif- 
 ference only of taste, genius, and imagi- 
 nation, which have not gone on improving, 
 in this respect, in this age of improvement. 
 I am disposed to think that it is to the res- 
 pectful preservation of this system of ar- 
 chitecture, as ancient for them as the first 
 preaching of Christianity, that the Eng- 
 lish are indebted, in great part, for the 
 preservation even of religious sentiments, 
 that powerful and infallible preserver of 
 society itself. 
 
 I saw Westminster Abbey very imper- 
 fectly, as it was obstructed by the prepara- 
 tions for the coronation. It would be an 
 
PUBLIC BUILDINGS. 27 
 
 admirable edifice even in France, where, 
 however, it would not hold the first place 
 among our churches of the first order. 
 
 We might form an idea of the relative 
 superiority of Gothic over classical archi- 
 tecture, in this special application, that is 
 to say, as far as regards poetical expres- 
 sion, and the harmony of effects, by com- 
 paring this old cathedral of Westminster 
 with the celebrated temple of Saint Paul, 
 for I hardly dare give another name to 
 this beautiful Pagan church. Saint Paul's 
 is imposing from its size ; but, if I may be 
 allowed the expression, it is a physical and 
 material grandeur, an empty greatness, 
 without solemnity or awe, or dimness or 
 mystery. There is in the smallest Gothic 
 chapel a profundity, an indefinite concep- 
 tion, an infinity, of which nothing gives us 
 the least idea in this majestic but uniform 
 area, inundated with an equal light ; while 
 its perfectly symmetrical exactitude leaves 
 nothing to the imagination to fancy, no- 
 
28 PUBLIC BUILDINGS. 
 
 thing that the mind can wish. Ask a man 
 of common information what strikes him 
 in it, he will talk to you of the immensity 
 of the dimensions, of the boldness of the 
 dome, of the purity of the proportions, of 
 the beauty of the lines. But ask a man 
 merely gifted with simplicity and sensibi- 
 lity, what he feels there. . . . This is the 
 question. 
 
 The church of Saint Paul is the Pan- 
 theon of the illustrious men of the last ge- 
 neration, beginning with Johnson and Rey- 
 nolds, of whom there are statues. Around 
 them are the monuments of a number of 
 officers, who were killed during the last 
 thirty years, fighting against France. 
 Fruitless is the glory of battles, which 
 plants a palm wherever it sinks a grave ! 
 Some of these small monuments, generally 
 interesting from the patriotic motive which 
 erected them, generally of indifferent exe- 
 cution, were formed by the chisel of Bacon 
 and Flaxman. I should not be sorry if those 
 
PUBLIC BUILDINGS. 9 
 
 among our warriors who have left an his- 
 torical name and I would not except a 
 Dingle one could receive among us a simi- 
 lar homage in a consecrated spot. Only 
 it would be necessary for the architect to 
 have a certain space, for a church like 
 Saint PauPs would not be sufficient. 
 
 The name of Christopher Wren, who 
 built this famous church, recals to mind 
 the gigantic pillar called the Monument, 
 with its defamatory inscription against the 
 Roman Catholics. It does but little ho- 
 nour to the artist, and less to the con- 
 science of sects, and the good faith of par- 
 ties ; but calumny has long been an en- 
 gine of government. 
 
 Among so many edifices which I did 
 not remark, or only remarked to remem- 
 ber to forget them, I should be reproach- 
 ed if I did not at least name the Tower of 
 London. There are things which one 
 should never know but by their reputa- 
 c3 
 
30 PUBLIC BUILDINGS. 
 
 tion ; for this frequently excites a sensa- 
 tion full of historical recollections, which 
 the mind appropriates by habit to an ideal 
 figure created within itself : while an ac- 
 quaintance with the real object, which 
 turns out different from what one had sup- 
 posed, carries off all the ideas it represent- 
 ed ; so that one loses a marvellous treasure 
 of illusions and sentiments, in order to ac- 
 quire a positive knowledge of a material 
 fact, of very little consequence in itself. 
 In seeing the Tower of London, I no 
 longer thought of all that it used to recal 
 to my mind when I met with it in conver- 
 sation or in a book. The insignificant dis- 
 play of ostentatious curiosities which it con- 
 tains, and which uselessly overload the at- 
 tention with a fastidious abundance of 
 words, is prejudicial moreover to that ge- 
 neral impression in which one likes to be 
 absorbed in the midst of the grand scenes 
 of nature, the beautiful creations of art, 
 
PUBLIC BUILDINGS. 31 
 
 and the striking monuments of religion and 
 history. The armoury of the Tower of 
 London is of very little importance to tlu> 
 traveller who has seen the arsenal of Ve- 
 nice, or any other great collection of in- 
 struments invented for the destruction of 
 man. It is always, more or less, nothing 
 but an armourer's shop, in which all the 
 articles are well arranged. As to the wild 
 beasts, the sight of which is commonly dis- 
 gusting enough, they have not any more 
 attractions in London than in Paris ; and 
 the captivity of these animals of the desert, 
 doubly enslaved in their cages, situated in 
 a state prison, could only excite a dolorous 
 idea, did we not reflect that a prisoner of 
 a lofty mind may perhaps have found in 
 them a motive of philosophical consolation. 
 I can more easily conceive the resignation 
 of a Wallace, a Strafford, or a Sydney, 
 when imprisoned near the den of a lion. 
 c4 
 
32 PUBLIC BUILDINGS. 
 
 Among all this farrago of curiosities, 
 there is, however, an instrument of rude ap- 
 pearance, the sight of which makes one's 
 hair stand on end : it is the axe which cut 
 off the head of Charles I. The sight of 
 it made me shudder. 
 
33 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE DOCKS GREENWICH. 
 
 THE Docks are, as their name indicates, 
 immense basins, which receive the commer- 
 cial vessels of England. Warehouses pro- 
 portioned to this prodigious concourse of 
 vessels contain the produce of all the coun- 
 tries of the world. Immeasurable grana- 
 ries and cellars are destined for the pre- 
 servation of grain and liquids. The mul- 
 titude, the variety, and the astonishing di- 
 mensions of these rich magazines, exhibit 
 a spectacle unrivalled in Europe. In a 
 very industrious and very intelligent na- 
 tion, the docks are the most extraordinary 
 monument of the industry, and perhaps of 
 c 5 
 
34 THE DOCKS GREENWICH. 
 
 the intelligence of man. They are cer- 
 tainly the most useful. They have this 
 incontestible advantage over columns and 
 pyramids which bear above the clouds the 
 parade of our impotence and vanity. The 
 statue of the founder of docks is not erect- 
 ed at the expense of the sweat, the tears, 
 and the blood of his countrymen. It is 
 a tribute of gratitude levied on the prospe- 
 rity for which his country is indebted to 
 him. 
 
 Descending the current of the Thames, 
 you arrive at Greenwich, a superb edifice, 
 originally intended for a palace, but con- 
 verted with more taste, and equal magni- 
 ficence, into an hospital for old sailors. 
 Here the mariner, arrived in port, after 
 the troublesome voyage of life, contem- 
 plates with pleasure the windings of the 
 river which so often witnessed the adven- 
 turous departure and fortunate return of 
 his sails. He loves to count the ships, so 
 different in their forms, their cargoes, 
 
 4 
 
THE DOCKS GREENWICH. 
 
 their flags, their manoeuvres, which bring 
 back to his mind the distant expeditions of 
 his youth, and recognises with delight the 
 dress of the stranger whose shores he has 
 visited. 
 
 The park at Greenwich is one of the 
 finest in England. The view from it, or 
 as the English say, the admirable prospect 
 which is enjoyed from the observatory, is 
 beyond all description and all painting. 
 There is in the park at Greenwich every 
 thing that can flatter the heart and the 
 imagination of a man of feeling, even the 
 charm of the desert. I found there a rus- 
 tic mansion, almost as retired from the 
 world as a chalet in the solitudes of Swit- 
 zerland. 
 
 We dined on the bank of the river, our 
 eyes fixed on the enchanting perspective of 
 its borders. The land was entirely adorn- 
 ed with charming habitations, and the wa- 
 ter covered with wealthy vessels, the usual 
 tributaries of its< commerce. It was im- 
 c6 
 
36 THE DOCKS GREENWICH. 
 
 possible to doubt that we were present at 
 one of the most brilliant scenes of civiliza- 
 tion in its highest degree of perfection. On 
 turning my eyes to a corner of the horizon 
 that had escaped me till then, I perceived 
 a gibbet. 
 
37 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE THEATRES. 
 
 THE English have no advantage over 
 us in the construction of their theatres ; 
 and they cannot enter into comparison 
 with us in the management of decorations 
 and machines. This part of their plays 
 is neglected in a way very destructive of 
 theatrical illusion. The colonnades of 
 the Palace of Cleopatra, and the walls of 
 the Capitol, run on pieces of wood arrang- 
 ed by servants in silk stockings ; and, to 
 see trees advancing forwards from the 
 back of a landscape, one would think it 
 was the forest of Dunsinane in the tragedy 
 of Macbeth. 
 
SB THE THEATRES. 
 
 The literary part of their scenic repre- 
 sentations is perhaps still more imperfect, 
 with the exception of the masterpieces of 
 Shakespeare, and of a very few poets who 
 have showed themselves worthy of follow- 
 ing at a vast distance the steps of that 
 great man. It may even be said, that 
 they have now no dramatic literature at 
 all ; whether it be that the systematic form 
 of their government, which has reduced 
 every temper and every passion to given 
 proportions and measures, is no longer suit- 
 ed to the display of this species of talent ; 
 or whether the genius of the nation is bet- 
 ter satisfied with the easy labour of imita- 
 tion, now that original genius has exhaust- 
 ed the faculty of creating. The stage in 
 London at present lives in fact on almost 
 literal translations from the French, Ger- 
 man, or Italian. I saw performed the 
 same day, in a theatre I shall mention 
 presently, Adolphe et Clara, Le Jaloux mal- 
 gre lui, and La Somnambule. There are 
 
THE THEATRES. 39 
 
 two or three authors at Paris who will pro- 
 bably congratulate me on having been so 
 fortunate. 
 
 It is not for want of good actors that 
 the genius of the English seems so sparing 
 of dramatic novelties. On the contrary, it 
 would be difficult to find elsewhere a more 
 satisfactory and more complete union of 
 talent ; and this judgment is applicable to 
 each particular theatre in London. It 
 seems that the success of these establish- 
 ments is not founded on the peculiar merit 
 of a few individuals, and, as they say in Pa- 
 ris, on an insulated pearl or a solitary dia- 
 mond. All the performers concur in a just 
 proportion to that general harmony which 
 is the principal charm of a well-managed 
 play ; and if some pearls, some diamonds 
 be found amongst them, they do not re- 
 quire the effect of contrast ; and there is 
 no reason to suppose that they owe the 
 lively splendour which distinguishes them 
 to this effect, or to the coarseness of the 
 
40 THE THEATRES. 
 
 setting. It is on this account that actors 
 in England are commonly honoured by 
 the esteem of the public, who love to ac- 
 knowledge in some way or other any at- 
 tention paid to their wishes. 
 
 It would be almost as superfluous to en- 
 ter into details on the theatres of London, 
 as on those of Paris, in a publication like 
 this, which, most probably, will only be 
 glanced over by persons equally well ac- 
 quainted with both. There is nothing, be- 
 sides, which is so like a theatre as a theatre ; 
 and the only new sensation which I disa- 
 greeably learnt from those that I went to 
 in England, will soon be no more new to 
 the Parisians than to me. I believe, at 
 least, that they are promised that brilliant 
 illumination of gas, which perhaps is well 
 enough appropriated to theatrical effects, 
 but, at the same time, being too much like 
 day-light, and quite hostile to the enchant- 
 ments of the toilet, fills the atmosphere 
 with a heavy, ardent, deleterious, often fe- 
 
THK TIIKATI. 41 
 
 ticl vapour, which torments the mind with 
 the fear of danger, and occasions sensa- 
 tions so disagreeable as to be almost in- 
 supportable. With this exception, I re- 
 peat it, and the necessity of being in full 
 dress, there is very little difference between 
 the first theatre in London and the first in 
 Paris. At the period of our journey a 
 particular circumstance served to increase 
 this illusion. The noble and ingenious 
 pantomime of Albert was then the delight 
 of the whole city, and in the vortex of 
 that excellent dancer flew Mademoiselle 
 Noblet, and Mademoiselle Fanny Bias. 
 Rome rfetait plus dans Rome. 
 
 Nevertheless, as it is my wish in this 
 work to describe my sensations, and I ex- 
 perienced one extremely lively which I 
 would not forget, I shall remind the read- 
 er that I promised to speak of a theatre 
 which is neither the Opera, where the voice 
 of Madame Camporesi, and of some other 
 very pleasing singers, will always bring to- 
 
4 THE THEATRES. 
 
 gether the dlllettantl without my assistance; 
 nor Covent Garden, where the profound 
 and pathetic acting of Macready, and the 
 comic powers of Farren, so natural and so 
 keen, can sufficiently recommend them- 
 selves ; nor the Surry theatre, the favour- 
 ite temple of the Melo- drama, where our 
 own superb Melpomene might occasional- 
 ly be very happy to recruit for perform- 
 ers: the theatre I mean is the English 
 Opera House ; and though I suppose it has 
 nothing to envy in the vogue and reputa- 
 tion of the others, I feel I shall have given 
 too feeble an idea of it, if I did not hasten 
 to name Miss Kelly. It is absolutely ne- 
 cessary to have seen Miss Kelly, in order 
 to comprehend fully the whole extent of an 
 admirable intelligence, seconded by an ad- 
 mirable organization. Miss Kelly is not 
 only an actress of the most perfect tone and 
 of the most exquisite taste, she is the very 
 personage she represents, or rather it is 
 the embodied idea of the character which 
 
THE THEATRES. 
 
 the author lias attempted to paint. One 
 might take a bet that all the given combi- 
 nations of the human countenance would 
 never produce a whole so intelligent and so 
 striking as that of the features of Miss 
 Kelly. Nevertheless their purity is not al- 
 tered by that prodigious mobility of ex- 
 pressions which lends itself to all the shades 
 of thought. She can even give, it is said, 
 at pleasure, the expression of indifference, 
 and this is confirmed by some deplorable 
 anecdotes. One of those unfortunate men, 
 whose despair, indeed, I could compre- 
 hend, but not his fury, fired a pistol at 
 Miss Kelly, when on the stage. If this 
 phrenzy were contagious among her ad- 
 mirers, the stage would long since have 
 been deprived of her talents. 
 
 Full of the opinion so common among 
 us of the bad reception which the English 
 give to strangers, and to the French in par- 
 ticular ; and consequently surprised more 
 and more at the delicate refinements of po- 
 
44 THE THEATRES. 
 
 liteness with which we were constantly over- 
 whelmed, I first began to think that their 
 malevolence, become more timid, or more ge- 
 neralized, had taken refuge in their carica- 
 tures in which unfortunately we ourselves 
 are nothing behind in the disgusting ad- 
 vantage of cynical effrontery or in ano- 
 nymous pamphlets and newspapers the 
 worthy field of base passions or finally, 
 in theatrical pieces ; and I felt quite 
 anxious to verify this supposition, in order 
 to justify to my own eyes the exaggerated 
 hostilities of our Boulevards. I therefore 
 watched with the greatest attention the re- 
 presentation of one of those cutting satires 
 in which a Parisian belle is immolated to 
 the gaiety of the best company in London. 
 Strange to say, I could not discover the 
 joke. Imagine to yourself a sort of ra- 
 vishingly pretty doll, elegant to a miracle, 
 who, when she is not occupied with her 
 toilet, her parrot, or at most her lover, has 
 nothing in the world to do ; who opens a 
 
THE THEATRES. 45 
 
 book, and leaves it there, or whirls round 
 a terrestrial globe for the pleasure of see- 
 ing it go round; dances, sings, cries, 
 laughs, yawns, is in despair ; has fifty 
 ideas, fifty wishes in a minute, and forgets 
 fifty for one that she will forget in its 
 turn. All this is perhaps less coarse than 
 our exhibitions, but it must be confessed 
 it is very unjust. Good God ! who ever 
 saw a Parisian woman like that ! 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE MUSEUMS. 
 
 IT is no more my intention to give in 
 this place a description of all the museums 
 in London, than it was just now to treat 
 of all its theatres and public buildings. 
 The private exhibitions are a sort of spe- 
 culation, which cupidity would multiply 
 if vanity did not; for one must pay to get 
 into all these exhibitions., and even to the 
 national museums ; so that talent and ge- 
 nius are become objects of industry and 
 commercial commodities, which enjoy con- 
 siderable credit even among professed mer- 
 chants on ''Change. Strange turn of so- 
 ciety ! the only one perhaps to be expect- 
 
THE MUSEUMS. 47 
 
 cd from the new direction of men's minds ; 
 artisans have given way to machines, ar- 
 tists have fallen into the class of artisans, 
 and all is becoming perfect ! 
 
 As the Royal Academy of London ad- 
 mits into its annual exhibition whatever is 
 presented to it, without any competition, 
 examination, or judgment, one must ex- 
 pect to find many poor productions, and 
 even many below mediocrity ; for this is 
 an inconvenience from which countries 
 where greater precautions are taken arc- 
 not always exempt. 
 
 If the English deserve, as I think they 
 do, that reputation for good sense which 
 they enjoy among the nations, if they do 
 not add to their just grounds of national 
 pride, very exaggerated, very false, very 
 absurd pretensions, I have a pleasure in 
 thinking that they do not flatter themselves 
 with the hope of ever having a school of 
 historical sculpture and painting. The 
 reasons which have deprived them of this 
 
48 THE MUSEUMS. 
 
 advantage are probably very easy to find, 
 for those observers who seek in the statistics 
 of different nations, the incontestible action 
 of institutions on the arts. There is no- 
 thing remarkable in the sculpture this year 
 'but eight admirable busts by Chantrey. 
 The most striking is that of the bust of 
 Rochester, and above all, that of Sir 
 Walter Scott. In this truly animated 
 marble his physiognomy is reproduced as 
 I read it in his works, full of penetration, 
 smartness, and power ; all the greatness 
 necessary to rise to the highest conceptions 
 of man ; all the ingenious cunning*, taste, and 
 philosophy, that are requisite for sporting 
 in boundless prodigality, with the resources 
 of genius itself; a mixture of Corneille 
 and Moliere, of Swift and Milton. The 
 Walter Scott of Chantrey has the forehead 
 of Homer, and the mouth of Rabelais. 
 It must be very like. 
 
 * Ingenieuse malice. 
 
THE MUSEUMS. 11) 
 
 111 painting, landscapes and sea-vi.-w- 
 arc the pieces in which the English have 
 the fewest rivals in Europe. This is the 
 same in nature ; and every one is fond of 
 the beauties of his own country. Some of 
 their pictures almost surpass every idea 
 that one can form to one^s self of perfec- 
 tion in this. style of painting ; but the palm 
 of the exhibition belongs to a large land- 
 scape by Constable, with which the an- 
 cient or modern masters have very few 
 masterpieces that could be put in opposi- 
 tion. Near, it is only broad daubings of 
 ill-laid colours, which offend the touch as 
 well as the sight, they are so coarse and 
 uneven. At the distance of a few steps it 
 is a picturesque country, a rustic dwelling, 
 a low river whose little waves foam over 
 the pebbles, a cart crossing a ford : It is 
 water, air, and sky ; it is Ruysdael, Wou- 
 vermans, or Constable. It is not right, 
 however, to discourage any body, and 
 the French are not easily discouraged. 
 
50 THE MUSEUMS. 
 
 Though our landscapes are not so fresh as 
 those of the English, because we live in a 
 less humid atmosphere, and are not so ex- 
 clusively occupied with our marine, and 
 because we live on a continent where we 
 have sometimes travelled over a good deal 
 of ground, still our exhibitions prove from 
 time to time that we are capable of producing 
 admirable things even in landscape and sea- 
 views. Our artists should not consider a 
 journey to Rome as the sole complement 
 of their classical studies. Nature is clas- 
 sical too, for all models have been taken 
 from her, and it is advisable to revisit her 
 sometimes. I have often admired, in our 
 provinces, several of those enchanting as- 
 pects which the English envy us, which 
 they carry off from us, if I may be allow- 
 ed the expression, and which we are 
 astonished to recognize in their drawings, 
 because our artists do not travel, or if I 
 may be permitted to say it, because they 
 travel badly. What country, however fa- 
 
THE MUSEUMS. 51 
 
 voured by nature, would not be proud of 
 the beauty of the poetical banks of I In 
 Loire, or of the wild and superb majesty 
 of the Pyrenees ? How often have I stop- 
 ped, struck with admiration, at the foot of 
 that cascade of Mount Jura, which falls 
 from the top of Mount Girard, between 
 hills covered with flowers and shades, or 
 on the borders of that romantic lake, which 
 bathes, without overflowing, the green 
 lawns of Chalins ! But I am no painter. 
 Painting in water colours is admirably 
 treated in England. Turner still pre- 
 serves the superiority of former years ; 
 but others are remarkable beside him, and 
 this is no mean distinction. Among them 
 are some French artists, who maintain 
 very honourably in London the reputation 
 of our school. An Englishman, who 
 found me out by my pronunciation, which 
 is no difficult matter, had the kindness to 
 point them out to me, and accompanied 
 each name with very flattering eulogiums. 
 
52 THE MUSEUMS. 
 
 This national politeness should be a noble 
 object of emulation among all enlightened 
 nations. Petty quarrels are a thousand 
 times more disgraceful than the animosi- 
 ties of savages. 
 
53 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 RICHMOND* 
 
 WITH a little boat, that one might car- 
 ry under one's arm, a good wind, the tide, 
 a grain of courage, and a great deal of 
 equipoise, you may embark on the Thames, 
 and while your ears are charmed with the 
 conversation of an intelligent and learned 
 friend like Hulmandill, you rapidly cut 
 along the surface of a river without rushes, 
 without mud, without strand, which dies 
 away against verdant banks, beautiful as 
 the highest inventions of the most highly 
 gifted painter. Leaving the royal palace 
 of Kew to the right, you reach Twicken- 
 ham, where they show the habitation of 
 
54 KICHMOND. 
 
 Pope, and, casting your eyes on the oppo- 
 site side, you inhale the umbrageous cool- 
 ness of Windsor, which inspired the rich- 
 est of his songs. The Duke of Orleans re- 
 sided for some time at Twickenham, and 
 we looked with a very lively interest for 
 the house of Colonel Atthalin, whose 
 name is so dear to glory and the arts, and 
 to whom we personally owe so much gra- 
 titude. It is unfortunately true, that in 
 the most natural and most open sentiments 
 of our poor species there is always a little 
 egotism. 
 
 The terrace of Richmond has been com- 
 pared to that of Saint-Germain. The lat- 
 ter, however, can bear no comparison with 
 respect to its extent and its striking ma- 
 jesty, which render it a sort of monu- 
 ment, nor even as to the immensity of its 
 prospect and the variety of its aspects. 
 Richmond terrace is a short, narrow, irre- 
 gular walk, on the side of a hill, at the 
 foot of which spreads out a rich and ad- 
 
HMOXI). 
 
 i m ruble valley, covered with 
 woods, intersected here and there with de- 
 licious lawns, or separated occasionally, so 
 as to allow the eye to follow the romantic- 
 course of the Thames. The great advan- 
 tage of this prospect, probably unrivalled 
 in the world, consists in the multitude of 
 those superb trees, which were formerly 
 the pride also of our fields, but whose so- 
 lemn antiquity has not been respected, and 
 whose absence leaves exposed to our view 
 a white, calcareous soil, colourless, without 
 effect, without vegetation, disagreeable to 
 the eye and to the imagination. The 
 English take delight in keeping up, mere- 
 ly for the ornament of their pleasure- 
 grounds, vast plantations of large trees 
 unconnected together, but which, from 
 their exuberant growth, incessantly pour 
 into the balmy atmosphere an abund- 
 ant and salutary freshness. We even saw 
 some of these trees half decayed with age, 
 but carefully restored by art ; so lively 
 p. 4 
 
56 RICHMOND. 
 
 and profound is the religious solicitude 
 which they inspire. While the respect 
 of this nation for domestic animals saves 
 them the sight of those disgusting and 
 cruel scenes, which too often dishonour 
 our towns, their respect even for plants 
 contributes more than any thing else to 
 the ornament and prosperity of their ter- 
 ritory. Tender and affectionate senti- 
 ments form not only the happiness of the 
 individual : they have an influence on the 
 welfare of nations as well as on that of 
 families. 
 
57 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 OXFORD. 
 
 IF I were making a Travellers Guide 
 through England, I should find it very 
 difficult to get through with this chapter. 
 I believe no man in the world attaches less 
 value than me to the tickets on things. I 
 look for impressions, not for names. I 
 often hear celebrated buildings mentioned 
 which I know I have seen, but about which 
 I never inquired any thing from my Cice- 
 rone, though I was struck with admiration 
 at the sight of them. This mode of en- 
 joying the beauties of art may perhaps ap- 
 pear rather wild ; but I would not ex- 
 change it for any other, because it is in~ 
 D 5 
 
58 OXFORD. 
 
 dependent, and because liberty is to me 
 the greatest attraction in all pleasures. 
 We are dandled from our childhood with 
 the reputation of so many marvels conse- 
 crated by the suffrage of centuries, that 
 there is besides a keen delight in the pos- 
 sibility of a new sensation : and every sen- 
 sation has that charm for a man who only 
 feels them indefinitely, and does not wait 
 for his extasies till he has been told that a 
 painting is by Apelles, or a statue by Po- 
 lydore. With the Guide of Oxford in my 
 hand, I could cover twelve pages with the 
 names of artists, men of learning, and pub- 
 lic buildings, with which I was entertained 
 during my stay at Oxford, and thus, with- 
 out impoverishing myself, expend all the 
 erudition of a catalogue, and the rich ob- 
 servations of a table of contents ; but I 
 consult only my memory, and that recals 
 only what struck me. Another may see 
 differently, and see better, and without 
 
 any difficulty. 
 
 1 
 
OXTOKD. 
 
 The lirst view of Oxford is very strik- 
 ing : it is a town entirely gothic, but kept 
 up with uninterrupted care ever since the 
 remote period which historians assign as 
 the first epoch of its illustration. The lof- 
 ty spires of its numerous churches, and 
 their walls crowned with battlements, spar- 
 kle among masses of trees of the finest ver- 
 dure. The magnificent preservation of 
 these edifices, the unity of style in almost 
 all these buildings, the vast harmony of 
 which hardly suffers at all from any other 
 objects of comparison, the name of Alfred, 
 which still hovers over this city, the favou- 
 rite object of his royal munificence, every 
 thing transports the imagination into the 
 midst of the recollections of another age. 
 One would suppose that these walls had 
 arisen only a few years ago, at the voice of 
 another Amphion, and that in their inclo- 
 sure alone the progress of ages had been 
 arrested. If, absorbed in this illusion, 
 you cast your eyes down a long street, or 
 D 6 
 
60 .OXFORD. 
 
 under the colonnades of the colleges, and 
 see young men walking about dressed in 
 flowing gowns, with antique caps, some 
 ostentatiously displaying their elegant dra- 
 peries, and flying in pursuit of pleasure 
 like the companions of Alcibiades, others 
 immoveable, silent, thoughtful, absorbed 
 in laborious meditation like the disciples 
 of Pythagoras, the illusion becomes com- 
 plete, and one feels astonished to be alone 
 in a modern dress in the midst of a people 
 of ancient times. In fine, it is not diffi- 
 cult to find at Oxford a Latin guide, and 
 Latin conversation, very rare elsewhere in 
 England ; but this city of the sciences is, 
 in fact, only a vast university. It con- 
 tains, if I am not mistaken, sixteen col- 
 leges, frequented by more than two thou- 
 sand young men of the three kingdoms. 
 
 Wolsey college, founded by the cardi- 
 nal of that name, is remarkable for its 
 beautiful chapel, where may be seen nu- 
 merous examples of that intermediate ar~ 
 
OXFORD. 61 
 
 chitecture which the English call Saxon, 
 which we might call Roman, and which 
 preceded by many centuries the introduc- 
 tion of the pointed arch. These monu- 
 ments, of which England is justly proud, 
 are very rare in the provinces ; and in this 
 respect, as in several others, it would have 
 something to envy in us, if we took any 
 interest in such antiquities. At this very 
 time, a bit of wall, of little importance, is 
 drawn, is painted, is engraved, is model- 
 led, in England. In France, temples 
 and palaces are demolished. O charming 
 churches of Lery, of Burlay, of Saint Hip- 
 poly tedeBiard, masterpieces of imagination 
 and taste, which I saw, with so much sorrow, 
 abandoned to the ravages of time, pre- 
 vious to those of the bande noire, is it to 
 be wanting to the duties of patriotism, to 
 regret that the touch of a magic wand 
 could not transport you to England ! You 
 would subsist at least to charm the sight 
 of the French traveller, and to recal to his 
 
62 OXFORD. 
 
 mind, in his distant excursions, the graces 
 and ornaments of his native land ! 
 
 The library of Wolsey college, though 
 very fine, is much inferior to the Bodleian. 
 The gallery of paintings contains numer- 
 ous and superb works of Titian, Domini- 
 chino, C. Maratti, the Carracci, and a pre- 
 cious painted sketch of the Descent from 
 the Cross, by Daniel de Voltero. The re- 
 fectory is adorned with a very suitable de- 
 coration ; it is a series of portraits of the 
 celebrated men whom the college has pro- 
 duced. Some of them are admirably paint- 
 ed by Reynolds, and the best of his rivals: 
 but the general sentiment which results 
 from the aspect of this congress of sages 
 and learned men, has no need of the en- 
 chantment of the pencil. What an idea 
 of the future career of life, what a noble 
 emulation, what a just ambition of glory 
 must be awakened in the heart of the stu- 
 dent, who beholds this august senate of the 
 patriarchs of science presiding over the 
 
OXFORD. (),'* 
 
 lowest actions of his life ! The naturalist 
 salutes, on entering, the venerable feature 
 of Dillenius ; and the jurist, who has passed 
 the night in meditating on the laws, casts 
 a look of admiration on the portrait of 
 Blackstone, not without a secret hope of 
 being one day the rival of his elevated 
 fame. These young collegians get accus- 
 tomed to live among their models as if na- 
 ture had preserved them alive for them, 
 and should they afterwards add some new 
 acquisitions to the immense domain be- 
 queathed to their care, they do not forget 
 the protecting hand which supplied them 
 with a thread in the labyrinth, and with a 
 light in the dark. We carry on education 
 differently in France, and I feel sorry to 
 say so. Persuaded that science began yes- 
 terday, and that all the sources of glory 
 were only opened to-day, because our ig- 
 norant and presumptuous theories all rest 
 on that ridiculous principle ; our students, 
 in fact, learn only one thing in our public 
 
0* OXFORD. 
 
 schools, which is, that they know more than 
 their masters ; and, looking at the way in 
 which they are taught, I am not far re- 
 moved from this opinion. 
 
 The college chapel is one of the pret- 
 tiest monuments of Gothic architecture. 
 The modern painted glass windows are of 
 the utmost beauty ; and those which rise 
 above the fa$ade, interposed between the 
 nave and the setting sun, produce a magi- 
 cal effect. They represent the adoration 
 of the Shepherds, and below, nine figures 
 of Christian virtues, designed with a cor- 
 rectness and grace which the lovers of an- 
 tiquity will not perhaps prefer to the an- 
 cient naivete, but in which some defect of 
 harmony and originality is amply compen- 
 sated by the perfection of the work. In 
 the court of the same building is a Gothic 
 cloister, the most elegant and best pre- 
 served of any we have seen in Europe. 
 
 The Radcliffe library and museum, are 
 immense circular buildings, of modern 
 
n\IORD. 65 
 
 tasu-, or renewed from the Greeks, which 
 appears foreign to the ancient town, and 
 from the summit of which its admirable 
 panorama lies before you, might offer the 
 subject of a new master-piece to the pencil 
 of Prevost. We remarked here some an- 
 tiques extremely precious, and a very good 
 library of natural history, particularly rich 
 in French works. 
 
 What could I say of that fine Bodleian 
 library, which I mentioned just now, that 
 has escaped the investigation of the com- 
 pilers of itineraries, and the editors of al- 
 manacks ! The gallery of paintings ap- 
 peared to us less rich and less important 
 than that of Wolsey College, though it 
 contains an interesting series of portraits 
 of the most celebrated English classics ; 
 but these paintings have little merit, if they 
 are as little like as they are indifferent in 
 execution. Nevertheless, one ought to see 
 a School of Athens, executed, it is said, by 
 Julio Romano, from the cartoons of Ra- 
 
66 OXFORD. 
 
 phael, an excellent Erasmus by Holbein, 
 and an enchanting portrait of Mary Queen 
 of Scots. In the court of this vast build- 
 ing, a fagade is pointed out to strangers, 
 erected at the revival of arts, in which the 
 five orders of architecture are united, in 
 five stories, in a way more striking from 
 its singularity than satisfactory to taste. 
 It is a specimen of an extraordinary kind, 
 and nothing more. I forget,, of course, 
 many other things, and perhaps those which 
 I had the most firmly resolved not to for- 
 get. They may be found every where. 
 
 I have mentioned that the students at 
 Oxford have a particular dress, which is 
 very remarkable. It is not absolutely uni- 
 form. The different classes of society to 
 which these young men belong, are indi- 
 cated by as many modifications in their 
 dress. The nobleman is distinguished from 
 the gentleman, and he from the common- 
 er, whose lot would not appear very de- 
 sirable to me, had he not also the advantage 
 
OXFORD. 67 
 
 of reckoning several inferior degrees below 
 his rank of commoner. This part of the 
 institution may be considered in different 
 respects, and very specious things may be 
 said on both sides of the question ; as all 
 is true in politics, according to the ages of 
 civilization, and the character of nations, 
 the thesis of classification itself is as good 
 to maintain as any other ; and a practical 
 philosopher, who, in his system sees no harm 
 in the abjectness of Epictetus or of the Pa- 
 ria, and cannot conceive that their conven- 
 tional degradation can influence the digni- 
 ty of an elevated spirit, would not pro- 
 bably attach much importance to this pue- 
 rile discussion ; but I confess that the in- 
 equality of conditions so indispensably im- 
 posed on social man, so painfully humiliat- 
 ing to the natural man, appears to me no 
 where so misplaced as in the career of the 
 sciences, and among students of independ- 
 ent fortune who come, with equal rights, 
 to draw instruction from the same source. 
 
68 OXFORD. 
 
 It would seem that there, at least, the base- 
 less fiction of equality would have taken 
 refuge, if the spirit of domination and the 
 insatiable vanity of the higher classes of 
 society could tolerate it any where. 
 
 These details, however, will prevent no- 
 body in France from considering Great 
 Britain as the classical land of liberty and 
 equality, as long as this political nonsense 
 keeps in fashion, along with a thousand 
 other absurdities. I am convinced, how- 
 ever, that if there be any other country 
 where the national liberties are more close- 
 ly and more severely circumscribed, where 
 the shades of rank are marked in a more 
 mortifying manner for the inferior classes, 
 it must be sought beyond all the limits of 
 European civilization. Nothing so much 
 resembles the rude essays of society as its 
 last improvements, 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 FROM LONDON TO EDINBURGH. 
 
 York is a pretty town, agreeably situ- 
 ated in the midst of a romantic country. 
 Its cathedral passes, with good reason, for 
 one of file finest monuments of the inter- 
 mediate architecture. Nothing can be 
 more majestic as a whole, nor more strik- 
 ing than its proportions which, in extent, 
 assign it the second or third place among 
 the great churches of Europe nor more 
 elegant than its long lanciform * windows, 
 fifty-seven feet high by five in breadth, 
 nor, finally, more noble and more rich than 
 its magnificent Gothic screen, the forepart 
 of which is adorned with a series of statues 
 
 * Set tongue* fcnetret en lancette. 
 
70 FROM LONDON TO EDINBURGH. 
 
 of the Kings of England, beginning with 
 William the Conqueror, and ending with 
 Elizabeth. The guide who shows these 
 wonders to strangers, never fails to inform 
 them, on their departure, that they will 
 see nothing like it in the world ; and this 
 patriotic hyperbole does not produce the 
 ordinary effect of hyperboles it does not 
 shock you. 
 
 Durham, the capital of the county of 
 that name, is considered to be one of the 
 poorest towns in England. Here, for the 
 first time, we find beggars, after a journey 
 of 150 leagues ; they are pretty children, 
 who sing, to one of these national airs so 
 sadly monotonous, wishes of prosperi- 
 ty to travellers. A man alive to the 
 beauties of nature and art, is very fortu- 
 nate if their impression on him is not alter- 
 nately a painful feeling in this town, which 
 otherwise is picturesque and delightful. 
 The eye is struck from a distance with the 
 aspect of its vast and superb cathedral, 
 
1 ROM LONDON TO EDINBURGH. 71 
 
 from which descends and unfolds along 
 the horizon a broad semicircle of white 
 houses, surmounted with roofs of a glaring 
 red ; but our admiration increases at the 
 bold pass of Framlingate bridge, thrown 
 from one hill to the other, over a glen at 
 the bottom of which runs the river between 
 ravishing shades. It was through the 
 dark walls of the ruinous eastle of Dur- 
 ham that, according to most of the Scotch 
 chronicles, Wallace forced his way in the 
 dress of a bard or troubadour, to confer 
 with Robert Bruce. 
 
 The last town of the county of Durham 
 is only separated by a bridge from the first 
 town of Northumberland, which is Newcas- 
 tle, famous for its castle, its gothic church, 
 the original style of which is peculiar to 
 this building, and above all for its com- 
 merce. You reach the summit of the steep 
 hill on which the principal quarter of the 
 town is built, by the longest, straightest. 
 and at the same time the steepest and mo& 
 
72 FROM LONDON TO EDINBURGH. 
 
 perilous street I ever saw in my life. The 
 horses, accustomed to this surprising ef- 
 fort, get through it with a very good grace. 
 We now leave behind us the coal-pits, and 
 the blazing forges, and the smoky huts of 
 the coal-heavers, and the famous market 
 of Morpeth, and stop at Alnwick, before 
 the marvellous fa9ade of the castle of the 
 Dukes of Northumberland, which, as a 
 whole, is one of the most singular that 
 can be conceived. Its vast extent is crown- 
 ed with battlements, each of which bears 
 the statue of a knight armed for battle, in 
 the varied attitudes of combat. This pre- 
 cious monument of antiquity has been of- 
 ten repaired, but with such exact fidelity, 
 that it has lost nothing of its primitive 
 physiognomy *. Lower down, a bridge, 
 
 * The last reparations were made, I believe, about 
 sixty years since, for they were recent in the time of Du- 
 tens, about 1770. He says in his ITINERARY, which 
 has often been reprinted, without becoming more com- 
 mon, that he never saw any thing so magnificent as Aln- 
 wick castle. I am quite of this opinion. 
 
FROM LONDON TO EDINBURGH. 73 
 
 which is also of the middle ages, ar.d equal- 
 ly well preserved, crosses a pretty river, 
 which waters delicious meadows. Not far 
 from this was killed the valiant Douglas, 
 by one of the two young Percys, both of 
 whom were taken prisoners in the same 
 battle. At a little distance, a cross, ele- 
 vated on the right above the ascent, marks 
 the last field of battle, and the bed of death 
 of a warrior-king. It is the spot where 
 Malcolm fell. Finally, you pass another 
 river, you traverse a little town remarkable 
 for its red houses, and its towering steeple; 
 you are at Berwick, and on the territory 
 of Scotland. The landscape, without ceas- 
 ing to be rich, becomes more austere and 
 more varied ; the ridges of the mountains 
 appear sharper on the horizon, their pro- 
 files are more rude, more whimsical ; ter- 
 rible ravines cut the ground on each side 
 of the road to a great depth. You see, 
 successively, on the road, men walking in 
 checked cloaks, children with blue woollen 
 
74 FROM LONDON TO EDINBURGH. 
 
 caps, young girls with straw hats, bare legs, 
 lively and smiling faces, and Circassian 
 eyes ; gipsies gravely smoking their pipes. 
 Your attention is distracted from one spot 
 to another, with agreeable objects, always 
 new ; picturesque pastures covered with 
 frisking herds, wild, but superb ; fallows 
 roughened with the golden sceptres of 
 the broom, or decorated with the supple 
 branches, and elegant festoons of the labur- 
 num. Further on, in the midst of a wood 
 of gloomy firs, is the old castle of Douglas, 
 and its Gothic bridge of one arch, thrown 
 at the height of 122 feet above the tor- 
 rent ; the romantic port of Dunbar ; Had- 
 dington, with its pretty fields, and its ri- 
 ver which rolls over rocks of granite. At 
 length you arrive at the foot of a group of 
 mountains, among which is distinguished 
 Arthur's Seat, or the throne of the Giant, 
 and you enter Edinburgh. 
 
 We went over a part of this road in the 
 night, but favoured by the almost unin- 
 
terrupted brightness of the polar light, in 
 n climate where the light of the sun nevi-r 
 leaves the sky entirely at this season, and 
 when twilight only begins to vanish before 
 the first glimpses of the dawn. 
 
76 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 EDINBURGH. 
 
 Independently of the political and lite- 
 rary institutions which render Edinburgh 
 one of the most interesting towns of mo- 
 dern Europe, and the edifices, or the re- 
 collections which give it' a title of rivality 
 with the most celebrated cities of ancient 
 Europe, it seems that the name of the 
 Athens of the North, which nobody con- 
 tests, is a privilege of locality founded on 
 very striking topographical resemblances. 
 The town of Edinburgh is separated from 
 the sea by a straight road of the same 
 figure and the same length as that which 
 led from Athens to the Piraeus, which is 
 
EDINBURGH. 
 
 77 
 
 here represented by the town of Leith. 
 Within the city is a rock, surmounted by 
 a fortress, or antique citadel, which brings 
 to mind the Acropolis : this is Edinburgh 
 Castle. Having reached its majestic sum- 
 mit, absorbed in I know not what senti- 
 ments, I dreamt of nothing but Athens, 
 and was looking for the Parthenon. 
 
 At some distance rises another hill, also 
 within the town, on which strangers go to 
 visit the monument of Hume, or that of 
 Nelson. From this spot, looking towards 
 the castle, you are placed between two 
 towns, perfectly distinct, equally remark- 
 able; to the left,* the old town, black and 
 severe, like the buildings of a fort in the 
 days of chivalry ; to the right, the new 
 town, white and brilliant, like the enclosures 
 of a palace. The houses are much higher 
 than in Paris ; the streets much broader 
 than in London ; almost all in a straight 
 line, like those of Turin ; and some are a 
 mile in length. Most of the houses, more- 
 K3 
 
78 EDINBURGH. 
 
 over, are built of a white stone, sparkling 
 with mica ; and when the sun strikes on 
 their spicular spangles, one would suppose 
 that the buildings were inlaid with dia- 
 monds. 
 
 We arrived at Edinburgh on a Sunday, 
 that is to say, on one of those days of strict 
 observance, when every house is closed, 
 every shop is impenetrable, and all the 
 world is at prayers. The solitude was im- 
 mense, absolute ; and the first feeling we 
 had of Edinburgh was, that this prodigious 
 city had been anciently built by a race of 
 giants who had long since disappeared from 
 the earth. 
 
 In vain would you seek in the old town 
 of Edinburgh for the prison, more famous 
 from an excellent novel than from history. 
 The present prison is new, but in the an- 
 cient taste, like almost all the buildings 
 that are erected in Great Britain. Parlia- 
 ment square is remarkable for a bad sta- 
 tue of Charles II. which does not contri- 
 
EDINBURGH. 79 
 
 Imte to its ornament. The buildings just 
 mentioned are far from being the most re- 
 markable in Edinburgh : But I proceed in 
 order, and Sir W. Scott, who has a consid- 
 erable office in the court of justice, in the 
 Parliament House, might have been there. 
 Unfortunately he was not arrived, and my 
 journey was lost. We shall only see Scot- 
 land. * 
 
 The High church is Gothic and ruin- 
 ous, surmounted by a steeple also Gothic, 
 but a little more modern, the pyramid of 
 which terminates in a strange kind of 
 crown. 
 
 From the top of the platform of the cas- 
 tle the eye embraces a magnificent hori- 
 zon. I felt very little curiosity to visit 
 the interior of this fortress, whose mena- 
 cing aspect is probably its greatest merit, 
 and which seems to threaten with its fall 
 the superb street called Prince's street, 
 which extends along its base. Nor did I 
 wish to examine the regalia or royal insig- 
 E 4 
 
80 EDINBURGH. 
 
 nia of the sovereigns of Scotland, recently 
 discovered in a chamber that had been 
 closed for more than a century. I found 
 that my sensations lost much by being de- 
 tailed. What I never was tired of ad- 
 miring was the ensemble of this majestic 
 town, the streets of which rivalling each 
 other in extent and beauty, would how- 
 ever at length oppress the imagination with 
 the monotony of their symmetrical gran- 
 deur, if this impression were not suspend- 
 ed or modified from time to time, by the 
 view of some conspicuous building, or some 
 verdant, umbrageous square, which sepa- 
 rates them from each other. The pro- 
 jected place of the circus, the form of 
 which is indicated by the frame, and which, 
 it is said, will be finished in three months, 
 is worthy of Athens herself. 
 
 The last hours of our stay concurred 
 with a fortunate circumstance. However, 
 it was neither the season of the Gaelic 
 ball, nor the distribution of premiums for 
 
81 
 
 the bagpipe. Some other motive, which 
 I do not know, had brought to Edinburgh 
 ten or a dozen chiefs of clans in all the 
 pomp of their admirable costume. When 
 you speak to the Parisians of the moun- 
 taineers of Scotland, they see nothing but 
 a red soldier without breeches encamped 
 in the Bois de Boulogne. That is not the 
 place to see the Scotch, God forbid ! but 
 in Scotland. The chief of a Scotch clan, 
 with his poniard and pistols, like a bucca- 
 neer, his cacique cap, his cloak resembling 
 Grecian drapery, his party-coloured hose, 
 which, like all the stuffs of the country, 
 recal to mind the tatooing of the ancient 
 inhabitants, which they have thrown into 
 oblivion, his club of laburnum bent back as 
 the sign of his command, his savage demi- 
 nudity, and, with all that, his noble and 
 gentle mien, is a living tradition, pferhapt 
 the only one in Europe, of our ages of 
 strength and liberty. Though proud, and 
 very proud of the dazzling beauty of their 
 
8 EDINBURGH. 
 
 dress, they do not walk they fly, without 
 looking at any thing, without stopping at 
 any thing ; and traverse towns like lions 
 that have lost their way. In fact, they 
 must feel there some painful sentiments. 
 Their inhabitants were once free like 
 themselves, but have precipitated them- 
 selves under the yoke of associations and 
 laws, in order to gratify their idleness and 
 their cupidity. I can easily comprehend 
 that the Highlanders must despise the 
 breeches of the civilized man. Chains 
 come after them. 
 
83 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 HOLYROOD. 
 
 HOLY ROOD is the ancient palace of the 
 kings of Scotland in Edinburgh. It was 
 founded by David I. in 1128. The con- 
 struction of its admirable chapel must be 
 of a somewhat later date. There repose 
 the remains of James II., James V., Henry 
 Darnley, and a multitude of others, dis- 
 tinguished by their rank or their histori- 
 cal character. In the midst of the ruins 
 of this chapel, too much neglected for the 
 honour of the nation, rise two fragments of 
 ruins, singular from their picturesque phy- 
 siognomy. They are the bases and first 
 layers of two of those bundles of column* 
 
84 
 
 which support the vaults of ancient church- 
 es, while they spread along at their sum- 
 mits. When terminated, at a moderate 
 height, they represent to the eye the 
 groups of black prisms in basaltic grottos. 
 We were conducted into the apartments 
 occupied by the French princes during 
 some of the years of their long exile. 
 There is something affecting in the sim- 
 plicity of this royal dwelling. The only 
 ornament which distinguishes it from the 
 interior of an old castellated mansion, is a 
 pretty good collection of portraits of some 
 Scottish nobles, and I know not how many 
 beauties illustrated by the volages amours 
 of Charles II. Some are from the pencil 
 of Vandyke, and cited among his best 
 productions ; others belong to Mytens, 
 his predecessor in reputation ; or to Ram- 
 say, one of his most able rivals. The 
 chamber of the Duke d'Angouleme, looks 
 upon rude masses of rocks, a view which 
 at times was fully equivalent to that of a 
 
HOLYKOOD. 
 
 throne. I have had no occasion for convers- 
 ing with the great respecting their re-collec- 
 tions of the residence of the Bourbons, but 
 it has left a profound impression of coin- 
 passion and respect in the people ; and I 
 say it, because it is true. 
 
 This apartment, this palace recals to 
 mind moreover other misfortunes. What 
 a subject for historical meditation the 
 Bourbons taking refuge in the tragical pa- 
 lace of the Stuarts ! One breathes there, 
 if I may be allowed the expression, I know 
 not what atmosphere of solemn disasters 
 which augments from age to age. Pity 
 must entirely have disappeared from the 
 earth if she did not return to weep over 
 such deep sorrows. A picture which re- 
 presents the family of Charles I. after his 
 execution, was the first object which, on 
 his rising, struck the eye of the brother of 
 Lewis XVI. 
 
 It is but a step from this part of the 
 palace to that which was occupied by the 
 
86 HOLY^OOD. 
 
 unfortunate Mary. Here I enwrap my- 
 self in some of the strongest impressions 
 of my heart. All the details of this apart- 
 ment have been preserved with religious 
 exactness. It is untouched in its grand 
 and in its miserable appearances. You 
 see no other modifications in the state of 
 the furniture, the carpets, the paintings, 
 the hangings, but what are the necessary 
 work of time. They are royal rags, which 
 would still have their splendour, if the in- 
 sects had respected them as much as men. 
 In the first chamber is Mary's bed, her arm- 
 chairs, her sofas, on which she had em- 
 broidered the cipher of her first husband ; 
 even the work-basket on which her beauti- 
 ful hand had so often leaned; even her dres- 
 sing box. One might expect to be shown 
 the crown of Mary Stewart, or her mar- 
 riage ring in a rich trinket-box, but the 
 imagination is not prepared for the sight 
 of her work-table or her distaff. The se- 
 cond room is also a bed-chamber, in which 
 
HOLY ROOD 87 
 
 the boil, with slender posts, covered by :i 
 poor pink stuff, is accompanied by high 
 chairs in the form of stalls of a singular 
 shape. An old hanging of that time, 
 raised up in one part, allows a sight of two 
 narrow doors, one by which Darnley came 
 in with his assassins to surprise Rizzio, 
 the other, that of a closet where they con- 
 cealed themselves. The lance and heavy 
 armour of Henry Stuart are still shown. 
 We then returned by the same way and 
 left the first bed-chamber by a dark long 
 vestibule, which we had not remarked on 
 entering. A deep stain of blood marks 
 the spot where Rizzio received his mortal 
 wound, and other stains, irregularly traced 
 in confused patches on the floor, show the 
 efforts of his useless struggles. I do not 
 know if the sensation is peculiar to myself, 
 but I have never seen any thing compara- 
 ble to this theatre of one of the most bloody 
 tragedies of modern history, with all its de- 
 corations, even to the stains of blood, 
 
88 HOLYROOD. 
 
 which have remained there without being 
 effaced, like that of Duncan on the fingers 
 of Lady Macbeth. It is worth observing 
 that nothing is more difficult to efface than 
 blood. It is the testimony which always 
 rises against the murderer ; out of a hun- 
 dred accusations of homicide, there is not 
 a single one in which it does not serve as 
 an indication. It even cries out in the 
 presence of history and of posterity. The 
 floors of Holyrood have drunk the blood 
 of Rizzio through and through. It will 
 never be washed out. 
 
 The recollection of Mary Stuart is as 
 lively at Holyrood as if she had been be- 
 headed yesterday at Fotheringay t In fact, 
 the vestiges of her existence are in every 
 part. In the chapel we saw the insulated 
 nook where her confessional was placed. 
 Her picture is in the long gallery of the 
 portraits, historical, traditional, or fabu- 
 lous, of the kings of Scotland, for even 
 Fergus is not forgot. It is reproduced in 
 
HOI.YK: 89 
 
 all the galleries, in all I!K> chambers, aiul 
 often several times ; there is one in parti- 
 cular, where the portrait of the youn^ 
 princess, embellished with all the pomp of 
 her nuptials witli the young king of 
 France, exhibits a strange contrast with 
 the portrait of the bride of Bothwell. 
 This last picture is surprising, from I 
 know not what illusion of ideal resem- 
 blance, which answers exactly to a combi- 
 nation of features and expression which 
 one has formed without knowing it, or 
 which one has guessed. Mary Stuart still 
 appears a queen, but above all, a woman ; 
 the deep play of her look, the perceptible 
 thickness of her lips, the voluptuousness 
 of the countenance, half surrendering, half 
 enticing, reveal more secrets to my imagi- 
 nation than cotemporary history. I wish 
 Schiller could have seen this portrait, or 
 that Shakespeare could have treated the 
 subject. In an adjoining room is a fine 
 
90 HOLYROOD. 
 
 portrait of Darnley, of the Dutch school. 
 He is as thin as a spectre, but well made, 
 tall, audacious, terrible. One may easily 
 conceive the power of such a phantom over 
 the feeble organization of a woman. 
 
 The respectable dame who led us 
 through the palace added another illusion 
 to all the rest in this singular spectacle. 
 Her age, her antique and noble costume, 
 her language, which was difficult for us, 
 and every now and then was still more 
 unintelligible and solemn, from an inter- 
 mixture of old Scotch, the religious gra- 
 vity of her narrations, broken from time 
 to time with pathetic exclamations, all 
 gave us the idea of one of the attendants 
 of the unfortunate Mary, condemned per- 
 haps for some culpable complaisance to 
 come and show to curious strangers for 
 ages to come a spot which recals to her 
 mind both remorse and punishment. In 
 truth, I do not believe this. 
 
HOLYROOD. 91 
 
 On our way home we stopt before a 
 house which bears the name of Milton, 
 and had just been rebuilt. The proprie- 
 tor did not find it sufficiently commodious. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 FROM EDINBURGH TO GLASGOW. 
 
 There is a.time of life when we no long- 
 er exert, on all that surrounds us, that 
 power of sensibility which drags along, 
 which domineers, which makes us fear, 
 and, above all, makes us love ; a time when, 
 notwithstanding the soul, still energetic, 
 still young, preserves in the sole possession 
 of its recollections something delicious, 
 which only manifests itself in the calm of 
 entire solitude. My heart palpitated with 
 joy at the idea of arriving without a guide, 
 and without companions, on the borders of 
 the lakes of Caledonia, among a people 
 who do not even understand English, and 
 
TO CF.ASI.OW. 
 
 which I only know myself enough to obtain, 
 by means of ridiculous circumlocutions 
 and extravagant gestures, the contrary of 
 what I want. This extraordinary situa- 
 tion has something imperious, which reno- 
 vates life, and I have often experienced it 
 in my travels. It was this which made me 
 desirous to separate for some days from 
 my friends, and to exist in my own sensa- 
 tions, while theirs were communicated and 
 lost in each other. A new country, a new 
 appearance of nature and of manners, is for 
 four men a sight for one man it is a 
 conquest. 
 
 The solitude of a Frenchman in Scot- 
 land is the more complete, as the know- 
 fc ledge of the dead languages is, as I have 
 said elseAvhere, very rare, if, indeed, it ex- 
 ists at all. Nothing is more difficult than 
 to find an Englishman of the present ge- 
 neration, and of the lower classes, who 
 knows Latin, which every body knew an 
 hundred years ago, and I had the morti- 
 
94 EDINBURGH TO GLASGOW. 
 
 fication to be convinced of it even among 
 the booksellers, who are necessarily very 
 learned. This singularity is easily ex- 
 plained, however, by the fatal vogue of 
 the deplorable methods of Bell and Lan- 
 caster, which have reduced all the in- 
 ferior part of society to a superficial and 
 coarse education, and have substituted a 
 ridiculous mechanism in the place of the 
 genius of teaching *. However, these me- 
 thods are much more appropriated to the 
 institutions and moral character of Great 
 Britain than to ours. They may, at least, 
 produce boxers in logic and spouters at 
 taverns, but they never will produce a dis- 
 tinguished character. Is it not, moreover, 
 remarkable, that for a great many years 
 past no distinguished literary character 
 
 * I attest, on my conscience, that this opinion is not 
 in the least determined by my political opinions. Ho- 
 nest men of all parties will agree as to the indecency and 
 absurdity of mutual instruction, whenever it has ceased 
 to be a party measure. 
 
EDINBURGH TO GLASGOW. {).> 
 
 lias sprung up from the class of I he people 
 in England? Under our ancient system 
 of education, so loudly condemned, the 
 son of a butcher of Milan became the pre- 
 ceptor of kings ; the son of a wine-mer- 
 chant of Amiens was the delight of the 
 court ; and the university at a later period 
 found recruits among the cutlers of Lan- 
 gres, as the academy did among the bra- 
 ziers of Auvergne and the hatters of Ly- 
 ons. Polyhymnia confided her lyre to a 
 shoemaker, who would have been called 
 to every social distinction had he been a 
 virtuous man. Great noblemen disputed 
 the advantage of lodging a workman of 
 Geneva, a great enemy of all power, but 
 a man of eloquence and feeling. Look at 
 England at present, with this philosophical 
 and liberal education, which people extol 
 without knowing why, or rather because they 
 do not yet know that it is neither liberal 
 nor philosophical. There is not an indi- 
 vidual worthy to be cited in the higher 
 5 
 
96 EDINBURGH TO GLASGOW. 
 
 departments of literature, (I beg Sou they ""s 
 pardon if he is not noble, and I did not 
 inquire ;) not one remarkable man, I say, 
 who is not a lord or a baronet ; and only 
 let the same system be once established 
 among us, and you may seek in vain for 
 genius among the helots of modern socie- 
 ty. To find a man of talent, it will be 
 necessary to brush by a Swiss, and to 
 traverse an anti-chamber. Fortunately 
 we are not yet got so far. 
 
 What singular contradictions are there 
 not in the nature and mind of man ! You 
 have heard our philosophers in Paris say, 
 that humanity is indebted to the Scotch 
 for two great blessings, (the second of 
 which I really believe,) mutual instruction, 
 and vaccination. You leave France; you 
 arrive in Scotland ; you visit the nation in 
 its most enlightened towns ; and you find, 
 not without astonishment, that almost 
 every body has had the small-pox, and 
 that hardly any body knows how to read. 
 
97 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 GLASGOW. 
 
 THE compilers of cosmographical noti- 
 ces generally mention Glasgow as the best 
 built town in Europe. I should agree 
 with them if I had not seen Edinburgh. 
 Nevertheless, the streets traced on the left 
 bank of the Clyde, on a magnificent plan, 
 promise one day to rival Edinburgh itself ; 
 and the day is not far distant, if the pro- 
 gress of this fine town continues in the 
 same proportion. It appears from authen- 
 tic documents that, in 1610, it had only 
 7644 inhabitants, and that, in 1801, they 
 only amounted to 84,000. At present 
 there are above 150,000. It has therefore 
 
 F 
 
98 GLASGOW. 
 
 gained 140,000 inhabitants in about 200 
 years, and more than 60,000 in less than 
 twenty. This increase is perhaps a phe- 
 nomenon without example in statistics. 
 
 The right bank was for a long time the 
 only one that was built upon. It contains 
 several superb streets and squares, as Ar- 
 gyle street, Queen street, George^s square, 
 in which is the statue of Sir John Moore ; 
 buildings of indifferent taste, but of fine 
 effect, and particularly a handsome theatre. 
 Among the religious buildings, after 
 the cathedral which deserves particular 
 notice, the only one mentioned is the Ca- 
 tholic chapel, of which the inhabitants of 
 Glasgow are very proud, though it is of 
 that renewed gothic so common in Eng- 
 land, which is almost always defective, and 
 here particularly in the harmony of the 
 details ; and which would be infinitely 
 more interesting if the English had a few 
 architects with as refined a taste as most of 
 their engravers, and some of their paint- 
 
GLASGOW. 99 
 
 crs. The view from New bridge, which 
 leads to the new town, has something en- 
 chanting. It would put me in mind of 
 that from the Pont-des-Arts at Paris, were 
 not its banks of so fresh a verdure, and if 
 the river, over which it is majestically 
 thrown, did not disappear under a multi- 
 tude of vessels. When you look nearer, 
 
 r 
 
 and consider the people covered with dra- 
 peries of lively and varied colours like those 
 of Madras the gypsies bending over the 
 stream, and looking at the water, while 
 they are smoking rolls of tobacco, not of so 
 dark a colour as their browned mahogany 
 skin the light bridge which runs to theori- 
 ental horizon like an arch of reeds and 
 above all, the numerous steeples raised on 
 cubical stories, which rise smaller and small- 
 er one above another, like some minarets 
 you think yourself transported to the east. 
 As Glasgow is still less frequented and 
 less known by all the inhabitants of the 
 Continent than Edinburgh for in Europe 
 
100 GLASGOW. 
 
 it is almost only the English who travel 
 for the sake of travelling, the ancient man- 
 ners and customs have been much better 
 preserved, especially among the women, 
 who every where else give the example of 
 instability and of the love of change, at 
 least in fashions. The women of Glasgow 
 have generally and judiciously kept the 
 old Scotch cloak, which is exceedingly 
 well appropriated to the rigorous climate 
 of the country. This cloak, which is ex- 
 ceedingly like the Venetian domino, is 
 pretty often of a dark woollen cloth of lit- 
 tle show. The most elegant are of that 
 pretty tartan stuff which was fancied for 
 some time by the ladies of Paris. The 
 most common are of a dazzling red, the 
 effect of which, produced by an associa- 
 tion of ideas not necessary to explain, ap- 
 peared horrible to me above two bare legs. 
 The women of the lower classes, almost all 
 those of the middling, and a considerable 
 .number of those of the higher classes, go 
 
GLASSOU. .1.01 
 
 barefooted. SOUK have ,'d(>;> 
 ly. The fashionable ladies who hn\c 
 adopted the Parisian dress, have also bor- 
 rowed the shape of their shoes, though 
 in reality they are more like those of men ; 
 but this part of their accoutrements is what 
 incommodes them the most, and is what 
 they throw off with most pleasure when 
 they are at liberty. A brilliant Scotch 
 Belle has hardly exhausted the admiration 
 of the fashionables in Glasgow, when she 
 longs for solitude ; and the first thought 
 which occupies her in some bye-path, some 
 solitary garden, or in the mysterious ob- 
 scurity of her chamber, is not, as with us, 
 the recollection of the last man who looked 
 at her with a sigh, or the last woman who 
 eclipsed her toilet ; it is the impatient want 
 of taking off her shoes and stockings, and 
 to run with bare feet on the carpet, the 
 turf, or the sand of the high road. The 
 sight of these bare feet is hardly ever dis- 
 
 F3 
 
.*\ I gusting, veren among the people, nor is 
 there any thing in it painful to sensibility, 
 when we see them spreading out on the 
 smooth flags of the broad foot- ways in 
 Glasgow. Those that have shoes do not 
 look near so well. The flat and broad 
 form of the shoes, with buckles or strings, 
 does not at all conceal the size of the foot, 
 which no doubt is very conformable to the 
 natural proportions, especially in a nation 
 where nothing has impeded the freedom of 
 motion for a long series of ages, but which 
 is shocking to our eyes, accustomed to the 
 forced exiguity of the feet of French wo- 
 men, which, in this respect, hold a kind of 
 medium between the Scotch and the Chi- 
 nese. The foot of the mountaineer, des- 
 tined to press on narrow, slippery, steep 
 spots, ought of course to be broad and 
 strong. Feet which are small out of all 
 proportion, are a beauty of the boudoir, 
 which can only be appreciated by persons 
 
GLASGOW. 103 
 
 condemned by their infirmities, or reduced 
 by their own choice, to see the world only 
 through a window, and travel over it in a 
 carriage. 
 
104 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE CATHEDRAL, 
 
 THE cathedral of Glasgow, elevated 
 above the steep street called High street, 
 but on the other side of the hill which 
 commands it, often escapes the eye of the 
 traveller, who, besides, little expects to find 
 so ancient and so striking an edifice in a 
 town, the prosperity of which is so recent, 
 and whose increase dates from so short a 
 time. It is, in fact, the only building 
 which attests that the city of Glasgow al- 
 ready enjoyed the recollections of ancient 
 prosperity at the period when it began to 
 be enlarged by its commerce and manufac- 
 tures. The construction of this church is 
 
THE CATUI.DH \! . 1 <)/> 
 
 saul to have been begun in the first half of 
 the 12th century; and the style of its 
 architecture, which is that of the age when 
 the introduction of the painted arch took 
 place, and when its angles, afterwards so 
 lofty, then only exhibited a feeble break 
 in the centre, seems in reality to indicate 
 an epoch not nearer to us. The vast ex- 
 tent of the building, the bold elevation of 
 the pyramidal steeple, the dark and so- 
 lemn tone of the walls, the noble and sim- 
 ple character of the smooth masses and 
 unadorned lines, are indebted for a still 
 more majestic impression to the choice of 
 the solitary situation of which I have en- 
 deavoured to give an idea. The aspect 
 of this edifice, almost foreign to the city, 
 from which it is not seen, puts one in mind 
 of those ancient temples, built at a time 
 when the profane inclosure of cities was 
 not deemed worthy of containing the house 
 of the Lord, and when the sacred courts 
 around the church had no other dwellings 
 F 5 
 
106 THE CATHEDRAL. 
 
 but the silent mansions of the* dead. 
 Tombs more or less ancient, more or less 
 ornamented, varying from the most simple 
 tombstone up to the sarcophagus and the 
 obelisk, of which some are surrounded with 
 an iron railing, and the greatest number in- 
 closed with borders of flowers, and crowned 
 with cool shades, cover in every part the 
 church-yard, which will hold no more. When 
 you behold this spectacle during the night, 
 all these snow-white marble monuments, 
 glittering on the dark green of the graves 
 and the black ground of the walks, ^re- 
 semble spectres called together by the mid- 
 night bell, and waiting for the dawn of 
 day to sink back into their coffins. Be- 
 hind the cathedral stretches out a long hill, 
 on which it seems to bear, and which aug- 
 ments the severity of the picture by the 
 dismal colour of its verdure, and the py- 
 ramidal shape of its evergreens, which 
 point to the skies like the other obelisks in 
 memory of the departed, and prolong, 
 
THE CATHEDRAL. 107 
 
 through a profound perspective, the image 
 and the thought of the tombs. Two hand- 
 some buildings, placed in the environs, do 
 not diminish this impression. They are 
 lonely ; the whole space which surrounds 
 them is uninhabited ; and they might be 
 taken for particular monuments erected on- 
 ly out of a more pompous vanity. It is 
 necessary to walk some way towards Glas- 
 gow, to reach the summit of the height, 
 and see the smoke of the long chimneys of 
 the manufacturer, in order to return to the 
 domain of life. There every one is occupied 
 with the means of life, with working, with 
 enjoying, and yet the time will come when 
 the traveller, who shall seek on the banks 
 of the Clyde for the poetical recollections 
 which drew me there, shall find neither 
 Glasgow, nor its manufactures, nor its 
 tombs; for every thing of man on the 
 earth dies, even the vestiges of his death. 
 
 F 6 
 
108 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE BOXERS. 
 
 I SHALL not describe the shocking fights 
 of the boxers, more common even in Scot- 
 land than they are in England. These 
 exercises, very disgusting when they are 
 only mercenary sports, have all the horror 
 of an execution, when the hatred of the 
 two parties makes them deadly duels. 
 Chance forced me to undergo the sight of 
 one of these cruel spectacles in the beauti- 
 ful promenade of Glasgow. I had not 
 time to turn away my eyes, when it would 
 already have been impossible to place a 
 shilling on the body of these wretches 
 without touching blood. The cries of box 
 from the populace, the ferocious attention 
 
THE BOXEKs. 1 ()<) 
 
 of the spectators, the methodical c-alni of 
 the officious seconds, who enlarged the 
 circle from one moment to another, tlu- 
 exclamations which marked the blows, the 
 heart-rending groans of a woman in des- 
 pair, the more suppressed, but not less 
 profound grief of a father, all was fright- 
 ful and terrible. At length they both fell 
 senseless at once. I do not know if they had 
 life enough left to cry for mercy. 
 
 I walked sorrowfully homewards along 
 the delicious banks of the Clyde, which 1 
 had just followed, absorbed in charming 
 ideas on the happiness of nations, whose 
 institutions and manners are still close to 
 nature ; but this scene of barbarians had 
 strangely distracted me from my happy il- 
 lusions. Half vexation on thinking of my 
 disappointed theories, half compassion in 
 reflecting on the destiny of man, I felt a 
 tear moisten my eye-lids, I put my hand 
 to my pocket and found they had stole my 
 handkerchief. 
 
110 
 
 CHAPTER XIX, 
 
 CALEDONIA. 
 
 CALEDONIAM ! CALEDONIAM ! What 
 recollections, what impressions in the name 
 of the first poetical country, whose bril- 
 liant inspirations, the direction of my stu- 
 dies permitted me to learn ! Here, all is 
 natural, grand, sublime, all bears the cha- 
 racter of solemn, unalterable antiquity. 
 The manners of this people, their dress, 
 their language even, are pure from mix- 
 ture like themselves; and (a remark with- 
 out exception,) wherever the original, or 
 at least the immemorial language has been 
 preserved, there is still a nation, because a 
 nation is a language. There will never 
 
CALEDONIA. Ill 
 
 again be Romans, but the Parthenon may 
 one day rise from its ruins, if Lord Elgin 
 lias left any. 
 
 I set out from Glasgow at six in the 
 morning, on the 28th of June, with de- 
 lightful weather. The sky, however, was 
 not so perfectly clear but what one could 
 see here and there some passing clouds, 
 the aspect of which, moreover, verified a 
 conjecture I made formerly. This was, 
 that the different kinds of vapours which 
 rise from lakes, from rivers, and from the 
 sea, reflecting the light of the sky, or be- 
 coming imprinted with the shadows of the 
 mountains, and all varying among each 
 other in volume, density, and colour, are 
 infinitely more susceptible of forming 
 images than the monotonous clouds of our 
 continents, which float without any shock 
 or accidents on regular surfaces. The my- 
 thology of Ossian is necessarily founded on 
 physical probabilities, like all mythologies ; 
 and while I was taking this note, I thought 
 
 4 
 
CALEDONIA. 
 
 I beheld Malvina leaning over her harp, 
 letting loose to the winds the wavy silk of 
 her locks. I felt that it would be easy to 
 discover in these caprices of the atmos- 
 phere all the shades of my forefathers, but 
 why look for them ? That of my father is 
 not there, and arrested over the narrow 
 spot of the exile where he left me, it inha- 
 bits other clouds which will never more 
 pass over my head. 
 
 The first miles out of Glasgow are nei- 
 ther more nor less beautiful than the finest 
 part of the banks of the Saone. You be- 
 hold well cultivated plains, stocked with 
 elegant dwellings or rich manufactories, 
 the horizon of which is only varied by the 
 vaporous sinuosities of some hills. At the 
 distance of nine miles the Clyde enlarges 
 in an extraordinary manner. The ruins 
 of the old church of St. Patrick hang over 
 its course with a piece of wall out of the 
 perpendicular, the equilibrium of which 
 astonishes the traveller. Farther on the 
 
CALEDONIA. 113 
 
 austere rocks of Dunbarton terminate the 
 prospect, and resemble a vast natural 
 cupola of which the river is the avenue. 
 By little and little they open, advance, and 
 discover to the eye that basaltic mass so 
 striking, and at the same time so strange, 
 which incloses between two enormous side 
 walls, divided by a percussion that can 
 only be attributed to the most ancient re- 
 volutions of the globe, the most dismal 
 castle with which feudality ever terrified 
 the eyes of nations. Groups of red sol- 
 diers, who throw their looks down its de- 
 solate depth, from the top of the fortifica- 
 tions, render this spectacle still more pain- 
 ful to the eyes and heart of a traveller who 
 cherishes liberty. It was at Dunbarton 
 that it was, first of all, thought of con- 
 fining Napoleon ; a circumstance which 
 removes this fortress from us by the whole 
 diameter of a world ; and when I thought, 
 as I ran on the iron strand which sepa- 
 . rates the rock on which it is founded from 
 
CALEDONIA. 
 
 the majestic course of the Clyde, that this 
 river was the Clutha, this mountain the 
 Balclutha of Ossian, this ancient town the 
 Aldcluitha of Bede ; that it was there that 
 Carthon had reigned, and the lovely 
 daughter of Cathmol had sighed ; when 
 my mind rested on the monuments of a 
 nearer epoch, on the rock of the surprise 
 of Ruthven, and the triumphal tower of 
 Wallace ; when I embraced at a glance the 
 vestiges of the passage of so many ages, and 
 saw opening before me the poetical empire 
 of the Caledonian bards, of whom Balclutha 
 is the Ilium, I could with difficulty have 
 guarded myself against a return of the en- 
 thusiasm which I felt at twenty. Every 
 thing recals to mind at Dunbarton the 
 proud independence of a primitive people ; 
 the choice of an inaccessible position such 
 as a warlike tribe Would select, with the 
 mysterious forms of their melancholy 
 religion. Faujas de Saint-Fond, says, 
 (Voyage en Angleterre et en Ecosse, p. 
 
CALEDONIA. 115 
 
 26*2, torn. 1.) "I do not know how Pen- 
 nunt, speaking of this rock, could say it 
 was of an astonishing height, I found that 
 it was at most only 250 feet." I think I 
 can perfectly guess the reason of this dif- 
 ference. It is marked by the entire dis- 
 tance which exists between a man of feel- 
 ing and a mere academician. Pennant 
 yielded to an impression, Faujas took a 
 measurement. 
 
 I departed, not without often turning 
 my eyes back on Balclutha, for it was no 
 longer Dunbarton, and I was still calling 
 up the shades of ancient warriors and of 
 ancient poets, when a lofty column to the 
 left seemed to indicate a tomb. I ap- 
 proached I read and threw with respect 
 some wild flowers which I had just stolen 
 from the ancient dwelling of the bards, on 
 the stone consecrated to the memory of 
 one of their heirs. It was the monument 
 of Smollett. 
 
116 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 LOCH-LOMOND. 
 
 THE first remarkable point which my 
 itinerary pointed out was Dun-Fion, or the 
 Mountain of Fingal, which preserves some 
 vestiges of an ancient encampment of that 
 hero. Further on extends Rushy-Dale, 
 famous for the bloody encounter of the 
 Colquhouns and McGregors, about the 
 beginning of the 17th century. Loch- 
 Lomond began to display itself to the 
 right, and decorated an immense horizon 
 with the incredible variety of its aspects. 
 Let not the reader expect from me the 
 impossible effort of delineating it. Who, 
 with cold ink and sterile words, could im- 
 
LOCH-LOMOND. 117 
 
 press on the mind and heart of otlu 
 emotions, at which one is astonished one- 
 self, and which one no longer conceived 
 oneself capable of experiencing? Who 
 could describe this mediterranean of the 
 mountains, covered with islands, all vari- 
 ed in their forms and character; some 
 grave, majestic, covered with black shades 
 confounded with the colour of the water, 
 (for the lakes of Caledonia are still tin- 
 black lakes of Ossian ;) others still more 
 dismal, more austere, showing here and 
 there on their surface some naked ledges, 
 occasionally distinguished by some whim- 
 sical reflections of light or some tufts of 
 rock flowers; the greater number dis- 
 playing verdant banks, delightful groves, 
 clumps of elevated trees, placed like great 
 masses of shade on the silky green of the 
 turf, a delicious pleasure-ground, into 
 which the soul transports itself with ra- 
 vishment, and whose eloquent beauty 
 speaks to the heart of all mankind ? I 
 
1 18 LOCH-LOMOND. 
 
 saw a peasant motionless in front of the 
 lake, his eyes fixed upon it, his mind ab- 
 sorbed, to all appearance, in a profound 
 meditation. I went near him, and this dis- 
 turbed his contemplation. He looked at 
 me for a moment, sighed, and, lifting his 
 hands to heaven, 6 exclaimed, -fine country ! 
 Loch-Lomond, says the excellent itine- 
 rary of Chapman, may be considered for 
 elegance, grandeur, and variety of sites 
 and views, as the most interesting and 
 most magnificent in Great Britain. I, 
 who have travelled over many countries, 
 consider it to be one of the most interest- 
 ing and magnificent sights in nature ; and 
 I flatter myself that I can bring any one 
 of my readers to be of the same opinion, 
 though he should be the least sensible to 
 this kind of beauty, without employing 
 any of the illusions of hyperbolical exag- 
 geration. Let him represent to himself a 
 lake, on which are reckoned thirty-two 
 islands a great number of which are seve- 
 
LOCH-LOMOND. 119 
 
 ral miles in length the horizon of which 
 is confused on every side by a chain of 
 mountains, some of which are more than 
 500 toises in height. To this simple to- 
 pographical fact, let him add the effect of 
 a varied vegetation, always charming or 
 sublime ; of the accidents of light and 
 shade in the circuits of those profound 
 glens, where the sun appears and disap- 
 pears every instant, as he passes behind 
 the mountains which embrace them ; the 
 whimsical appearances of the vapours 
 which hang on their summits, in a country 
 which has consecrated, if one may say so, 
 the mythology of the clouds \ the singular 
 noises of the echoes, which transmit to each 
 other, at infinite distances, the lightest ru- 
 mour of the lightest wave, and which, 
 finally bring to your ear I know not what 
 harmonious tremor, like that which dies 
 away in the last vibration of the string of 
 a harp ; the tradition of the earliest ages, 
 and with it the names of Ossian, of Fin- 
 
120 LOCH-LOMOND. 
 
 gal, of Oscar, who have come down with 
 the memory of their actions and their 
 songs to all the inhabitants of these shores, 
 as living almost as those of heroes of a 
 more recent epoch, as that Rob Roy him- 
 self, by whom the Caledonian, when affect- 
 ed with some sudden surprise, or deep 
 subject of fear, swears at this day as the 
 Latins did by Hercules. In short, I have 
 not reckoned in this enumeration three 
 wonders of Loch-Lomond, which the boat- 
 men never forget to remark : the floating 
 islands, the waves without wind, and the 
 fish without fins. This fish, which is very 
 common, and is sometimes eat in the coun- 
 try, and which has been taken by some tra- 
 vellers for a viper, is a very innocent 
 snake, the coluber natrix, if I am not mis- 
 taken. 
 
 The ancients gave Loch-Lomond the 
 pretty name of Lyncalidor, formed from 
 the Gaelic Hyn-celydd-dur, (water of 
 the shady mountains.) The name of 
 
LOCH-LOMOND. 121 
 
 Lomond comes from the highest and most 
 singular of its mountains, Ben Lomond, 
 remarkable for the cone entirely bare 
 which crowns it. Llwmonwy signifies the 
 Bald Mountain. Sir W. Scott has been 
 happily inspired by these delicious land- 
 scapes ; but what poet would not have been 
 inspired by the Lyncalidor ? and what pic- 
 turesque site would not have inspired the 
 brilliant Ossian of modern Scotland ? It 
 is only such scenery that could give birth 
 to such poetry. 
 
122 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 LUSS. 
 
 TRAVELLERS generally stop at Luss, 
 which is the Lutha of Ossian, and about 
 half way from Glasgow to Inverary. From 
 thence, one may visit the islands on the 
 lake; and this is the usual object of parties 
 of pleasure from the north of England. 
 I dined there in a room where the travel- 
 lers who are attracted to this admirable 
 region seldom fail to write their names on 
 the wall and wainscot. I found only one 
 French name, and it was my own. Fif- 
 teen years ago such a circumstance would 
 have made me have sweet dreams. What 
 friend could have been thinking of me 
 
LUSS. I!.':) 
 
 among the mountains of Scotland ; and 
 why did he neglect to trace his own name 
 by the side of mine ? I cannot express 
 how this idea delighted me, how it peopled 
 this country, and God knows that it wants 
 it ! The certainty of a human thought 
 having been fixed upon me in these de- 
 serts, gave something additional to the en- 
 chantments of their solitude and silence. 
 I went on twelve miles farther without 
 hearing any other noise then the motion 
 of the lake, which has waves uitliout wind, 
 without seeing any living creature but a 
 bird, of the form of a snipe, but as small 
 again, which flies whistling on the strand 
 from one stone to another, leaps about, 
 turns its head, and disappears like a shot. 
 But I forget ; I saw a woman with a most 
 lovely and regular countenance, only a 
 little pale. Her hair was turned up under 
 one of those straw hats which were in 
 fashion in Paris when I left it, but which 
 I could not name. She had a Scotch 
 c 2 
 
124? LUSS. 
 
 gown, clean and simple, like all the pea- 
 sant women, bare legs, and a melancholy 
 and soft eye. Her two children came after 
 her to show her the traveller. I looked 
 round for -a house, but could only perceive 
 a hut, consisting of some hundreds of 
 stones, heaped up with little expense, to 
 defend three poor creatures against the 
 fury of the winds, the weight of the snow, 
 and the cold. 
 
 What astonished me above all, was to 
 find a road well kept, elegant as the walks 
 in the pleasure-grounds of the rich. It 
 seems laid out expressly to give to travel- 
 lers who are particular, the delight of a 
 commodious and almost voluptuous amphi- 
 theatre for the representation of the most 
 solemn scenes in nature. I was arrived at 
 that graceful and picturesque slope, at 
 that charming and sublime situation, per- 
 haps unrivalled on the earth, called Fir- 
 kin's Point, and from which, with a glance, 
 you may run over the multiplied inclo- 
 
Lrss. 
 
 sures formed by the mountains round the 
 numerous gulfs of the lake, like so many 
 immense saloons of verdure, admiring 
 their magnificent decorations in compart- 
 ments, of crystal. 
 
126 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 TARBET. 
 
 I WAS ten days too late for the botani- 
 cal excursion of Dr. Hooker, the learned 
 professor of Glasgow, to whom I had been 
 recommended by the kindness of Bory de 
 Saint- Vincent, and whose kind reception 
 of me will afford lasting recollections 
 of gratitude. Provided with the itinerary 
 he had traced for me, and with his recom- 
 mendations, I was to stop at Tarbet with 
 the good Coll Walker. In no part does 
 Loch Lomond display more magnificence ; 
 in no part does Ben Lomond, which com- 
 mands it, and which they call the Icing of' 
 hills, appear more majestic. After having 
 
TARBET. 
 
 followed these delicious banks for t \\vntv 
 miles, one fir Is again at Tarbet a iu-w B4D* 
 tinient of admiration. The siour Faujas 
 de Saint Fond, whose marble heart nevrr 
 palpitated but for marble, himself felt the 
 effect of this local seduction, so well de- 
 scribed in some charming verses by Rus- 
 sel, " The superb Loch Lomond," says he, 
 (it is a naturalist who is speaking and not 
 a poet, though one might easily make the 
 mistake,) " the beautiful sunshine which 
 gilded its waters, the silvery rocks which 
 bordered its banks, the verdant and flow- 
 ering mosses, the black cattle, the white 
 sheep, the shepherds under the firs, will 
 never leave my memory, and make me 
 wish not to die without seeing Tarbet 
 again. I shall often think of Tarbet even 
 in the midst of beautiful Italy, with its 
 orange- trees, myrtles, laurels, and jessa- 
 mines." I also hope not to die without 
 having seen Tarbet again, but I am 
 
 greatly obliged to the austerity of a phi- 
 G 4 
 
128 TARBET. 
 
 losopher for having saved me the trou- 
 ble of a fresh effort of enthusiasm, the 
 expression of which I repeat too often. 
 The opinion of a romantic mineralo- 
 gist is by no means a feeble buckler 
 against the prejudices to which I am ex- 
 posed. I have also, like him, the pleasure 
 to pay my tribute of praise to the kind at- 
 tentions of hospitality, so uncommon in an 
 inn, so agreeable at all times in a desert ; 
 for the reader must not persuade himself, 
 from the inspection of some maps, that 
 Dunbartonshire, for example, is peopled 
 like one of our departments. Most of the 
 spots marked in the itineraries should only 
 be considered as resting-places. They are 
 commonly uninhabited ruins, which one 
 enters without exciting any other attention 
 than that of the swallows who fly away at 
 the sight of you. Some of these huts have 
 even totally disappeared. What is more, 
 Tarbet and Arroquhar, which are like 
 another Tyre and another Sidon on these 
 
TAUIM'T. 
 
 Chores, consist merely of two or three ho 
 grouped rouiul an inn. In fact, they 
 arc called Tarbet inn, Arroquhar inn; and 
 truly they are nothing else, for there is no 
 reason for setting up a greater establish- 
 ment, or for a greater increase of popula- 
 tion in a country equally deprived of the 
 resources of agriculture and of manufac- 
 tures, where the winter is almost intolera- 
 ble, the autumn stormy and cold, the spring 
 unknown, summer rare, and only lasting 
 two months in the best years. All this 
 does not prevent the inn at Tarbet from 
 being one of die best in Europe, and where 
 the delicate attentions of benevolence and 
 politeness cost the least money. For my 
 part, I have travelled many thousand 
 leagues in France, Germany, Italy, Eng- 
 land, without finding one to be preferred 
 to it, even in the most frequented roads 
 and in the most opulent provinces. The 
 prosperity it enjoys is owing to the small 
 relative value of the first objects of con~ 
 G 5 
 
150 TARBET. 
 
 sumption, and to the concourse of travel- 
 lers ; that is to say the English, a nation 
 essentially curious about its local riches, 
 appreciating them with taste, and improv- 
 ing them with judgment, and who, if 
 they possessed them, would change our 
 fine situations into elysiums, and our 
 ruins into mines of gold. 
 
131 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 NATURAL PRODUCTIONS. 
 
 THE parts of the counties of Argyle 
 and of Dunbarton which I traversed, bo- 
 long to the mica-schistus grounds of M. 
 Bone, in his Geological Essay on Scotland ; 
 and it must have been from analogous quar- 
 ries that the materials of the shining houses 
 of Edinburgh have been extracted. In 
 the history of the conquest of Mexico there 
 is mention of a small town built of such 
 glittering stone that the companions of 
 Cortez thought, at a distance, it was built 
 of silver ; but they were not mineralogists, 
 and it would be rash to suppose that it 
 was constructed of mica-schistus. How- 
 06 
 
NATURAL PRODUCTIONS. 
 
 ever that may be, this illusion is often re- 
 peated on the banks of Loch Lomond, 
 and particularly at the picturesque cape 
 of Firkin, remarkable for the nature 
 and physiognomy of the rocks which de- 
 scend towards the shore They are great 
 masses of wavy schistus, the scales of 
 which, of a pearly whiteness, resemble 
 at a distance the foam of the waters agi- 
 tated by the wind and whitened by the 
 breakers on the coast. One might think 
 they were waves caught and petrified at 
 the moment they were falling into the 
 water of the lake, and whose eternal im- 
 mobility contrasts with the ceaseless agi- 
 tation of those which die away at their 
 feet. It appears from the measurements 
 of the exact and learned geologist, whom 
 I named at the beginning of this para- 
 graph, that Loch Lomond and Loch Kath- 
 rine are the deepest in Scotland, an ob- 
 servation which may explain the dark 
 opacity of their habitual colour. The 
 
NATURAL TKODUCTIONS. 133 
 
 former is GOO feet deep near Tarbet, and 
 the latter 480 through almost its whole 
 extent. 
 
 One of the motives which had determin- 
 ed me to circumscribe my solitude was the 
 desire to ascertain, with some degree of 
 care, the natural productions of the moun- 
 tains of Scotland, having strongly taken it 
 into my head that they must be more mark- 
 ed, and, if I may be allowed the expres- 
 sion, more specially local than they are in 
 reality. The geology alone has this dis- 
 tinctive character which I had hoped to 
 find in the other categories, and it is pre- 
 cisely that which I understand the least. 
 As to plants, I was directed by the excel- 
 lent Flora Scotica of the amiable and pro- 
 found Dr. Hooker, as well as by his coun- 
 sels, and by the admirable instinct of his 
 usual guide, a lively, active, ingenious, pe- 
 netrating old man, as these mountaineers 
 generally are ; and who never failed to find 
 for me any plant which had excited in the 
 
NATURAL PRODUCTIONS. 
 
 learned professor a sentiment of simple 
 pleasure, of surprise, enthusiam, or rap- 
 ture ; and then figured his senations by ex- 
 clamations or gestures, which never de- 
 ceived me a single time as to the import- 
 ance of the discovery. I contented my- 
 self with collecting the species which struck 
 me the most from the novelty of their as- 
 pect ; happy to add some to the rich col- 
 lection with which Dr. Hooker had charged 
 me for Bory de Saint-Vincent, and certain 
 of receiving from the latter clear and bril- 
 liant notions, which would prolong, for a 
 length of time, the charm of my explora- 
 tions and the pleasure of my journey. I 
 write these pages almost under his eyes, 
 in which nothing absolutely belongs to me 
 but the advantage of having seen myself 
 as I ran along, in a country little known, 
 what I could only describe from others. 
 
 Those who are not in the habit of this 
 kind of investigation, are wrong in suppos- 
 ing that very opposite climates differ es- 
 
NATURAL PRODUCTIONS. 
 
 sentially in all their vegetable produc- 
 tions. The high mountains of hot coun- 
 tries often present to the observer the same 
 plants as the most northern regions of the 
 globe. The traveller who has just picked 
 at their foot the thick veloutier of a silver 
 colour, the milky scevola, the mango tree, 
 whose branches dipping into the sea get 
 loaded with oysters like bunches of grapes, 
 is astonished to change his tone as he rises 
 above the level of the ocean, and to see 
 succeed each other the more humble plants 
 which grow under the equator, and even 
 the austere plants of Scotland or Lapland. 
 Thus on the wild sides of the Cobbler or 
 of Ben Lomond, Bory would have found 
 again, with me, the purple tubercles of the 
 coral-like Beomyces, which we behold shin- 
 ing on the heaths of southern Europe, and 
 which he had picked even on the elevated 
 tracts of the isle Bourbon. Figure to your- 
 self the lengthened cone of a champaign 
 glass, reduced to the proportions of an ele- 
 
136 NATURAL PRODUCTIONS, 
 
 gant miniature, raised a few lines above 
 the velvet green of the common mosses,, 
 and crowning its fresh verdure with a little 
 
 o 
 
 diadem of rubies, you will have an image 
 of this ornament of Alpine solitudes. 
 
 Rounded tufts of a brownish green an- 
 nounced to me further off the hymcno- 
 phyllum of Tunbridge*, first discovered in. 
 England, and observed since on different 
 points of our mountains, where it is ex- 
 tremely rare, and again discovered by Bo- 
 ry in that same isle Bourbon which was so 
 fertile in discoveries for him. It is re- 
 markable for a peculiar aspect, which ac- 
 counts for its Greek name. Its transpa- 
 rent leaves have none of the compact ver- 
 dure or succulent consistence of vegetables; 
 they are, in fact, membranous leaves, which 
 have rather the appearance of certain silky 
 tissues ; for providence, which, according 
 to the terms of Scripture, has clothed the 
 lily with a more shining robe than that of 
 
 * Hymenophyllum Tunbridgense, 
 
XATUHAL PRODUCTIONS 137 
 
 kings, has refused neither silk nor coral to 
 the meanest of its subjects. 
 
 Another cryptogamous species, very wor- 
 thy of attention, is the Borrerajlavicans, 
 which Mr. Lightfoot, author of a Flora of 
 Scotland, and predecessor of Dr. Hooker, 
 had already found on Ben Lomond, but 
 which he mistook for a known plant by re- 
 ferring it to the lichen vulpinus of Linnaeus. 
 Neither Bory nor I ever found it in a state 
 of fructification, though our eyes have been 
 often attracted, in different countries, by 
 its elegant little cushions, intermixed with 
 filaments of the finest yellow colour, which 
 form a singular and striking contrast with 
 the sombre tone and monotonous ground 
 of the schisti, gneiss, and basaltes. 
 
 It is cryptogamy which supplies almost 
 all the ornament of mountains to a certain 
 height. On the multitude of mosses which 
 supply the place of the short and slender 
 points of the turf, creeps that lycopodium, 
 the pollen of which is better known for 
 
138 NATURAL PHODUCTIOXS. 
 
 furnishing flashes of lightning at the Ope- 
 ra, than as the asylum of some pretty my- 
 cetopliagi sought after by the entomologist. 
 Who would think that the last as well as 
 the first of our theatrical exhibitions would 
 force into their service even the miserable 
 cryptogamous plants of the arctic regions, 
 and that a part of the revenue of northern 
 Europe should be founded on the torches 
 of our furies and the ignes fatui of our 
 spectres ! Of the melodrame, in particular, 
 it may be said that its light comes from 
 the north ; a great subject of meditation 
 for speculative philosophers and political 
 economists ! 
 
 As I am not writing a journal of natu- 
 ral history, I must again beg pardon of 
 the reader for the insipidity of this forced 
 nomenclature, and for mentioning nothing 
 but mosses in a country of which the ele- 
 vated points produce hardly any thing 
 else. Among those which Dr. Hooker ob- 
 served, and which he mentions in his inap- 
 
NATURAL PRODUCTIONS. 139 
 
 preciable volume, I recognised with the 
 most lively pleasure, which persons unac- 
 customed to this kind of pursuit cannot un- 
 derstand, the Bryum turbinatum, whose 
 little urns are balanced on very long pe- 
 duncles ; the Weissia acuta which heaps it- 
 self up on fragments of rocks ; the Spladi- 
 num mmoides, charged with such regular 
 bottles, and the Eucalyptus streptocarpus^ 
 whose conic hood recals to mind the point- 
 ed cap of our lawyers, or that instrument 
 destined to put out light, with which some 
 philosophers, more enlightened perhaps 
 than modest, formerly decorated our ig- 
 norance *. 
 
 The cold and naked heaths of Scotland, 
 like those of other northern regions, are 
 covered by the lichen of the rein-deer ; but 
 nature, which has been prodigal in this 
 country of the food of the valuable ser- 
 vant of the Laplanders, has not placed 
 
 * This moss was long confounded with the Bryum cor- 
 tinctorium. 
 
140 NATURAL PRODUCTIONS* 
 
 there the animal which feeds upon it. No 
 great quadruped animates by its presence 
 the solitudes of Caledonia, unless it be 
 some wandering deer, which must also be 
 scarce. Scarcely does a fierce mewing in- 
 dicate, from time to time, the wild cat ; and 
 I did not hear it : and among the birds, 
 hardly does a long whistling, or a short 
 and frequent cry, like the screaming note 
 of the wild-goose, indicate the retreat of the 
 ptarmigan, a sort of moor-fowl or tetrao> fa- 
 mous among the mountaineers, which lives 
 above the humid domain of the heron, and 
 below that of the eagle, in the low, sombre, 
 sweet verdure of the herbaceous shrubs, 
 or the arborescent herbs of the mountain, 
 in the midst of the Vaceinium mt/rtillus,w'it}\ 
 black sweet berries, which I have so often 
 stripped of their jet-black globules in the 
 pine-forests of Carniola and Croatia ; of the 
 V. oxycoccos, whose shining cherry invites 
 the black cock from a distance; of the Erica 
 daboecia, whose purplish flowers hang ia 
 
XATURAL PRODUCTIONS. 141 
 
 little balls from its stalk. The andromcda, 
 fastened to the rock like the virgin from 
 whom it receives its name, the sweet-gale 
 and some heaths tower above the dismal 
 pyrola with four leaves, and above the little 
 Genista Anglica, whose slender twigs, armed 
 with pricks turned back, catch the wool of 
 the wandering sheep, which, in its turn, 
 strips them of their golden flowers. 
 
 My entomological revsearches were infi- 
 nitely less fruitful than I had promised 
 myself. Though we had got to the be- 
 ginning of July, a tolerably advanced pe- 
 riod of the season even for Scotland, and 
 the weather was as favourable as could be 
 wished, few insects had yet trusted to the 
 mild promises of the temperature ; or ra- 
 ther, the constitution of this cold and hu- 
 mid atmosphere never allows more than a 
 very small number of species to go through 
 their metamorphoses, and to arrive at the 
 last term of their changes. The most 
 scrupulous attention, joined to great prac- 
 
NATURAL PRODUCTIONS. 
 
 tice, did not bring to my notice in the 
 mountains of Scotland, more than two or 
 three species of tinea and pyralea common 
 enough, and half a score of chilly coleop- 
 tera, who kept themselves hid under the 
 stones, or covered with thick layers like a 
 winter garment. Even these belonged al- 
 most all to the family of the Carabidce, 
 which I suspect is very rich in this coun- 
 try seldom explored, for it presented to 
 me, among other very rare species, four 
 entirely new ; for one of which I am in- 
 debted to the kindness of Dr. Hooker, and 
 which I feel a pleasant duty in dedicating 
 to him *. 
 
 I hasten to get out of these details, with 
 which I was not so long engaged on Ben- 
 Lomond as I have been in writing them. 
 The most lively taste for some particular 
 studies, of which one has contracted a ha- 
 
 * CARABUS HOOKERI. Affiniscerte C. Auroniten- 
 ti, sed duplo minor. Apterus, elytris sulcatis viridibus, 
 liaeis elevatis extern is, apice tricrenatis. N. 
 
NATURAL PRODUCTIONS. 145 
 
 bit and a want, cannot however balance 
 long the strongest emotions which it has 
 been given to the heart of man to experi- 
 ence ; and how find place for a mania when 
 one yields to the power of a sentiment 
 which contains all sentiments together ? 
 Here there is not a faculty of the soul un- 
 occupied, not one that is not enlarged, and 
 which does not receive the certain revela- 
 tion of all the strength it has left. One 
 must give up a man, whom chance having 
 placed on the top of a high mountain be- 
 tween the sky and the abysses, should not 
 discover in himself the soul of a man. The 
 air of the mountains is too generous for 
 common organizations, Reptiles cannot 
 live in it. 
 
144 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 BEN LOMOND. 
 
 ON my arrival at the foot of Ben Lo- 
 mond, the east began to glitter with all the 
 splendour of the morning. I left Loch 
 Lomond at my feet, and rose in the midst 
 of a long girdle of mountains diversely 
 illuminated. To the west, and at a little 
 distance on the grey ground of the hori- 
 zon, was strongly drawn a grotesque side- 
 view of the Cobbler, so called perhaps be- 
 cause the two rocks which surmount it have 
 an imperfect resemblance to a man bent 
 down, and half leaning on a stand. The 
 allusion is quite in the genius of a people 
 who figure all their ideas, and paint all 
 
BEN LOMOND. 145 
 
 natural objects by comparisons and images. 
 The Cobbler is also called Ben-Arthur, the 
 name of a giant of the fabulous ages who 
 probably loved to repose on the tops of 
 mountains on a throne of basalt. I have 
 already mentioned one of these singular 
 natural monuments in the environs of 
 Edinburgh. 
 
 In proportion as I advanced vertically, 
 the action of the sun and the direction of 
 the air gave to the mists of the lake a mul- 
 titude of figures and positions, which 
 changed the view at every moment. Some- 
 times the summit alone of the mountains 
 was disengaged from the white vapours of 
 the morning, and seemed to float like a 
 black vessel on all the clouds of earth and 
 heaven. The heteroclite rocks of the 
 Cobbler, suspended over this ocean of mists 
 which come dripping on the undefined sur- 
 face I was going over, resembled two 
 shoals against which the foundering ves-~ 
 sels seemed ready to break. A moment 
 H 
 
146 BEN LOMOND. 
 
 after, all reappeared. The mountains 
 stripped themselves to their feet of their 
 humid dresses ; and the waters were seen 
 rocking themselves gently against the 
 banks as they rolled along those light 
 flakes of transparent vapours which, in 
 softness and colour, imitated the fleece of 
 lambs, and the eider-down of birds, and 
 which the Caledonians, with a picturesque 
 truth that belongs only to them, designate 
 by the name of the white plumes of the 
 lake. But the sun gains strength. His 
 rays, less horizontal, strike the ground 
 which they only skimmed. The shadows 
 retire, and the mists, driven like light dust 
 under the wheels of his car, fly off so light 
 and fugitive that they do not even darken 
 the nearest objects, which you can always 
 distinguish as through a transparent gauze. 
 Only for a moment, when the curtain 
 thickens at a greater distance, and becomes 
 again as before, vast, humid, obscure, im- 
 penetrable, it closes on every side around 
 
BEN LOMOND. 147 
 
 the mountain, and envelopes the spot you 
 occupy like the waves which menaced man 
 on the last summit which the deluge had 
 not invaded. Does a new ray shine forth, 
 the curtain unfolds again, the sky is light- 
 ed up, creation springs out of another 
 chaos, and is regenerated before your eyes 
 full of grandeur and beauty. You behold 
 again the mountains, the lake of the sky, 
 while your eye follows on some distant 
 summit the fantastic appearance of a cloud 
 which dissolves away under the form of a 
 reclining giant, or a fine stag mortally 
 wounded. 
 
 The excursion to Ben Lomond is at- 
 tended with no sort of danger for those 
 who do not seek for it, and who have not 
 the imprudence to try a useless peril by 
 walking on the narrow crest of a rock from 
 which the eye measures a precipice of 300 
 or 400 feet. It has even very few diffi- 
 culties, and what renders it more commo- 
 dious is, that the ground is carpeted al- 
 H 2 
 
148 BEN LOMOND. 
 
 most in every part with a sort of fair moss 
 extremely thick, of a gentle elasticity, and 
 which does not offend the foot any more 
 than the most delicate carpet. The only 
 very steep path on the mountain is that 
 which leads from about three-fourths of 
 its elevation to the summit. This upper 
 height, which is distinguished from a great 
 distance by its form and colour, and which 
 resembles another mountain placed on the 
 first, is entirely despoiled of verdure. It 
 is to this peculiarity that Ben Lomond, as 
 I have already said, owes its Gaelic name. 
 When one has reached the top, one feels a 
 very sharp cold, which would not be with- 
 out inconvenience after a fatiguing walk, if 
 one ceased too suddenly to keep up the 
 perspiration by moderate exercise, and did 
 not take the precaution to seek shelter from 
 the current of air at the foot of a rude py- 
 ramid which the mountaineers have erect- 
 ed probably with this view. When one 
 has had time to get over the confusion of 
 
X LOMOND. 
 
 the first impression, and can give an ab- 
 count to oneself of what one sees and feels, 
 one is transported at once with the idea 
 that we are called to enjoy one of the most 
 striking sights in nature : but I do not 
 suppose that any man would think of re- 
 presenting the scene displayed before his 
 eyes with words or colours : that is above 
 the power of man. All that one sees, how- 
 ever, is only lakes, islands and mountains, 
 most of them very inferior in height to 
 Ben Lomond, and which creep at his feet 
 like a herd of black cattle ; the horizon 
 has not a plain, not a field which announ- 
 ces the hand of man, not a roof which pro- 
 claims his habitation *. The few that ex- 
 
 * I speak of the day when I was on Ben Lomond. 
 I saw distinctly enough the rock of Dunbarton, the 
 banks of the Clyde, and the sea. I saw still more dis- 
 tinctly many lakes, among others Loch Kathrine and 
 Loch Monteith; many mountains, the most clear and 
 remarkable of which were Ben Arthur, Ben Voirlich, and 
 Ben Nevis. The tourists^ or writers of travels, assert 
 that one may also see the Paps of Jura, and even Edin- 
 burgh Castle, and the coasts of Ireland. It is probable 
 H3 
 
150 BEN LOMOND. 
 
 ist apart from each other disappear under 
 thick clumps of trees, or are lost from 
 their smallness among the details which 
 the eye cannot reach. One can easily con- 
 ceive how delightful it must be for a tra- 
 veller who has reached the elevated point 
 of one of our mountains on the Continent, 
 to contemplate a space which has no limits 
 but the sky, and which unfolds before his 
 eyes all the riches of nature, all the won- 
 ders of civilization ; lovely fields, opulent 
 towns, canals covered with boats, hills 
 clothed with plantations. But what one 
 cannot conceive without having seen it, is 
 the solemn and terrible in the aspect of a 
 desert, where nothing exists but by virtue 
 of the creation ; where no power, no will 
 
 that these sublime decorations are reserved for days ex- 
 tremely clear, which cannot be common in Scotland. Is 
 it necessary for me to observe, by the bye, that many of 
 these Gaelic names are no strangers to the ancient lan- 
 guage of our Celts ? I was bom between two moun- 
 tains, one of which is called Jura, and the other Lo- 
 mond. 
 
BEN LOMOND. 151 
 
 has mollified the works of the power and 
 the will of God ; where all the productions 
 of his hand preserve without alteration the 
 stamp imprinted upon them in the first 
 days of the world ; where nothing has 
 changed, absolutely nothing, since the day 
 when the Lord separated the earth from 
 the waters, placed islands in lakes, lakes 
 among mountains, mountains in other 
 lakes, and the entire earth like an immense 
 island in the midst of the ocean. This 
 sentiment, added to the material impres- 
 sion of the local beauties, entirely changes 
 their effect. One supports, without notic- 
 ing it, and even with a sort of pleasure, 
 the conviction of a limited solitude, and a 
 voluntary insulation ; but when one has 
 climbed towards the heavens, a space 
 which may be estimated at the perpendi- 
 cular height of half a mile; when one 
 has beheld the ray of the horizon extend 
 on every side till it is at length lost in an 
 unknown line in which the last mountains 
 H 4 
 
152 BEN LOMOND. 
 
 and the first clouds are confounded ; when 
 one has called on this vast desert for man, 
 and solitude only has answered, the 
 astounded soul falls back on herself, and 
 feels the want of collecting all her strength 
 against the overwhelming power of nature. 
 She has here an awful character which 
 surmounts all the cowardly melancholies 
 of the heart, and when, from the midst of 
 these solitudes, one recals to mind society 
 with its interests, its friendships, its insti- 
 tutions, its grandeurs, its mighty names, 
 one sees nothing but a caricature in the 
 eternal order. I pointed out Loch Kath- 
 rine to my guide, and we descended ra- 
 pidly among the mountains, which raised 
 successively around us their vast cupolas, 
 and closed in, at every step which we took 
 towards the base of Ben Lomond, the 
 space more and more limited between the 
 sky and the earth. 
 
153 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 FROM BEN LOMOND TO LOCH KATHltLNE, 
 
 As it is not the custom to go directly 
 from Ben Lomond to Loch Kathrine, with- 
 out returning to Inversnaid or Tarbet, we 
 were obliged to trace a road for ourselves, 
 by cutting across the country as the bird 
 flies, over hills horribly wild, and through 
 wet and cold glens, ploughed up at every 
 step by frightful ravines, where the foot, 
 badly supported on a black moveable soil, 
 entirely composed of vegetable remains, 
 becomes imprisoned wherever it is neces- 
 sary to bear hard on an elastic earth, which 
 for a long time preserves the impression. 
 These dismal spots have only a sombre and 
 H 5 
 
FROM BEN LOMOND 
 
 monotonous vegetation, interrupted here 
 and there by large crevices, from which 
 sport rills of not very limpid water, which 
 flows slowly in a bed some fathoms in 
 length, and then loses itself in another hole 
 where it continues its subterraneous course. 
 It was on the bank of such a brook that 
 we took our evening meal, a very simple 
 repast, as may be imagined. It was at 
 the expense of its naiads that we quench- 
 ed our thirst, but not without mixing in 
 our drink some drops of that oaten spi- 
 rit which the inhabitants call whisky, 
 and which has the advantage of giving 
 to the most suspicious water, a taste agree- 
 able enough, and a salubrious quality. 
 No where in Europe did I ever find my- 
 self in a more disordered region*, or which 
 bore a more visible impression of some 
 great natural catastrophe. My guide made 
 me understand, in his way, that all this 
 part of the shores of Loch Lomond had 
 
 * Une contree plus bouleversee. 
 
TO LOr II K AT 11 RISK. 155 
 
 i tortured by frequent earthquake -, 
 the last of which was pretty recent. Eager 
 to approach my object, eager perhaps to 
 uvt away from the sinister aspects of these 
 nameless deserts, I took advantage of the 
 long glimmering of the crepuscular light 
 to get over the greatest space possible, be- 
 fore dark came on entirely ; and I walked, 
 or rather fled, attended by the screams of 
 a great white bird, whose solitary covey I 
 had probably disturbed, and which pur- 
 sued me for five or six miles with its fright- 
 ful cries, like those of a sick child. At 
 length a milder spot, a more open glen, a 
 rude but clean soil, enchanted by the mur- 
 mur of gentle breezes and of birch trees, 
 but above all, the ravishing, though per- 
 haps deceitful charm of the Ossianic cosmo- 
 graphy, retained me on the banks of the 
 lake and among the heaths of Cona. There, 
 enveloped in my cloak, my Scotch plaid 
 rolled round my head, I passed the two or 
 three hours of a night peopled with poeti- 
 
 H6* 
 
156 LOCH KATHRINE. 
 
 cal chimeras. At the point of day I got 
 out of these mountains, whence a very 
 steep but easier descent, and of a much 
 more agreeable cast than the fatiguing 
 road I had traversed the preceding eve, 
 conducted me to Loch Kathrine, the most 
 melancholy and most inspiring of the lakes 
 of Scotland. The charming descriptions 
 of a delicious poem, by Sir Walter Scott, 
 the Lady of the Lake, were taken from 
 its banks. 
 
157 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 LOCH KATHBINE. 
 
 THE boatwoman of Loch Kathrine> 
 when you come by the side of Inversnaid, 
 is known to travellers. She was in a small 
 field when we arrived, but she flew before 
 us up to her stone-cot, in order to offer us 
 some delicious milk, and oat cakes of un- 
 leavened dough, dry, pale, friable, which 
 have a look of earth whitened by the sun, 
 and perhaps the taste of it, but to which 
 one can easily accustom oneself, and espe- 
 cially when one is hungry. It is observ- 
 able, moreover, that the natural food of 
 the people is every where the wholesomest 
 aliment, and that of which one gets the 
 
158 LOCH KATHRINE. 
 
 least tired. While I was relishing the milk 
 of Caledonia on the border of the cold lake 
 of the dark rocJcs, (which is the meaning 
 of its Gaelic name. Loch Keidmerrm 9 ) I 
 considered, with an astonishment which I 
 still experience, the dress of the daughter 
 of the waves and mountains. I beg the 
 reader to excuse this romantic pathos in a 
 country where it is almost indigenous. In 
 fact, nothing has ever surprised me more 
 among half civilized nations, than the ex- 
 tremely anticipated refinement of their fa- 
 shions and manners. I believe that the 
 love of the toilet has been given, especial- 
 ly to women, in order that the transitions 
 from the primitive state, to what we call 
 highly- civilized, might be less sensible. 
 They are the first to taste the fruit of the 
 tree of knowledge, and to teach man to 
 hide the shame of his nakedness which has 
 become culpable only since it has ceased to 
 be ingenuous and conformable to his na- 
 ture. All travellers know that it is in the 
 
LOCH KATHRINE. J 59 
 
 best frequented countries, and the most 
 out of the way, that the women are found 
 to have the most singular refinements in 
 dress. Ambition and coquetry are still 
 more intense among savages than with us, 
 and if not essentially more active, they are 
 at least more open and more ingenuous. 
 After all there is nothing particular in the 
 costume of the Caledonian women, and 
 this is precisely what one would not expect. 
 There are traditions of fashions which fly 
 from one woman to another with all the 
 rapidity of the electric spark. Only all 
 these imitations are in extremes, and it is 
 impossible it should be otherwise. A sure 
 taste is the sure index of complete perfec- 
 tion. Ignorance and clumsiness betray 
 themselves in caricature. The young wo- 
 men of the mountains of Scotland are, in 
 general, remarkably clean, when compared 
 with our peasants. There is a charm in 
 the arrangement of their hair, and an ease 
 and grace in their manner of holding their 
 
160 LOCH KATHRINE. 
 
 head. Their short petticoat, commonly 
 of a deep colour, shows off the whiteness 
 of their legs, which are admirably shaped, 
 though large and vigorous. They have 
 the beauty of strength, but there is some- 
 thing which astonishes and hurts the ima- 
 gination in their toilet, which recals to 
 mind too forcibly certain negligees, and 
 certain graces infinitely less innocenU 
 When I saw the Morlachian girls, I 
 thought that, with their tinsel, their coun- 
 ters, and their shreds of all colours, they 
 had a striking resemblance to the Jigu- 
 rantes of a provincial opera, when behind 
 the scenes. I dare not say what most of 
 the young Caledonian women are like, and 
 in truth they think little about it. 
 
 The boatwoman of Loch Kathrine is 
 called Mannah, and must be about twen- 
 ty. Her lively, animated, and very pleas- 
 ing countenance, is not remarkable for its 
 style, which resembles the Tartar or Cau- 
 casian type, Her complexion, ochred by 
 
LOCH KATIIKIM .. 1 (j \ 
 
 the sun, indicates, perhaps, an ancient mix- 
 ture of the blood of the Gipsies so much 
 diffused through these regions. Her eye 
 is full of poetry, but it is a fugitive 
 sentiment which changes every moment, 
 and almost turns into derision the rapidity 
 of impressions which it communicates. 
 She is delighted, astonished, afflicted, 
 asleep. She plunges into the water to set 
 a boat afloat, and takes a leap into it of 
 ten feet from the shore, and comes tum- 
 bling on her knees. She runs from one 
 end of it to the other, sits down, makes 
 the oars play, and sings. She is always 
 in a humour to be gay, always ready to be 
 melancholy. If a man looks at her, she 
 gives a long stroke with the oars, lets them 
 go, dips her hands in the water, washes 
 her face and neck, rolls up with vehe- 
 mence her long tresses of black hair round 
 her three- toothed comb, lets them fall in 
 graceful ringlets, and begins again to row 
 and to sing, watching continually to the 
 
162 LOCH KATHRINE. 
 
 right and left for an echo that may catch 
 and answer her voice. 
 
 While the boat went on, I asked Man- 
 nah for a song in the ancient Gaelic, and 
 by the help of pantomine, of circumlocu- 
 tions, and a mixture of English, Celtic, 
 and Sclavonian, which resemble nothing, 
 but, for all I know, might resemble Gae- 
 lic, I got her to understand me, but with- 
 out gaining much by it. All I can say is, 
 that she sung with wild enthusiasm, a 
 very lamentable episode, probably taken 
 from an ancient epic poem, and which, 
 from her extravagant declamation, and the 
 picturesque harmony of the dialect, full 
 of aspirations and shouts, screaming and 
 roaring like a storm, had a most singular 
 character. With what profound dissatis- 
 faction at myself did I then regret so many 
 years lost in dissipation and idleness, when 
 the study of a few months would have suf- 
 ficed to procure for me at that moment 
 one of the most powerful impressions in 
 
LOCH KATHRIKE. 163 
 
 life. I should have heard a Gaelic song in 
 its primitive beauty, and I heard nothing 
 but sounds which brought no distinct idea 
 to my mind. It is possible on the other 
 hand that my ignorance may have added 
 something to the illusion of my sensations, 
 and that my imagination lent to the recital 
 of Mannah more brilliant colours than the 
 reality. At all events, I had already at- 
 tained the principal object of my research ; 
 and ever since my arrival in Scotland, I 
 had no longer any doubt that this country 
 had preserved traditional songs of the he- 
 roic kind. The acquisition of this idea 
 was as important to me as it was novel, 
 for I had brought from France a most 
 profound conviction that the Ossian of 
 Macpherson was nothing else but the hap- 
 piest and most magnificent of all literary 
 frauds ; and my wretched vanity itself was 
 much interested in this error, which I had 
 set off in a pretty specious way in a pamph- 
 let now forgot. Now I was about to leave 
 
164 LOCH KATHRINE. 
 
 Caledonia not less convinced that Mac- 
 pherson really collected traditional poems 
 very widely spread, and if he has some- 
 times enriched them in his translation with 
 lively and brilliant colours of his own, he 
 has at least very little changed their cha- 
 racter. In fact, it is of very little conse- 
 quence whether the Ossian of Macpherson, 
 or rather the numerous Gaelic poems 
 which the rhapsodists of the mountains 
 attribute to that celebrated bard, by a syn- 
 thesis or aggregation of persons common 
 to all primitive literature, as is the case 
 with Lockman, Esop, and Homer ; it is 
 of very little consequence, I say, whether 
 this poet has come down to us in all his 
 originality, or whether the genius of a mo- 
 dern poet has appropriated his composi- 
 tions to himself, by adorning them with 
 new beauties. What is very interesting 
 and very agreeable in my opinion, is to 
 ascertain the positive existence of that aw- 
 ful and severe mythology, of those heroic 
 
LOCH KATHRTNE. 165 
 
 and warlike histories of ancient times, of 
 those certainly measured songs which ap- 
 pear very figurative and very pompous, 
 and which have been preserved in the me- 
 mory of men for fifteen centuries. Thi> 
 nominal memory is even so lively and so 
 precise, that one could not conceive what 
 can stimulate it from generation to genera- 
 tion, if traditional songs did not exist. It 
 is surprising, no doubt, that these songs 
 have traversed such a length of years ; but 
 it would perhaps be more surprising that 
 they should have been lost in a nation en- 
 raptured with its recollections, which it 
 connects with all objects, all events, all na- 
 tural scenes, and in a tongue which has 
 the privilege, so rare among all known 
 languages, of having subsisted from time 
 immemorial without any modifications. 
 One can hardly go a mile in the moun- 
 tains of Scotland, without finding one of 
 Ossian's halls, one of FingaTs caves, a 
 trace of their passage, or the place of 
 
166 LOCH KATHRINE. 
 
 their graves. In short, the very indis- 
 tinctness which surrounds the cradle of 
 this extraordinary literature, gives an 
 additional charm to its effects. I do not 
 know if every one would experience 
 the same, but as for me, I never felt 
 more perfectly the religious power of poe- 
 tical names than under the firs of Balva, 
 or at the aspect of the indistinct point, 
 which my guide showed with his finger 
 from the top of the mountains of Argyle, 
 when he said, There is Morven ! 
 
 I must escape from the danger of at- 
 tempting a detailed description of Loch 
 Kathrine. It has called forth pencils too 
 skilful, muses too highly favoured, to per- 
 mit me to expose myself . to a comparison 
 which might frighten even a poet. I 
 shall merely observe, that the invincible 
 sentiment of melancholy with which it 
 penetrates the heart, is the result probably 
 of the contrast between the gloomy colour 
 of its waters with their so regular and pen- 
 
LOCH KATHRTNE. 167 
 
 sive swell, and the grace and smiling beau- 
 ty of its shores. One might think it was 
 an Acheron watering an Elysium. The 
 ground is eternally covered with a sombre 
 turf, very glossy, the general tone of which 
 has something silky ; but what forms the 
 finest ornament of this rich down, is a 
 multitude of plants or dwarf shrubs of the 
 brightest green, which look like embroi- 
 dery on beautiful compartments, and whose 
 aspect produces the sensation of a magni- 
 ficent carpet of raised velvet, wrought in 
 gold, and struck by a ray of the sun. 
 
 These charming borders change their 
 aspect entirely towards the extremity of 
 the lake which approaches the defile of the 
 Trosachs on the side of Stirling. It is 
 the region of rocks and precipices an- 
 nounced by the Gaelic name of Loch- 
 Kathrine. Here the dark waves die away 
 at the foot of dark rocks, some of which 
 are 200 feet perpendicular. Some have so 
 *Qlemn and so frightful a character, that 
 
IC8 LOCH KATHRINE. 
 
 the mountaineer, astonished at his fears, 
 cannot look on them without horror, and 
 excuses his timidity by relating in an 
 affecting tone the tragical histories which, 
 according to custom, these formidable 
 masses recal to mind. Mannah made me 
 understand that one of them was the dwell- 
 ing of the Genius of the storms of the lake, 
 and that for this reason it was called in 
 English the rock and den of the ghost. 
 She related, that not far from it there was 
 in the time of her grandfather a savage 
 and implacable band of ruffians, who 
 massacred travellers without mercy, and 
 spreading over the vallies every now and 
 then, carried off the flocks, set fire to 
 the houses, and desolated all the country. 
 The caves which served for their asylum 
 are still called the den of the ferocious men. 
 Animosities fomented on purpose, or kept 
 i*p by some national superstitions, always 
 cause these atrocities, which besides, are 
 almost unknown among the Scotch, to 
 
LOCH KATHRINE. 169 
 
 their maritime and continental neighbours. 
 The Southrons or Sassenachs, are almost 
 in as bad repute at this day in Lennox as 
 in the time of Wallace. A privilege of re- 
 collection is always a protection there to the 
 French, and Mannah made me understand 
 this feeling in a manner equally ingenious 
 and affecting: gaUjflue, (gaeliclt,) she said, 
 resting her hand on my shoulder; gal- 
 li-que, she repeated, placing it on her heart. 
 This idea of a primitive parentage, ex- 
 plained by a name, touched me even to 
 tears. 
 
 Adieu, said I, with a sigh, beautiful 
 lake of the dark rocks ! adieu, Mannah, 
 whom I might as well have called Morna, 
 did I not wish to be faithful to truth ! 
 Let us quit the striking hills of Perth- 
 shire, where my friends are wandering 
 perhaps only a few miles off. Let us cast 
 a farewell look towards the deep valley of 
 Glentivar, a last look on those poetical re- 
 gions which will recal to the latest poste- 
 
170 LOCH KATH11INE. 
 
 rity the enchanting recollection of Helen 
 Douglas ; and turn the prow of thy light 
 boat to the side of the mountain and lakes 
 of Lennox. Mannah, I beg your pardon, 
 but I am impatient to go after other names 
 and other sentiments on shores whose 
 echoes have never repeated the measured 
 sound of your oars. 
 
 The day was getting late. I walked a 
 long while before I found myself again in 
 Conors silent vale. The sky was calm 
 and pure, the shades of Oscar and Malvi- 
 na were absent, and I could hardly dis- 
 tinguish the roaring stream, the dull roar- 
 ing of the waters of the lake. 
 
171 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THE GYPSIES. 
 
 THE nights in the mountains of Scot- 
 land have a peculiar character of solemnity 
 which I thought I had guessed, but which 
 cannot be entirely appreciated till one has 
 enjoyed by oneself their solitude and si- 
 lence. Since the time that the sun had 
 sunk to the horizon of the vallies, almost 
 all the sounds which announce life had 
 ceased. The last bird which I had seen 
 was a heron, which descended on an island 
 of the lake ; after that, I had caught no 
 other sound but the whispering of a fresh 
 breeze, which glided through the long 
 grass of the bank. Only towards mid- 
 
172 THE GYPSIES. 
 
 night I heard the branches of a fir creak 
 under the weight of a powerful animal, 
 whose vigorous wings beat through the 
 foliage and the air. It was a great owl, 
 traversing the air, and holding in his beak 
 either a snake or an eel, which rolled its folds 
 round the robust claws of its antagonist, 
 and struck them with its tail as with a flail. 
 The desert was visible, and this immensi- 
 ty of earth and water, on which reposed 
 the polar light, but which, at the same 
 time, was totally destitute of motion and 
 life, appeared to me more austere than the 
 darkness itself. I penetrated on purpose 
 into the thickest part of the forest, along 
 a path but little trod, which announced, 
 however, the passage of man, and I felt 
 myself seized on a sudden with a mixture 
 of fear and curiosity. Who could have 
 formed this mysterious way, so far from 
 every habitation and from every resort of the 
 ordinary industry of man ? Absorbed in this 
 anxiety, I could not hear without emotion 
 
THK (iVrslKS. 17-3 
 
 the echo of my steps, and I tried to re- 
 peat them exactly in order, to be certain 
 that it was really their noise which I heard. 
 From time to time there was a motion in 
 the lake like a splash of water, and I tried 
 to conjecture whether it proceeded from 
 the leaping of some large fish, or the beat 
 of a fisherman's oar who had been casting his 
 nets. After having walked for two hours, 
 with the idea that it was difficult and im- 
 probable that any other man should be 
 breathing the air of the same mountain, 
 I perceived, at the turn of a hollow way, 
 a distant light, and advanced towards it 
 with some degree of eagerness, as the cold 
 had become very piercing. On my ap- 
 proach towards the Scythian hearth, on 
 which were crackling some holly leaves, 
 with a black smoke, I saw three men lying 
 down, who hardly raised their heads to re- 
 connoitre me. me women squatted 
 
 near them holding children in their arms. 
 One of them, after having looked at me 
 i 3 
 
174 THE GYPSIES. 
 
 with surprise, drew out of a bag of rags, 
 made with pieces of every colour, a little 
 flask, in which there remained some drops 
 of whisky, which she made me drink, 
 while she declaimed with vehemence some 
 phrases, of which I understood no more 
 than of the songs of Mannah. At last, 
 after having rested myself a little, and dis- 
 tributed among the women and children 
 all the change I had about me, together 
 with two or three hundred pins that I had 
 brought with me for my insects, and which 
 had excited a lively desire among my wild 
 hostesses, I set off* again at sunrise, with- 
 out having obtained the smallest sign of 
 attention from the chiefs of the tribe, and 
 very agreeably surprised at this indiffer- 
 ence. After I had walked about ten mi- 
 nutes, reflecting on this episode of my 
 journey, and on the consequences it might 
 have had, I turned round towards the 
 brow of the hill I had just quitted, which 
 began to be tinged by the orange-colour- 
 
THE GYPSIES. 175 
 
 ed vapours of the east. Precisely at the 
 point of the rock was a man motionless, 
 leaning on a long forked stick. A little 
 below me some more of these adventurers 
 were fastening a boat to the shore. I was 
 near Arroquhar, the ancient residence of 
 the Macfarlanes, and I had just escaped 
 from a bivouac of gypsey smugglers. 
 
 i 4 
 
176 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 LOCH LONG. 
 
 LOCH Long, and several other lakes of 
 this part of Scotland, are merely long 
 gulfs, extremely narrow, and filled by 
 the sea, and which contain no other plants, 
 shells, and animals, but what are proper 
 to that element. I walked for a long 
 time on its borders, examining through 
 the limpid and transparent wave, as clear 
 as the purest crystal, the inn umer able jfari 
 which cover the fresh arena of its bed ; a 
 vegetation rich and varied in form and 
 colour, which seems to be to the nymphs of 
 the waters a substitute for the soft shades 
 of the earth. The most common and most 
 
LOCH LONG. 177 
 
 singular of its inhabitants are little blur 
 fishes, which play and follow each other 
 among the floating foliage of the marine 
 plants, and reflect from their dorsal scales, 
 when struck by the sun, the shades of an 
 incomparable azure ; for it would be do- 
 ing them an injustice to compare their bril- 
 liant sparks to the pale light of sapphires. 
 I thought, as I admired their superb 
 dress, of a lake in the Arabian Tales, 
 where similar fish were caught, but I had 
 never seen them any where else. I confess 
 I am much distressed to know with what 
 colour the able illuminators of Bloch would 
 have expressed these. I afterwards lost 
 myself among the green hills, called the 
 Bowling-Green of Argyle, seeking with 
 little success insects on the earth, and poe- 
 tical inspirations in the clouds, but deliri- 
 ous with joy to find again in my heart all 
 the charm, and all the power of its first 
 illusions, and to be able to enjoy them on 
 
 the borders of the lakes of Fingal, and at 
 i 5 
 
178 LOCH LONG. 
 
 the gates of his palaces ; for here certainly 
 it was that Fingal reigned, here flourished 
 the heroic soldiery of the demigods of Os- 
 sian. These ideas absorbed me to such a de- 
 gree that I felt a secret pleasure in wander- 
 ing from the dwellings of man, and turning 
 from the roads he had traced, in order to 
 avoid trivial distractions, and to withdraw 
 myself from the habits of the prosaic life of 
 the vulgar. I could imagine at least among 
 these austere rocks, on the border of these 
 precipices whose aspect freezes the blood, 
 in these dismal solitudes where nothing at- 
 tracts the traveller ; I could imagine, I 
 say, that no voice had resounded but my 
 own since the songs of Selma have ceased. 
 It was only at the junction of Loch Long 
 and Loch Goyle, that I resumed the road 
 which was to bring me to the borders of 
 the latter, and to those of Loch Fyne, 
 the breadth of which was all that separat- 
 ed me from Inverary ; but what was In- 
 verary and its gothic castle, its fishermen 
 
LOCH LONG. 179 
 
 and boatmen to me ? Not only this : not 
 only did I fear to descend from my sensa- 
 tions, but I should have feared to exchange 
 them for other sensations of equal inter- 
 est and equal grandeur ; I strove to keep 
 them up ; I saw more danger than plea- 
 sure in multiplying them. I might have 
 imprinted my steps on the strand of all the 
 lakes in Scotland, and on the summit of 
 all its mountains, without the least addi- 
 tion to the immensity of my recollections ; 
 and I should have exposed myself perhaps 
 after all to overload my memory or pall 
 my heart. I was like a man who assists at 
 a seductive play, and who goes off before 
 the curtain drops, for fear of losing the 
 illusion of the representation. 
 
 I selected among the mountaineers who 
 offered their services, the one whose pic- 
 turesque costume and marked physiogno- 
 my, seemed the best calculated to keep up 
 the impressions of the preceding days, and 
 I passed in his boat from Loch Goyle to 
 i 6 
 
180 LOCH LONG. 
 
 Loch Long, contemplating the miraculous 
 effects of the light in the sublime decora- 
 tion of the surrounding mountains, whose 
 blue masses now like a clear sky, now in- 
 undated with transparent reflexions of 
 pearly whiteness, or glittering like polish- 
 ed gold, embrace the whole horizon with 
 the most magnificent drapery with which 
 the Creator has enriched the scenery of na- 
 ture. Having got from Portincaple in 
 front of the pretty house of Roseneath, I 
 provided myself with a less frail bark, and 
 ascended, for eight hours, the ravishing 
 stream of the beautiful Clyde, the Sca- 
 mander and Permessus of the Gaelic my- 
 thology. Others may notice on its banks 
 the little port of Gourock in front of He- 
 lensburg, and further on, the charming 
 town of Greenock, one of the ornaments 
 of Renfrewshire. For me I saw nothing 
 but Balclutha and its rock, and I arrived 
 at Robroyston, more overpowered by the 
 
LOCH LONG. 181 
 
 weight of so many emotions than by watch- 
 ing and fatigue. 
 
 Robroyston owes its name and present 
 celebrity to that chief of the Macgregors 
 to whom the people gave the surname of 
 Robert the Red, (Rob Roy) on account 
 of the colour of his hair, and whom the 
 Scotch, in order to give an idea of the 
 length of his monstrous arms, call the man 
 who tied his garters without stooping. 
 Robroyston is the Lumloch of the ancient 
 historians. It was in this celebrated vil- 
 lage that Wallace was arrested ; and the 
 enormous beams which that hero tore away 
 from the doors and walls, in order to de- 
 fend himself against the treacherous sol- 
 diers who surprised him in his sleep, are 
 still shewn. No man of the present gene- 
 ration can lift them. Wallace, after all, 
 was only a hero of liberty, and, in a na- 
 tion which is growing corrupt from day to 
 day, his reputation has already sunk be- 
 fore that of a smuggler. 
 
182- 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 AYR. 
 
 MY pilgrimage to Lumloch removed 
 m^/only a few miles from Glasgow, where 
 I was joined the next day by my friends, 
 whom I found transported with the recol- 
 lections of a journey still more hurried, 
 but much more extensive and more varied 
 than mine. While I was wandering to- 
 wards the western coast, that too exclusive 
 object of my curiosity, they had embarked 
 on the Frith of Forth, traversed Inver- 
 keithing, visited the historical shores of 
 Loch Leven, and its island, whose solitary 
 castle witnessed the unjust captivity of 
 
AYR. 1S,'> 
 
 Mary Stuart. They stopped at Perth, so 
 celebrated in the history of Scotland, shud- 
 dered at Scoon before the castle of Mac- 
 beth, and recognized, further on, the mov- 
 ing wood of Birnam, and gave a passing 
 salute to the tomb of Ossiaii, or rather to 
 the monument of a forgotten religion which 
 poetry has decorated with that name. From 
 Dunkeld and Blair-Athol, they went to 
 admire the falls of Bruar, whose pictu- 
 resque name itself calls to mind the roar- 
 ing of cascades. They saw the chain of 
 the Grampians unfold beneath their eyes, 
 left behind them the walls of Killin, and 
 the castle of Taymouth, took views as they 
 wandered along the rich and varied bor- 
 ders of Loch Tay and Loch Earn ; sought 
 in the vale of Balquhidder for the birth-place 
 of Macgregor, and in the rude defiles of 
 the Trosachs, the route of the knight of 
 Snowdon ; nor did they fall into the trace 
 of my modest itinerary till they reached 
 
184 AYR. 
 
 the borders of Loch Kathrine where I had 
 ended *. 
 
 We had hardly met again when we set 
 off afresh to traverse the county of Ayr, 
 which we passed over very rapidly, though 
 this province is far from being the least cu- 
 rious and the least picturesque in Scot- 
 land. We were destined to experience 
 some of those rude changes of weather so 
 frequent in this climate, which the fine 
 days we had so lately enjoyed did not at 
 all lead us to suspect. Confiding in our 
 good fortune, which, with the exception of 
 some pretty sharp cold, had saved us all 
 the disasters of a long journey, we had 
 decided, contrary to the signs of the hea- 
 vens, and the advice of our last landlords, 
 to go over other mountains. We had even 
 
 * The excellent memoirs which Mr. Taylor had the 
 kindness to send to me on this excursion, being much too 
 extensive to be inserted in this place, and possessing, 
 moreover, a peculiar charm, extremely interesting, I 
 have solicited, and obtained his kind permission to make 
 a separate publication of them. 
 
AYR. 
 
 183 
 
 got, wiihout any inconvenience, to the liu It- 
 tow n of Kilmarnock, where the market-day 
 had drawn together an incredible number 
 of pretty women from all the neighbour- 
 hood, remarkable for the contrast, though 
 every day less new to us, of the finery of 
 their elegant costume and their naked feet, 
 which boldly brave the rough sand of the 
 roads. Ayrshire, besides, is the part of 
 Scotland where the people appeared to us 
 the most faithful to the national dress, and 
 the most tasteful in the manner of wearing 
 it. The men, women and children, rival 
 each other in the drapery of their broad 
 plaids, without any well fixed rule, it would 
 seem, but in a way to charm the eye of an 
 artist, and excite the emulation even of a 
 Parisian belle. This observation struck 
 me particularly at Sanquhar. I am con- 
 vinced the most able of our landscape 
 painters could never dress his peasants 
 with more grace, though he should give 
 himself up entirely to his imagination. I 
 
186 AYR. 
 
 have seen groups, which, taken as they 
 were, would not disgrace a picture of 
 Poussin. The women, especially, take 
 great advantage of this mode of seduction, 
 which they might well do without, for they 
 are charming. 
 
 From day-break, the sky had been dull 
 and stormy. Nature seemed restless. 
 That pretty little bird with a yellow head, 
 like the flowers of the ranunculus and the 
 broom, among which it loves to dip, and 
 which is entitled in the country the hop- 
 clover, was jumping with fright from 
 branch to branch ; great sea-birds bewild- 
 ered, followed each other with screams over 
 the forests. All the shades of the fore- 
 fathers drew their long-trained garments 
 as they ran from mountain to mountain, 
 and crowded together confusedly at a point 
 of the sky ; an immense close band, above 
 which one could scarcely distinguish the 
 supercilious front of some aged seers with 
 their bald beards, and the eagle-winged 
 
AYR. 187 
 
 helmets of a few warriors. This magnifi- 
 cent areopagus of bards and heroes was 
 not long in dissolving upon us in a cold 
 penetrating rain, mixed with hail, and ac- 
 companied by all the rumours of the storm 
 repeated by all the echos. Though we 
 had taken no precaution against this event, 
 yet it had very little influence on the im- 
 pressions we came in search of, and we tra- 
 versed the parish of Mauchlin with enthu- 
 siastic exclamations on the picturesque and 
 wild spots displayed every moment by the 
 *-<irieties in the course of a romantic river. 
 Above its steep and menacing sides, whose 
 summits are decorated with the most deli- 
 cious landscapes, the eye discovers here 
 and there flourishing habitations, or ma- 
 jestic ruins. 
 
 Not far from this rise the towers of 
 Queensberry-house, the Holy-Rood of soli- 
 tudes ; and the ruins of a castle of Tibe- 
 rius, less known to the inhabitants of this 
 part as a precious remnant of an ancient 
 
188 AYR. 
 
 Roman habitation, than as having serv- 
 ed as an asylum for Wallace : but one 
 must have gone over Scotland to form an 
 idea of all the sentiments attached to the 
 name of Wallace in the memory of the 
 people. He is to this nation one of those 
 heroical personages, whose proportions are 
 all presented to the mind on a gigantic 
 scale, like that of the demigods of Homer. 
 Every body can tell you that a king of 
 Scotland, travelling over his kingdom an 
 hundred and twenty-five years after the 
 death of Wallace, and inquiring eagerly 
 for any memorials of that hero from aged 
 persons who might have received them 
 from immediate tradition, was informed 
 that death had spared till then a lady who 
 had herself known him, and knew many 
 particulars of him. The king set off im- 
 mediately for the antique castle of the ve- 
 nerable lady, and requested an interview 
 with her. She came forth before the mo- 
 narch, leaning on a white staff, and pre- 
 
AYK. 189 
 
 i-eded by a hundred and twenty ladies in 
 two ranks, all in mourning. They were her 
 daughters, grand-daughters, and daugh- 
 ters-in-law, down to the last generation 
 which had sprung from her marriage, and 
 who, after their widowhood, had returned to 
 the parental roof. Several were a hundred 
 years old. The king, introduced by this 
 parade of centuries into one of the old halls 
 of the castle, would not sit down till the 
 parent of these respectable matrons was 
 seated in front of him ; he then sat down 
 in the worm-eaten chair that had been of- 
 ten occupied by Robert Bruce. The 
 lady, after having expatiated in clear and 
 easy language on the noble qualities of 
 that prince, and especially on his elevated 
 stature, higher by the head than all his 
 subjects, like the Turnus of Virgil, added, 
 that the arm of Sir Robert was so potent 
 that he might have confidently defied the 
 ten most valorous champions in Scotland ; 
 but the king having asked how far Sir 
 
190 AYR. 
 
 William Wallace was comparable to his 
 friend, she answered that he was a whole 
 head taller, and that ten champions like 
 Robert Bruce would have fallen before 
 Wallace. It is remarkable that this reci- 
 tal, which to my mind is full as solemn as 
 if it related to Hercules, is at least found- 
 ed in probability on the prodigious exam- 
 ples of longevity at all times in Scotland. 
 In the collections consecrated to this spe- 
 cies of phenomena, two men are cited who 
 might have known each other, and who 
 embraced between them, as ocular witness- 
 es, the history of the events of 300 years. 
 Thus, in this marvellous country, there 
 appear in their turns, and at every mo- 
 ment, all the species of renown which ima- 
 gination or truth have bequeathed to the 
 respect of futurity. Not content with 
 having given a new, extraordinary, su- 
 blime mythology to the genius of the lyri- 
 cal epopseia, in the immortal songs of the 
 Caledonian poet, and chivalric names to 
 1 
 
AYR. 191 
 
 the magical muse of Ariosto, Scotland 
 does not make all its glory rest on tradi- 
 tions, which the severity of criticism too 
 often assimilates with fables. The very 
 personages of her positive history, in its 
 least hyperbolical pages, have something 
 religious and grand, like the majestic figure 
 of Fingal ; something grave and mysteri- 
 ous, like the obscure ages of Fergus and 
 Duncan ; some supernatural impressure of 
 fairy enchantment, like the high deeds of 
 Argail. Such is Wallace ; such are some 
 other Scottish chiefs, whose memory is so- 
 lemnly kept up, and their vestiges revered 
 with a sort of worship. Though the ex- 
 ploits of these fierce defenders of the in- 
 dependence and of the institutions of Scot- 
 land, have frequently made the glory of 
 England turn pale, still England has the 
 politic generosity to respect in their me- 
 mory courage and virtue. No one in all 
 Great Britain would ever think of com- 
 paring the famous Highland chiefs with 
 
192 AYR. 
 
 ruffians or highway robbers. Happy pri- 
 vilege of those conquests which maintain 
 themselves by their own strength, and 
 which, in order to consolidate the power of 
 a family, have no need to make stipula- 
 tions at the expense of honour and truth ! 
 
193 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 GEETNA GEEEN. 
 
 A TEAVELLEE must not leave this vil- 
 lage, situated at the extreme frontier of 
 Scotland, on the line which separates it 
 from Cumberland, and a few leagues from 
 Dumfries, (poor Jenny Deans, may the 
 earth lie light upon thee !) he must not 
 go off, I say, without giving a look at that 
 little white house, so simple in its struc- 
 ture, so insignificant from its situation, 
 and its purely local recollections, but which 
 draws, notwithstanding, such a numerous 
 concourse of elegant visits, and seems to be 
 the vestibule of those magical gardens of 
 the poet where all the amorous couples in 
 
GRETNA GREEN. 
 
 the world flocked from every side. This 
 comparison is not so far-fetched as many 
 others, to which I am sometimes borne 
 along, I know not by what connexion of 
 ideas, which exists perhaps only in my ima- 
 gination. In fact, Gretna Green enjoys 
 the strange privilege of serving as an asy- 
 lum to clandestine amours, and of conse- 
 crating all those marriages which, in Eng- 
 land, would be contrary to the decorums of 
 society, to family arrangements, and to pa- 
 ternal authority. If two persons, free from 
 other ties, are agreed, nothing can hinder 
 them from forming that of marriage, as 
 soon as they have touched this promised 
 land of lovers. Two yes's, freely pro- 
 nounced, are sufficient to reduce to nothing 
 all legal opposition, all remonstrances, and 
 alas ! all duties. The formalities of this 
 contract are easy, simple, and very expe- 
 ditious. It is a blacksmith, or a tobacco- 
 nist of the village, who performs the cere- 
 mony, on the first demand of the parties, 
 
GRETNA GREEN. 195 
 
 and who, without inquiry, without rites, 
 without solemnities of any kind, fixes, 
 without witnesses, without a clerk, without 
 authority, by a writing which has no fix- 
 ed formula, without a legal seal, and with- 
 out orthography, the indissoluble union of 
 two adventurers whose bargain is then as 
 sacred in the eye of the law as if it had 
 prescribed the forms, dictated the expres- 
 sions, and sanctioned the contents. This 
 strange, not to say extravagant custom, is 
 undoubtedly very reprehensible in the eyes 
 of morality; but, like many of our vicious 
 customs, it is a homage to morality itself. 
 A Gretna Green marriage presupposes a 
 profound respect for its institutions, which 
 is not to be found among nations where 
 the power of the religious and social insti- 
 tution is worn away ; a point of view in 
 which, as in many others, very civilized 
 nations have a singular resemblance to bar- 
 barians. An unhappy young woman who 
 goes off to Gretna Green, braves the most 
 K 2 
 
196 GRETNA GREEN. 
 
 sacred of all human powers, that of her fa- 
 ther ; but, by a fiction, which has its effect, 
 she complies with the most important of all 
 social conventions ; a fugitive from her fa- 
 mily without being so altogether from so- 
 ciety. If she withdraws herself from a se- 
 vere yoke which suffers no disobedience, 
 she passes, at least, under the light yoke 
 of a complaisant institution, which gives an 
 appearance of legality to disobedience it- 
 self; and I really think that the father of 
 a young lady who had taken this step, would 
 do much better not to try to overtake her; 
 still happy if the criminal dereliction of 
 the child who has deceived his affection is 
 not attended with more fatal consequences 
 to her honour and happiness ! 
 
 I left Gretna- Green with a charming 
 young woman, beautiful as love, sorrowful 
 as melancholy, who had just passed a fort- 
 night in the village, and had passed it all 
 alone. I was told that she had been wait- 
 ing for somebody, who never came. 
 
197 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 FROM CUMBERLAND TO LONDON. 
 
 To vast plains of peat, whose dismal mo- 
 notony is only varied for a moment by the 
 Solway Firth, succeed, at last, more smil- 
 ing fields, as one approaches the old walls 
 of Carlisle. This historical town is re- 
 markable, however, for nothing but the an- 
 tiquity of its castle, and of its cathedral, 
 an edifice analogous in its style to that of 
 Glasgow, but which appears, from the form 
 of some of its windows, to belong to a more 
 remote epoch, and which, from the red 
 tone of its brick-coloured stones, has a very 
 different physiognomy. I shall say no- 
 thing of the feudal ruins with which the 
 
198 FROM CUMBERLAND TO LONDON. 
 
 neighbouring hills are covered, and which, 
 everywhere, recal to mind the long and 
 bloody wars between England and Scot- 
 land, nor of the Cumberland lakes, so re- 
 nowned for the richness of their aspects, 
 and the variety of poetic scenes on their 
 shores, nor of the famous remains of the 
 Great Roman Wall ; nor of the verdant 
 pastures of Westmoreland, nor of the mag- 
 nificent parks and incomparable horses of 
 Yorkshire, nor of the delightful views of 
 Lincolnshire or Nottinghamshire, nor of 
 the dazzling luxury of Middlesex. I hard- 
 ly took more time on my return, to pass 
 through these different counties than would 
 be necessary to mark with a little exact- 
 ness their position on the map, not above 
 forty hours at most. Thus I passed in a 
 few days, and almost without any transi- 
 tion but that of sleep, from one of the ex- 
 treme points of civilization to the most op- 
 posite point; from a desert to London; and 
 from the domains of imagination and li- 
 
FROM CUMBERLAND TO LONDON. 199 
 
 berty, to those of industry and money. In 
 vain might I expect to hear, on waking in 
 the morning, the noise of the shepherd's 
 horn, calling in different directions on the 
 echo of his rocks, or the national air which 
 the old mountaineer tunes on his bagpipe, 
 as in the days of his youth, which it recals 
 to his mind, with its energy and its hopes. 
 The lakes no longer wave around me. The 
 summit of the mountains is effaced, and 
 the scattered fog will veil it no more. The 
 clouds have lost their poetry, and the wo- 
 men themselves are hardly any thing but 
 women. Antiquity placed the nymphs on- 
 ly on the borders of lakes, dryads only in 
 the bosom of woods, and muses only on 
 the summit of hills. 
 
200 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 CANTERBURY. 
 
 IT commonly happens that our sensa- 
 tions, when multiplied, diminish in inte- 
 rest and vivacity. I began to experience 
 that lassitude which results from a long 
 exertion of the faculties of the heart and 
 of the mind, and I was not sorry to leave 
 behind me Cambridge, Salisbury, and 
 Windsor, as a motive for another visit to 
 England. I was not even much disposed 
 to stop at Canterbury, which I only know 
 by English engravings, always flattering, 
 though this in reality proceeds only from 
 an admirable perfection in their execution. 
 
CANTERBURY. 
 
 I saw Canterbury ; and Canterbury 15 
 worthy of a journey to England. 
 
 Nothing so magnificent, nothing so di- 
 vine as this cathedral. Divine is the pro- 
 per word. God is there. It seems to me 
 that the different styles of architecture bear 
 the stamp of religious sects. I am not in- 
 tolerant ; I love to think that the spirit of 
 God is everywhere; but the poverty of 
 imagination in the reformed religions is 
 pitiable, when compared with those won- 
 ders which, at least, it has had the good 
 sense to preserve. They deserve credit 
 for this homage to the piety of ancient 
 times. There is here a long tradition of 
 respect for the religion which they have 
 abandoned. They show the altar where 
 Saint Thomas of Canterbury was assas- 
 sinated. It is the same altar, the same 
 marbles, the same pavement. A worn 
 stone preserves the trace of the knees of 
 pilgrims. 
 
 i 5 
 
CANTERBURY. 
 
 It is not with words, nor hardly with 
 figures and colours, that one could give 
 an idea of the sublime effect of this church 
 of three ages, in which is displayed all the 
 genius of the three styles of the intermedi- 
 ate architecture, the Saxon, the middle 
 with its broken arch, and the ogee or 
 pointed arch, down to the revival of the 
 fine arts. The spirit of preservation which 
 prevails in England is carried to such a 
 point of religious scruple, that the small- 
 est sacrifice of detail has not been permit- 
 ted, even for the effect of general harmo- 
 ny. All ancient work that could be pre- 
 served has been respectfully saved in the 
 work of the moderns. These people did 
 not demolish temples to get lead. They 
 made columns for capitals, and buildings 
 for a door. It is strange to say, but it is 
 true, that the secret of their political socie- 
 ty, holds by the same principle, and will be 
 maintained by the wonderful art with 
 which they have identified ancient institu- 
 
CANTERBURY. 
 
 lions with new ones. Nations build no- 
 thing new. 
 
 I shall not describe Canterbury. I 
 have not the pretension to conduct the 
 reader, already fatigued with following me, 
 across that vast nave, those chapels full of 
 elegance, those subterraneous vaults, those 
 tombs, the overwhelming sentiment of 
 which escapes from the feeble approxima- 
 tions of speech. I shall only stop at the 
 monument of the Black Prince, whose 
 image, still interesting even for those who 
 love to fancy the ideal grandeur of a hero, 
 is placed in the attitude of prayer, by the 
 side of a heavy sword, which you may 
 grasp and raise, if nature has given you 
 sufficient strength. An incredible effect is 
 the result of this attempt, which 1 find it 
 very difficult to express. You cannot con- 
 ceive how the whole power of your life is 
 so feeble by the side of death, and by 
 what prodigy the dust of this tomb could 
 play with a weapon which you can hardly 
 
CANTERBURY. 
 
 move. Nevertheless, the sword of the 
 Black Prince is here the only thing that 
 has preserved its form without alteration. 
 The war-horse at the funeral of a warrior, 
 is an affecting sight ; but this sword of 
 battle, moveable by the side of a man in 
 bronze, immortal near a corpse, and which 
 will remain by him for ages as if he had 
 just put it down this I think sublime. 
 Have I guessed, my dear Augustus, what 
 would have struck you most in Canter- 
 bury cathedral ? 
 
 Above the tomb of the Black Prince is 
 suspended the armour which he wore at 
 his last battle, and another sword, rusted 
 by time. It is without a scabbard. It is 
 there as in the hand of that valiant knight, 
 an emblem of courage which was never at 
 rest. 
 
 All the environs of the church preserve 
 some parts of the ancient abbey, and its 
 numerous buildings. They are grand 
 archivolts, groups of lofty pillars, friezes, 
 
CANTERBURY. 205 
 
 ornaments that remain fixed in walls more 
 or less modern. Among these fine remains 
 is an admirable tower in the Saxon style, 
 round which run two enormous toruses of 
 the richest work, and not far off a little 
 staircase, the effect of which is enchant- 
 ing. The environs of the church are co- 
 vered with superb plots of verdure, and 
 shaded with magnificent lime-trees, whose 
 venerable heads complete the harmony of 
 this grand picture. The imagination loves 
 to place the secrets of the sanctuary in the 
 shelter of forests, and it was on this ac- 
 count that they were held sacred amongst 
 the ancients. A church never strikes the 
 mind with a more profound sentiment of 
 devotion than when it is surrounded with 
 trees ; and if gothic architecture has a cha- 
 racter more eminently religious than clas- 
 sical architecture, as nobody can doubt, it 
 is perhaps because the elevation of its 
 spires, the acute angle of its arches, which 
 represents the point of union of two bran- 
 
206 CANTERBURY. 
 
 ches crossing each other, the volume and 
 form of its columns, pressed together like 
 neighbouring stems, which, in the perspec- 
 tive, are confounded together, the gloomy 
 coolness of its vaults, and the soft murmur 
 of its echos, recal to mind the grandeur 
 and solitude of woods. However this may 
 be, the finest taste has presided almost 
 every where over this kind of embel- 
 lishment. It is observed in general, that 
 the inspired decorator of the environs of 
 temples has contrasted the plantations with 
 the buildings in the most ingenious man- 
 ner. The light pyramids of the gothic 
 architecture, and its angular profiles, are 
 almost always opposed to concentrated 
 masses of trees, with great branches, 
 crowned with a sort of dome of foliage, 
 such as the horse-chesnut, and the lime- 
 tree ; the pointed minarets of Asia appear 
 to be borne on the horizontal arms of ce- 
 dars, or to spring from the radiating front 
 of palms. The cupolas of Greek archi- 
 
CANTERBURY. 
 
 tirture, and the circular temple which they 
 cover, are, on the contrary, rounded off 
 among groves of pines and poplars, which 
 lose their heads in the clouds. The men 
 of those days of simplicity, who created 
 these harmonies, were not probably aware 
 of such effects ; but they are very natural, 
 very consonant ; and I would advise artists 
 not to depart from them. 
 
 I shall mention a colossal fragment of 
 the ruins of St. Augustin's monastery a 
 monument of a fine age, and of a good 
 style, the last vestiges of which appear 
 ready to perish merely to regret that no 
 more care is taken of its preservation than 
 if it were in France. 
 
208 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 FRANCE. 
 
 I cast a last look on Shakespeare's cliff, 
 so admirably described in King Lear, of 
 which one of the excellent commentators on 
 the English Eschylus says, that he never 
 transported himself in imagination to the 
 brink of the precipice without feeling, as 
 he measured its frightful depth, a degree 
 of giddiness. The coasts of Albion be- 
 gin to be confounded with the clouds, and 
 I lose sight of that land, on the two extre- 
 mities of which genius has stamped two 
 impressions equally interesting : the ad- 
 mirable poetry of Ossian on the black 
 
FRANCE. 
 
 rocks of Morven, the adrnirable poetry of 
 Shakespeare on the white cliffs of Dover. 
 
 France ! France ! my native land ! a 
 sight more beautiful, more lovely to the 
 heart of the traveller than all the wonders 
 of a foreign country ! Here the first sound 
 that strikes my ear will bring an intelligi- 
 ble idea, and a familiar word to my mind. 
 Here the first look that will witness my 
 arrival, will be that of a countryman, 
 perhaps of a friend. Two days at most 
 separate me from you whom I love ! The 
 abysses of the sea no longer separate me 
 from you, and the marvellous secret of 
 navigation might be lost, without my los- 
 ing any part of my happiness. Thanks 
 to the waves which have brought me back 
 to the shorec of France; they have no other 
 kindness to do me ; and no vessel from a 
 distance will come loaded with the hopes 
 of my fortune, or the treasure of my af- 
 fections, it is here. 
 
 Now this dream of fifty days is termi- 
 
10 FRANCE. 
 
 nated, and, like the buildings of a town 
 one has quitted the preceding evening, and 
 which one looks at from the tops of a hill 
 at a considerable distance, I see confused 
 together all the objects which occupied 
 my view during that period. The most 
 lively sensations of those days, so full of 
 new ideas, fade from my memory. Who 
 can fix the passing impressions of life ? 
 And, moreover, what interest would there 
 be in those of a man who travels merely 
 for the sake of travelling, sometimes even 
 in order to forget that he is alive, and who 
 fills, without any design, the pages of a 
 useless memorial with reflections without 
 any object ? Nevertheless, the effect of this 
 journal abruptly sketched, in passing from 
 a post chaise to a boat, would not be en- 
 tirely lost, if it should inspire a man bet- 
 ter organized, and more capable of turn- 
 ing his indolence to the advantage of 
 others, with a taste for travelling to make 
 observations in countries very near-> and 
 
FRANCE. 2 
 
 so little known to us. The only object of 
 my ambition would be complete, if he ac- 
 knowledged himself obliged to me for 
 having pointed out, in the great British 
 Isle, some subjects worthy of curiosity, 
 of surprise, of admiration Oxford, Can- 
 terbury, Durham, York, Alnwick, Edin- 
 burgh Dumbarton Castle, Loch Kath- 
 rine, Ben Lomond and Miss Kelly. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Printed by Balfour & Clarke, 
 Edinburgh, 1822. 
 
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