SEPTEMBER. 325 



giant peaks and ridges of every varied hue, 

 but all silent as images of eternity ; and cast his 

 gaze over lakes and forests, and smoking towns, 

 and wide lands to the very ocean, in all their 

 gleaming and reposing beauty, knows nothing 

 of the treasures of pictorial wealth which his 

 own country possesses. 



But when we let loose the imagination from 

 even these splendid scenes, and give it free 

 charter to range through the far more glorious 

 ridges of continental mountains, through Alps, 

 Apennines or Andes, how is it possessed and 

 absorbed by all the awful magnificence of their 

 scenery and character ! The sky-ward and in- 

 accessible pinnacles, the 



>. Palaces where nature thrones 

 Sublimity in icy halls ! 



the dark Alpine forests, the savage rocks and 

 precipices, the fearful and unfathomable chasms 

 filled with the sound of ever-precipitating 

 waters; the cloud, the silence, the avalanche, 

 the cavernous gloom, the terrible visitations of 

 heaven's concentrated lightning, darkness and 

 thunder ; or the sweeter features of living, rush- 

 ing streams, spicy odours of flower and shrub, 



