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 *- 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. GO CD 00 Q> i O PT (0 YA 02745 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY