guage, which they would reduce to a monotonous regularity, quite undesirable, even if it could be accomplished. Why should we desire to do it, any more than we should wish to put the stars into strait jackets of squares or triangles, or all the trees into the form of quincunxes? There are men, Mr. Dana once said, who, if they could have had the making of the universe, instead of the fair vault of azure hung with its drapery of gorgeous cloud, and by night studded with innumerable wild stars, would have covered the sky with one vast field of dead, cold blue.

There are just such men in literature and spelling, for ever thrusting their dry, bare, sapless formulas of utility before the mind, telling you that nothing must be done without some reason, that everything must have its place, and its place for everything, and in fine, with a multitude of wise old saws and modern instances, they come to the conclusion that the world, which has gone wild and crazy in freedom and beauty, wild above rule or art, is now to be constructed over again, according to the precepts and analyses of their utilitarianism. Wo be to a superfluous letter, if these men catch it caracoling and playing its pranks in a word, which, though it may be none the better for its presence, yet, being accustomed to it, is none the worse; away it goes to the Lexicographer's watch-house, till it can be tried for vagrancy. Instead of the good old word height, these men would have us drop the e and spell hight, but to be consistent, both the g and the h should be dropped, and the word written hyt. That would be strict utilitarianism. The word pretence they would change into pretense, and so with others of that family. The word theatre they would print theater, and others of the same clan in like manner. The expressive word haggard they would change into hagard, because, forsooth, two gs are superfluous. In this attempt at change they are going contrary to good usage, which must ever be the prevailing law of language, and instead of producing uniformity in the language itself (in which irregularities are of little consequence, nay, sometimes add to its beauty), they are causing one of the greatest evils of language, irregularity, uncertainty, and lawlessness in the mode of using it.

This is owing in a great measure to Dr. Webster's unfortunate

orthographical eccentricities, which have set so many spellers and journeymen printers agog to imitate him. It is vexatious to think of the prospect of our becoming provincialized, and as obnoxious to the charge of dialects as any county in England, when heretofore we have been, as a people, so much more pure and classical in our use of the English language, than the English people themselves. These innovations should be resisted, nor should any mere Lexicographer, nor University, nor knot of critics, have it in their power to make them prevalent. A great and powerful writer, like John Foster or Edmund Burke, a great Poet, like Shakspeare or Milton, is a great king and creator in language; his sway is legitimate, for he enlarges the capacity of his native tongue, and increases its richness and imaginative power, and when the soul of genius innovates, it has some right so to do. And such innovations will inevitably pass into the soul of language, and become a part of its law. But the mere critic and lexicographer has no right to innovate; he is to take the language as he finds it, and declare and set forth its forms according to good usage; he is out of his province, and becomes an usurper, when he attempts to alter it.

These surveyors of the King's English are going about to prune the old oaks of the language of all supernumerary knots, leaves and branches. If there is any question as to the propriety of their course, whist, they whip you out of their pocket the great American Lexicographer's measuring line, and tell you exactly how far the tree ought to grow, and that every part not sanctioned by his authority must be lopped off. It were well if these gentlemen were compelled to practise the same rules and attempt the same innovations with the bonnets of their wives, that they are attempting with the King's English. Let them cut off every supernumerary ribbon, and shape the head-dress of the ladies by square and compass, and not by the varieties of taste, and in this enterprise they would find somewhat more of difficulty in carrying out their utilitarian maxims.

The sacred word Bible our coterie of critics must needs spell with a small b. This is worse than mere innovation. There is a dignity and sacredness of personification connected with the

word Bible, which appropriately manifests itself in making the term a proper name. It partakes of the sacredness of the name of God, and ought always to be written with a capital B, for the usage has obtained, as a matter of religious reverence, and a good and venerable usage it is.

We shall have a grand world by and by, when it is all a dead level. Every mountain is to come down, and every valley to be raised, and a utilitarian railroad is to run straight across the world; an embargo is to be laid on all winding ways; the trees are to have just so many leaves, and no more; the oaks are not to be suffered to sport any more knots; the rose-bushes are to put forth no more buds than the essence-makers declare to be wanted; our prayers are to have only so many words, and if any minister appears in the pulpit without a white neck-cloth, or a surplice so many inches long, he is to be suspended and excommunicated. All our hymns are to undergo a revision, and to be cleansed of all hard and naughty words, and pruned of all supernumerary stanzas, and a fine is to be laid upon every clergyman who shall give out more than four.

The corps of revisers would do well for awhile to let other men's productions alone, and to leave the English language in the hands of Addison and Goldsmith, Shakspeare, Cowper, and our Translation of the Bible. Some poet-pedlars are especially fond of tinkering with old hymns, thinking they can solder up the rents in Watts and Cowper. Walker's Rhyming Dictionary and Webster's great Lexicon might constitute their whole stock in trade. Methinks we can hear them bawling from the wooden seat of their cart, "Any old hymns to mend, old hymns to mend ?" This tinkered ware will not last. We should almost as soon think of adopting wooden nutmegs, at the instigation of the pedlars "down east," instead of the old-fashioned genuine spices of Morgenland. But alas, the fictitious and the genuine have got so mingled up by generation after generation of menders, that poets like Cowper and Watts would find it difficult themselves, in some cases, to say which was their own version. The same is the case with some of the best old tunes in music, ground down to suit the barrel organs of new composers. O that men would leave some of the old stones with mosses on them!

What has all this to do, you are asking, with Kandersteg and the Swiss hamlets? We have made a digression, it must be acknowledged, but the way back is not difficult. It is clearly manifest that picturesqueness is as desirable a quality in language and literature as it is in trees and houses. And let us remember that the utmost simplicity is perfectly consistent with this quality of picturesqueness. If we must change our language, let it not be by making it more bare, but richer and more simple. Men often mistake barrenness for simplicity, but there is no necessary relationship between the two. A bare naked man, we take it, has no more simplicity than a decently dressed gentleman. The bald, staring, red front of a brick house on a dusty street is not half so simple an object, as a pretty cottage with verandahs and honeysuckles. It is not the things which are omitted, but those which are wisely retained, that constitute true simplicity. The simplicity of words is not to be judged by the equilibrium of syllables, or the balance of vowels and consonants, nor is language to be judged as the shopkeepers would measure tape by the yard, or carpets by the figures. It must grow as the trees do, with the same variety and freedom, under the same law of picturesque and not immutable vitality.

CHAPTER XIII.

Kandersteg. Frutigen. The Blumlis Alp. Lake and Village of Thun.

It was early enough in the afternoon to reach Thun, by taking a char, the same evening, and I was sufficiently tired for the day, and quite well disposed for a ride through the lovely valley of Frutigen, still far below us. A few miles from Kandersteg we found ourselves on the outer edge of the spreading farms of that village, a most sudden and romantic contrast, to one stepping down from the icy top and rough sides of the Gemmi.

Here shall you see Summer and Winter conversing together, with but a wall between them, as a fair girl on an errand of mercy might stand in the sweet open air outside a prison, and converse, through the grated black window, with a savage, shut up criminal, with wild eyes and matted hair. By and by the Savage will break prison, and come down into the grassy plains, but this is not his season of liberty. You can talk with him, and hear his fierce voice, and look at his icy fingers, without his touching you.

Turning from Kandersteg and the Gemmi, you overlook at once the long descending vale, all the way to where it ends at Frutigen, with the spires and white houses of that village shining in the distant evening sun. Is not the view quite enchanting? Nearly at right angles with the gorge down which you are descending, lies the now concealed valley of Frutigen, one of the richest deep inclosures of the Alps. And now it opens upon us. We lose the Gemmi and the woods and roaring brooks of Kan