CHAPTER IV.

WHILE a love of Nature engenders and fosters the highest regard for public and private liberty, it calls forth many of the latent resources of the mind, and adds proportionably to its strength. It confirms us in the habits of virtue; leads us to desire a more intimate knowledge of ourselves; and produces a decided contempt, for the unlawful pleasures of an idle world. By virtue of association it excites, too, that ardent love of greatness, in action and sentiment, which characterises a liberal and heroic spirit. Innumerable are the instances, in which the highlanders of Scotland have evinced the power of scenery to excite to noble deeds: and who will doubt, but that the landscapes in the Peloponesus and in the neighbourhood of Athens, Rome, and Florence, have had a decided effect upon those illustrious cities? Many a man, who has been censured for idleness, or cashiered for inattention, among the dull swamps of Holland and Flanders, would have felt himself equal to the command of armies in Italy, Switzerland, or Greece.

The bold character of the scenery, by which the Monks of St. Bernard are surrounded, gives an important stimulus to their benevolence, activity, and fortitude. These holy men,' at the risk of their per

There are not more than ten or twelve of these Ecclesiastics. They have two farms; but their principal subsistence is derived from the contributions of those districts of France, Switzerland, and Italy, that lie in their neighbourhood. Seven thousand persons are said to travel up their mountain every year.

sonal safety, will encounter the greatest vicissitudes of toil and danger; in order to assist those unfortunate travellers, who sink into the gulphs of ice and snow, which render the passes of the Alps of St. Bernard, so difficult and dangerous.› Animated by benevolence, kept alive by those characters of sublimity, which, in the strongest language, declare the actual presence of a Deity, in the dead of night they will quit their convent, and, accompanied by dogs, and lighted only by lanthorns, they will grope their way over immense masses of ice, to rescue a human creature from the danger of perishing with cold; or from the more dreadful fate of sinking into gulphs, from which it were impossible ever to rescue them.

II.

Gunilda,' sister to Hardicanute, and wife to the Emperor Henry, being accused of incontinence by her husband, resented it so highly, that she retired to a monastery, and there ended her days; though the Emperor frequently solicited her return. A similar fate distinguished those beautiful and injured queens, Matilda of Denmark, and Sophia, wife of George the First, while Elector of Hanover: both of whom were distinguished by a regard for the charms and graces of Nature. Matilda, accused of crimes, her soul detested, was banished to the electorate of Hanover. Looking back with tranquillity, and true dignity of soul, upon those pleasures, she had never perfectly enjoyed; and regretting not the splendour

1 Mathew of Westminster.

and magnificence, she had lost; her principal resources, in the absence of her children, were her garden and her shrubberies. Thus occupied, she was an object of love, admiration, and pity, to all the Electorate. Sophia, charged with a crime, as illfounded as those of the virtuous Matilda, and confined in the castle of Alden in the duchy of Zell, for the space of thirty years, derived the same consolation in the culture of her flower-garden. Her husband, by whom she had been unjustly accused, offered to be reconciled to her, but she would not. In the page of history a reply, more admirable than hers, is no where to be found :- "If the accusation be just," said she, "I am unworthy of his bed: if it be false, he is unworthy of mine."

III.

If scenes, so common and simple, as shrubberies and gardens, have power to strengthen the mind, and to secure it against the turbulent emotions, caused by the intrigues and tumults of the world; much greater effect in weaning us from its follies and vices, may nobler scenes be supposed to produce. Colonna, accompanied by Blanche, one evening in the month of April, ascended a high mountain in the neighbourhood of Llangollen. The sun was shooting its evening rays along the vale, embellishing every thing they touched. It having rained all the morning, the freshness, with which spring had clad every object, gave additional impulse to all their feelings. Arrived at the summit, the scene became truly captivating:

for Nature appeared to have drawn the veil from her bosom, and to glory in her charms. The season of early spring, which, in other countries, serves only to exhibit their poverty, displayed new beauties in this. Nature had thrown off her mantle of snow, and appeared to invite the beholder to take a last look of her beauties, ere she shaded the cottage with woodbine, or screened with leaves the fantastic arms of the oak. The clouds soon began to form over their heads, and a waving column lightly touched their hats. Around-was one continued range of mountains, with Dinas, rising above the river. Immediately below, lay a beautifully diversified vale, with the Dee, Milton's "wizard stream,"-combining all the charms of the Arno and the Loire, winding through the middle of it: while on the east side of the mountain, several villages appeared to rest in calm repose. This beautiful scene was soon converted into a sublime one. For the clouds assuming a more gloomy character, the tops of all the mountains around became totally enveloped; and the heads of Colonna and his companion were now and then encircled with a heavy vapour. A more perfect union of the beautiful and magnificent it were difficult to conceive. No object was discernable above: but below, how captivating! Their feet were illumined by the sun, their heads, as it were, touching the clouds! How often, when a boy, has Colonna reposed himself upon a bank, or under the shade of a thicket, and, watching the course of the clouds, has wished, that, like some demi-god of antiquity, he

could sit upon their gilded columns, and gaze upon the scene below! Now the wish was, in a measure, gratified:

Ingrediturque solo, et caput inter nubila condit.

Above all was gloomy and dark; below-the sun, from the west, still illumined the villages and spires, the cottages and woods, the pastures and fields, which lay scattered in every direction; while the Dee, at intervals, swept, in many a graceful curve, along the bottom of the vale.

These objects, so variously blended, and so admirably contrasted with the sombre scene above them, called to the imagination the golden thoughts of Ariosto: and inspired such a combination of feelings, that, for a time, they were absorbed in silent meditation. While they were indulging in this halcyon repose, the sounds of village bells, in honour of a recent marriage, were heard, floating on the breeze, from below. The sounds, softened by the distance, and coming from a region so far beneath, lulled them with a choral symphony, that excited the most delightful sensations. And such must ever be the effect on those, whose happiness has not been smothered beneath a load of splendid vacuities; in whom society has not engendered an infinity of wants; in whom ignorance has not awakened pride, arrogance, and vanity; and in whom content has the power of lulling every fever of illegitimate desire.

VOL. III.

R