What a marvellous change it is for a smoke-dried man who for months, perhaps years, has been “in populous cities pent,” to escape from his thraldom, and find himself far away from his drudgeries and routines up amongst the mountains and the lakes, and surrounded by the most magnificent scenes in nature; where he sees in all its glory that which a townsman seldom gets a glimpse of—a sunrise in its greatest beauty; and where sunsets throw a light over the earth, which makes its beauties emulate those of the heavens! Day by day, during summer in Switzerland, such enjoyments are at hand. One traveller may choose one route, and another another; for there are many and admirable changes to be rung upon the roads to be taken. Dr. Forbes, for instance, went from Basle to Schaffhausen, thence to Zurich, and, steaming over a part of the lake, made for Zug, and thence to the Rigi. He returned to the Zurich-See, and then went to Wallenstadt, Chur, and the Via Mala. Had he to shorten his trip without great loss of the notable scenes, he might, having first reached Lucerne, have left that place for Meyringen, and then pursued his subsequent way by the line of the lakes, visiting the various glorious points in their neighbourhood that challenged his attention—Grindelwald, Schreckhorn, Lauterbrunnen, Unterseen, and so on to Thun; then by the pass of the Gemmi to Leuk, and, from there, to what is described by our author as the gem of his whole Swiss experience—the Riffelberg, and the view at Monte Rosa:— “Sitting there, up in mid-heaven, as it were, on the smooth, warm ledge of our rock; in one of the sunniest noons of a summer day; amid air cooled by the elevation and the perfect exposure to the most delicious temperature; under a sky of the richest blue, and either cloudless, or only here and there gemmed with those aerial and sun-bright cloudlets which but enhance its depth; with the old field of vision, from the valley at our feet to the horizon, filled with majestic shapes of every variety of form, and of a purity and brilliancy of whiteness which left all common whiteness dull;—we seemed to feel as if there could be no other mental mood but that of an exquisite yet cheerful serenity—a sort of delicious abstraction, or absorption of our powers, in one grand, vague, yet most luxurious perception of Beauty and Loveliness.