BOOKS.
DRUMMOND'S SCENES AND IMPRESSIONS OF SWITZER- LAND AND ITALY..
ALTHOUGH Switzerland and the North of Italy have been described again and again by travelling authors, Mr. Drummond has given novelty to his tour by personal qualities and a distinct pur- suit. Although apparently without artistical training, he has an eye for the beauties of nature and the power of impressive art, regardless of styles or classicality. What ho sees he describes with a freshness of feeling which brings the striking characteris- tics of the scenery well before the reader, and he forms his opinion from his own impressions without reference to received notions. He left the beaten track and penetrated to remote places, so that he saw more of the country than falls under the ob- servation of common tourists. Ill health was the cause of his re- laxation from his ministerial duties in Edinburgh, but his weak- ness was more than many men's strength. He climbed mountains and explored vallies ;.he was jolted in springless vehicles over cross- country roads that were not roads at all ; and though he did not make a toil of a pleasure but thoroughly enjoyed himself, many might have felt it toil. The leading sourceof interest, however, as the writer's object. Being in Switzerland and Italy, he devoted himself to the observation of the religious state of those countries. The general conclusions which he drew from what he saw he ex- .hibits in some ,closing chapters. The particular facts that fell with- in his knowledge he embodies in his narrative, so far as they (mkt be stated with safety to the persons.
Some doubts have of late been uttered as to the Protestantism of
the Scottish Episcopal Church. If Mr. Drummond is a fair repre- sentative 'of the English Episcopal Church in Scotland, that is Protestant -enough. The early Reformers 'might have spoken more harshly and broadly about the 4‘ Beast " of the Apocalypse, but not more sternly or more plainly. In fact, our traveller denies to Popery the claim even of a corrupt Christianity, -though he allows salvation to a simple-minded believer. With these opinions, when in Piedmont, the Church of the Vaudois was naturally an at- traction; for its history, if not its faith, might well draw any in- quirer to its willies. At-present the Vaudois or Waldenses are ab- lowed freedom of worship in Turin ; where, indeed, they are erecting a church. Mr. Drummond inspected the new building, communicated with the clergy, and attended the services, where the countenances of many of the congregation greatly edified him; displaying an " unflinohing steadfastness" that represented the martyrlike firmness of the past, and promised a similar determi- nation for the future should need yet arise. Afterwards, in com- pany with his travelling companion, he made a pilgrimage to the head-quarters of the Vaudois, in a frame of mind to please and be pleased ; as will be seen from the commencement of the journey.
" We reached Pignerol, a very neat-looking Roman Catholic town in a pretty situation. It was about eight o'clock when we entered it. Murray had warned us as to what we might expect from the people. He describes them as a large and rather uncivil population.' He might have left out 'rather' with perfect truth, for a more rude and disagreeable set I never witnessed anywhere. We drove into the large court-yard of the • , etrd whilst our guide was doing his very best to get hold of some stray. o ge, horse, and man, to take us on to I.a Tour, Macdonald and I v.midered into the interior in search of a cup of coffee. Had we paid a visit to the party of good, honest, shaggy bruins, which the Bernese love to keep at theiriblie expense, close by one of the gates of Berne,—putting aside the possib' of a squeeze,—we could not well have been more rudely treated than by eir bearish relations at Pignerol.
" We soon left the happy family to the enjoyment of their own society.
Our little rickety ealeche was ready—we jumped in, and ender a cloudless sky, with the moon looking down upon us, coolly, but not coldly, we started for La Tour, the head-quarters of the Vaudois, and the goal of our expecta- tions. We were leaving the plains and approaching the mountains again, and the deep shadows of the latter seemed to invite us to their feet. Our hearts were light, and the very ruggedness of our reception at Pignerol gave zest to the feelings of hope wrth which we were entering into the Tel- lies. The air was delicious. Our driver-was a pleasant civil lad from La Tour ; the fire-flies flashed and sparkled in the fields and all around us ; and at length, after a too short drive, we entered La Tour. When we drove up to the little auberge, oh, the contrast to Pignerol ! Down came the neat hospitable-looking landlady, followed by a trim and handy-like maid, and gave us such a warm welcome as made our hearts glow again. All travellers are kindly welcomed there, but English ones especially. Though it was ra- ther late when we arrived, the whole establishment was put in motion. We were handed up-stairs with every expression of true honest-hearted_polite- nese ; taken along a verandah with vines clustering all around it, and com- manding a lovely view of the valley, at the gorge of which La Tour stands, bathed as it was in the soft light of the moon • and finally, we were located in our rooms whioh opened out on the verandah. There our table was soon spread, and the plain and simple though plentiful and dean fare of the val- hes was set before us. And now as I write, I can hardly believe that we are really among the 'Vaudois. Before separating for the night. dear Macdonald and I read Milton's famous sonnet, and the exquisite hymn by Mrs. Hemans, of the Vaudois mountaineers. How little did I ever think that I should read them in the very spot where almost every rook is a monument of Christian heroism, and every valley teems with memorials of those who loved not their lives unto death, rather than betray their Master."
The Val d'Aosta will furnish an example of the traveller's de- scription of nature, his observation on men, and his religious re- flections.
"About three o'clock we entered the diligence for Turin. The Val d'Aosta, as far as Ivrea, is perhaps, upon the whole, the most strikingly beauti- ful of anything I have yet seen. The rugged and the beautiful, the grand and the cultivated, are combined here in ever-varying profusion.
Scenes and Impressions of Switzerland and the North of Italy; together with some Remarks on the Religious State of these Countries, taken from the Notes of a Four-Months Tour during the Summer of 1852. By the Rev. D. T. K. Drummond, Incumbent of St. Thomas's Feglish"Epaseopal Chapel, Edinburgh. Published by Hamilton and Co., London; Kennedy, Edinburgh. The hills on either side, instead of presenting a monotonous slope, break off here and there into lovely and bright valhes, which tempt the eye to see and the foot to explore them. The Doire dashes away with countless tribu- taries pouring their streams into his rugged channel. Numberless water- falls, some barely streaking. the rook as with a silver thread, others in full volume pitching over precipices, and boiling'away out of sight again, de- lightfully disturb the stillness of the scene; the magnificent walnut and cheanut trees, with their massive foliage, which made my friends long to have but one or two even to adorn their parks at home; and then, frequently along the road, the beautiful vines, trained into numerous archways, under whioh you drive for perhaps a quarter of a mile at a time; altogether it is a scene of luxuriant richness and lavish beauty that can never fade away from my memory. If the valley from Aosta up to C,ormayeur, in some of its fea- tures, was less attractive to my mind than others I had seen in Switzerland, the valley down to Ivrea more than made up for the deficiency. "One feature, however, in it has left an impression of the deepest sadness on my mind. The valley itself smiled and sparkled in the evening sun; but the inhabitants of the valley ! alas, how can I describe them ? No lack of industry, indeed. There they were most laboriously and indefatigably. in their fields, evidently a quiet, steady, and hard-working race—truly earning their bread by the sweat of their brow, and yet almost universally so loath- some to the eye that the eight of a living creature made one instinctively turn away. It is said, and from what I saw I am certain there is no exag- geration in the statement, that out of every hundred persons in the valley, fifty are afflicted with the goitre, and one with cretinism, while those who es- cape both these maladies are yet so wretched in their appearance generally, as to give the stranger, as he passes, the impression that they have barely escaped from these calamities. Whatever may be the proximate cause or causes of such terrible and wide-spread disease,—and I think that probably the chief is, the utter stagnation of the air in the valley, perhaps for weeks at a time,—however this may be, it lays before us in terrible and deadly charac- ters the master evil which has struck at the root of man's life, both spiritual and physical, and made him even in the wreck of his habitation the greatest wreck of all. Truly, 'the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now,'—still, how wondrous fair are the scenes which the mighty Creator has yet left, to be as it were, tokens and pledges of what he will yet do in the varied bounties of his creative skill in 'the new heavens and the new earth,' for his favoured, holy, and happy creatures."
Over Venice a newer light is thrown by the satisfied and en- joying spirit of the author, as well as by his habit of exploration. The approach to Venice is new ; steam and the iron way having produced the novelty. " Careering onwards through a country covered for miles and miles with vines, festooned on trees, in every wild and fantastic form, and relieving, by their graceful drapery, what would otherwise have been formal and stiff, we glided at length into Mestre, and so to the edge of the Lagoon of St. Giu- liano, on the other side of which lies Venice, that city of enchantment. Formerly the only access from the mainland was by boat ; now, however, in these days of science and progress, the whole vast stretch across this lagoon is bridged over by a viaduct ; so that, still at the tail of your comet, you are whisked right into the heart of what seems a city of the Arabian Nights. Do not let it be supposed that this march of railway takes off the spell which the Queen of the Waters casts around you as you enter her precincts. Far from it. At least I speak from my own experience. Nevertheless, I must add, that by the time I arrived at Mestre, the sun had set, and the short twilight was all but gone. The length of the viaduct is rather more than two miles! so that as we shot along its narrow pathway we seemed to be darting into the very midst of the sea. On either side was a vast expanse of water, while before us, when we could take a peep out at the windows, glan- cing lights were seen in a strange and unearthly manner, with here and there, evidently distinct from and a long way apart from them, others which appeared to float upon the surface of the sea ; and all this be suddenly follow- ing upon clustering vines and luxuriant fields, that I sat enthralled. Arrived at the terminus, no doubt my dream was rather harshly broken for a few minutes by the very ordinary work of passports, baggage, and the various ot4,,,r petty details of such occasions ; but it was only for a time, in order to recurvore powerfully again. My Swiss servant followed me from the pass- port-office, and whispered, ' Will you go by gondola or omnibus?' ' Oh, gondola, of course,' I replied, shocked at the bare idea of an omnibus in Venice ! We gained the door of the office. Did it open on the street? No. It opened on the water! and to my infinite satisfaction I found that the om- nibus was nothing more than a huge gondola. I was quickly nestled in one of the veritable, old, hearse-looking gondolas, in a perfect glow of excite- ment. In a moment we were skimming along the waters of the grand canal —the lights flashing from the windows, and strange-looking houses gazing down on us from either side ; here and there mysterious outlets of the grand canal appeared winding off on the right and left, with lines of houses open- ing and shutting as we passed. Presently we saw before us a dark and mas- mve arch spanning the canal and studded with lamps. It is the Rialto, famed in the history of Venetian commerce, and identified with the name of Shylock. Under it we glanced like an arrow ; again we turned into one of the side openings on the left, and passing between ranges of houses, that sometimes appeared to meet over head, we at length entered a dark and gloomy reach, with dead, black, sombre walls, rising up on either side. Yet even in the deep shadow we saw a still darker mass bridging over the chasm. I held my breath while we passed under the ' Bridge of Sighs.' Another turn and we were at the archway of the Albergo Reale, and stepped from the gondola into the hotel."
Mr. Drummond's conclusion as to the present religious state of Italy is that in the South nearly the whole of the people are in some stage of infidelity, but that in the North there is a good deal of religious feeling ; politics being at the bottom of both cases. Where the priests avowedly govern, as at Rome, or actually, as in Tuscany and Na les, hatred to them has extended to the Church ; and that which ormerly was dead ceremonial, or indifference, has now become die disbelief stimulated by hatred to inquiry. The feel- ing against Pope and priests is so strong in these three states, that whenever the opportunity arrives the passion will produce blood- shed. In Piedmont and the provinces under the Austrian rule there is neither such general infidelity nor so much hatred to the priests. In Lombardy, indeed, the priests are rather popular, as they are generally supposed to be patriotic, that is, Italian. ' I believe I am right in the assertion, that generally speaking, as a body, the priesthood in Lombardy are popular. The people believe, and probably with considerable justice, that their priests are anxious that they should be delivered from the strong band of their Austrian rulers. There is, in fact, an identity between priests and people, more or less, on the absorbing subject of national enfranchisement; and so the priests are neither on their side e ach willing tools of spiritual despotism as others are, nor are the people on theirs Willed with dread and hatred of the priesthood. In Lombardy the stranger may often see, in public places, in steam-boats, or at railway-sta- Lions, priests and people mingled together with >til the indications of mutual confidence and identity of interest—very different, indeed, from the gloom of suspicion which in other parts of Italy seems to settle down as a wall of se- paration between the priesthood and the great body of the people. In Lom- bardy, indeed, the incubus which rests upon the 'Italian is the wakeful and strong hand of Austria, who, doubtless, will not tolerate heresy in her domi- nions, but who still less will tolerate movements of national freedom among her Papal subjects. And so it has happened more than once, and that re- cently, that the Austrian police have had to deal with priests as political de- linquents; and though it would probably be wrong to say that there exists any real indication, as some have supposed, of spiritual life among the priest- hood of Lombardy, yet perhaps it may be truly asserted, that not a few would be found ready to run much hazard of all kinds in the cause of politi- cal freedom."
With others, Mr. Drummond thinks that the light of a new reformation is dawning in Italy, however faintly ; and he raises the question as to the best mode of encouraging. it. He is clear that the ostensible instruments must not be foreign. The Italian is as national in his religion as in his politics, and will not in either brook the " barbarian " ; which seems to mean, that religious truth is not the object of his inquiries. However, a spiritual and apostolic church is to be found, to which the objection of non-nationality does not apply. This is the Vaudois in Piedmont, and in a lesser de- gree, perhaps, the Pays de Vaud in Switzerland ; for the Northern Swiss Protestants are at present in a dead state of mere formalism, the forms themselves being often scanty. The best modes of setting this existing machinery in effective motion are pretty fully considered by Mr. Drummond.
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