in the very worst state of our national malady, "domophobia." From Paris to Geneva, the travellers contrived to sleep nearly the whole way; thus prudently providing against the time when moschetoes and other Italian miseries would "murder sleep." They had slept through a most splendid and terrific storm in the Jura Mountains, when they were disagreeably awakened by a sudden stoppage, and the audible "sacrés" of their scapin of a courier, Luigi Andare. "Canaille que vous êtes," cried the indignant Colossus of Roads, "Je parlerais moi même à monseigneur et dame, vous avez beau parler, qu'est ce que ça me fait moi, si monseigneur était le pape il ne pourrait pas faire des chevaux J'espere ?" The cause of this dilemma was, that Prince Borghese having taken up twenty horses, there was none left for them; but Andare, nothing daunted, after first casting a mingled look of vengeance and contempt on the phlegmatic maître de poste (who stood philosophically looking on, with a hand in each pocket), approached the prince's carriage, cap in hand, and so eloquently represented to him the propriety of sparing his master one horse from each of his highness's carriages, that, with a bow to them and a bene-bene to him, the triumphant Luigi, with one hand, pointed to have the horses taken off, while he shook the other menacingly doubled at the maître de poste. Then ensued a vituperative patois, long and loud, between these worthies, that echoed above the thunder through the mountains. "What the deuse do they say?" asked Saville. 66 Why," said Mowbray, taking upon him the office of interpreter, "there are some threats about eternal disgrace and throat-cutting; but whether yours, mine, Andare's, or the maître de poste's, is to be the victimized thorax, I cannot take upon me precisely to say." "Down, Prince! down, sir!" said Mowbray to a large black bloodhound, who, for the purpose of better barking at the oratorical maître de poste, had just leaped up and tried to insinuate himself as Bodkin between the two friends. How I do pity dogs condemned to travel, especially large ones, like the “Black Prince” in question! Poor things, they seem, with their drooping ears, melancholy eyes, and cramped paws, to go a step beyond Madame de Staël in their estimation of locomotive delights, and think that travelling is not "le plus triste de tous les 66 plaisirs," but "plus triste de tous les peines." The gentlemen in the rumble having condescendingly united their efforts with those of Andare, the five contributed horses were soon put to, and our travellers once more en route." Perhaps it would have been difficult to have brought together two more opposite characters in effect than Mowbray and Saville, though their elementary qualities were much the same. The only difference consisted in the former having greater enthusiasm of character, the latter greater enthusiasm of manner. Saville could not descant upon a tree, a picture, or a cloud, without speaking as if his whole being were wrapped up in the subject; while Mowbray, on the contrary, who was capable of feeling the effects of each much more deeply, would converse lightly, nay, almost coldly and critically, about them. Saville would write the most passionate love-letters, but the chivalric romance of Mowbray's nature could make sacrifices which Saville could not even comprehend; yet were they both generous, both high-minded, both clever. Hence the cement of their friendship; for it is a mistake, and an egregious one, to suppose that we like our opposites. We do not like our opposites-how should we? Since sympathy is the great tie between all human beings, as is usual with superficial observers, who generally contrive to mistake the effect for the cause, this popular fallacy has grown into a proverb. The truth is, we all like different results produced from the same sources; just as the world is fertilized by differently directed rills, that all flow from one parent stream: but who ever heard of a generous and liberal nature feeling a strong affection for a miserly and sordid one? though a person who was merely constitutionally lavish, would feel not only affection, but the greatest admiration for a person who might in his personal expenditure appear parsimonious, in order to have in reality the power of gratifying a generosity founded on principle. Wits, indeed, might love their fellow-wits the better, were their field of action not always to be the same. Still, in order to appreciate wit, a person must himself possess it. Who would care to be a Voltaire, if all the world were to be "des Pere Adam," Orpheus being the only personage on record who had the enviable power of charming brutes? What do persons mean by an agreeable companion? Certainly not one who monopolizes VOL. I.-B the whole conversation, but as certainly one who can converse. And what does a brave person despise so much as a coward? An ill-tempered person may indeed like, "par preference," a good-tempered one, who hears and bears with him; but did this goodness of temper merely proceed from an apathetic coldness, which nothing could move, the odds are, they would detest them, and would rather they met on equal terms in single combat twenty times a day. For one great proof of sympathy being the electric conductor of human affections, look at the members of all professions, and their standard of greatness is measured by what they themselves pursue. A music master will talk with tears in his eyes of Mozart or Rossini, and exclaim, "those, indeed, are truly great men!" Talleyrand (if he could feel) would have felt the same towards Machiavel. Madame Michaud no doubt places Taglioni somewhere in the calendar between St. Catharine and Santa Teresa; and I'll venture to assert that no rigid governess passed the grand climacteric, bent upon teazing her pupils to skeletons, and therefore piquing herself upon her inflexible justice, but worships the name of Aristides, and never looks upon a shell without a shudder of indignation. So much for the theory of people liking their opposites! I only know one instance in which this is the case, and I believe it is by no means an uncommon one: I allude to the weakness of ugly men generally preferring handsome women to their own softened images. The great reason why men have no sympathy with women is, that the essential selfishness of their own natures prevents their comprehending the anti-selfishness of the other sex; and while they are eternally demanding as their right, sympathy from them, even for their vices, they laugh at many of their feelings, merely because they cannot understand them; in short, that excellent proverb, "Love me, love my dog," is the alpha and omega of the doctrine of sympathy. Little worth mentioning occurred to the travellers till they reached the watchmaking city of Geneva; for it is useless to tell of the bad supper they got at Genlis (almost as bad as the sentiment and morality of its namesake, the quack comtesse), or of the good wine they got at Morez. Weary and cold, they entered Geneva of a fine September morning-before Mont Blanc had thrown off her "misty shroud," or Monta Rosa blushed into light-too sleepy to heed even the legendary murmuring of the gentle lake, or the "blue rushing of the arrowy Rhone;" turned away from every inn within that most dirty and unbeauteous town; and driven by necessity in the shape of two faded and ill-tempered postillions, they at length reached Secheron, and soon found themselves in two of Monsieur de Jeans most clean and comfortable beds; not thinking of the past, and not dreaming of the future. CHAPTER II. "E'en as the tenderness that hour instils, LORD BYRON'S Monody on the death of Sheridan. "And is there then no earthly place, Where we may rest in dream Elysian, MOORE. It was about four o'clock P.M., when Mowbray, from his bedroom windows, espied Saville in deep conference at the end of the garden with the triton of the lake, who was busily unmooring the boat and pointing to the opposite shore. He put on his hat, and soon stood beside him. "My dear fellow," said he, "I suppose you are going over to Lord Byron's house; and as I perceive you are getting up a sensation, I will promise not to interrupt you, only let me go with you." Saville laughed, and they sprang into the boat together: by mutual consent they seemed to drink in the quiet beauty of the scene, for neither of them spoke till they reached the other side; when, from the confused directions of the boy who had rowed them, it seemed doubtful whether, at the end of their ramble, they should find themselves at Shelley's or Lord Byron's house. However, trusting to their stars, and preceded by Prince, they began ascending the steep narrow lane that leads into the little village; they at length got to the wilderness of vineyards that bursts upon one previous to the turn which leads to the house; that house which seems almost emblematic of the fortunes of its oncegifted tenant-all that relates to its domestic and homeward state, so chill and desolate. The rusty iron gates, the grass-grown court, the dried-up fountain, the two leafless trees, and the long-echoing and melancholysounding bell; this is the homeside of the house only seen by the few! The very air feels chill and looks dark, while the side next the lake is imbosomed in fertile terraces; the house itself standing upon an eminence, as if marked out as a focus for the gaze of the wide world of beauty it looks down upon, while an eternal sunlight seems to throw a halo and gild into brightness everything in and around it. The present owner, an English gentleman of the name of Willis, though at home, very obligingly permitted the friends to go over it. On the left-hand side of the hall is a little study opening on a terrace, where the poet used to write, and from which Lake Leman looks its best; farther on is a large and comfortable drawing-room, which has two different views of the lake; outside this room, in the centre of the hall, is a staircase which leads to the bedrooms, which are divided by a little gallery, lined with pictures, or, rather, old portraits, some of them curious enough. On the right of this gallery is the room Lord Byron used to sleep in, with its little tent-bed, and its one window, looking out upon the vineyards and the lake: in one corner of this room stands an old walnut-tree escritoire, on two of the drawers of which, written on white paper, in his own hand, are the following labels--" BILLS""LADY BYRON'S LETTERS." "Now, really," said Mowbray, "though one is apt to laugh at people who run miles to look on those who have seen Sir Walter's head, Lord Byron's hat,' and all that sort of thing, yet I confess that I cannot look round this little room, and upon these spots of ink, which I dare say he dashed impatiently out of his pen as he put the letters' into the drawer, without a weakness that brings my heart into my eyes; for one feels a part of one's own being annihilated when one thinks |