mere, the highest of all the English lakes, past the tiny church of Wythburn, "as lowly as the lowliest dwelling," and the little inn, which was once the "Cherry Tree," described by Wordsworth, in his "Waggoner," where excursionists frequently alight who wish to ascend Helvellyn, for the mighty mountain is on your right, and at its feet is the Vale of St. John's, and soon you catch a fine glimpse of Saddleback and Skiddaw, and then suddenly turning the road, the Vale of Keswick appears, with Derwentwater and Borrowdale, the town of Keswick itself, and the lake of Bassenthwaite lying beyond it. This, says the Handbook, is admitted to be the finest view in the Lake District. It may be ; but the finest views are not always the most impressive, and it is doubtful whether the recollection of it will remain as vivid as of some other scenes in which the beauty is more circumscribed and brought nearer to the eye.

Last year a splendid hotel was opened at Keswick; it adjoins the station, and it would be difficult to choose a more comfortable haltingplace. From it ponies may be secured and Skiddaw ascended, on the summit of which you can alight by a heap of stones, and while the wind is freezing your blood and the teeth are chattering in your head, the guide will point out a score of mountains, the names of which you will immediately forget, and tell you that you may see the coast of Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Solway, Ingleborough, in Yorkshire, and even the king of the Welsh mountains himself, when the weather is clear enough,-which it never is.

Far more delightful, though lest notable, are the views from Castle Hill, or Walla Crag, or from Crow Park, which Gray loved so fondly. But it is idle to point out the beauties of Keswick scenery. Go where you will, and the eye is gladdened by mountain ranges, while close at hand are delicious lanes and rustic cottages, quiet meadows, and leafy nooks, and, crowning all, the lake of Derwent, most beautiful of inland waters. Southey's house-the well-known Greta Hall -lies at a short distance from the town, on a slight eminence; it is not generally shown, but I obtained admittance last year, in the absence of the owner. Writing of his library in the "Colloquies," the Laureate says: "Here I possess the gathered treasures of time, the harvest of so many generations laid up in my garners; and when I go to the window, there is the lake, and the circle of mountains, and the illimitable sky." These grand objects remain, but the growth of trees has considerably obstructed the view, and within doors there is no longer any trace of Southey. The room which was once his library and study was crowded with valuable and useless lumber ; pictures, stuffed birds, articles of vertu, and curiosities of the most heterogeneous description, lay about upon the floor, or were packed against the walls. Other rooms, too, were crammed with such strange objects as a man might collect who had travelled over the world, and these

objects lay confusedly about, so that it was difficult to find a passage through them. The parlour which Coleridge once occupied is pointed out, and the small, gloomy chamber in which Southey died. It was a natural impulse upon leaving this room, in which one would willingly have lingered, to visit the poet's monument in Crossthwaite church-a fine recumbent marble figure, executed by Lough; and the grave in the churchyard, where, in sure and certain hope, his body was placed beside those of his beloved wife, his son Herbert, and his daughters, Emma and Isabel.

One of the lions of Keswick is the cataract at Lodore, which has perhaps been over-praised. Yet it has a classic name, and should be visited; and then, if the tourist be wise, he will drive or walk through Borrowdale and Buttermere, and put up for the night at the Victoria Inn. "Very humble accommodation," says the Handbook; but it is clean, comfortable, and cosy; and if the fare be rough, it is wholesome. Rise early in the morning, and ascend Red Pike; or if that is too great an undertaking, Buttermere How. Crummock Water, too, is near at hand, and is separated by a little stream from the lake of Buttermere. Either of these expeditions will suffice to give an appetite for breakfast; and then, having eaten and rested, start on pony-back with a guide and some good friend-for companionship is needful in these lonely regions -over Scarf Gap and Black Sail for Wastdale, and you will have as fine and wild a bit of mountain scenery as may be met with in Great Britain. Wastdale is the most solemn-some will say gloomy -of all the lakes, for the dark shadow of Scawfell hangs over it, the loftiest of the lake mountains, and the most difficult of ascent. The little inn in the dale is kept by Ritson, a true Cumberland man, who has many a strange story to tell of Christopher North, whose name and fame still live in these wild districts. There is a farmhouse too, kept also by a Ritson, in which strangers are welcomed and hospitably treated. The church should be visited, for it is the smallest in England, consisting only of eight pews; and not far from it is, or was, a dilapidated shed once known as the school-house. I looked in at the broken window, and saw the master's desk, old and worn, in one corner, a form or two, a writing-table, and a few school implements strewed about. The poor pedagogues had been accustomed to live week or month about with the fathers of their pupils―a servile position, which the last master felt too keenly. He committed suicide, and the room, if it may be called a room, in which he taught his pupils, had been closed ever since. Wastdale is one of those grand and gloomy spots which you leave without lingering, and as you pass upward into brighter regions you wonder how men, women, and little children also, can enjoy life year after year in a place so lonely and unfruitful, hemmed in by moun

tains, snow-covered all the winter through, and by the black waters of the lake. From hence to Rossthwaite, however, through a glorious pass, is only ten rough mountain miles, and there, though the mountains still surround, they do not close upon you and oppress you, for you can see far away up the Borrowdale valley, and there are wooded heights to ascend, and meadows of the brightest green in which to luxuriate, and a river running swiftly and clearly over the smooth stones, and at the "Royal Oak" a kindly welcome will greet the traveller, and the simple dainties of the farm, well-cooked and served, will soothe his temper and appease his appetite. Two years ago a well-known historian spent several weeks under this homely roof, and for the work done in that cosy retirement the public will ere long have to thank him.

It is pleasant to linger even in memory among these mountains; but pleasanter, unfortunately, for a writer than for his readers. The impressions thus recalled cannot be transferred. Those who have grown up among the English Lakes, who know with the familiar knowledge of years every beck and fell, every ghyll and pike, every lonely tarn and woodland combe, within twenty miles of their homes, will find something to interest them in the minutest detail of the Handbook; but they will, I fear, be dissatisfied with the rough and necessarily imperfect manner in which a few dearly-loved scenes have been described in this paper, and dissatisfied also at the omission of others equally loved and familiar. On the other hand, those who are still ignorant of the Lake country, or know it only through pictures or photographs, will not care to read about mountains they have never climbed or lakes on which they have never sailed. But it is at least well to remind them that such ignorance may be overcome, and should be speedily. Saddleback, Helvellyn, and Scawfell, Derwentwater, Windermere, and Coniston, should be something more than familiar names to which the eye has been accustomed on the map; the Duddon should be followed by cheerful pilgrims from its source upon Wrynose Fell; the mountain walks immortalised by Wordsworth, which all of us have trodden in fancy, should be trodden also with eager footsteps; the land which so lately nourished some of England's wisest teachers and singers should be the resort of all Englishmen who can appreciate genius, not for the indulgence of hero-worship, but from the instinct which prompts us reverently to visit spots in which noble deeds have been done or great thoughts uttered.

JOHN DENNIS.

VITTORIA.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

ON LAGO MAGGIORE.

CARLO's hours were passed chiefly across the lake, in the Piedmontese valleys. When at Pallanza he was restless, and he shunned the two or three minutes of privacy with his betrothed which the rigorous Italian laws besetting courtship might have allowed him to take. He had perpetually the look of a man starting from wine. It was evident that he and Countess d'Isorella continued to hold close communication, for she came regularly to the villa to meet him. On these occasions Countess Ammiani accorded her one ceremonious interview, and straightway locked herself in her room. Violetta's grace of ease and vivacity soared too high to be subject to any hostile judgment of her character. She seemed to rely entirely on the force of her beauty, and to care little for those who did not acknowledge it. She accepted public compliments quite royally, nor was Agostino backward in offering them. "And you have a voice, you know," he sometimes said aside to Vittoria; but she had forgotten how easily she could swallow great praise of her voice; she had almost forgotten her voice. Her delight was to hang her head above inverted mountains in the lake, and dream that she was just something better than the poorest of human creatures. She could not avoid putting her mind in competition with this brilliant woman's, and feeling eclipsed; and her weakness became pitiable. But, Countess d'Isorella mentioned once that Pericles was at the Villa Ricciardi, projecting magnificent operatic entertainments. The reviving of a passion to sing possessed Vittoria like a thirst for freedom, and instantly confused all the reflected images within her, as the fury of a sudden wind from the high Alps scourges the glassy surface of the lake. She begged Countess Ammiani's permission that she might propose to Pericles to sing in his private operatic company, in any part, at the shortest notice.

"You wish to leave me?" said the countess, and resolutely conceived it.

Speaking to her son on this subject, she thought it necessary to make some excuse for a singer's instinct, who really did not live save on the stage. It amused Carlo; he knew that his mother was really angry with persons she tried to shield from the anger of others; and her not seeing the wrong on his side in his behaviour towards his betrothed was laughable. Nevertheless she had divined the case more correctly than he: the lover was hurt. After what

he had endured, he supposed, with all his forgivingness, that he had an illimitable claim upon his bride's patience. his bride's patience. He told his

mother to speak to her openly.

"Why not you, my Carlo?" said the countess.

"Because, mother, if I speak to her, I shall end by throwing out

my arms and calling for the priest."

"I would clap hands to that."

"We will see; it may be soon or late, but it can't be now."

"How much am I to tell her, Carlo?"

"Enough to keep her from fretting."

The countess then asked herself how much she knew. Her habit of receiving her son's word and will as supreme kept her ignorant of anything beyond the outline of his plans; and being told to speak openly of them to another, she discovered that her acquiescing imagination supplied the chief part of her knowledge. She was ashamed also to have it thought, even by Carlo, that she had not gathered every detail of his occupation, so that she could not argue against him, and had to submit to see her dearest wishes lightly swept aside.

"I beg you to tell me what you think of Countess d'Isorella; not the afterthought," she said to Vittoria.

"She is beautiful, dear Countess Ammiani."

"Call me mother now and then. Yes; she is beautiful. She has a bad name."

"Envy must have given it, I think."

"Of course she provokes envy. But I say that her name is bad, as envy could not make it. She is a woman who goes on missions, and carries a husband into society like a passport. You have only thought of her beauty ?"

"I can see nothing else," said Vittoria, whose torture at the sight of the beauty was appeased by her disingenuous pleading on its behalf.

"In my time Beauty was a sinner," the countess resumed. "My confessor has filled my ears with warnings that it is a net to the soul, a weapon for devils. May the saints of Paradise make bare the beauty of this woman. She has persuaded Carlo that she is serving the country. You have let him lie here alone in a fruitless bed, silly girl. He stayed for you while his comrades called him to Vercelli, where they are assembled. The man whom he salutes as his chief gave him word to go there. They are bound for Rome. Ah me! Rome is a great name, but Lombardy is Carlo's natal home, and Lombardy bleeds. You were absent-how long you were absent! If you could know the heaviness of those days of his waiting for you. And it was I who kept him here! I must have omitted a prayer, for he would have been at Vercelli now with Luciano and Emilio,