occupations, cares, and pleafures, for the contemplation of thofe fcenes of folemn grandeur, which form fuch a contrast to the littleness of ordinary life! Let me turn my steps towards the first auguft object which ftruck my eye in Switzerland, the cataract of the Rhine at Schaffhaufen, to which place I was obliged to travel by a long circuitous route to Zurich, fince with French paffports the Auftrian territory was forbidden ground. A Balois told me before my departure, that the cataract of the Rhine was scarcely worth fo much trouble; after all," faid he, "it is but a fall

fince,

of water!"

CHAP.

CHAP. IV.

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Raad from Bafil into the Canton of Soleure.-Swiss Tafe in Gardening.-Vifit to a Farm-house.-Rural Ceremonies. Traditionary Story of the Deftruction of a Tyrant.-Baden.-Zurich.-Reflections on the View aver the Lake to the Alps.-Fall of the Rhine at Lauffen.-Bridge at Schaff hausen.

THROUGH what a delicious country we paffed in travelling along the Canton of Bafil to that of Soleure! What beautiful, what various combinations of rock, pineclad hills thrown together in noble maffes, and richly covered with their dark-tinted verdure; above which a bare peak fometimes lifts its fharp fpiral head, as if to give effect to the landscape.

What grateful founds to my ear were the murmurs of those foothing cascades, and clear rills which had more of beauty than fublimity,

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fublimity, but which filled my heart with emotion, while I confidered them as the prelude of scenes, where the water-fall fwells into a torrent, and where, instead of rapid brooks, and fmall ftreams, the broad lake fpreads its majestic expanse of waters.

I was yet only in the vestibule of Switzerland, and nature appeared to me as if lifting up gradually the veil which concealed those mighty objects of overwhelming grandeur, which my imagination sprung forward to meet with enthusiastic rapture. We paffed by several country houses, with pleasure-grounds covered with verdant seats, bowers, and arbours, profanely cut into all the mishapen forms of Gothic fury, and where literally,

"Grove nods at grove, each alley has a brother, "And half the platform jufts reflects the other.".

VOL. I.

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One might forgive a Dutchman for clipping his trees, and fquaring his walks by the fame rule with which he cuts his canals, and digs his ditches; but here, in the very temple of nature, where the inhabitant has but to cast his eye around him in order to learn all that she can teach of

grace and majesty, it seems difficult to avoid feeling, that jets-d'eaux are but ludicrous mimickry in the neighbourhood of cataracts, that bouquets of yew, and pillars of fir, lofe much of their effect when placed beneath hanging woods of pines, and columns of cliffs, and that the romantic hills above are an eternal fatire on the trim walks below.

In our way to Schaff haufen, we fpent fome agreeable days with a small party, at a farm-houfe in the Canton of Bafil, fituated in the nook of a mountain. High hills rise floping round this little white dwelling, covered with fine pafturage, and scattered.

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tered over with trees, woody copfes, and fwift rivulets flowing down their green fides. An Irish gentleman, who had hired apartments in this habitation for the fummer, and whom we went to vifit, had cut winding paths along the steep hills with his own hands, directed the fresh fprings to flow into cool baths, and placed Italian, Latin, and French infcriptions upon the trees, in the charming receffes of the hanging woods.

When our good farmer bought his ground, its appendages of woods, cliffs, and rills, had probably only entered into his fpeculations, fo far as they were the means or the impediments of culture; but an English nobleman would have purchased them with half his fortune. During our stay in this beautiful retreat we, lived with the farmer and his family, eat of their bread,

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