lake, and the mountains. The air was temperate, the sky was serene, the silver orb of the moon was reflected upon the waters, and all Nature was silent. I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and perhaps the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea that I had taken an everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion; and that, whatsoever might be the future fate of my history, the life of the historian might be short and precarious!"

How high a fame have Haller and Hotze, so celebrated by Zimmermann and Lavater, acquired over Hunter and Boerhaave, merely from their imagination being alive to the beauties of their country! While the last two are known to few except surgeons and physicians, the first two are known to nearly the whole civilized world. Klopstock beheld the forests of pine intermingled with Elysian valleys, near Erfurt, the falls of the Rhine, near Schaffhausen, the Lake of Zurich, and the vineyards near Winterthur, with inexpressible delight; and those scenes alternately wafted him to his friends and lifted his thoughts to Heaven. Bonnet, the pride of Geneva, devoted all his hours to the study of nature. As a philosopher, he is placed between Wolff and Leibnitz; as a naturalist, between Haller and Buffon; as a writer, between Rousseau ahd Montesquieu; while his countenance, says a German physiognomist, indicated justness, clearness, fertility, order: a combination of qualities scarcely equalled. His whole soul engrossed by the study of natural history, and in the enjoyment of some of the finest scenes upon the face of the globe, how mean and insignificant must have appeared to him the intrigues and passions of the citizens of Geneva!

WATERFALLS AND CATARACTS.

FROM lakes, the transition is natural that leads us to WATERFALLS and CATARACTS. With what rapture does one gaze upon that beautiful waterfall, gliding over a slate rock in two graceful jets, at the extremity of a long, winding, romantic glen, near Aber, in the county of Caernarvon! But if we would see cataracts on a grander scale, we must visit the falls of the Cynfael, and the Black Cataract, near the vale of Ffestiniog. Few scenes can surpass the beauty of the one, or the bold, cragged, and gigantic character of the other.

Few waterfalls more admirably combine sublimity with beauty than that of Nant Mill, on the borders of Lake Cwellin. It is difficult to conceive, indeed, of a scene more perfect: the far-famed cataract in the Vale of Tempe has nothing to compare with it. In surveying this scene, our feelings are like those of Bruce on beholding the third cataract of the Nile: "a sight," says he, so magnificent, that ages added to the greatest length of life could never eradicate it from my memory.'

66

The Romans were exceedingly partial to waterfalls, as we learn from many of their writers. The seat of Cicero's father had a remarkable one falling into the Liris, and sending forth a most agreeable harmony; and thither did Tully frequently retire, to meditate on subjects of literature and taste.

"What a sublime image of the creation," exclaimed Klopstock, on beholding for the first time the Falls of Schaffhausen, "does this cataract present! All powers of description are here baffled; and such an object can only be seen, and heard, and contemplated." I have no words," he continues, "by which to paint my feelings; I can only think of the friends who are absent; I can form but the wish to draw them all into one circle, and to dwell with them here forever."

66

In King's Table-land, in New South Wales, is a cataract falling over a precipice of more than 1000 feet into Prince Regent's Glen. It is named "the Campbell Cataract," and is said to be one of the grandest sights in the world, being second only to Niagara. "I had, in the course of my life," says De Roos, "beheld some of the most celebrated sights of Nature: Etna and Vesuvius; the Andes, almost at their greatest elevation; Cape Horn, rugged and bleak, buffeted by the southern tempest; and, though last, not least, the swell of the Pacific; but nothing I had ever seen or imagined could compare in grandeur with the Falls of Niagara."

MOUNTAINS.

A COUNTRY destitute of mountains may be rich, well cultivated, and even beautiful, but it can in no instance be sublime or transporting; and to what a degree boldness of scenery has the power of elevating the fancy, may be in some measure conceived from an anecdote recorded of a celebrated poet. When Thomson heard of Glover's intention to write an epic poem, the hero of which should be Leonidas of Sparta, Impossible," he exclaimed; "Glover can never be idle enough to attempt an epic-he never saw a mountain in his life!" Burnet, in his Theory of the Earth, says that mountains inspire the mind with thoughts and feelings that naturally recall the greatness of God: it is a passage not unworthy the most distinguished of our descriptive poets.

66

Mount Olympus was called the "Seat of the Gods," because its top, being above the clouds, was always serene. The most picturesque parts of Armenia are those in the neighbourhood of the Ararat Mountain, on which the ark is said to have rested. This celebrated eminence, on the top of which

stand several ruins, rises in the form of a pyramid, in the midst of a long, extended plain. It is always covered with snow from its girdle to the summit, and for several months of the year is totally enveloped by clouds. The modern Armenians esteem this mountain holy, observing its appearances with great care, and regulating their sowing, planting, and reaping by the melting of the snow upon it.

What scenes in Russia are comparable to those in the neighbourhood of the Oural and Riphean Mountains which the inhabitants in their simplicity believe to encompass the earth, as the Malabars imagine the sun to revolve round the largest of theirs. Where does the Spaniard behold nobler landscapes than at the feet and between the sides of the blue ridge that backs the Escurial, amid the wilds of the Asturias, or the vast solitudes of the Sierra Morena? With what feelings of awe does the Hungarian approach the Carpathian ranges, studded with vineyards, and gemmed with beautiful glens; and with what joy and admiration does the African traveller, long lost among deserts of sand, greet the first sight of the Mountains of the Moon! Can the North American painter select finer scenes than those among the glens of the Laurel, the Blue Ridge, and the Cumberland Mountains? Or where, in the vast continent of the Western World, can the mind acquire such conceptions of vastness and infinity as on the summits of the Andes? where " Behold the Eternal" is written on every object.

Petrarch had long wished to climb the summit of Mount Venoux: a mountain presenting a wider range of prospect than any among the Alps or Pyrenees. With much difficulty he at last ascended it. Arrived at its apex, the scene presented to his sight was of unequalled grandeur. After long gazing upon the various objects which lay stretched out below him, he took from his pocket a volume of St. Augustine's Confessions, and, opening the leaves at

random, the following passage first caught his eye : "Men travel far to climb high mountains; to observe the majesty of the ocean; to trace the sources of rivers; but they neglect themselves." Instantly ap plying this striking lesson to himself, Petrarch closed the book, and, falling into profound meditation, "If," thought he, "I have undergone so much labour in climbing this mountain, that my body might be nearer to heaven, what ought I not to do that my soul may be received into its immortal regions ?"

Sacredness attached to Mountains.-Mountains, no less than rivers, have had a character of sacredness attached to them. Upon their summits the Jews, the Persians, the Bithynians, the infidel nations around Palestine, and the Druids of Gaul, Britain, and Germany, were accustomed to sacrifice; and while the Celts believed that the ghosts of their heroes dwelt among the clefts of the rocks and upon the mountain tops, the natives of Greenland made them the immediate abodes of their deities. The Laplanders also imagine that spirits, endowed with power to influence human actions, inhabit their mountains.*

* "The natives," near Mount Kesa, on the Niger, "believe that a benevolent genius makes that mountain his favourite abode, and dispenses around him a benign and heavenly influ ence. Here the misfortunes of the unhappy are alleviated, the wants of the needy supplied, and the lamentations of the mourn. er turned to joy; sin, sorrow, and suffering are unknown; solemnity gives place to merriment, and the solicitude of futurity to present enjoyment and thoughtless jocularity. But more especially," say the natives, "the weary traveller here finds a refuge from the storm, and a rest from his toils; here he reposes in the delights of security, and revels in the comforts of ease. To obtain this, however, it is necessary to make his wants and desires known to the Spirit of the Mountain by supplication and prayer, when they are instantly answered; he receives the most delicate and excellent food from invisible hands; and when sufficiently invigorated by refreshment, he is at liberty either to continue his journey, or remain a while to participate in the blessings of the mountain."-Lander's Journal of an Expedition to explore the Course of the Niger.