was extremely wild and desolate. Clouds, mountains, and forests were all around us, with glens, but partially and indistinctly seen, beneath; and we had attained to a considerable elevation, when, about noon, the town of Morez burst upon our view. It is situated in the heart of the Jura, at the bottom of an immense cleft in the rocks, through which rolls a romantic stream, and where a few verdant fields are seen to shine. It happened to be market day, and the effect was most interesting-to emerge in a moment from the solitude of gloomy mountains to the hum and bustle of a crowded country town! We looked down upon it, like aerial beings' taking a peep at what was passing in the lower world. It was a grateful refreshment to the eye and to the heart, and reminded us that we were still in the land of the living, and not quite beyond the reach of civilized society.

At Morez we met with two English gentlemen, returning from Italy. They observed, that although they had recently crossed the Simplon, yet they were much struck with the sublimity of these passes of the Jura. A few minutes chat with a countryman was very pleasant so far from home and in a land of strangers.

From Morez we ascended, by a steep and difficult path, that scarcely deserves the name of a road, to Les Rousses, an inconsiderable village, and thence

still continuing the ascent, we passed the base of the Dole, one of the highest summits of the Jura. There we observed, in the most sheltered situations, a few scattered houses, resorted to in the season, for the purpose of making the Gruyer cheese, which is celebrated all over the continent for its exquisite fla

The road here became not a little terrific, running along the loftiest ledges of the mountains, where the breaking of a wheel, or the restifness of a horse, might have been fatal to our party, till suddenly turning to the left, we saw at an almost inconceivable depth, the lake of Geneva at our feet. We enjoyed not that magnificent view of the Alps, which in clear weather is obtained from this point, and which has been so frequently described by travellers, for the rain had come on previously, and the whole scene was enveloped in clouds and mist, through which the lake was but dimly seen, and upon which it was fearful to look down. The descent from this point is extremely steep, and the road, which winds down the side of the mountain, rather too rapidly for the traveller's comfort, in one place is made to pass through a

The principal place for the manufacture of this cheese, and whence, indeed, it derives its name, is Gruyires, a small town in the canton of Friburg, in Switzerland. A great part of the salt consumed in the manufacture of these cheeses is drawn from Franche Compté. It sells at six batz, or eighteen French sous per pound.

huge projecting rock, that threatened to obstruct its way. But it was the work of Buonaparte, and rocks were mere playthings with him, as his passage of the Alps, and the passes of the Simplon attest. I left the carriage at the brow of the hill, and reached Gex, the next post town, and the last in France, considerably before it, so difficult is the descent. Sullen grandeur was the character of the scenery around me. Occasional gleams of light were cast upon the lake, and the clouds were seen rolling along the valley, and creeping up the bosoms of the mountains, now covering and now unfolding their summits clothed with copse-wood and crowned with forests of fir. But I paid for my gratification, and what I conceived my safety, by excessive fatigue and a wet skin.

At this place they brought us the most delicious wine we have yet tasted. We asked for the vin de pays-they called it lunell. It appears to me to be in wine, what the pine-apple is amongst fruit—it combines in itself the flavour of every other, without an undue predominance of any.

Night now came on, and in the dark we passed Furney, the seat of the infidel, Voltaire, and entered the gates of Geneva. We heard the roaring of the Rhone as we crossed the bridge, and our ears are perpetually saluted with the rippling of the lake, upon which our hotel is situated.

Your's, &c.

LETTER XIX.

Martigny.

MY DEAR

It often happens that where we expect the greatest gratification we enjoy the least. I have felt the force of this reflection in my visit to Geneva. The shortness of our stay did not allow us, indeed, to see any of its society; and the information I had previously obtained of the state of religion was not such as to excite in my mind very exalted expectations of pleasure from that source. Few of the doctrines,

and little of the spirit, which once rendered it the glory of the Protestant world, now remain: and that truth, which was asserted and maintained by Calvin, a name to which the city of Geneva is more indebted for its celebrity than to the grandeur of its scenery, the beauties of its lake, or the stern character of its ancient independence, has scarcely an asylum within its walls.* The pastors of its

* What was the state of things in this respect, in Voltaire's time, may be pretty correctly gathered from the friendship that subsisted

churches are almost to a man, Arians, or Socinians. A few, perhaps, may cherish the genuine principles of the reformation and feel their influence. I know, indeed, that this is the case, but they bear no proportion to the majority who are sunk in infidelity and scepticism, and can do but little towards the diffusion of that divine light, and the spread of that glorious gospel, by the resuscitating energy of which the Church of Geneva may again awake from the philosophic dreams of infidelity, and emulate the zeal, the piety, and the simplicity of former times.

between that arch-infidel and the pastors of Geneva.

In a letter

to D'Alembert, in 1757, he writes, "The magistrates and the priests come to dine with me as usual. Continue to leave with me and Tronchin the charge of the pleasant affair of the Socinians of Geneva." In another to the same correspondent, he says, "It cannot be otherwise then that in Calvin's own town, with a population of four and twenty thousand free thinkers, there should still remain a few Calvanists; but they are extremely few, and are well abused. All honest folks are deists." These are surely awful testimonies against them; for what communion hath light with darkness? What concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? Another evidence as to the state of religion in Geneva about that time, may be gathered from the article Genéve, in the French Encyclopædia. The writer of that article says, "To say all in one word, many of the pastors of Geneva own no religion but pure Socinianism. They reject all those things that are called mysteries, and consider it as the first principal of a true religion, that it shall propose nothing to be believed that offends reason. Also, when pressed upon the necessity of revelation, that dogma so essential to Christianity, most substitute the term utility, (utilité) which appears to them more soft. In this, if they are not orthodox,