With this noble statue ends my admiration of Borromean taste: for it is not to be borne that the Isola Bella, which nature intended as a central finish to such a fairy land as the Lago Maggiore, should have been tortured into a piece of confectionary less elegant than the good taste of Gunter or Grange would have devised as the centre of a bowl of lemon cream. The Isola Madre, it is true, is beautiful; for no Italian landscape gardener has yet assailed it with his line and rule.
Our welcome into Switzerland was novel, but pleasing to lovers of animals. Several herds of cattle met us on our road to Brieg, accompanying their masters to the mountain chalets, and fairly beset us with their attentions. The cows crowded and shouldered each other to be scratched; one large goat; slipping under their legs, put her head under my arm, and took my hand in her mouth; and a whole flock of sheep turned round and ran after us in order to obtain more notice. I had no idea before that any animal but the dog might be tamed to such a degree of instinctive tact, as to perceive whether or not its caresses will be acceptable to a stranger; and I am convinced, that the celebrated Ritson might have made more converts to his Braminical system by importing and exhibiting a Swiss flock, than by writing a book against animal food, and classing eggs as a vegetable succedaneum.
It would be as superfluous to describe the well-known ground of Switzerland, as that of Cumberland; and indeed when once within sight of Geneva, one is almost at home. One and one only stage seems to remain, more desirable still.
"Cum peregrino,
Labore fossi venimus larem ad nostram,
Desideratoque acquiescimus lecto."
THE END.
BOOKS PUBLISHED
BY
JAMES CAWTHORN, COCKSPUR STREET.
ITINERARY OF PROVENCE AND THE RHONE, made during the Year 1819, By JOHN HUGHES, A.M. of Oriel College, Oxford: Illustrated by the following Views, engraved in the line manner from Drawings by Dewint, by W.B. Cooke, G. Cook, and J.C. Allen. Royal Quarto or Imperial Octavo. Isle of St. Marguerite, the Prison of the Masque de Fer—Château Rochepot—Lyons—Lyons Cathedral—Mont Blanc from a height above Lyons—Tower of Mauconseil, Vienne—Château La Serve—Valence and Dauphine Mountains—Montelimart—Château Grignan, Two Views—Castle of Montdragon—Triumphal Arch at Orange—Avignon, Two Views—Aqueduct of Pont du Gard—Castle of Beaucaire and Bridge of Boats—Tarascon—Arch and Mausoleum at St. Remy—Orgon—Bay of Marseilles—Cannes, where Buonaparte remained the night of his landing from Elba, and where Murat sheltered when he fled from Naples, Two View—Maritime Alps, from the Castle of Nice—Castle of Tende.
*** This Work is sold with or without the Illustrations.