Perhaps no country in the world, certainly no district within such a small circuit, presents so many interesting objects to a traveller as Switzerland. Be he natural historian, and geologist, drawn by habit, feeling, and taste, to the contemplation of all that is grand, romantic, and picturesque in natural scenery, or attached to the study of man in that state, in which civilization and knowledge have brought with them the least intermixture of artifice, luxury, and dissoluteness--in Switzerland, he will find an ample and rich feast. It does not often happen that one and the same country attracts to it the abstract and cold man of science, the ardent imagination of the poet, and the strong, enthusiastic, and sanguine sympathies of the philanthropist.
355. Descriptio Helvetiæ, a Marso, 1555-9. 4to.--Marsus was ambassador from the Emperor and King of Spain, Charles V., to the Swiss, and gives a curious picture of their manners at this period.
356. Helvetia Profana et Sacra. 1642. 4to.--This work by Scotti, which is written in English, depicts the manners of the Swiss a century after Marsus.
357. Travels through the Rhætian Alps. By Beaumont, 1782, fol.--Travels through the Pennine Alps, by the same, 1788. small folio, both translated from the French.
358. Travels in Switzerland, and in the country of the Grisons, by the Rev. W. Coxe, 1791. 3 vols. 8vo.--These travels were performed in 1776, and again in 1785 and 1787, and bear and deserve the same character as the author's travels in Russia, &c., of which we have already spoken. Mr. Coxe gives a list of books on Switzerland at the end of his 3d volume, which may be consulted with advantage. There is a similar list at the end of his travels in Russia, &c.
359. A Walk through Switzerland, in Sept. 1816. 12mo.--The scenery and manners sketched with much feeling, taste, and judgment, in an animated style.
360. Journal of a Tour and Residence in Switzerland. By L. Simond. 1822. 2 vols. 8vo.--A description of Switzerland and the Swiss, which brings them in a clearer and stronger point of view, to the presence and comprehension of the reader than most travels in this country: though the range of observation and remark is not so extensive in this work, as in the author's work on Great Britain; in every other respect it is equal to it. The second volume is entirely historical.
The following French works particularly and accurately describe the natural history and the meteorology of the Swiss mountains and glaciers; the names of at least two of their authors must be familiar to our readers, as men of distinguished science.
361. Histoire Naturelle des Glaciers de Suisse. Paris, 1770. 4to. Translated from the German of Gruner.
362. Nouvelle Description des Glaciers. Par M. Bourrit. Geneva, 1785. 3 vols. 8vo.--This work of Bourrit is chiefly confined to the Valais and Savoy, and its most important contents are given in the following work by the same author.