In comparing the impressions we had received at Glen Coe, we found that though the expectations of both had been far surpassed by the grandeur of the mountains, we had upon the whole both been disappointed, and from the same cause: we had been prepared for images of terror, had expected a deep, den-like valley with overhanging rocks, such as William has described in these lines, speaking of the Alps:— Brook and road Were fellow-travellers in this gloomy Pass, And with them did we journey several hours At a slow step. The immeasurable height Of woods decaying, never to be decayed! The stationary blasts of waterfalls; And everywhere along the hollow rent Winds thwarting winds, bewilder’d and forlorn; The torrents shooting from the clear blue sky, The rocks that mutter’d close upon our ears, Black drizzling crags that spake by the way-side As if a voice were in them; the sick sight And giddy prospect of the raving stream; The unfetter’d clouds, and region of the heavens, Tumult and peace, the darkness and the light, Were all like workings of one mind, the features Of the same face, blossoms upon one tree, Characters of the great Apocalypse, The Types and Symbols of Eternity, Of first, and last, and midst, and without end. The place had nothing of this character, the glen being open to the eye of day, the mountains retiring in independent majesty. Even in the upper part of it, where the stream rushed through the rocky chasm, it was but a deep trench in the vale, not the vale itself, and could only be seen when we were close to it. FOURTH WEEK.