LETTER XIV.

TO A. J. KEMPE, ESQ., F.S. A.

The Guide of Arth: a Farewell to him. Hofbrücke. People of the Cantons. Their Costume and Appearance.-St. Leodegar. - Gothic Sculp tured Groups: their religious purposes. - Antiquity of the Cathedral. Service. Mountains

and Lake. - Return.-Dinner..

Evening Ram

ble. - Heights. Watch Towers. Town in the

-

Middle Ages. The Swiss as a People.· Their Country and Character. Vindicated as Soldiers from a Charge often made against them. Swiss Guard; Monument to them. · The Guardian of the Memorial. · The Monument described. - Its moral Grandeur. Chapelle Expiatoire.

My dear Brother,

AFTER church, my nephew bade farewell to his guide, who seemed very reluctant to leave him, and wished to persuade him to make an Alpine tour, under his pilotage, on foot. Indeed, the good old man appeared to entertain a regard for him which is seldom inspired by so short an acquaintance. We also felt sorry to say farewell to this worthy mountaineer, for there

was a simple honesty and an affectionate zeal about him that could not fail to make the most favourable impression in his behalf. He told my nephew that he had once acted as guide to the family of some English general officer, who made a tour of the mountains on foot; that they had sometimes passed the night in cottages and châlets in the Alps; that he did every thing for them on such occasions; and that the young ladies of the party used to say he was an excellent femme de chambre. On the return of this family to England, they sent their old guide a box full of presents -among others, his portrait, sketched from a drawing by one of the ladies.

My nephew was so fatigued, that he proposed to lie down to rest till dinner time, and we to take a walk near the town. We commenced it by crossing the bridge which runs over the lake, near the hotel, and leads to the church of St. Leodegar. This bridge was originally 1380 feet in length; but it has lost 300 feet by the alterations which were made on the erection of the new quay. The Hofbrücke, like

the other bridges here, is built of wood, and covered with a compass roof; and, in the same manner as the Dance of Death, it displays an almost innumerable succession of ancient paintings on wood. Some of them are not without merit, and have all the hardness and peculiarities of the early stage of the Arts. All the subjects are from Holy Writ. We were much amused by examining them. The view which the Hofbrücke commands of the Righi, the Pilatus, the lake, and the chain of Alps, is very striking. Nor was I less interested by seeing the people as they thronged the long passage of the bridge, in their way to and from the church of St. Leodegar, as the service was there going on. We saw both town's-people and Swiss peasantry of the four neighbouring cantons. Most of the women wore their hair in long plaited tails, which hung down their backs; and we frequently observed that, in order to make these tails longer and thicker, they add to them a quantity of very coarse false hair, not always of the same shade as the natural hair: this mixture is anything but orna

mental. The hats of the women at Lucerne were principally composed of straw, with a crown not two inches deep, and an immense, round, broad brim, standing out from the head; the crown of the hat being so completely covered with pink and green bunches of ribbon, that they gave me the idea of a dish of ribbons balanced on the top of the head. We saw the peasantry, however, to the greatest advantage on the morning of the day that we left Lucerne. I was up between four and five o'clock, and saw from my window the boats and the barges coming in from all directions of the lake, and landing the market-people with their goods at the quay opposite our hotel. The sight was very striking: many of the boats were covered with awnings, and decorated with flowers, which, with the variety and gaiety of the Swiss costume of the different cantons, produced the prettiest effect. I saw several large flat-bottomed boats, bringing in them a very singular commodity for market, namely, quantities of bright red bricks and tiles; these were transferred into carts, and

drawn away by oxen yoked together like horses. But this is a digression

Hofbrücke.

I must return to the

At the end of that long bridge we passed a few houses, and, going straight forward, soon ascended a steep and fatiguing flight of steps, which led to the entrance of St. Leodegar. We saw on the outside, placed against the walls, one of those large groups of Gothic figures intended for the contemplation of the devout, who often kneel and pray before them. The subjects of such are most commonly the Descent from the Cross, or some scene of the last acts of our Lord before or after the Resurrection. Such sculptures, very rude and barbarous in their execution, are almost always the size of life, and are common in Germany, Switzerland, and Belgium. As we approached St. Leodegar, the two lofty towers with their spires, in front of the building, had a very imposing effect. The cloisters (formerly a convent was attached to the church) ran round the precincts of the edifice; the intermediate small space of ground being appropriated to graves