My readers may at first be little interested by this uneventful narrative; but they will find it eventually delightful, if they accustom themselves to classic and sincere literature; and as an account of Swiss life now fast passing away, it is invaluable. More than the life of Switzerland,--its very snows,--eternal, as one foolishly called them,--are passing away, as if in omen of evil. One-third, at least, in the depth of all the ice of the Alps, has been lost in the last twenty years; and the change of climate thus indicated is without any parallel in authentic history. In its bearings on the water supply and atmospheric conditions of central Europe, it is the most important phenomenon, by far, of all that offer themselves to the study of living men of science: yet in Professor Tyndall's recent work on the glaciers, [92] though he notices the change as one which, "if continued, will reduce the Swiss glaciers to the mere spectres of their former selves," he offers no evidence, nor even suggestion, as to the causes of the change itself. I have no space in this number of 'Fors' to say what reason there is for my taking notice of this book, or the glacier theory, in connection with the life of Scott. In the interests of general literature, it is otherwise fitting that the nature of the book itself should be pointed out. Its nature, that is to say, so far as it has any. It seems to be written for a singular order of young people, whom, if they were older, Professor Tyndall assures them, it would give him pleasure to take up Mont Blanc; but whom he can at present invite to walk with him along the moraine from the Jardin, where "perfect steadiness of foot is necessary,--a slip would be death;" and to whom, with Mr. Hirsch, he can "confide confidently" the use of his surveying chain. It is, at all events, written for entirely ignorant people--and entirely idle ones, who cannot be got to read without being coaxed and flattered into the unusual exertion. "Here, my friend," says the Professor, at the end of his benevolently alluring pages, "our labours close! It has been a true pleasure to me to have you at my side so long. You have been steadfast and industrious throughout.... Steadfast, prudent, without terror, though not at all times without awe, I have found you, on rock and ice. Give me your hand--Goodbye." Does the Professor count, then, upon no readers but those whom he can gratify with polite expressions of this kind? Upon none who perhaps unsteadfast, imprudent, and very much frightened upon rock and ice, have nevertheless done their own work there, and know good work of other people's, from bad, anywhere; and true praise from false anywhere; and can detect the dishonouring of nameable and noble persons, couched under sycophancy of the nameless? He has at least had one reader whom I can answer for, of this inconvenient sort.