panions among the Alps seemed to give this dedication a propriety sufficient to do away any scruples which your modesty might otherwise have suggested.

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

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

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

I am, dear Sir,

London, 1793.

Most sincerely yours,
W. WORDSWORTH.

Happiness (if she had been to be found on Earth) among the Charms of Nature. - Pleasures of the Pedestrian Traveller. - Author crosses France to the Alps. - Present State of

-

the Grande Chartreuse. - Lake of Como.-Time, Sunset. Same Scene, Twilight. Same Scene, Morning; its voluptuous Character; Old Man and Forest-cottage Music. -River Tusa. — Via Mala and Grison Gypsy. - Sckellenen-thal. - Lake of Uri.-Stormy Sunset. - Chapel of William Tell. -Force of local Emotion. Chamois-chaser. View of the higher Alps. - Manner of Life of a Swiss Mountaineer, inerspersed with Views of the higher Alps. Golden Age of the Alps. Life and Views continued. - Ranz des Vaches, famous Swiss Air. - Abbey of Einsiedlen and its Pilgrims. -Valley of Chamouny. - Mont Blanc. - Slavery of Savoy. -Influence of Liberty on Cottage Happiness. — France.· Wish for the Extirpation of Slavery. — Conclusion.

WERE there, below, a spot of holy ground
Where from distress a refuge might be found,'
And solitude prepare the soul for heaven;
Sure, nature's God that spot to man had given
Where falls the purple morning far and wide
In flakes of light upon the mountain-side;
Where with loud voice the power of water shakes
The leafy wood, or sleeps in quiet lakes.

Yet not unrecompensed the man shall roam, Who at the call of summer quits his home, And plods through some wide realm o'er vale and height,

Though seeking only holiday delight;

At least, not owning to himself an aim

To which the sage would give a prouder name.
No gains too cheaply earned his fancy cloy,
Though every passing zephyr whispers joy;
Brisk toil, alternating with ready ease,

Feeds the clear current of his sympathies.
For him sod-seats the cottage-door adorn;
And peeps the far-off spire, his evening bourn!
Dear is the forest frowning o'er his head,

And dear the velvet green-sward to his tread: Moves there a cloud o'er mid-day's flaming eye? Upward he looks "and calls it luxury":

Kind Nature's charities his steps attend;
In every babbling brook he finds a friend;
While chastening thoughts of sweetest use, be-
stowed

By wisdom, moralize his pensive road.

Host of his welcome inn, the noontide bower,
To his spare meal he calls the passing poor;
He views the sun uplift his golden fire,
Or sink, with heart alive like Memnon's lyre ; *
Blesses the moon that comes, with kindly ray,
To light him shaken by his rugged way.
Back from his sight no bashful children steal;
He sits a brother at the cottage meal;
His humble looks no shy restraint impart;
Around him plays at will the virgin heart.
While unsuspended wheels the village dance,
The maidens eye him with inquiring glance,
Much wondering by what fit of crazing care,
Or desperate love, bewildered, he came there.

*The lyre of Memnon is reported to have emitted melancholy or cheerful tones, as it was touched by the sun's evening or morning rays.

A hope, that prudence could not then approve, That clung to Nature with a truant's love, O'er Gallia's wastes of corn my footsteps led; Her files of road-elms, high above my head In long drawn-vista, rustling in the breeze; Or where her pathways straggle as they please By lonely farms and secret villages. But lo! the Alps ascending white in air, Toy with the sun and glitter from afar.

And now, emerging from the forest's gloom, I greet thee, Chartreuse, while I mourn thy doom, Whither is fled that Power whose frown severe Awed sober Reason till she crouched in fear? That Silence, once in deathlike fetters bound, Chains that were loosened only by the sound Of holy rites chanted in measured round?

The voice of blasphemy the fane alarms, The cloister startles at the gleam of arms. The thundering tube the aged angler hears, Bent o'er the groaning flood that sweeps away his

tears.

Cloud-piercing pine-trees nod their troubled heads, Spires, rocks, and lawns a browner night o'erspreads;

Strong terror checks the female peasant's sighs,
And start the astonished shades at female eyes.
From Bruno's forest screams the affrighted jay,
And slow the insulted eagle wheels away.
A viewless flight of laughing Demons mock

The Cross, by angels planted* on the aerial rock.
The "parting Genius " sighs with hollow breath
Along the mystic streams of Life and Death.†
Swelling the outcry dull, that long resounds
Portentous through her old woods' trackless bounds,
Vallombre, 'mid her falling fanes, deplores,
For ever broke, the sabbath of her bowers.

More pleased, my foot the hidden margin roves Of Como, bosomed deep in chestnut groves. No meadows thrown between, the giddy steeps Tower, bare or sylvan, from the narrow deeps.

To towns, whose shades of no rude noise com

plain,

From ringing team apart and grating wain,

To flat-roofed towns, that touch the water's bound,
Or lurk in woody sunless glens profound,
Or, from the bending rocks, obtrusive cling,
And o'er the whitened wave their shadows fling, —
The pathway leads, as round the steeps it twines;
And Silence loves its purple roof of vines.
The loitering traveller hence, at evening, sees
From rock-hewn steps the sail between the trees;
Or marks, 'mid opening cliffs, fair dark-eyed maids
Tend the small harvest of their garden glades;
Or stops the solemn mountain-shades to view

* Alluding to crosses seen on the tops of the spiry rocks of Chartreuse, which have every appearance of being inaccessible. † Names of rivers at the Chartreuse.

Name of one of the valleys of the Chartreuse.