The next day being cloudy, we lost sight entirely of the highest range of Alpine hills, and saw them no more afterwards. The road lay for some miles through an open and somewhat dreary country, in which the only objects of curiosity were the tall peasant-girls working in the fields, with their black gauze head-dresses, sticking out from their matted hair like the wings of a dragon-fly. We, however, had the Lake of Bienne and Isle of St. Pierre in prospect before us, which are so admirably described by Rousseau, in his ‘Reveries of a Solitary Walker,’ and to which he gives the preference over the Lake of Geneva. The effect from the town of Bienne where we stopped to dine was not much; but in climbing to the top of a steep sandy hill beyond it, we saw the whole to great advantage. Evening was just closing in, and the sky was cloudy, with a few red streaks near the horizon: the first range of Alps only was discernible; the Lake was of a dull sombre lead colour, and the Isle of St. Pierre was like a dark spot in it; the hills on one side of the Lake ascended abrupt and gloomy; extensive forests swept in magnificent surges over the rich valley to our left; towns were scattered below us here and there, as in a map; rocky fragments hung over our heads, with the shattered trunks of huge pine-trees; a mountain-torrent rushed down the irregular chasm between us and the base of the mountain, that rose in misty grandeur on the opposite side; but the whole was in the greatest keeping, and viewed by the twilight of historic landscape. Yet amidst all this solemnity and grandeur, the eye constantly reverted to one little dark speck, the Isle of St. Pierre (where Rousseau had taken refuge for a few months from his sorrows and his persecutions) with a more intense interest than all the rest; for the widest prospects are trivial to the deep recesses of the human heart, and its anxious beatings are far more audible than the ‘loud torrent or the whirlwind’s roar!’ The clouds of vapours, and the ebon cloud of night prevented our having a distinct view of the road that now wound down to ——, where we stopped for the night. The inn here (the Rose and Crown), though almost a solitary house in a solitary valley, is a very good one, and the cheapest we met with abroad. Our bill for supper, lodging, and breakfast, amounted to only seven francs. Our route, the following morning, lay up a broad steep valley, with a fine gravelly road through it, and forests of pine and other trees, raised like an amphitheatre on either side. The sun had just risen, and the drops of rain still hung upon the branches. On the other side we came into a more open country, and then again were inclosed among wild and narrow passes of high rock, split either by thunder or earthquakes into ledges, like castle walls, coming down to the edge of a stream that winds through the valley, or aspiring to an airy height, with the diminished pines growing on their very tops, and patches of verdure and the foliage of other trees flourishing in the interstices between them. It was the last scene of the kind we encountered. I begin to tire of these details, and will hasten to the end of my journey, touching only on a few detached points and places.
Basle.—This is a remarkably neat town; but it lies beyond the confines of the picturesque. We stopped at the Three Kings, and were shewn into a long, narrow room, which did not promise well at first; but the waiter threw up the window at the further end, and we all at once saw the full breadth of the Rhine, rolling rapidly beneath it, after passing through the arches of an extensive bridge. It was clear moonlight, and the effect was fine and unexpected. The broad mass of water rushed by with clamorous sound and stately impetuosity, as if it were carrying a message from the mountains to the ocean! The next morning we perceived that it was of a muddy colour. We thought of passing down it in a small boat; but the covering was so low as to make the posture uncomfortable, or, if raised higher, there was a danger of its being overset by any sudden gust of wind. We therefore went by the Diligence to Colmar and Strasburg. I regretted afterwards that we did not take the right hand road by Freybourg and the Black Forest—the woods, hills, and mouldering castles of which, as far as I could judge from a distance, are the most romantic and beautiful possible. The tower at Strasburg is red, and has a singular appearance. The fortifications here, in time of peace, have an effect like the stillness of death.
Rastadt.—We crossed the Rhine at Strasburg, and proceeded through Rastadt and Manheim to Mayence. We stopped the first night at the Golden Cross at Rastadt, which is the very best inn I was at during the whole time I was abroad. Among other things, we had chiffrons for supper, which I found on inquiry were wood-partridges, which are much more highly esteemed than the field ones. So delicately do they distinguish in Germany! Manheim is a splendid town, both from its admirable buildings and the glossy neatness of the houses. They are too fine to live in, and seem only made to be looked at. Would that one of the streets could be set down in Waterloo-place! Yet even Manheim is not equal to the towns in Italy. There the houses are palaces.
Mayence is a disagreeable town. We half missed the scenery between this and Coblentz, the only part of the Rhine worth seeing. We saw it, however, by moonlight (which hung over it like a silver veil), with its nodding towers and dismantled fortresses over our heads, the steep woody banks on the opposite side, and the broad glittering surface of the Rhine, reflecting the white clouds or dark sail gliding by. It was like a brilliant dream; nor did the mellow winding notes of the horn, calling to the warders of the drawbridges as we passed along, lessen the effect. Ehrenbreitstein overlooks Coblentz, and crowns it with magnificence and beauty. The Duke of Wellington, I understood, had been here, and being asked by a French officer, ‘If it could be taken?’ answered, ‘Yes; in two ways, by hunger and gold.’ Did the Duke of Wellington make this answer? I cry you mercy—it was the Frenchman who gave the answer: the Duke said nothing.
Cologne is the birth-place of Rubens; and at one of the churches, there is a Crucifixion by him, which we did not see, for it being the time of divine service, the back was turned to the spectator, and only a copy of it was exhibited. The road from Cologne to Neuss is the only really bad one we found on the Continent; it is a mere sand-bank, and not likely to be soon mended, from its vicinity to the Rhine.
From Neuss to Cleves we went in the Royal Prussian Diligence, and from thence to Nimeguen, the first town in Holland. From a small tower here we had an admirable view of the country. It was nearly a perfect flat all round, as far as the eye could reach; yet it was a rich and animated, as well as a novel scene. You saw a greater extent of surface than is possible in a hilly country; all within the circumference of the horizon lay exposed to the eye. It was like seeing a section of the entire globe, or like ‘striking flat its thick rotundity.’ It was a fine clear afternoon, and in the midst of this uniformity of surface, you saw every other variety—rich meadows, with flocks and herds feeding, hedge-rows, willowy banks, woods, corn-fields, roads winding along in different directions, canals, boats sailing, innumerable villages, windmills, bridges, and towns and cities in the far-off horizon; but neither rock, nor mountain, nor barren waste, nor any object that prevented your seeing the one beyond it. There were no contrasts, no masses, but the immense space stretched out beneath the eye was filled up with dotted lines, and minute, detached, countless beauties. It was as if the earth were curiously fringed and embroidered. Holland is the same everywhere, except that it is often more intersected by canals; and that as you approach the sea, the water prevails over the land. We proceeded from Nimeguen to Utrecht and Amsterdam, by the stage. The rich uninterrupted cultivation, the marks of successful industry and smiling plenty, are equally commendable and exhilarating; but the repetition of the same objects, and the extent of home view, become at last oppressive. If you see much at once, there ought to be masses and relief: if you see only detached objects, you ought to be confined to a few of them at a time. What is the use of seeing a hundred windmills, a hundred barges, a hundred willow-trees, or a hundred herds of cattle at once? Any one specimen is enough, and the others hang like a dead-weight on the traveller’s patience. Besides, there is something lumpish and heavy in the aspect of the country; the eye is clogged and impeded in its progress over it by dams and dykes, and the marshy nature of the soil damps and chills imagination. There is a like extent of country at Cassel in France; but from the greater number of woods and a more luxuriant vegetation (leaving the bare earth seldom visible,) the whole landscape seems in one glow, and the eye scours delighted over waving groves and purple distances. The towns and villas in Holland are unrivalled for neatness, and an appearance of wealth and comfort. All the way from Utrecht to Amsterdam, to the Hague, to Rotterdam, you might fancy yourself on Clapham Common. The canals are lined with farms and summer-houses, with orchards and gardens of the utmost beauty, and in excellent taste. The exterior of their buildings is as clean as the interior of ours; their public-houses look as nice and well-ordered as our private ones. If you are up betimes in a morning, you see a servant wench (the domestic Naiad,) with a leathern pipe, like that attached to a fire-engine, drenching the walls and windows with pail-fulls of water. With all this, they suffocate you with tobacco smoke in their stage-coaches and canal-boats, and you do not see a set of clean teeth from one end of Holland to the other. Amsterdam did not answer our expectations; it is a kind of paltry, rubbishly Venice. The pictures of Rembrandt here (some of which have little shade) are inferior to what we have in England. I was assured here that Rembrandt was the greatest painter in the world, and at Antwerp that Rubens was. The inn at Amsterdam (the Rousland) is one of the best I have been at; and an inn is no bad test of the civilization and diffusion of comfort in a country. We saw a play at the theatre here; and the action was exceedingly graceful and natural. The chimes at Amsterdam, which play every quarter of an hour, at first seemed gay and delightful, and in a day and a half became tedious and intolerable. It was as impertinent as if a servant could not come into the room to answer the bell without dancing and jumping over the chairs and tables every time. A row of lime-trees grew and waved their branches in the middle of the street facing the hotel. The Dutch, who are not an ideal people, bestow all their taste and fancy on practical things, and instead of creating the chimeras of poetry, devote their time and thoughts to embellishing the objects of ordinary and familiar life. Ariosto said, it was easier to build palaces with words, than common houses with stones. The Hague is Hampton-Court turned into a large town. There is an excellent collection of pictures here, with some of my old favourites brought back from the Louvre, by Rembrandt, Vandyke, Paul Potter, &c. Holland is, perhaps, the only country which you gain nothing by seeing. It is exactly the same as the Dutch landscapes of it. I was shewn the plain and village of Ryswick, close to the Hague. It struck me I had seen something very like it before. It is the back-ground of Paul Potter’s Bull. From the views and models of Chinese scenery and buildings preserved in the Museum here, it would seem that Holland is the China of Europe. Delft is a very model of comfort and polished neatness. We met with a gentleman belonging to this place in the trackschuyt, who, with other civilities, shewed us his house (a perfect picture in its kind,) and invited us in to rest and refresh ourselves, while the other boat was getting ready. These things are an extension of one’s idea of humanity. It is pleasant, and one of the uses of travel, to find large tracts of land cultivated, cities built and repaired, all the conveniences of life, men, women, and children laughing, talking, and happy, common sense and good manners on the other side of the English channel. I would not wish to lower any one’s idea of England; but let him enlarge his notions of existence and enjoyment beyond it. He will not think the worse of his own country, for thinking better of human nature! The inconveniences of travelling by canal-boats in Holland is, that you make little way, and are forced to get out and have your luggage taken into another boat at every town you come to, which happens two or three times in the course of the day. Let no one go to the Washington Arms at Rotterdam; it is only fit for American sea-captains. Rotterdam is a handsome bustling town; and on inquiring our way, we were accosted by a Dutch servant-girl, who had lived in an English family for a year, and who spoke English better, and with less of a foreign accent, than any French woman I ever heard. This convinced me that German is not so difficult to an Englishman as French; for the difficulty of acquiring any foreign language must be mutual to the natives of each country. There was a steam-boat here which set sail for London the next day; but we preferred passing through Ghent, Lille, and Antwerp. This last is a very delightful city, and the spire of the cathedral exquisitely light, beautiful, and well-proportioned. Indeed, the view of the whole city from the water-side is as singular as it is resplendent. We saw the Rubenses in the great church here. They were hung outside the choir; and seen against the huge white walls, looked like pictures dangling in a broker’s shop for sale. They did not form a part of the building. The person who shewed us the Taking Down from the Cross, said, ‘It was the finest picture in the world.’ I said, ‘One of the finest’—an answer with which he appeared by no means satisfied. We returned by way of St. Omers and Calais. I wished to see Calais once more, for it was here I first landed in France twenty years ago.
I confess, London looked to me on my return like a long, straggling, dirty country-town; nor do the names of Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, or Coventry, sound like a trumpet in the ears, or invite our pilgrim steps like those of Sienna, of Cortona, Perugia, Arezzo, Pisa and Ferrara. I am not sorry, however, that I have got back. There is an old saying, Home is home, be it never so homely. However delightful or striking the objects may be abroad, they do not take the same hold of you, nor can you identify yourself with them as at home. Not only is the language an insuperable obstacle; other things as well as men speak a language new and strange to you. You live comparatively in a dream, though a brilliant and a waking one. It is in vain to urge that you learn the language; that you are familiarized with manners and scenery. No other language can ever become our mother-tongue. We may learn the words; but they do not convey the same feelings, nor is it possible they should do so, unless we could begin our lives over again, and divide our conscious being into two different selves. Not only can we not attach the same meaning to words, but we cannot see objects with the same eyes, or form new loves and friendships after a certain period of our lives. The pictures that most delighted me in Italy were those I had before seen in the Louvre ‘with eyes of youth.’ I could revive this feeling of enthusiasm, but not transfer it. Neither would I recommend the going abroad when young, to become a mongrel being, half French, half English. It is better to be something than nothing. It is well to see foreign countries to enlarge one’s speculative knowledge, and dispel false prejudices and libellous views of human nature; but our affections must settle at home. Besides though a dream, it is a splendid one. It is fine to see the white Alps rise in the horizon of fancy at the distance of a thousand miles; or the imagination may wing its thoughtful flight among the castellated Apennines, roaming from city to city over cypress and olive grove, viewing the inhabitants as they crawl about mouldering palaces or temples, which no hand has touched for the last three hundred years, and see the genius of Italy brooding over the remains of virtue, glory and liberty, with Despair at the gates, an English Minister handing the keys to a foreign Despot, and stupid Members of Parliament wondering what is the matter!
The End.