MONTREUX

AND

THE CASTLE OF CHILLON.

Chillon thy prison is a holy place,

And thy sad floor an altar-for 'twas trod,
Until his very steps have left a trace,
Worn as if thy cold pavement were a sod,

By Bonnivard!-May none those marks efface!
For they appeal from tyranny to God.

BYRON.

The

THE Castle of Chillon can never be viewed without exciting the noblest associations-those to which Liberty and Genius give birth. The names of Bonnivard, the martyr of freedom, and of Byron, her martyr and her laureate, have consecrated the scene. With the Prisoner of Chillon are connected feelings no less in unison with the writer's early and deplored fate, than with the sublime and beautiful scenery around. greatest of our modern poets is known to have passed some of the happiest days of his brief and chequered existence in the vicinity of Chillon. Passionately fond of sailing, the Lake afforded him the full indulgence of this taste, combined with that character of scenery he from a boy most admired, and with the sort of leisure and social enjoyment he had always best loved. It was here he first formed some of his most agreeable connexions, in particular with the Shelleys, and several