M. Pictet and M. Bonstetten one day to dinner, he went on the lake to Chillon, leaving a gentleman who travelled with him as a companion to do the honours of the table, and make the requisite apologies for his absence. Another time when engaged to an evening party at the house of a lady, he abruptly returned home on finding that the drawing-room was full of company. Many similar instances of capriciousness are related of his lordship in these parts, whence some persons might be inclined to suppose that the genius of the place had produced such an impression upon his mind, as to make him an imitator of Rousseau's wildest extravagancies.

Thus much is certain, that the stupendous scenery by which he was surrounded in every direction, had a wonderful effect upon his imagination; and of this the following extract from his note-book, giving an account of his visit to the Jungfraw, is a proof:

66

September 22, 1816.-Left Thunn in a boat, which carried us the length of the lake in three hours. The lake small, but the banks fine. Rocks down to the water's edge. Landed at Newhouse. Passed

Interlachen. Entered upon a range of scenes beyond all description or previous conception. Passed a rock bearing an inscription,-two brothers-one murdered the other-just the place for it. After a variety of windings came to an enormous rockarrived at the foot of the mountain (the Jungfraw).Glaciers-torrents-one of these nine hundred feet visible descent. Lodge at the curate's-set out to see the valley-heard an Avalanche fall like thunder! Glaciers enormous-storm came on-thunder and lightning and hail!—all in perfection and beautiful.— The torrent is in shape, curving over the rock, like the tail of the white horse streaming in the windjust as it might be conceived would be that of the "Pale Horse," on which Death is mounted in the Apocalypse. It is neither mist nor water, but a something between both. Its immense height gives it a wave, a curve, a spreading here, a condensation there;-wonderful-indescribable.

'Sept. 23.-Ascent on the Wingren. The Dent d'Argent, shining, like Truth, on the one side; on the other, the clouds rose from the opposite valley, curling in perpendicular precipices, like the foam of

the ocean of hell during a spring-tide !!—It was white and sulphury, and immeasurably deep in ap

pearance. The side we ascended was of course not of so precipitous a nature; but on arriving at the summit, we looked down on the other side, upon a boiling sea of cloud, dashing against the crag on which we stood.

"Arrived at the Grindelwald; mounted and rode to the higher glacier-twilight—but distinct-very fine-glacier like a frozen hurricane-star-light, beautiful-the whole of the day was fine in point of weather, as the day in which Paradise was made. Passed whole woods of withered pines-all withered-trunks stripped and lifeless-done by a single winter!"

It is evident that these loose memoranda were thrown down warmly when the sublimities of which they are notices struck the mind of the writer most impressively but the hints are therefore the more valuable on that account, as exhibiting the outlines of a panoramic picture, and the workings of a poetic genius in its first contemplation of some of the higher wonders of nature.

But though Lord Byron declared that the Lake of Geneva made him forget the troubled waters of the world; neither the Lethean efficacy of this pure stream, nor the mountainous palaces of nature, reflected therein as in a glassy mirror, could detain him from courting the charms of a softer climate. Within a few months he broke up the establishment which he had formed at Clarens, and, taking his course across the Alps, descended into the plains of the Milanese territory.

T

CHAPTER XIII.

Monody on Sheridan; Palpable Imitation of Aristo. -Poem of the Prisoner of Chillon.-Story of Bonnivard.-Publication of the Third Canto of Childe Harold.

SOON after the arrival of Lord Byron in Switzerland, he received from the managing committee of Drurylane Theatre, a request to write for them a Monody on the late Mr. Sheridan. With this desire his lordship very readily complied; and his performance was recited to the audience at the opening of the season, on the 7th of September, 1816, immediately before the play of "The School for Scandal." In this eulogium the character of Sheridan, as an orator and a dramatic writer, is forcibly drawn, but not without a slight apologetic glance at his moral imperfections; upon which,