Rang lonelily and sharp; the sky was fair,
And a fresh breath of spring stirred everywhere.
Merlin and Vivian stopped on the slope's brow,
To gaze on the light sea of leaf and bough

Which glistering plays all round them, lone and mild,
As if to itself the quiet forest smiled.

Upon the brow-top grew a thorn, and here

The grass was dry and mossed, and you saw clear
Across the hollow; white anemones

Starred the cool turf, and clumps of primroses
'Ran out from the dark underwood behind-
No fairer resting-place a man could find.
"Here let us halt," said Merlin then; and she
Nodded, and tied her palfrey to a tree.

They sate them down together, and a sleep
Fell upon Merlin, more like death, so deep.
Her finger on her lips, then Vivian rose,

And from her brown-locked head the wimple throws,
And takes it in her hand, and waves it over
The blossomed thorn-tree and her sleeping lover.
Nine times she waved the fluttering wimple round,
And made a little plot of magic ground.
And in that daisied circle, as men say,
Is Merlin prisoner till the judgment-day;
But she herself whither she will can rove-

For she was passing weary of his love.

MATTHEW ARNOLD. (Tristram and Iseult.)

+

And so on a time it happed that Merlin showed to her in a rock whereas was a great wonder, and wrought by enchantment, that went under a great stone. So by her subtle working she made Merlin to go under that stone to let her wit of the marvels there, but she wrought so there for him that he never came out for all the craft that he could do. And so she departed and left Merlin.-Sir Thomas Malory.

45. CROSSING THE ALPS.

TURIN, November 7, N.S., 1739.

I am this night arrived here, and have just set down to rest me after eight days' tiresome journey. For the three first we had the same road we before passed through to go to Geneva; the fourth we turned out of it, and for that day and the next travelled rather among than upon the Alps-the way commonly running through a deep valley by the side of the river Arc, which works itself a passage, with great difficulty and a mighty noise, among vast quantities of rocks, that have rolled down from the mountain tops. The winter was so far advanced as in great measure to spoil the beauty of the prospect; however, there was still somewhat fine remaining among the savageness and horror of the place. The sixth we began to go up several of these mountains, and as we were passing one, met with an odd accident enough.

Mr. Walpole had a little fat black spaniel, that he was very fond of, which he sometimes used to set down, and let it run by the chaise side. We were at that time in a very rough road, not two yards broad at most. On one side was a great wood of pines, and on the other a vast precipice. It was noonday, and the sun shone bright, when all of a sudden from the wood-side (which was as steep upwards as the other part was downwards) out rushed a great wolf, came close to the head of the horses, seized the dog by the throat, and rushed up the hill again with him in his mouth. This was done in less than a quarter of a

minute. We all saw it, and yet the servants had not time to draw their pistols or do anything to save the dog. If he had not been there, and the creature had thought fit to lay hold of one of the horses, chaise and we and all must inevitably have tumbled about fifty fathoms perpendicular down the precipice.

The seventh we came to Lanebourg, the last town in Savoy; it lies at the foot of the famous Mont Cenis, which is so situated as to allow no room for any way but over the very top of it. Here the chaise was forced to be pulled to pieces, and the baggage and that to be carried by mules. We ourselves were wrapped up in our furs, and seated upon a sort of matted chair without legs, which is carried upon poles in the manner of a bier; and so began to ascend by the help of eight men.

It was six miles to the top, where a plain opens itself about as many more in breadth, covered perpetually with very deep snow, and in the midst of that a great lake of unfathomable depth, from whence a river takes its rise, and tumbles over monstrous rocks quite down the other side of the mountain. The descent is six miles more, but infinitely more steep than the going up; and here the men perfectly fly down with you, stepping from stone to stone with incredible swiftness in places where none but they could go three paces without falling. The immensity of the precipices, the roaring of the river and torrents that run into it, the huge crags covered with ice and snow, and the clouds below you and about you, are objects it is impossible to conceive without seeing them; and

We

though we had heard many strange descriptions of the scene, none of them at all came up to it. were but five hours in performing the whole, from which you may judge of the rapidity of the men's motion.

We are now got into Piedmont, and stopped a little while at La Ferriere, a small village about threequarters of the way down, but still among the clouds, where we began to hear a new language spoken round about us. At last we got quite down, went through the Pas de Suse, a narrow road among the Alps, defended by two fortresses, and lay at Bossolens. Next evening, through a fine avenue of nine miles in length, as straight as a line, we arrived at this city, which, as you know, is the capital of the principality, and the residence of the King of Sardinia......We shall stay here, I believe, a fortnight, and proceed for Genoa, which is three or four days' journey to go post. I am, etc.

From GRAY'S "Letters."

46. CHAMOUNI.

From Servoz three leagues remain to Chamouni. Mont Blanc was before us-the Alps, with their innumerable glaciers on high all around, closing in the complicated windings of the single vale; forests inexpressibly beautiful, but majestic in their beauty— intermingled beech and pine and oak--overshadowed our road, or receded, whilst lawns of such verdure as I have never seen before occupied these openings, and

Mont

gradually became darker in their recesses. Blanc was before us, but it was covered with cloud; its base, furrowed with dreadful gaps, was seen above. Pinnacles of snow, intolerably bright, part of the chain connected with Mont Blanc, shone through the clouds at intervals on high.

I never knew I never imagined-what mountains were before. The immensity of these aerial summits excited, when they suddenly burst upon the sight, a sentiment of ecstatic wonder not unallied to madness. And remember this was all one scene; it all pressed home to our regard and our imagination. Though it embraced a vast extent of space, the snowy pyramids which shot into the bright blue sky seemed to overhang our path; the ravine, clothed with gigantic pines, and black with its depth below, so deep that the very roaring of the untamable Arve, which rolled through it, could not be heard above all was as much our own as if we had been the creators of such impressions in the minds of others as now occupied our own. Nature was the poet, whose harmony held our spirits more breathless than that of the divinest.

As we entered the valley of Chamouni (which, in fact, may be considered as a continuation of those. which we followed from Bonneville and Cluses), clouds hung upon the mountains at the distance, perhaps, of six thousand feet from the earth, but so as effectually to conceal, not only Mont Blanc, but the other aiguilles, as they call them here, attached and subordinate to it. We were travelling along the valley,