to an immense depth below us. Its sheer rocky sides are rent in various directions, affording escape to the impatient vapours that burst from every part; and the sun, which illuminated the one side whilst it left the other and the bottom in shadow and darkness, discovered in it a thousand beautiful variations of tint, caused by the exhaling sulphur. When we threw some masses of scoriæ down the crater, the thundering noise produced was frightful, as if old Etna roared at the insult: altogether, the impression produced by this stupendous volcano is one of the most powerful I have ever experienced. To attempt to give an idea of it upon paper was ridiculous; yet we did attempt it, though with fingers numbed with cold, and ill calculated to undertake such a task.

We next turned our attention to the surrounding prospect. Sicily lay, as it were, at our feet, bright and sparkling, except where Etna flung his gigantic shadows across the country. The sea was perfectly visible, encircling the whole island, even beyond Palermo and Marsala; so that we saw it at once as an island upon the map. The Pharos appeared a mere stream; and Calabria, with its Appennines, shrunk into insignificance, quite a near neighbour. The Gulf of Tarento, and the old high-heeled boot-form of Italy, might be easily traced; whilst the isles of Lipari, Vulcano, and distant Stromboli, rising from the sea to the North, slightly misty in that quarter, and the bold heights of Malta far South, seemed, at such an elevated horizon, like mountains suspended in the sky. The view of Etna itself was perfect; with its various lower craters, and its eruptions, whose course we traced on every side; particularly that destructive one which poured in 1669 from the Monte Rosso, a dark double-headed eminence, rather above and westward of Nicolosi, and almost overwhelmed Catania with its disastrous flood.

ART. V.

1. Domestic Residence in Switzerland. By ELIZABETH STRUTT. 2 vols. Newby.

2. A Tour in Switzerland. By WILLIAM CHAMBERS. Chambers, Edinburgh.

THERE is no country, however much trodden by visitors, that has not byeways that have hardly ever been threaded by a book-maker; there is nothing so familiar in any phase of society, among any tribe on earth, or in the odd ways of any section of a people, that has not points for observation that have never yet been completely laid hold of or adequately expounded. Even Switzerland and the Switzers form no exception to the doctrine; nor will the penetrating and independent mind fail to discover, mark, and distinctly delineate features that have escaped the ordinary sort of travellers, but which are so valuable as to be worth setting down in every portraiture that has any pretensions to fidelity, and with regard to which every for

mer observer may wonder how it came that his eye overlooked them. It is obvious, should the tourist in Switzerland happen to have a predominating and distinct object in view, and has industry sufficient to do justice to his proposed pursuit, that he must detect many things which, without such a particular and determined direction, would never be brought to public light. The botanist or the mineralogist, would find that the field was boundless and the treasures within it inexhaustible. Not less expansive and' rich would the scenery of the country and the costume of the inhabitants appear to the artist; while to the student of character, social manners, political institutions, it would be unpreceder ed indeed, if the nation did not yield a wider and a finer world of phenomena, than anything purely material, and positively external, can ever present.

A glance into the "Domestic Residence in Switzerland" will suggest remarks to the effect now expressed. Not that there is anything profound in Mrs. Strutt's discoveries, or very impressive in the thoughts lavished upon them. Neither her knowledge nor her original powers of observation can be called very remarkable ; and it would be too much to expect that she should have had time and opportunities sufficient to admit of the indulgence of a resolute desire to cultivate any one specific branch of science, natural or moral. Still, as the wife of Mr. Strutt, whose Calabria and Sicily we have just been noticing, and also as their residence in Switzerland had an artistic object, we are naturally presented with an unusual number of observations belonging to the painter's particular department, which are cleverly conveyed, and which have a marked character about them that must convince one of their originality as well as of their accuracy and precision. Besides, and which is indispensable to every artistic delineation or criticism, Mrs. Strutt is endowed with a poetic soul that feels the essential, and that directs to an apt use of colours in the shape of expression for her purpose. The turn both of her muse and her phraseology is picturesque, with a dash of raciness of sentiment and style that saves her from the charge of feebleness, even when she is superficial, and perhaps considerably affected.

It is not at all necessary for any purpose which we can entertain in quoting passages from a work of the nature of the one before us, that we should enter into argument upon any one point, where the writer may appear to cherish singular notions without substantiating them, or indulge a way of her own, without any real improvement upon the old and the hackneyed. It will be enough if we glean such samples as may afford a taste of the spirted and elegant production.

Mrs. Strutt, with her husband and son, appear to have resided three years in Switzerland, having taken up their head-quarters at a village near Vevay, and from that point made sundry tours more or less extended, with such ramifications as enabled them sometimes to

alight upon unbroken ground for the culture of pen and pencil. Vevay she greatly preferred even to the far-famed Lausanne. We shall not make room for any of her specific objections to the latter place, but cite some of those adduced in favour of the former. From her report relative to this locality, the reader will obtain a fair view of the lady's habit of looking out for what escapes the notice of the many, and of her smart style of expressing opinions which perhaps have rarely been entertained. She thus reports:

It has been said of Vevay, that it preserves a medium, a juste milieu, that most unpopular, perhaps because most honest and rational, of all grades of public opinion, between the rusticity of the Savoyard and the simplicity of the Valasian—the sarcastic bluntness of the Bernese and the flattering amenity of the French. It has, likewise, another recommendation, to parents not an unimportant one, whilst the education of their children may be in progress, and that is, that its inhabitants speak French with a better accent and more correct idiom than are to be found in any other part of Switzerland. Its most natural and obvious attraction, however, to strangers, is its situation; and in this respect its advantages are so strikingly superior to Lausanne, that it can only be from ignorance of them that any one who comes into the country to acquire an adequate idea of its scenery and manners, rather than to enter into a dull continuation of the formalities of set dinners and automatonical balls, can take up their residence, in preference, at the capital of the Canton de Vaud. The sociabilities of Vevay are more home-like, its solitudes more free, its associations less hackneyed; its proximities to the lake are immediate; we are on its very brink; we may walk to the edge, and catch the ripple of the tiny waves. The aspect of the mountains is much grander, and the rocks of Meillerie are near enough to us to reflect to our imagination the spirit of Rousseau, indistinctly seen in their solemn shadows.

Mr. Strutt paid a visit to Mr. Henchoz, the venerable and beloved pastor of Rossinière, whose family has been settled in the valley "for more than two hundred years, and always prosperous; but his income, amounting perhaps to two hundred pounds per annum, which constitutes a very considerable fortune in these parts, is all dispensed in acts of benevolence and hospitality: and he has even refrained from marriage, in order that he might devote himself more actively to the duties of his calling." Mr. Strutt had undertaken to send to an English friend a portrait of the exemplary minister, sojourning for several weeks at Rossinière. The mountain sphere of the worthy pastor's duties, and the notice of his character and income, lead our authoress into a variety of details that are worth perusal, and that belong to out-of-the-world ways. She says

If I were a clergyman, I should like to be a Swiss; and if I were a Swiss, I should like to be a clergyman; with his pretty house and garden, always close to the church, and generally in an elevated situation; conspicuous, like himself, above those whom it is his lot to enlighten and direct. In a country

annum.

where there are so few avenues open to certain income, combined with consideration in society, it is very natural that the clerical profession should be eagerly sought; particularly by young men who may likewise have a desire for more mental cultivation than it might otherwise be in their power to attain. Nevertheless, there are difficulties in the way, which, unless in some degree modified, will, in all probability, gradually diminish the number of desirable candidates for ecclesiastical situations. The education requisite includes a term of fourteen years; and when admitted into orders, they often remain for as many more as suffragans, on an income of five hundred francs per The removal, by death, or change, of the minister they may serve brings them no nearer filling his place; which is subjected to the choice of other older ministers, all of whom, in rotation, have the privilege of changing three times, before they are irrevocably planted; and whilst they are thus very naturally endeavouring to better themselves, the poor suffragan has, for the prime of his life, no other prospect than perhaps changing his humble situation for a worse. The livings are from sixty to eighty, one hundred, and one hundred and twenty pounds a year: the lonely and barren nature of the locality is sometimes admitted as a reason for increaing the stipend, and truly there are situations which require especial consolation. That of L'Etivaz, for instance, in the wildest and most secluded part of the mountains that separate the valley of Chateau d'Oex from the district of Aigle and Bex, the road to which is accessible only on horseback, or in long narrow cars of the roughest construction, and where the minister must throughout the winter be shut out from all communication beyond that with the labouringclasses, who constitute almost the entire of his parishioners. It is the same at Ablents, on the edge of the Gessenai, which has been called the Siberia of Switzerland, and where there are only about eighty or ninety inhabitants, who, to use their own expression, have nine months of winter, and three of cold sun; and at Elm, in the Canton of Glaris, where, indeed, during six weeks of the winter, the sun is never seen at all. How valuable in such situations must be the love of books, a taste for astronomy, natural history, botany, mineralogy, or any other mental pursuit, wherewith to diversify the nonotony of so secluded an existence. Thus it is with the minister at Ablents, who is deeply versed in mineralogy; and indeed so general is the love of letters and science among them, that a large portion of the most interesting topographical works connected with the history of the country, will be found to have emanated from the pen of its pastors; as the names of Bridel, Moline, Chavannes, and many others amply testify. And here I must instance a very extraordinary production of the leisure of a minister at Berne, on the performance of which he bestowed twenty years. object was to embody, in one composition, all the illustrious men that Switzerland has produced, with characteristic insignia of their respective offices and pursuits. The difficulty of such an undertaking may be easily imagined -to avoid confusion or formality, hardness or indecision, the glare of different costumes, or the montony of uniformity; to vary the attitudes and the heads of more than two hundred figures, without any other incident in the piece for any one of them, than the being there to be looked at, was certainly Herculean undertaking for an amateur artist: but what a happy man he was, to have, during the twenty years he was employed upon

an

His

it, constantly an object that interested all his thoughts, and absorbed all his faculities, saving those, be it understood, claimed by the duties of his office. When he lay down at night, his pillow was thronged with the groups which he had put on the canvas during the day, and when he arose in the morning he hastened to correct or alter them, according to the suggestions of his judgment during the undisturbed silence of the night. The scene of action was in itself no inconsiderable part of his labours: it represents an ancient hall, somewhat raised in the back ground, and lighted by long windows of painted glass, each compartment of which presents the armorial bearing of the cantons and most illustrious families. The architectural parts are exceedingly well managed, the perspective correct in drawing, and the lights judiciously dispersed. In the back ground are seen the early teachers of Christianity and of husbandry (as they wisely combined the two), with the ancient instruments of agriculture on the ground near them. A little way from them are the early warriors: first, Staugfacher and Melcthel, taking the oath to deliver their country from its oppressors, and William Tell listening to them, attended by his child, who carries in his hand an apple stuck on an arrow. In the centre is a very interesting group of the reformers, Calvin, Farrel, Theodore de Béze, Zwingler, Bullinger, and others. Advancing still nearer to the present times, in the foreground we see Zimmerman, Pictet, Planta, Tissot, and other celebrated physicians, seated at a table on which is a bust of Hippocrates, and listening to a lecture from Haller. At the other side is a group of scientific men, among whom is Saussure, with a plan of the Alps before him. De Luc is attentively looking at Bonnet, the mathematician, who is demonstrating a problem to Euler. Behind them is a group of naturalists, among whom is Huber, the celebrated blind writer on Bees; opposite is a party of literary men; among them Rousseau stands pre-eminent. The worthy pastor wished to introduce three other celebrated men, Gibbon, Voltaire, and Raynal, who paid Switzerland the compliment of making it their country of adoption; but as they were not natives, they came not within the limits of a plan already too comprehensive for easy management. He succeeded at last to his own satisfaction, by ingeniously contriving to place them at the outside of an open window, by which means also a view of the Lake of Lausanne and of the surrounding country is very happily obtained; and making them look into the interior as spectators of the interesting groups it contains. The striking contrast of physiognomy and dress between Gibbon and Voltaire is prevented from being too much obtruded on observation, by the less marked countenance of Raynal, who, a step behind, acts as a combining incident between them. The whole is admirable: the style of painting is that of the early German school, and if it have a little of their usual fault of dryness, it has abundance of their general merits, in point of accuracy and finish.

It would appear that but few people have anything like an accurate notion of the "real Ranz des Vaches." We will therefore enable our readers to become acquainted with the construction of the ballad which is so popular and stirring to passionate patriotism on the mountain-sides and in the deep valleys of Switzerland.

Sometimes, in the stillness of the evening, we were agreeably startled by