58 A CONTINENTAL TOUR. 



day, considered geographically, was rather curious, as I 

 had passed the morning in France, the forenoon in Ger- 

 many, and the evening in Switzerland. 



" Having solaced myself with a good supjjer, and a bottle 

 of Burgundy, and not feeling inclined to sleep, I thought 

 it better to take a ramble for an hour or two, though it 

 was now not far from midnight. T accordingly set out, 

 and having walked several miles, I at last found myself by 

 the side of an ancient ruin of simple structure, which, I 

 immediately convinced myself, must be the remains of a 

 druidical temple. A few pale withered stumps of the 

 mountain ash stood together in a row like the remains of 

 some forlorn hope, and accorded well with the fancy which 

 had entered my mind, as these trees are known to have 

 been in ancient times religiously dedicated to protect and 

 overshadow such buildings. Everything around me was 

 bleak and desolate, and scarcely one relic of ancient gran- 

 deur assisted the imagination in peopling it with the 

 spirits of the elder time. Yet the very idea of being upon 

 the spot where the hoary Druid ruminated the mysteries 

 of his religion, where the cromlek streamed with human 

 blood, where the shady grove moaned with the cries of 

 convulsive death, or where the sword of the Roman soldier 

 put a period to the reign of this horrid infatuation — the 

 veiy idea of this, even when entering the mind amid 

 scenery ill calculated to excite emotions of any kind, con- 



