162 THE DORA SUSINA. the windows of my chamber. Of course I was utterly sleepless. A tremendous storm arose; the thunder's solemn roar, scarcely interrupted by the spectral flames of the lightning, was answered by the angry dashing of the Dora raging over its rocky bed. A melancholy wind splashed the rain against the casements, and wafted from the town, each from its separate belfroy, the distant tolling of the dismal storm bells; while, triumphant over all—at least unmoved by all-Time, with his sad monotonous punctuality, proclaimed from every Steeple-Clock his inexorable march. And now, once more, Italia! benedetta Italia! addio. "Thou Brightness of the World! O! thou once free And always fair! Rare Land of courtesy, Rich, populous, ornate; all treasures thine, Fair cities, gallant mansions, castles old, And forests, where beside his leafy hold There is nothing in the entire passage of the Mount Cenis so striking as the vast distance from which you continue to discern the Sacra San Michele, the destined Mausoleum of the Savoyard THE SACRA SAN MICHELE. 163 kings. It is almost the first object of importance you encounter in quitting the Royal Palaces of Turin, and the last that disappears from your wondering gaze when the mountain barrier of Piedmont ushers you into the smiling valleys of Savoy. Thus the earliest edifice that arrests your eye in entering this fine and flourishing kingdom isnot the populous town, not the impregnable fortress, not the marble palace, not the stately pleasure-ground-but, piled upon its vast and rugged mountain, isolated from regal grandeur, cut off even from social sympathy, the mansion that awaits him who now sits upon the throne,—the charnel-house of those Sovereigns who have long since laid down their diadems and sceptres at its threshold: the Gateway of the Grave, the Dome of DEATH. This struck me as a grand and solemn comment upon that practice prevalent among Barbaric potentates from Philip of Macedon to the Arabian Saladin, who, in their saloons of audience, at their banquets, in their processions, maintained an officer whose duty it was to proclaim at once their magnificence and their mortality. 164 THE LAKE OF BOURGET. Aix les Bains, September 10th, 1844. AT Aix les Bains I was arrested in my pleasant wanderings by the red hand of Fever, whose iron gripe detained me a most reluctant prisoner for nearly six weeks. Yet if it were possible to revert with complacency and even pleasure to a scene of protracted suffering, Aix les Bains is precisely the spot calculated to create that anomaly of feeling. It is a delicious bird's-nest, where hills and groves not only protect and adorn, but almost intrude upon the village streets. Narrow winding lanes, whose deep green sward, bejewelled with the Tyrian purple of crocuses, is scarcely broken by the red pathway that guides you through their intricacies, and overarched in all their wanderings by the groined verdure of lofty trees, conduct the rambler hither and thither, through a maze of rural beauty not the less pleasing from its perplexity. The lovely little lake of Bourget forms a beautiful Reservoir, with its blue hills and sunny waters, to the numberless rivulets which constantly accompany those woodland alleys, embroidering their flowery banks with a gay mosaic of pebbles, and meekly chiming with their silver tunes to the melodies of the birds among the branches. But my chief solace, as soon as I was enabled to exchange for the sweet airs of Heaven the melan THE TWO GARDENS. 165 choly atmosphere of those chambers in which I had so long alternately shivered and burned, were the two large gardens, the one of flowers, the other of fruits and vegetables, belonging to the ample and picturesque hotel. Not through the Minster's dark grandæval Pile, Not in that old Patrician Palace hall Superbly hung for solemn festival, Where gorgeous umber'd beams through Pictured Windows fall; Not where the haunted Feudal Corridor Hears steps unearthly shake the thund'ring floor, Not in those Vaults of drear Captivity, Where, in the bursting heart and tearless eye, Nor in those free and voiceful Solitudes, But o'er yon solitary Garden walk, Where Twilight Winds with sleepy florets talk, Fain would I chaunt to Him who gives me Rest Never can I forget the first afternoon, when, an hour before Sunset I found myself in the Garden of Herbs, or Orchard, or Melon-ground, or Vine yard, for it was all these; gazing on the fantastic screen of the Mont Chat, whose mighty bosom was deepening from blue to purple, and from purple to black, as the dazzling orb wheeled nearer to its goal behind that crouching Cat, which gives the mountain both its title and its Crest. I have always dearly loved a Garden, but especially a quaint old fashioned inclosure like this. Here were walks of turf or gravel, broad or narrow, basking between borders of particoloured flowers, or lurking underneath long trellices of vines, whose rich and most beautiful foliage enhanced those amber and amethystine clusters which they scarcely veiled. Huge fruit trees overloaded with Apple, Plum, and Pear, spread their umbrageous shadows over one side of the garden, while the other, basking beneath the genial sky, exposed its broad open Plots to the sunshine, where the green and golden orbs of the Melons, spreading in almost neglected luxuriance, lay side by side, a strange vicinity, with the fringy verdure and crimson berries of the Alpine Strawberry beds. Every variety of aromatic or savoury herb, Lavender, Bergamot, Rosemary, Thyme, Marjoram, Sage, Mint, and others, it were long to name, embalmed the air with various odours, and a certain sheltered nook behind a cluster of Marigolds crowded with the Straw-palaces of the Bee, declared at once that those fragrant bushes `were planted for the yellow Honey-comb, at least as |