HAVING spent a pleasant time among the Alps from the commencement of July till the snow encompassed Geneva in the end of November last, I am forcibly reminded of the remark made by Sir John Forbes, that we can no more have too much of Switzerland than of Dante or of Shakespeare. "The glaciers and the mountains," says Professor Tyndall, "have made me feel in all my fibres the blessedness of perfect manhood;" and if such be the case, they are worthy of even more consideration than that which they have yet received. When Napoleon III. calls himself the moderator of revolutions and the pacifier of Europe, one is apt to think that, however appropriate these titles, they would be more gracefully bestowed upon the Emperor by others than conferred by himself. So, in like manner, we desire to have some other testimony than the energetic Professor's own (say that of Principal Forbes) as to the alleged fact of his having attained to the supreme blessedness of "perfect manhood;" but even if it be a delusion under which he labours, a delusion so delicious is surely well worth searching for even on the path of avalanches or at the bottom of crevasses; and I have a good deal to say about what Rousseau so aptly termed "les bains de l'air salutaire et bienfaisant des montagnes." Because every one visits Switzerland, and it is consequently so well known, should any one doubt its fitness as a subject for literature, I reply, That constitutes a sound reason why it should be repeatedly written about, and, more particularly, why people should be

-PETRARCA.

continually reading about it. There are some minds so constituted that they cannot enjoy the treatment of any subject with which they are not familiar, or the praises of any one with whom they are not acquainted. Serious injury is sometimes done to a man's position and prospects by well-meaning but injudicious friends, who too frequently trumpet his praise in circles where he is personally unknown. When this is carried to excess, the human mind takes offence at Aristides. Similarly, there are men extant who never hear or read anything about the sources of the Nile without mentally exclaiming, "D- the sources of the Nile!" and who would be much better pleased to hear a discussion on the sources of the Thames, the Tweed, or the Rhine. Moreover, Switzerland is a country in which, despite narrow limits, new beauties are incessantly being discovered, new adventures occur, and new conveniences are yearly provided for visiting the most striking scenes.

In the early part of last July it was useless asking the Oberkellner of the famous Schweitzerhof at Lucerne when the weather intended to clear up; that worthy functionary invariably replied that the weather had been behaving in such an extraordinary manner, he had ceased to entertain any opinion of it at all. Every half-hour of warm, damp sunshine was followed by an hour of plumping rain. Travellers were coming and going daily; but there was a fortuitous concatenation of such atoms as invalids, English justices, and German counts, that held together for

more than a week. A vague idea prevailed that we had come to ascend mountains, to cross glaciers, and perform other heroic deeds; but meanwhile we basely adhered to the flesh-pots of the Schweitzerhof. One savan discovered that M. Matthieu (de la Drôme) had predicted that there would be a change of weather about the 20th, which actually occurred; but that date appeared fearfully far off, and serious were the animadversions on the meteorologist for not having fixed on an earlier day. What was the use of going up even Mount Pilatus or the Righi, when visibly these mountains were shrouded by black, circling clouds? Occasionally a Occasionally a visit was paid to Thorwaldsen's Lion, the magnificent rock-sculpture to the memory of the Swiss Guards who were killed at Paris in 1792, when faithfully defending the royal family; and on reading the nomina eorum qui ne sacramenti fidem fallerent, we unanimously grumbled that in Swiss character there existed no other virtue. At the table d'hôte I was kept amused by the antics of my left-hand neighbour, a little old Frenchman, who, after considering the French wines as too expensive, and the vins du pays as undrinkable, at last exclaimed, "Je prendrai du vin Anglais de pal al," and accordingly ordered a bottle of Bass, which he drank slowly, with the air of a connoisseur, out of a wine-glass. Much excitement was caused by the communication, made in awe-struck whispers-for the Swiss have an immense reverence for the Napoleonidæ that M. Walewski was in the house; but the Count kept himself uncommon dark, and though each of us believed we had seen him, no one believed the other. There was no doubt, however, about Prince Arthur; and M. Rouher, the ministre d'état, with his grey hair, large head, broad frame, and Quakerish appearance, relieved the monotony of a day.

On the shores of the Lake of

never

Lucerne, and of other Swiss waters, it was amusing to notice the "reading parties" from the English universities. There was something refreshing in the high spirits of these young men as compared with Continental youth; in that devotion to the classics which made them so nobly indifferent to the languages of the country; and in the energy with which they cultivated that physical education so necessary to the development of perfect manhood. In the morning, Jones (who had a sprained ankle) would remark, "I say, let us have a tremendous grind to-day;" and, though this proposal was greeted with absolute enthusiasm, yet was it never lightly or hastily set aside. On the contrary, it was usually received with that respect and solemn silence with which toasts are drunk to the memory of the dead; it was accepted as a grave possibility, as a zest to the actual employments of the day. After a decent interval, Clifford would suggest that the morning was rather hot for reading, or that the air was too damp for sitting still; another would remember that the night before he had set some lines, which required looking after; while a third had engaged Carl to teach him how to row standing. Occasionally one of the party segregated himself from the others, and remained shut up for hours in his own room, where he might be seen seated at the window with a pipe in his mouth, diligently poring over some volume which bore a superficial resemblance to the veracious histories of modern life published by Messrs Tauchnitz & Co.; but evidently it was some passage in Plato or Eschylus on which he had been engaged; for, on emerging from his seclusion, the others invariably inquired whether it had been very stiff work, and if he had had a terrible sweat over it. One innkeeper who had received a party of these youths, was sorely exercised in his

mind concerning them. As he was the only native in the place who understood English, he was kept perpetually at their beck and call. It was Reuter this, and Reuter that, from dawn to midnight. On the ground that they required quiet for the prosecution of their arduous studies, they had engaged a large upper room in his house-a wooden house-and on the door of this room some wag had chalked up in cœlo quies; but out of that upper heaven there used to issue the most hideous and violent sounds, as if a party of demons were engaged in breaking up the furniture, accompanied with bumps that shook the whole fabric. The host, who took me into his confidence, said, with puzzled and alarmed countenance, "It seems to me, mein Herr, that they knock one another down da oben." A German Pfarrer, or pastor, treated me to a violent diatribe on a party of these "reading" men. Their special offence had been-not that they had smoked in the salon (so much do manners differ), but that one of their number had put up his feet on a chair, and had drunk a glass of krock in the presence of the Pfarrer, and of the Pfarrer's wife. Consider," said the indignant old clergyman, "these handsome young men of noble English families, some of whom may soon enter the House of Lords, or be called to the Commons! What preparations are they making for the duties of life? They learn no German, no French, when they are here; they know nothing of science, or philosophy, or law; they don't even go up the mountains. They do nothing all day but read novels, and stand fishing on rocks, and row about in boats, and fight with one another, and smoke with their feet up on chairs, and sit drinking krock! What sort of life is that (Was ist das für ein Leben)?"

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There was some legitimate blame in this speech; but it would have been easy to reply that the hand

some young men did go up mountains very extensively; that the Pfarrer had rather over-estimated their social importance; that the store of health and strength they were laying in might turn out very useful both at the universities and in future public life; that the brandy-and-water some of them consumed of an evening, after taking exercise in the open air all day, was quite moderate in amount, and by no means so pernicious as the inordinate quantities of wine and beer daily imbibed by Germans of all classes, to the ruin of the stomach, to the bemuddling of the brain, and to that bemuddifying of the flesh which is so painfully apparent in the Teutonic countenance; that it is better to read English novels than French ones-to box, than to slash faces like the Bürschen of Fatherland; and, generally speaking, to follow the imperfect example of these young Englishmen, than that of the young German nobles whose highest pleasure is to send out their cooks to some country inn, to which they themselves drive at noon, and where they sit smoking, drinking, and playing cards the rest of the day and the half of the night.

The truth is, however, that if English and Germans begin recriminating each other about university education, and the general training of their young men, they can both with truth say very unpleasant things, and things which are not at all the less unpleasant because referring to defects of character which are common to the two nations. The licence given to German students is no doubt excessive; and our public-school life, together with university traditions, now happily dying out, but not yet extinguished, often develop in young Englishmen a rudeness, a coarseness, and, in the baser sort, a brutality which disgust foreigners, and also Englishmen who have had much experience of foreign countries. In passing through

as

Heidelberg, it seemed to me that every second student had his face gashed from the ridiculous duels in which they engage, being so well padded as to leave only the face exposed. One man seemed to take particular pride in the fact that the point of his nose-of his reunited nose-bore a painful resemblance to a strawberry; and I remember a Suabian at Tübingen, the end of whose proboscis had, after being cut off, been fixed on upside down, giving a singular aspect to his countenance; but in that respect he was more fortunate than the well-known student, the point of whose nose, when it fell to the ground, was snapped up by his own bulldog. But common these duels are in Germany, the matter does not always rest there. Last summer, in Heidelberg, one student lost his life owing to the sword of his opponent having penetrated the socket of his eye; and another, a Suabian, shot himself in one of the streets, in obedience to the code of honour. His opponent, in this latter case, was understood to have been a Pole; and a more serious quarrel than usual having arisen between them, they had recourse to the inhuman expedient of a duel à l'outrance, by means of drawing lots as to which of the two should make away with himself. The lot fell upon the poor student, who was allowed a certain time for arranging his affairs, at the end of which period he applied for a respite, on the ground that he wished to see his father, who was dying. This was coldly refused, with the remark, that if his father were dying, they would see one another quite soon enough, and that people who made duels necessary should be prepared for the consequences. Accordingly, the unfortunate youth shot himself in the chest, and expired after twenty-four hours of agony; and though the affair was one almost of public notoriety, I never heard that any steps were taken to bring the surviving prin

cipal, or the accessory parties, to justice.

Indeed it is evident that the padded duels of the Bürschen would become too contemptible to exist were they not supported in the dim background by the threatening shadows of more formidable meetings; but these more serious affairs do not by any means mend the matter, though they may redeem it from ridicule. In England duelling has entirely ceased, being repugnant to all the feelings and ideas of the dominant, the middle class; but there still remains a brutality of manner against which the duello is often a legitimate protection. In a state of society so highly civilised that men are denied the satisfaction for insult which mortal combat affords, it is essential that insults should not be tolerated, and that law should afford protection against them by treating them as penal. Suppose some brute of the better classes spits in the face of a little weak man, or insults his wife or daughter, what possible satisfaction is to be derived from the infliction of a fine of five pounds? In such cases the instincts of the carnal man point to murder, and the civilisation which represses them is bound to provide a sufficient compensation. The unsatisfactory state of our arrangements in this respect tells most among the lower classes, and is the chief source of those acts of wanton violence in which England beats the whole world. While we punish crimes against property with too great severity, those against the person (with the single exception of garotting, for the purpose of robbery, be it noticed) are treated with ridiculous leniency. I am sorry I cannot lay my hands upon some notes I once made of judgments passed in the police courts of London in cases of brutal and permanently disabling assault; but any one who follows my example will soon see that in England, with the exercise of a