friends of science and virtue, of religion and thy country, of which thou wast so bright an ornament. May thy mantle fall upon thy successors in the pulpit, and thy spirit and eloquence be caught, in promulging the doctrines of thy Divine Master. Taught by thy great and good example, may future divines and orators of the pulpit, place their chief glory in the triumphs of their sacred eloquence over the vices and passions of mankind, and in conducting them by the charm of a virtuous and pious life in the ways of peace and salvation.

ART. II.-Sketches of an Excursion from Edinburgh to Dublin.

(concluded.)

May 5.-Rising betimes, I bent my steps towards the pass of Borrowdale. It was the 'hour of prime,' and truly,

-ροδοδάκτυλα πως

a' rosy fingered morn.' The sun indeed was hardly risen, but the dappled east gave presage of his near approach. The air breathed a balmy fragrance;-not a ripple played upon the surface of the lake;-all around was peaceful and motionless.

Leaving the town of Keswick, I entered upon a path which followed closely the margin of the Derwent,-keeping it on the right, Skiddaw was behind, his summit gray with the morning mists; Helvellyn further off on the left, rose towering in his pride;-like a giant, overtopping the vassal heights which encircled him.

A walk of a mile or two brought me to a thick wood, which presented a luxuriant, native growth of oak, beech, ash, birch, poplar and elder. These trees abound in the neigbourhood of the lake;—indeed, throughout the valley of K. there is much of woodland, and some of it in the first order. Several beautiful rills, spanned by rustic little

bridges, crossed my path;-the noise of their waterfalls, breaking upon the ear, relieved the stillness of morning: soon too, the warbling of the sky-lark was heard, a prelude to a general concert which burst from every hedge and thicket and wood.

The road at length conducted to a champaign tract, which was spread at the feet of a steep eminence on the left;-the latter rather barren as well as rugged. A shepherd-or I should say, his busier dog,—was leading a small flock to the hill side to clip the little herbage which it yielded. As I continued my walk, the valley narrowed, though what remained of it was still lovely. The hill on the other hand, under which I was passing, assumed a sterner aspect; and gradually changed to a perpendicular ridge of cliffs, forming a solid wall of many hundred feet in height. Large masses of rocks which had been dislodged in conflicts of the elements, and tumbled from a fearful elevation, were strown along the way-side, and in some places almost entirely blocked the passage.-Further on, the Fall of Lowdore presented itself. There was little about it, to attract attention. The stream being low, all that it exhibited was a narrow strip of foam sliding down a rocky declivity, of an hundred and fifty feet or more, and falling with a gentle murmur upon a bed of smoothly chafed pebbles. From the breadth of the channel however, it is obvious, that the body of water must be greatly increased in seasons of freshes. At such times the aspect of things is doubtless materially changed; and the Fall of Lowdore, now so gentle and pretty, transformed into a wild and terrible cataract.

Approaching the entrance into Borrowdale, I paused to admire the little hamlet of Grange. A scene so perfectly picturesque, considering all its accompaniments, I think I never beheld. The cots were clustered on the margin of a softly flowing current whose waters were clear to transpaA group of aged pines threw their dark shadows

rency.

over them; a few yards distant, an old bridge partly delapidated, but which aided admirably the effect of the landscape, connected the opposite banks of the little river;-around the hamlet were several neatly trimmed gardens; and far down the valleys extended a succession of rich pastures and fertile meads, whereon herds of cattle were straying, and the peasantry actively plying their morning labours. The whole scene was in keeping:-its features perfectly harmonised; and over the whole there was an air of Claude-like softness which was inexpressibly lovely.

Nothing however could be more striking than the contrast which this scene bore to the savage aspect of the mountain glens within which I was entering. The beautiful and the picturesque soon vanished; and I found myself enclosed within a defile hemmed on all sides by lofty, precipitous crags, or hills scarcely less rugged and bleak. So sudden and entire was the change, that the whole seemed the effect of magic. The impression moreover made by the objects a little before witnessed remaining fresh and vivid, and the path which I was pursuing, continuing to wind among fells and passes the features of which at every step became wilder,—I could not help looking back in recollection upon the dale of Grange, with some such feelings as Mirzah must have gazed upon the Isles of the blessed. The comparison indeed would have failed most in the objects which immediately surrounded us; for if the mountains of Bagdad are as sterile as those of Borrowdale that must have been a strange fancy which induced a contemplatist to select them as the scene of devotional meditations.

The Fells of Borrowdale are singularly precipitous and abrupt. They crowd too so much upon one another that the defiles which separate them are very narrow, and greatly obstructed with the rocky fragments which often fall from the neighhouring acclivities. The mountains being chiefly composed of slate, at least in their external structure, splin

ters and indeed heavy masses are easily disintegrated; and the ravages committed in their descent are sometimes very terrible.

Their summits and sides are mostly bare, and exhibit only here and there a tinge of green:-a few blades of grass perhaps, or a patch of stinted heath.-The birch however, as usual, persists in asserting his claim to the scanty soil which is left; and it was curious to see a fearless little sapling, among some of the topmost crags where only the eagle would build her ærie-thrusting its slender branches through the yawning clefts, and waving sportingly in the wind.

With difficulty I clambered an eminence, near an high steep called castle crag, and sheltering myself from the wind under a ledge of rocks, contemplated for some time the scene around; and the impressions which it has left upon my mind can never be erased. The clouds which had previously lowered seemed to assume an angrier cast, and threw a peculiar gloom over every object. The wind swept through the crags in hoarse sullen murmurs;-above, an eagle was sailing round a cliff, and occasionally piercing the air with its cry;—near me a mountain stream dashed from the rocks, and rushed furiously into a ravine beneath;-not the slightest trace of a human habitation, nor in fact, of a human footstep excepting along the half-beaten track by which I had entered the pass, appeared, on any side;-even the sheep which had been seen browsing on Skiddaw, and near the feet of Helvellyn, had deserted this frightful waste, and the whole seemed condemned to sterility, and designed as the very seat of desolation. The scene was one on which the genius of Salvator might have loved to riot,—but for myself, were it possible, I should prefer to contemplate it when transferred to the canvass, than again behold it in its native wildness and deformity.-Indeed, my feelings were never so powerfully affected by any scene before; and I can truly say that all my imagination had ever depicted of the sub

lime in natural objects fell short of what I now saw and felt, what impression indeed, an alpine scene would excite, as yet I know not;—but that scene must be awfully grand which can surpass in effect, the solemn wildness which reigns over this pass and the surrounding fells of Borrowdale.*

* The little which the writer has since witnessed, has not induced him to subtract a single iota from the above description, and that given in a former paper, of the impressions naturally produced by a view of the mountain scenery of Keswick, and its environs. It possesses a character perfectly distinctive and 'sui generis;'—and although differing in expression is nowise inferior in effect to many of the stronger features of the alpine landscape.-There is such a thing as having too much of mountain; and the writer refers to any traveller who has visited the Vale of Chamouni for the truth of this remark;;-as seen from there, Mont Blanc and his imperial brotherhood appear inordinately and disproportionably huge;— and the reason obviously is, that while they are thus immensely enlarged, the other objects in their neighbourhood retain their natural dimensions, and consequently exhibit a contrast which borders not a little on the ludicrous. The river Arve though respectable enough in itself, seems nothing more than a paltry brook:—the tall firs which wave upon the acclivities of the mountains dwindle into insignificant shrubs;—the valley of Chamouni narrows into a Scotish glen:-and the town in the centre, a short distance off, has the appearance of a group of martin boxes.

But, in remarking in general upon the disappointing effect of Alpine scenery, the writer would be understood to except the vale and neighbourhood of Geneva. No view on earth perhaps, can rival the combined beauty and grandeur of the latter as displayed from Mt. St. Claude on the Jura; and this precisely for the reason that every object properly harmonises for the effect of the whole perspective. He never can forget the impression produced upon him, when from that summit, the valley with its stupendous girdle of mountains was first descried. Just then the declining sun was gilding the distant glaciers of the Alps, Mont Blanc and Mont Rosa were sufficiently removed to bear a due proportion to the surrounding objects. The nearer Alps matched perfectly with the valley beneath; which latter throughout its extent was embellished with tints of the richest magnificence; whilst the lake, stretching to an immense distance, till lost in the mountains of the Vallais and the Pays de Vaud, resembled, at the height I viewed it, a broad majestic river, Ovid's-Speluncae, vivique lacus, et Tempe amona,-would have expressed well a part of the scene; but better, if coupled with,- -nubiferos montes, et saxa minantia cœlo.