witnessed a scene, in all its particulars, very similar to that which so much impressed his fancy, on the completion of his great work. Mr. Bray was so struck with it, that he made a hasty sketch of its most prominent features. I have his sketch at this moment before me, and regret it is only in pencil. When we witnessed the scene I have named, the night was very still; both winds and waves were sleeping. All the busy population had sunk to rest; only here and there a light shed its long rays from the windows of some of the houses near the shores of Lausanne. The air, so still and balmy, breathed gently upon those acacias that still remain the only memorials, perhaps, of the historian's favourite trees. The heavens were of the deepest and purest blue the whole concave was studded with innumerable stars, whilst the planets steadily burned. There were no scattered clouds, but one lengthened and continued mass, so dense, so completely in shadow, as to assume the richest, though the darkest, hues of night. This floated slowly and majestically onward, at one time entirely conceal

ing the moon, and then opening in the very centre of its fleecy folds, when first “a sable cloud"

« Turn'd forth her silver lining on the night;" and then (again to use the expression of Milton) the moon came forth "apparent queen," and all the scene was lighted up with unutterable beauty. The lake, to its farthest bounds, gleamed with a long line of trembling radiance that touched its waters from shore to shore. The tops of the Jura mountains glowed with a yellow and subdued light, almost like that of day; or, as Jessica says, it looked

"a little paler,

Like the daylight sick."

The same subdued light touched with inimitable softness the tops of the acacias and the limes in the foreground of the scene.

The grandeur of the distant horizon-of the deep blue concave — the moon — the stars and circling clouds was altogether most impressive, and presented us, as a whole, with a scene of true sublimity. It was one calculated to raise within the breast feelings of solemnity

and awe, not unmingled with emotions of a tenderer nature. The majesty of God-the purpose of His future destination for the beings of an immortal spirit, that He has formed, and placed in a world created with such boundless manifestations of his power and his love, by which it is sustained from age to age in all the beauty of its primeval state, became subjects of the most serious meditation; and awakened in my mind, as I looked out upon the silvery lake, the most reverential hopes and aspirations that it was capable of entertaining in reference to God.

Before I bid adieu to this subject and to Lausanne, I cannot resist giving you a note Mr. Bray made upon it in his journal :-"Like my wife, I could not but muse on the resemblance, or at least fancied resemblance, of this night to that in which Gibbon finished his great work, which excites both our admiration and disgust. I think that the idea of it first occurred to him as he stood amid the ruins of Rome. Happier, far happier, thought I, would be he who, on such a night as this, and almost on the

self-same spot, should feel such inspiration from within, or rather from above, as to form the resolution, through God's assistance, to begin a work that might successfully oppose, and at the same time expose, his insidious attacks against Christianity. And such a work as this would not but have His blessing who saith 'I am the beginning and the ending, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Al

-

mighty.' But infidelity has had her day, and been compelled, even through the pages of Gibbon, to bear testimony to the truth of our most holy faith."

I remain, my dear Brother,

Yours very affectionately,

ANNA ELIZA BRAY.

LETTER XXIV.

TO A. J. KEMPE, ESQ., F.S.A.

Departure from Lausanne. —

Coppet. Madame

de Stael. Singular Marriages of Persons of Genius.-Coincidence and Parallelism.-Geneva. -Washerwomen. · Calvin. — Geneva, the Seed

Plot of Revolutions.

Rousseau.

Celebrity and Notoriety. Daparture for Chamouny. - Jura Range. - Mont Saleve. The Mole.-Encounter with a Priest - Faucigny. Bonneville.

Column to Carlo Felice. Cluses. The Pass.

Alpine Ravine. - Defile of Cluses. Sublime Scenery. Maglan. Grotte de Balme.— River Arve. Cascade of the Nant d'Arpenaz.- Remarkable Stratification. Scenes around the Nant d'Arpenaz-Beggars. - Goitre. Cretinism.The Douron. Valley. The Arve. The Varens.- Approach to St. Martin. Mont Blanc. -Sunset.-The Mountains.-The Sexagenarian's Account of Swiss Manners and Customs at Inns.

On the morning of the 25th of July, my husband and myself once more set forward in our voiture for Geneva. My nephew had previously departed, at a very early hour, for that city, by