We are aware that, when we "train up a child in the way he should go, he will not depart from it;" but fortunately, when it is that in which he ought not to go, he certainly will depart from it when he can.

Thus having consumed nearly half my life—at all events, the better half—at a public school and the University, preparatory to a profession, my antipathy for which was exactly proportioned by my inaptitude for it, the sole result is, that I can now answer to the definition of a real gentleman, "one who has no visible means of a maintenance."

I begin to suspect, then, that it may be, now and then, just worth while to condescend and observe how a child's disposition may incline him to go; and though, as an humble disciple of John Locke, I am quite sensible of the absurdity of "innate ideas," yet it is very evident that, at an early period of our lives, we evince traits which are infallibly indicative of the bent of our dispositions, which are just as our natures may have been constituted, and this bent is better known by the name of genius.

Now it has been beneficently, and I will say beautifully ordained, that an individual, by gratifying this instinctive impulse of his genius, not only augments his own happiness, but that of his species also, and, I sometimes fondly hope, even that of the Creator himself.

Over an extent of country is distributed a variety of soils, one adapted for one kind of produce, another for another, and the aggregate may amount to so much. Counteract this arrangement, and surely the result will be far inferior. Indeed, where is the agriculturist who is not strictly attentive as well as acquiescent to this tendency?

How exactly, then, do I imagine this to apply to the variety of dispositions among ourselves; and if we follow, with regard to their natures, the same economy, then shall we see how simply true it is, that when we train up a child in the way he should go, he will not depart from it.

The conviction of this truth makes me curious to ascertain the way I ought to have gone; not that I am unaware of my present tastes, but which, probably, are the mere effects of education, and consequent and acquired habits, while my early ones have long since been lost or "warped by the kind severity of the pedagogue."

Possessing a tolerable memory with regard to events, I will, then, just rummage about its lumber-room, and see if I cannot tumble out some long-forgotten recollection on the subject, if I may so express myself; but I sincerely trust that it may not turn out to be a tendency for the poet, or some such inclination incompatible with the fortunes of the youngest of younger brothers.

After some pains to effect this object, I fear I must conclude that I have never evinced any marked genius, one way or another, unless it be for that of the vagrant! What a shock to my theory!

Though an idle boy, I was ever a restless one. Whenever I had an opportunity, I was certain to give my nursery-maid the slip, and ramble through the fields and coppices, though at the cost of a whipping, or, at all events, the deprivation of my supper. I could never see a distant hill, but I longed to reach its summit to see what was on the other side; and had I been more conversant with holy writ, I should have been ever sighing, "O, that I had wings like the dove, for then would I flee away and be at rest." In short, every spot in the distance seemed to be more sunny and delightful than that which I at the moment occupied. For hours would I lean my forehead against the cold glass of the nursery window, and contemplate the noble hill that swelled in the horizon. There, I had no doubt, was the end of the world. Then would I conjecture whether it were possible to get there and back again, and whether life was long enough for such a voyage. I then fixed my eye on a large beech-tree—which, blessings on it, is still standing—that I conjectured to be placed about midway. I next counted the number of fields between us, in which I included the lawn. I knew that it was not a very great voyage to traverse this last to the Ha-ha and back. Following up these data, I arrived at the astounding conclusion that the whole original expedition might be accomplished in one day!

This, then, I had resolved to do; but which, after many failures, I never accomplished until several years subsequently, when I determined not only to effect this distance, four whole miles, but to push on to the sea-side, seventeen miles beyond. Now, this was a voyage, and I designed to perform it unknown to any one. As I was ignorant of the probable duration of such an undertaking, I was anxious to take a sufficient wardrobe, and therefore required a valise; but not being able to procure one, I purloined a long leather-legging of my father's, buttoned it up, and stuffed it with my clothes, and which now, when turned in at the ends, and strapped to the saddle with the buttons downward, would have imposed itself as a respectable valise on the most experienced "travelling gentleman." The next morning, I rose before the sun, and squeezing through the bars of the stable window, threw out the saddle and bridle, went into the park up to my knees in dew, caught poor little Forester, and was away, while all at home were still fast asleep.

"Men are but children of a larger growth;" and in lieu of Horsa's-hill in front of my home, I have now extended my ambition to a region, which, let me confess, without any particular reason, I have pictured to myself as the nucleus of glaciers and avalanches—of mountains and mighty rivers. At all events, thither will I now hasten, if it was only to support my theory—at any rate, that I may enjoy the credit of being throughout a consistent character—though, by-the-bye, I might just as well have been the dreaded poet!

On examining my map, I found that the shortest way to the spot I had in view was to go across the paddock and the Downs for the sea-side, where I went on board for St. Malo, and from this corner of France I must find my way across to Geneva, at the other corner.The passage across the Channel was, as I expected, far from agreeable; for when a man wishes his "native land good night" in single blessedness, with but a slender purse in his pocket—and as his country's shores diminish, while sea-sickness increases—he cannot but cast a lingering look towards the scene of his youth far behind him, which he is leaving, perhaps for ever, to wander he knows not whither.

Thus have I paid for that liberty, which has enabled me to explore my solitary way through the most interesting countries of Europe. During my pilgrimage, as I have traversed the monotonous plains of La VendeÉ, the awful grandeur of the Alps, and the lovely yet sublime scenery of Italy, under every aspect—in summer and in winter, in sunshine and in storm—so have I, at times, been elated by the buoyant hopes of the present, as well as bowed down to the dust when I looked forward to the future. I have risen with the sun, my spirits vying with the freshness of the dawn; but how often "has my sun of hope set without a ray, while the dark night of dim despair shadowed only phantoms!" Alone, and on foot, I have accomplished thousands of miles over France, Piedmont, Savoy, Switzerland, Tyrol, Lombardy, and Italy—I have toiled along the dusty road, beneath the noontide heat of an Italian sun, or wandered over trackless Alpine heights through the midnight storm—have rested on princely couches, or on the wheaten straw of the peasant—I have joined the mazourka in palaces, or the tarantala in the wilds of Calabria—I have revelled in the scenery of Claude, or brooded over the lofty solitudes of Salvator Rosa and the brigand—I have experienced the frivolity of France, the dissipation of Florence, the profligacy of the Venetian, the degeneracy of the Roman, and vindictiveness of the Neapolitan, the insincerity of the impoverished noble, and the truth of honest poverty—I have wondered in the gaudy sanctuary of the Papist, teeming with devotees, or pondered amid the nobler simplicity of the Heathen's Temple in the deserts of malaria.

Like the Bohemian, I had, indeed, dearly purchased this liberty! at the cost of every tie, even of religion itself, though perhaps unconscious of it at the time. I then enjoyed robust health, the main-spring of scepticism. Deprived, then, of the source of true happiness, and without any defined object in view, the career before me was a dreary one—though for the present my spirits were buoyed up by the excitement attendant upon novelty.

CHAPTER II.ToC

My main guide through France was the Loire, which led me by a meandering route of nearly five hundred miles to the neighbourhood of Lyons.

Knowing, at that time, so little of the language of those who surrounded me, as actually to envy the fluency of a parrot which I heard chattering with, I suspect, the true Parisian accent, I can scarcely account for the feeling of thorough nonchalance with which I commenced my pilgrimage, and which ever accompanied me to its conclusion. It was seldom even that I was sensible of loneliness, though I must bear witness to the almost inspired truth of the poet, when he says:—

And no one but the solitary pedestrian, entering a crowded city in a foreign land, can know this intense loneliness; but—

and I could scarcely feel that I had even left my home, when, towards the termination of my first day's walk, I came suddenly upon our old friend Blue Beard's Castle! Le Chateau de Barbe Bleu, as it was here designated. Not only was I for the instant transported back to my own country, but to the very nursery; for here, "once upon a time," lived the original and redoubted Blue Beard, the dreaded hero of our nursery romance; and, doubtless, I enjoyed the same lovely and peaceful prospect, though with somewhat different feelings, as "Sister Anne" some centuries foregone.

Never, by any event, were my early days brought so vividly fresh before my mind's eye, as at this moment. In those times, to my recollection, the sun seemed to have been ever shining, the birds ever singing, the trees ever in leaf, and everyone equally kind, and it turns out to be but a silvery regretted dream, never to be re-dreamed. But I comforted myself with the reflection of a better man—"after all, the same blue sky bends o'er all of us, though the point above me might as well beam a little brighter blue." But I have found even an Italian sky to pall at last, to let us have as pleasing a variety of cloud and sunshine, as the better taste of Providence will afford us during our little day, and let us be content.

But the impartiality of Providence towards us in this respect, is very conspicuous, or a little examination into the subject will clear away what few doubts we may entertain concerning it; otherwise, we might feel a difficulty in reconciling the various degrees of happiness which we are apt to suppose prevailed throughout the world, or to exist at present between different persons, with our notions of justice, when we revert from the present refined and peaceful period, to those of barbarism and bloodshed, or think of the pampered alderman and the overworked and starving pauper.

Has, then, the general happiness of mankind actually varied with different epochs? Were the lauded golden ages so much brighter than these of the baser metal? No more so, perhaps, than, in spite of Homer's assertion, were the heroes who contended on the plains of Troy superior in stature or force to those on the plains of Waterloo. As the human constitution accommodates itself to all climes, so our sense of felicity fits itself to external circumstances; and thus the quantity of happiness, or rather, sense of enjoyment, existing at various ages of the world, may not have differed more than that which we suppose to exist between contemporaneous individuals; and this cannot be very great when we doubt whether the peasant would barter his poverty for the wealth of the prince, on the condition, also, of adding to his own years the fifteen or twenty additional winters that have silvered the hair of his superior. Thus, at all events, a few fleeting years annihilates the extremes of their lot.

The truth is, the cup of happiness is very limited, and that of most men as replete as their sense of enjoyment can admit of; more than this is superfluous, wasted, and unappreciated, or even, as it were, condensed by the feeling of satiety which ensues; while, on the other hand, the rarer sources of happiness to another man will expand and fill the cup, blessed as he is with an "elasticity of spirits." Happiness, too, being for the most part placed in perspective, becomes equally distant or inaccessible to all, and seems to have been purposely placed beyond our reach for the same reason that the old man feigned to have concealed the treasure beneath the soil in order that his sons might become rich by the culture of it, which they necessarily, though unwittingly, effected in their search for the gold; and thus our only happiness consists in our efforts to attain the same, though the instant we become sensible of this, we find that we have then indeed exhausted the cup, and like the rest that have done so before us, take a long breath, and sigh, "all is vanity!" and begin to think more intently and exclusively about the attainment of our wishes in another world; for—

I think that our Creator never meant us to be contented, and that we should always have something to look forward to and fret about—"It is thy vocation, Hal,"—or we sink into apathy, and become averse to the prospect of the last great change. "Well, Mr. Graham," said a once contented, but now expiring Nimrod to me, "after all you have said, give me a thousand a-year, and the old bald-faced mare again, and I don't care if I never see the kingdom of Heaven." Or, as Johnson parodied the enjoyment of the savage—"With this cow by my side, and this grass at my feet, what can a bull wish for more?" Contentment! Nothing with vitality must, or ever will be contented, save a vegetable, or a toad in the centre of a rock, and he probably is sighing, with Sterne's starling, "I can't get out!"

Occupation seems to be the original, or true source of all enjoyment; though for this word I would substitute that of progress, and implying successful occupation. My friend and I each possess an estate of six thousand pounds, but the former lately possessed twenty thousand, and I nothing. Which of us is now the more happily situated?

Hence arises the happiness of the saint-like and self-denying hermit; his complaint, "I can't get out!" lasts as long as he does, while he progresses with every flying moment; and conversely, the most unhappy man is the idle and irreligious one. Happiness was mingled with sorrow when Gibbon penned this most interesting but melancholy passage on the termination of twenty years' incessant labour, and which should give us a deep insight into the philosophy of life.

"It was," says he, "on the day, or rather night, of the 27th of June, 1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of the last page, in a summer-house in my garden. After laying down my pen, I took several turns in a berceau, or covered walk of acacias, which commands a prospect of the country, the lake, and the mountains. The air was temperate, the sky was serene; the silver orb of the moon was reflected from the waters, and all nature was silent. I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and perhaps the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind, by the idea that I had taken an everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion; and that whatsoever might be the future fate of my history, the life of the historian might be short and precarious."

Othello's occupation was gone. I made a pilgrimage to this spot on the banks of the Lake of Geneva, and reached it towards the close of a summer's evening, and saw all as the historian had described it; on returning the next morning, the arbour and its creepers were lying prostrate on the ground!

But the general and more prosperous lot—for a beneficent Creator has willed a preponderance of happiness—is pictured by, probably, the most pertinent and poetical simile ever devised. Keeping in view the career of man on earth, "the river," says Pliny, "springs from the earth, but its origin is in heaven. Its beginnings are insignificant, and its infancy frivolous; it plays among the flowers of a meadow; it waters a garden, or turns a little mill. Gathering strength in its youth, it sometimes becomes wild and impetuous. Impatient of the restraints it meets with in the hollows among the mountains, it is, perhaps, restless and turbulent, quick in its turnings, and unsteady in its course. In its more advanced age, it comes abroad into the world, journeying with more prudence and discretion, through cultivated fields; and no longer headstrong in its course, but yielding to circumstances, it winds round what would trouble it to overcome and remove. It passes through populous cities, and all the busy haunts of man, tendering its services on every side, and becoming the support and ornament of the country. Now increased by numerous alliances, and advanced in its course, it loves peace and quiet, and in majestic silence rolls on its mighty waters, until it is laid to rest in the vast abyss."

CHAPTER III.ToC

So long as I followed the course of the Loire, I was each day surrounded, though not by magnificent, yet by a beautiful and happy kind of scenery; but as often as I quitted its banks for a few days, in order that I might pursue a more direct line towards the mountains of Savoy, which now began dimly to appear in the horizon, so often was I compelled to pass over a level and treeless soil, and with the captive of twenty years imprisonment, when led into the street only to be executed at the other end, I began to sigh, "O, that I might but look on a green tree once more!" And I shall long remember the cheerful and delightful sensation, as I again drew near the verdant tracts, and then listened to the distant sound of the rapid Loire.

During one of these detours, but through a well-wooded plain, on my way towards the old city of Bourges, I had long been pacing through a deep and dusty lane formed purposely to exclude every breath of air, while the sun appeared to be heaping coals of fire on my devoted head. I was at length compelled to sit down considerably affected by the intense heat and leg-weariness. The day was now somewhat advanced, while, to all appearance, there was no termination to the silent woods, or, perhaps, forests on every side.

but I was now so annoyed by thirst that I was again compelled to rise and persevere in toiling on my way, until I was so fortunate as to meet with a man, whose rough and wild exterior portended anything or everything sooner than such satisfactory tidings as I was sufficiently ingenious to extract from him. Conducting me a little in advance, he pointed towards a distant but gigantic cross, rearing itself up into the blue sky, and then left me, apparently confident that I should find everything needful at the foot of that cross.

Having reached this in about half an hour, I observed a monastery situated in a valley beneath me. This, then, I conjectured was to be my auberge; for, on looking around, nothing was to be seen save the aforesaid interminable glades, and, what was still somewhat perplexing, the monastery itself was apparently tenantless. Having seated myself in the shade, in order to contemplate some contrivance by which, in a respectful manner, I might gain admittance and reveal my necessities, during perhaps an hour's suspense, I recognised not a token of habitation, until at length a bell lazily tolled, and echoed among the solitary woods.

Descending into the valley, I now approached the portal, within which I found a person with a brown freckled face, enveloped in a cowl of the same colour, seated motionless on a cold stone bench behind the gate. For the instant, I was the rude Gaul, surveying the mysterious senator of the forum; but without insulting his beard, or wasting words on the subject, I followed my silent conductor through several extensive corridors, into a spacious and very habitable salon, where a remarkable and interesting person shortly made his appearance, approaching with his hand proffered in token of welcome, while his face beamed with everything one could imagine to be associated with benevolence and charity. He seemed to divine by instinct that I was an Englishman, as promptly as he did by my embarrassment that I was no Frenchman, addressing me in my own language with great fluency, though, as was to be expected, with a considerable accent. Informing me that I was welcome to his monastery, he withdrew to order some refreshment. Returning shortly with a monk, he announced my supper; and I shall not forget the sense of humiliation I experienced, when compelled to sit at table and be attended on by two persons, each of whom was half a century my senior, and one of them that might grace the proudest aristocracy of Europe, of which, indeed, this abbot, Pere Antoine, was once a member in his youthful days, at the court of Louis XV.

The monk who had now joined us proved to be my countryman, which circumstance had induced his Superior to grant him the indulgence of entertaining the stranger. I may be permitted to say indulgence, for, with a face glowing with delight, he let me know that he had not listened to his native tongue for fifteen years.

My supper consisted of broth, potatoes, and artichokes, which also comprised my breakfast, as well as dinner, during my sojourn of three days in this monastery, where they esteem even fish and eggs to be too carnal. Such is the austerity of their lives, that this monk, who was their physician, informed me that it required three entire years to become inured to it, but that those who stood the ordeal mostly attained a very great age. Their clothing, food, and medicines are each confined to such as they themselves can manufacture from the produce of the surrounding acres, of which they are the cultivators. As the sun went down, the Abbot and his companion, wishing me good-night, retired to rest. On approaching the window, I observed another monk sauntering from the burial-ground, where, with his hands, in conformity to their daily custom, he had been scooping out his final resting-place.

Never have I been so conscious of intense loneliness and solitude! It was now about midnight, and the moon was shining brightly on the Abbey lake. Not a leaf was stirring, and all things as still as death, while the clear evening star shone cold and motionless over the dark edge of the forest, towering black and gloomy in the silent distance. I was as "the last man." Not a soul was breathing nearer to me than the poor old monks, who, hours ago, had crept to their dormitory in the farthest cloister of the Abbey.

The order among whom I was, was that of La Trappe, which is by far the most austere sect in Christendom. They allow themselves but five hours' sleep, and that on a bare board, without putting off their clothes. They perform masses each morning, from half-past two until six o'clock; they deny themselves any meat whatever, their meal invariably consisting of some oaten bread, with a little poor wine of their own growing, disguised in water; and—they never speak!

When we reflect that what is not only the great characteristic between man and the brute, but perhaps the most wonderful and beneficent gift of God to man should be thus rejected, we cannot but be possessed with a very sorry opinion of such an unjustifiable institution.

I have now spent a few days with two of them, both of whom were as agreeable, truly well-bred men, as I ever met with; but what is the more remarkable is that these two old men, who have lived, or rather but just existed under such privations, were as good-tempered, kind-hearted old persons, as it is capable for human frailty to attain; and when we consider that each day is a day of penance, and that, too, a monotonous penance, with not a prospect beyond their walls, and none within, save their burial-ground, perhaps there is nothing in the character of man so unaccountable as such overwhelming immolation, unless it be that they esteem this life as so insignificant, such a nothingness in comparison to eternity, and that endless glories are to be earned by, comparatively speaking, momentary deprivation, that they endure it as martyrs. And when, as I was, in the stillness of the crumbling Abbey, while its bell tolled the hour and reverberated through the courts and deserted cloisters, I remembered that these poor old men, so kind, so hospitable to the stranger, so denying, so unsparing to themselves, had here buried their youth under such belief, I could not but from my heart wish them compensation as extreme as their delusion.

CHAPTER IV.ToC

On reaching Bourges, my attention was attracted by an object widely differing from the venerable Abbot. Judging from my own experience, I may confidently affirm that not an Englishman quits his country, but he instantly becomes sensible of the comparative plainness of the fairer sex. I need hardly say that I allude to that of the lower orders; for as I was circumstanced, I was but little qualified to estimate the attributes of the more exclusive circles, only one of whom I chanced to meet, or rather to approach, during my ramble through France. Whether it was from unexpectedly meeting with a moderately humanised countenance suddenly appearing among those I observed daily around me, or that I had met with a face exquisitely lovely, I will not determine. I had been awaiting the arrival of the Mal Poste for Marseilles, the passengers of which were expected to join the table d'hÔte. For the last ten minutes I had been contemplating a dark, muddy court-yard beneath the window. The travellers having arrived and taken their seats at the table, I sat down, and was instantly startled by the face that I observed opposite to me, contrasted, as it chanced to be, with a dark unshaven one on either side of it. The salon was nearly as sombre as midnight, and there was a delicate and oval face, brightened by a pair of large soft eyes, "with fire rolling at the bottom of them!" Long, long did I deplore my deficiency of the organ of language; for with such a person for my vis-a-vis, I could open my mouth but to eat!

We are little aware how exclusively we derive our opinion of others from their appearance and manner, and so independently of the sentiments they utter. Until we live among those with whom we cannot converse, it is impossible to be sensible of this truth; but I am confident, from long experience, that it is the fact. I have formed as correct an opinion of a German's character, not a word of whose language was intelligible to me, as of the Englishman's beside him, and perhaps more so, as not being misled by what he might choose to advance. And in support of this assertion, I will just mention, that I have subsequently met with foreigners, whom it has given me great pleasure to meet with, again and again, and that a mutual regard has existed between us, though neither has, for a moment, been verbally intelligible to the other.

As, then, it is so possible thus to estimate a person, I will just select the one opposite to me as an interesting example, for I well remember her. She appeared to be about seventeen, and radiant with youth and freshness, but accompanied with a delicacy and slenderness, as excessive as could be consistent with health. Her manner was completely fascinating, and her voice particularly so, when you observed the lips and teeth from whence it floated. She was a sort of fond person, and yet with a great share of humour—very talented, but all in delightful subjection to a refined and delicate feeling. Alas! the morrow's sun saw us, by roads as opposite as our future paths through life, departing from Bourges for ever.

Bidding farewell, even to a disagreeable person, when you know it to be for ever, causes a blank, unpleasant sensation, and therefore I was now weighed down with a feeling of desolation quite oppressive. The sole thing that seemed to cling to me was my knapsack. No sooner have I ever formed any sort of regard for any sort of person, than Geoffrey Crayon's words, "Tom, you're wanted," dole upon my ear, and I must away. This is the curse of the traveller. And now what has since been the fate of this person? Confusion overwhelm the clogs and procrastination of civilised society! As Geoffrey Crayon once more bluntly states it, "Done," said the devil—"Done," said Tom Walker—so they shook hands, and struck a bargain; and why could not she and I have done the same! But she has gone, and that her days of life might be brightened with cloudless serenity, no one so ardently prayed, as a homeless and hopeless unknown; for I found that—

And, to make the matter worse, I had also at this time finally to separate from my oldest companions, a pair of shoes. They formed the last relic of my English wardrobe, and had borne me over a long distance. Having really an attachment for them, I placed them high up in the fork of a Spanish chestnut tree, whither I could not help again climbing up, that I might take a last look at them as they rested pale with the dust of leagues, uncomplaining though deserted.

In a few days more I had reached the heart of Switzerland; but what a contrast had I experienced in passing from one country to the other! The whole of France, with the exception of my ever happy Loire, must surely be the most monotonous and unpicturesque tract of the whole continent; while Switzerland presents, at every turn, a combination of the paradisaical and of terrific sterility. Smiling patriarchal pastures, walled in by granite mountains, frowning in eternal silence and solitude, save when thundering with the awful avalanche. I said that their piles of granite were barren; but what a moment is it to explore your way companionless, and find them to be the source and spring of richness and fertility to Europe, as the sun is of warmth and light to the world—to pick your doubtfully hazardous way across the glacier, and there read great Nature's receipt for making rivers. You find that the nearer you climb towards the heavens, the more palpable are the works of their Creator:—

As to how mine was likely to be disposed of, the moment had now arrived when I was to consider; for not only had severe sickness overtaken me, but I suspected that my death-blow had been received. Severe sickness will bring the stoutest of us, and the most unthinking, to reflect soberly on the past, the present, and the future; at all events, it had this effect on me one night, among many other restless and sleepless ones, as in solitude I watched the flickering flame of the candle by my bedside. As for the present, until the moment of leaving my country, I had bestowed but little attention on it. It is the man of the world, who is wisely engrossed with that period; and, unfortunately, I had never been gifted with, or rather had never acquired, a sufficient stock of common sense to enable me to approximate that character.

We all love to contemplate and dwell on the brightest side of things, simply because that is the most pleasing to us; and having but little self-denial, I ever enveloped myself in the past, the sunniest side of my existence.

As for the future, with regard to a life to come, for that was what I was now to think about, my opinion, if it could be called such, laboured under confusion and inconsistency. Could anything have made me more miserable than another, it would have been the doubt of it; but from this I have ever been exempt, feeling assured, that were there none, our minds would no more have been created capable of entertaining an idea of it, than that our bodies would have been hampered with legs for which there was to be no need—and as these imply the function of walking, so our idea of futurity affords us the proof of it. Yet happy as I was in its belief, I always regretted that I had been born, notwithstanding that I was aware that an endless sleep and non-existence must be one and the same thing. My love of existence then, of some sort, must have been an acquired taste, like that of the opium-eater—I would that it had never commenced, but had not sufficient fortitude to relinquish it. But most probably this regret arose as I looked back through the bright and peaceful vista of my earliest days, and then fondly trusting that it could but lead to some lovely period, ere I existed here; but alas! I could recal no recollection of it, nor could any one else that I knew of, with the exception of Pythagoras, and, perhaps, my Lord Herbert of Cherbery.

But I must cut short all this absurdity, to call it by the mildest term, especially as my pilgrimage is drawing "towards an end, like a tale that is told."

I arose from my bed apparently with similar prejudices ere I was confined to it, but, with my constitution, they have happily received a fatal blow. Had I been with others, I should probably have lingered in Venice until my hour had come, but, as it was, what had I to stop for?

Many a weary mile have I since accomplished in a state of health almost incredible, though I am now convinced that I have performed my last; but it was a beautiful one!On the eastern shores of the Bay of Naples rises the mountain of St. Angelo. For days had I gazed upon it with a wistful eye, and with all the eagerness of my childhood, when I never saw a distant hill but I was restless until I had reached it. Notwithstanding that my strength now daily diminished, my desire so increased upon me, that but a brief time had elapsed ere I had gratified it. This mountain protrudes abruptly into the Mediterranean, dividing the bay of Salerno from that of Naples.

I have enjoyed the grandest scenery of Europe, but never, never such as this, or at such a moment. The death stillness of the day was appalling—the air was motionless, the heavens cloudless, and the deep blue sea, far, far beneath me, without a ripple; and not a sound reached my ear but that of my own watch. There I rested on the summit, basking in the sun, and enjoying a view, if such might be so called, worthy an angel's while to fly down and witness, and which, I dare say, one does now and then among these aËrial solitudes.

And now my feverish curiosity with regard to distant countries is satisfied to the full. It once was such as extended to other worlds, when I would welcome death in order to indulge it. The time is now approaching, then, when I must set out for "that bourne from which no traveller returns." My love of roaming has happily waned with the power of gratifying it, and I am now on my return, by easy stages, for the monastery of La Trappe, and I trust that a few days more will place me in its peaceful retirement, for I am weary.

T.C. Savill, Printer, 4, Chandos Street, Covent Garden.