This republic, which is said to be the least in Switzerland, and perhaps in Europe, and is scarcely known beyond the ken of the craggs, and the lake that surround it, far from furnishing us with new themes of the happiness and security of such humble states, bore many marks of the vices and defects of more extensive governments. A few handsome mansions, surrounded by wretched cabins, and infested by beggars, afforded no presumptive evidence of an equal distribution of power or wealth. The republic of Gersau, however, has sometimes had the honour of holding the balance of Swiss power, and is said at the famous battle of Cappel, in which Zuinglius fell, to have turned the scale in favour of the cause for which they fought, and to have been one of the principal instruments in the preservation of the Catholic Religion in Switzerland. • After having visited whatever was worthy of notice at Gersau, we reimbarked and proceeded on our voyage. The Canton of Schweitz lay in the direction we were sailing, presenting us with a fine perspective of woody and romantic country, rising from sloping hills, on the side of which the town of Schweitz is built, into lofty forests of pines, which are crowned by two towering mountains with sharp pointed peaks. The town of Brunnen is the port of this Canton, and the road from thence to Schweitz, about two miles distance, is an agreeable walk, which is usually taken by every traveller who sails up this lake; since few refuse to turn a little out of their way in order to tread upon the spot which gives its name to Switzerland." The travellers now reached with regret Fluellen, the port to which they were bound. Notwithstanding their impatience to climb St. Gothard, they stopped to contemplate the most remarkable objects at Altorf, the capital of Uri, and the cradle of Helvetic liberty. Leaving Altorf, they journeyed along a valley of three leagues watered by the Reuss. The pine-clad hills rose on each side to their farthest view; down which, torrentstreams were rushing, and crossed the traveller's way to mingle themselves with the Reuss, which continually presented new scenes of wonder. Near the village of Wassen, the industry of man has tamed some of those wild torrents, of which such numbers run idly to waste; and sawing mills, with other machinery, owe their impulse to those swiftly descending streams. Near this place, the mountain on one side was stripped of its piny clothing, and reduced to a bare gravelly waste. This was the effect of an avalanche or descending mass of snow, which often sweeps away majestic forests with irresistible fury. Of these formidable enemies to the security of the Swiss peasant, the ravages would be more frequent and more destruc tive, had not the ingenuity of man contrived means in the position and structure of his rural habitation, or chalet, to elude an assault which no strength would be able to resist. These mountain cabins are generally built of the pine or the larch, but are sometimes erected with stone. To most of the chalets, the mountain itself affords one side ready constructed; as they are usually placed in such situations that, when the Avalanche rolls from the top, it is forced to fling to a safe distance its destructive mass, and to fall harmless over the sheltered dwelling: which is defended by the friendly hill that rises abruptly behind. In proceeding to the village of Gestinen, and to the torrent of the Meyen, (which increases the waters of the Reuss,) the country, which had hitherto presented scenes of blended grace and majesty, began to assume an aspect of savage wildness and terror. Instead of the glowing harvests which had appeared at a few miles distance ripe for the sickle, and the fruits hanging in lavish clusters on the bough, winter reigned in this region; and a winter that seemed here to have fixed its eternal abode. Here, immense piles of naked rock rise perpendicularly above the head; there, huge fragments present themselves as if they threatened to obstruct the way; and our travellers remarked one enormous mass of beautiful granite skirting the road, which was called the devil's stone, because supposed to have been thrown by the capricious malignity of Satan, in order to destroy some of the works which he had himself formerly erected. In this chaos of nature, -the valley of Schellenen,-the Devil has distinguished himself by works which very ill suited his character; by opening ways, levelling or piercing rocks, and building bridges; by placing huge rocks of granite over narrow paths between frightful precipices, as safeguards to passengers; and, where the mountain forbids all possibility of progress, offering an impenetrable rampart in its vertical abruptness, by forming pendant roads on its side, supported by arches and pillars raised from some salient-points of the mass beneath. Winding for some time among these awful scenes, our tra vellers came within the sound of those cataracts of the Reuss, which announced their approach to the Devil's bridge. They were more struck with the august drapery of this supernatural work, than with the work itself. Having turned an angle of the mountain at the end of the bridge, they proceeded along a way of difficult ascent, which led to a rock that seemed absolutely to bar their passage. • A bridge fastened to this rock by iron work, and suspended over the torrent, was formerly the only means of passing, but numerous accidents led the government to seek another outlet. The rock being too high to climb, and two weighty to remove, the engineer took the middle way, and bored a hole in the solid mass two hundred feet long, and about ten or twelve feet broad and high, through which he carried the road. The entrance into this subterraneous passage is almost dark, and the little light that penetrates through a crevice in REV. OCT. 1798. L the 1 the rock, serves only to make its obscurity more visible. Filled witha powerful images of the terrible and sublime, from the enormous objects which I had been contemplating for some hours past, objects, the forms of which were new to my imagination, it was not without a feeling of reluctance that I plunged into this scene of night, whose thick gloom heightened every sensation of terror. After passing through this cavern, the view which suddenly unfolded itself appeared rather a gay illusion of the fancy than real nature. No magical wand was ever fabled to shift more instantaneously the scene, or call up forms of more striking contrast to those on which we had gazed. On the other side of the cavern we seemed amidst the chaos or the overthrow of nature; on this we beheld her drest in all the loveliness of infancy or renovation, with every charm of soft and tranquil beauty. The rugged and stony interstices between the mountain and the road were here changed into smooth and verdant paths; the abrupt precipice and shagged rock were metamorphosed into gently sloping declivities; the barren and monotonous desert was transformed into a fertile and smiling plain. The long resounding cataract, struggling through the huge masses of granite, here became a calm and limpid current, gliding over fine beds of sand with gentle murmurs, as if reluctant to leave that enchanting abode. • Near the middle of this delicious valley, called the Vale of Urseren, is the village of In-der-Malt, which appeared to have been lately built: behind it was a small forest of pine trees, which are preserved with so much care as a rampart against the avalanches, that the sacred wood was not held more inviolate; and we were told, that the profanation of the axe on this palladium would be followed with the death of the sacrilegious offender.' The ascent to mount St. Gothard is far more interesting than the top of the mountain. Travellers indulge a vain expectation of beholding, from such heights, vast and picturesque views of the countries beneath. The accessible parts of St. Gothard, though the highest mountain in Europe except Mont Blanc, present only a deep valley, when compared with the lateral eminences and skirting piles of rock that bound the view to this desert. Had our travellers been able to reach any of those rocky summits which lie on either side, they would have perceived only a chaos of rocks and mountains beneath, with clouds floating at their bases, concealing the rest from their view. :: Having descended from St. Gothard, Miss W. proceeded to survey the Glaciers which separate the valley of the Rhine from the subject countries of the Grisons, Borméo, and the Valteline. She made a number of notes of what she had herself seen or heard of the Glaciers: but, after having read the glowing description of those stupendous phænomena given by M. Ramond, in his Translation of Mr. Coxe's travels, she determined, determined, instead of obtruding her own observations, to introduce that finished essay to the English reader: it is therefore given as an appendix to the second volume. We cannot commend Miss W.'s translation of it, which is neither elegant nor accurate, and is sometimes unintelligible. She makes amends for these defects by a hymn to the Supreme Being, written among the Alps, which contains some good stanzas: but far more by an address from the Glacier Goddess to Dr. Darwin; designed to be conveyed by Miss W. to whom the Goddess thus speaks : "Native of that green isle, where Darwin waves "Go, tell him, stranger, had his muse explor'd "For thee my sylphs, with tender care, shall mark • * Botanic Garden, Canto Ist. V. 442.' L2 1. " For "For thee-but ah, my pensive form he flies She wept,' and, folded in a cloud, withdrew.' The subject itself is highly poetical, and Miss Williams treats it not only with vigour of fancy, but with great delicacy and sensibility; and we believe that every reader of taste will agree with us in assigning to these stanzas a high rank among the smaller poetical compositions of the present times. Intermixed with local description, which occupies the greater part of these volumes, we find many scattered dissertations on government and manners. Politics seem to be Miss W.'s favourite science, but it is not the subject in which she is the best qualified to excel. The late Mr. Burke, in his far-famed pamphlet, ridicules with great vivacity the geometrical politicians of France: but both he and Miss W. afford very striking examples that poetical politicians are not less objectionable *; since all sound moral and practical reasoning, to which the science of politics entinently belongs, is totally incompatible with the giddy flights of an unrestrained and impassioned fancy. We shall not, therefore, follow this female reformer in her warm declamations against the aristocracies of Bern, Zurich, Basil, &c. The governments of the great Cantons (as they are called) doubtless had their defects: but an exemption from war, for nearly two centuries, procured to Switzerland by the wisdom of its magistrates, compensated to their subjects for a multitude of slight inconveniences, or petty mortifications; and happy will it be for the people at large in those Cantons, if the new order of things secures to them the continuance of the same tranquillity and prosperity, by which they have been so long eminently distinguished. The most interesting parts of Miss W.'s political lucubrations appear to us to consist of her strictures on the govern ment, both foreign and domestic, of what are called the small or democratic Cantons. Of the political condition of the Levantine valley, the following account is equally recommended by its justness and its spirit: • The Levantine Valley contains several well-built villages, and the number of inhabitants, who are all Italians, is computed at about twelve thousand. They have in general a look of intelligence, and something of mountain-independence in their manner; but are under complete subjection to the democracy of the Canton of Uri. The valley is divided into eight vicinanze or districts, about a league cach in extent. The village of Faido, which is situated in the midst * Some exception, however, must be made in favor of such writers as Addison, Akenside, and Thomson. of |