CORRESPONDENCE.

ROLLING-STONE RAMBLES.—IV.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "A LAZY JOURNEY."

TEIS tour of ours was a flight before the storm, which was upon us everywhere. Gradually, our dreams of Switzer- land melted into thick air. We did the Uetliberg, and, we did the Falls, and we did the Rigi, for which I continue to retain all the kindness of older days. It was idle to think about sun- rises and sunsets, in times when the Sun, through some awkward complication in the spots he is suffering from, never sets or rises at all. So we spent a day upon the Swiss Monte Prim- roam, running about iu steam-ears from one peak to another, and wondering at the high-level junctions, which, dropped like minute dots about the engineered old hill, make it look like a chart of the Metropolitan Railway. The views from the summit were curiously and shiftingly beautiful, and, often as I had been there, made the place quite new to me. We were for the nonce fortunate in what was really an English day, bright and mild and breezy, with the scenery of Cloudland in a state of kaleidoscopic change, and the rapid alternations of light and shadow turning the beautiful waters of Zug (" Nimbus I what a name " to have hit upon for one of the prettiest things in Europe!) now to a deep blue and then to a still deeper black. By dint of watching closely, we managed. to see almost the whole of the great panorama.iu detachments, which had a charm of its own. So quick and constant were the changes, that to turn back to the same point of the compass after leaving it for a minute, was to grasp quite another view. Arry was on the top, with a telescope and a book of conversations, and I always look out for Arry's criticisms. A short and sudden shower came upon us, and wrapped everything round and below us in mist. "It is raining ere," said Arry (although the Professor's letter was not yet written), " but to think, now, that it may be quite fine in the val?ey at the bottom, I" He thought the Swiss rain stopped in mid-air, at the junction. Years ago, I met him in the same place, assisting at a sunrise, and just as the first faint pink began to tremble on a distant peak, he looked down, and said, "It is a awful thing to think that we are about a mile igher than the sun." Science is percolating, but there is yet some education to be done. The Rigi was our last Swiss effort; and after further wettings at Lucerne, we gave up our visions of Meyringen and the Glaciers and the Bernese Oberland, and set our faces, as we fondly hoped, sunwards. Surely, it could not rain much in Italy in September. Moreover, messages reached us of gorgeous weather on the south of the inhospitable Alps, of crowds availing themselves of the new St. Gothard Tunnel, and of lake hotels crowded every- where to repletion by refugees from the deceptions of the moun- tains. Sunward ho ! then, and. by a rapid change of front we took the boat for Flueleu, instead of Alpnach, and as the St. Gothard diligence is, alas! a thing of the past; though Mrs. Balbus had not been sufficiently educated in modern ideas to be content with seeing the famous pass in a tunnel, so we chartered a little carriage for a two days' drive, and cruised upon wheels to Airolo. it is necessary, I suppose, this tunnel thing, and a great improvement, but it is sad enough. It something startling, after hours of steady climb up the lovely valley of the Reuss, through villages still primitive, and rock and. woodland unalterably grand, defiant of men's efforts —audacee ontni,a perpeti—to stain the hem of their imperial robe, to find a sort of Victoria Station- in the heart of the mountain pass, and Gieschenen turned into a railway rendez- vous for cabs and. omnibuses. What on earth will be the use of Switzerland, except in the strictest utilitarian sense, in the day when it shall be all tunnels? Let no man flatter himself that he will long be able to do as we did, and drive. There are signs already that the SE. Gotha.rd. road. is doomed. All down, the Pia Tremola the marks of neglect are everywhere, and af. strong contrast to the old care. Big, loose stones lie about un-- regarded, and deep ruts are lining the way. It will be no pleasant. pastime, soon, to be jolted round those corkscrew corners as in the days of pre-Ma.cadamite darkness. A Government which, has a railroad. to look after will leave the humbler high- way to take care of itself; and the jubilations which proclaimed: tothe world that Woes had got a market-road into Italy, pro- claimed also that a whole panorama of savage beauty was buried. from the sight of day in its nine-mile tunnel, the last triumph of man's ingenuity over God's master-work. That wild and. rugged desolation which crowns the Pass will soon be Desolation, itself, and right over the very spot where first-class passengers are dozing in luxurious corners, and reading the quotations of the Stock Exchange by the electric-light—where Italy and Germany are using up their rolling-stock in an interchange of coal and Gehrt —the very genius of Solitude will reign in melan- choly grandeur; the little black and white tarns, from which the. rushing rivers spring, will whisper in their murmur no echo of' man's. voice, and the sweet flower of the satin-bloom will blossom out of sight, unplucked by woman's hand. Well, well ! it is use- lees to repine, and unworthy to rebel; for Progress was the law of God, before it was the craze of man. But it is a little sad,. sometimes. Science drives her car over many high delights and harmless pleasures; and, more truly than the death of Garrick, the St. Gothard tunnel may have "eclipsed. the gaiety of nations l" We had two noble days—our first and last—whereon to cross. the condemned Pass, and I am glad to think how its memory will dwell with me. For a time, we fondly hoped. the spell was broken, and our first morning at Locarno bore us out; for it broke in true Italian splendour, and we basked and rejoiced in the sun, as \et) climbed the famous Calvary, as much as the myriad lizards who scattered. at our approach. What bad con- sciences those little animals must have. But that was all, and: we had, moreover, the disadvantage of leaving the place morally skaleen, through meeting with an excited stranger, who casually turned out to be acquainted with a friend of mine to whom I trust much of my money matters, and briely described him as the greatest villain in the world. I could not on.- cross-examination quite make out why, but on the prin- ciple that where there is smoke there is fire—an utterly mischievous and. abominable one, by-the-bye; most cal- umnies are entirely baseless—visions of insolvency haunted. my troubled sleep. Thus perturbed, I became, perhaps, more- accessible to weather influences ; and. when Baveno, in high Sep..* tember, welcomed us in a thick, yellow fog, suggestive of nothing. but a Lord Mayor's Day, I became incredulous of everything. It was no use to assure me that it never happened in September. before; because the last time I was on the Italian lakes was in. June, and it froze. It is impossible that I should. be The Man, marked out by Destiny for vagaries of this kind. "It never rains, in September in Italy," they said, to console me for getting wet; and they spoke truth with the proverb, varied. It never rains : but it pours. Everything else went wrong on the Lakes, as well as the weather. I tried to comfort myself by a visit to the Villa Iuglese, where the Queen stayed, and bask in the beams of departed Royalty, as I couldn't have the Sun. But I was informed that it could only be seen by leave of the proprietor,.. and. that only when he was at home,—which—wise man—he wasn't. But such un-Italian methods irritated me. Moreover,. haunted by those same insolvency fears, we went to the second- best hotel, which turned, out to be more nasty than cheap. Our stay, therefore, ended prematurely; and the last image on the retina represents an unpleasing maid-servant throwing Mrs.. Balbus's slippers at her from a second-floor balcony, because she. had left them behind. The maiden did not intend to be rude,. only expeditious. But we did not like to be reminded of our. wedding in that way. Then, oh that weather,— " Nessen maggior dolor() C he ricordarsi del tempo felico, Nella udsoria." th So, thinking of a former Italian wandering when e Gods

te were unusually propitious, before the meteorological nonsense had provoked them to treat prophets as they deserve, and pour

water on them from the upper windows, I fell again to the making of verse, and wrote :— "Where, as the Siren foul and fair Once lured the traveller to his death, Gay Monaco infects the air With poison from her balmy breath,

Tricked out of man, man's scourge to be, A. wanton robed fOr Robbery,—

Where in her pride the Midland Sea Curls tideless round her fairy shore,— There, Mary, once for you and me Fortune our idle vessel bore, And through all change of shade and sun Dreamed out our dream for us in one.

By Genoa's masts, by Milan's towers, We wandered yet, and lingered still ; And weeks grew of the lazy hours, On Goneroso's flowering hill, Whose shifting lights and pictures rise For ever to my wistful eyes.

As when we watched it side by side, Out of the air I see it grow, And the broad firmament divide,

Cut like a giant cameo,—

The groat Rose Mountain, gaunt and grand, Ice-modelled by the Master's hand.

With eyes half-shut and ears adream, I mark the pageant once again, Where Nature's richest colours seem Glowing to soothe the sense of men ;

And on the silence breaks alone

The cow-bell's tranquil monotone.

And southward far, and far away, Its crowning charm to the landscape lending, The Lombard plain spreads golden-grey, In woven haze with distance blending, And rolls its tide of corn and wine Down to the purple Apennine.

Thus, Mary, in the dawn of love, Fit birth for those enamoured skies- ........ • • •

Here Mrs. Balbus interrupted the flow of composition, said that he never cared much for poetry, and added that Mary was a forward hussy. 1 pleaded that poets were privileged, and that Tom Moore—; Mrs. Balbus said that Tom Moore was one thing, and I was another, and so introduced that confusion between an instance and a comparison which is such a popular form of argument, and so illogically disconcerting.

Yet I cannot help being inflammable, especially in the neigh- bourhood of Milan, which is surely responsible for the prettiest women in the world. With their wavy figures, nut-brown eyes, marble-veined complexions, and rich, black dresses, they would move an authropobiologist (whatever he means in English), let alone a poet. So it was that I fell in love, in and for ten minutes, under Mrs. Balbus's eyes, at an open-air breakfast on the Isola Bella,—and that my passion was returned. We never spoke,—but we loved. She was obviously engaged to the gentle- man who was with her, but that did not matter. She was so pleased with my frank, but I trust respectful, adoration from the next table, that she changed her seat, and put herself, with a grace beyond the reach of art, in the light best calculated for me to study her. When she left, she made a Parthia,n turn, and gave me just one bow and smile, in which the most presumptuous -of men could have detected nothing wrong,—which were a privilege. I rushed to the strangers' book, and found her name was Antonietta. 0—, of Milan. Surnames are, as Charles Surface says, too formal to be registered in Love's calendar Besides, the gentleman looked fiery, and might see this. And Italians fight duels, and I do not. But the surname was even more beautiful than the Christian, And, oh ! Antonietta 0—, if ever you should read this, remember a 'poet who for that one glimpse would go to the world's end for you, it he had not so

many other things to do, and if Mrs. Balbus did not say, "Tom, you are simply foolish !"

After such an episode as this, what have I more to record? Storm-hunted, we fled the lakes (fancy being in reach of Como, and not worth while to look at it), and tried the cities. I did not find Antouietta at Milan, but only a performance of the " Barbiere," so bad that the tenor was hissed whenever he -opened his mouth, but, being accustomed to it, did not mind. The Figaro alone was so good that I was fairly puzzled, till in -the ballet which followed he appeared as chief dancer, and Solved the mystery. He had learned to move, which modern actors have not, although, in consequence, they never stand still.,

do bethink me of certain popular and wealthy comedians vhom I should like to keep dancing for a week, before I trusted

them to bring on a letter, much more express a sentiment. -We went to Venice by way of Verona, of which city I have nothing to say but this. If the weather, and the inns, and the smells were as bad when Irving and Ellen Terry were there—about A.D. 1300, I think—as when I was, I am not at all surprised at anything disagreeable that happened, or the way in which the Capulets and Montaguee went on.

And Venice P Well, the weather was not what it might havo been, and I had to fill her beauties out by the aid of a faithful memory. But when did that pearl of beauty fail to make amends for all The penny steamers on the Grand Canal are a nuisance, and a dangerous one, like the steam-launches on the Thames. But as they serve the needs of the many, not the selfishness of the few, they are far more easily forgiven. For purposes of description, it is time to leave Venice alone.If any one thinks otherwise, I would refer him to "A Venetian Medley," published the other day in one of our oldest maga- zines, which gave up the ghost immediately afterwards,— whereat I was not surprised. I will quote the first sentence I see, which may serve :—" The Alps and Euganeans shrouded in a noonday haze ; the lowlands at the mouth of Brenta marked by clumps of trees, ephemerally faint in silver silhouette against the filmy, shimmering sky." (How the deuce can the sky "shimmer ?" The clouds might, if shimmers meant any- thing.) "Form and colour have disappeared in light-irradiated vapour of an opal hue. And yet instinctively we know that we are not at sea."

When I read this, instinctively I knew I was. The writer thereof is not the first who has shot at Ruskin, and hit Mont- gomery. I prefer to part from Venice, and the Spectator, with a story. I went up the campanile of St. Giorgio, with an odd American, mild in appearance, and studying for the Church, who was always retiring to write up his "impressions," which were three weeks in arrear. He always dressed in black, and subsequently disappeared without paying his bill. Quoth he to me, looking placidly round. upon the sea-bound city and the wide stretch of the lagoons, "Venice has been very much mis- represented to me, in one particular. I was told that the great fault was the want of water." Either that man was the Heathen Chinee himself, or,—he had met Gilbert or Burnand.

And so,—home. I .knew we should meet the Sun at Sun- bourne ; and We did, the moment we arrived, for about the first time since we left it ; bright—glorious—English, when Smoke allows. And I have no need to say more in favour of-

" The kindred points of Heaven, and Home."