We left the inn at Brigg, after having stopped there above a week, and
proceeded on our way to Vevey, which had always been an interesting
point in the horizon, and a resting-place to the imagination. In
travelling, we visit _names_ as well as places; and Vevey is the scene
of the _New Eloise_. In spite of Mr. Burke’s philippic against this
performance, the contempt of the _Lake School_, and Mr. Moore’s late
_Rhymes on the Road_, I had still some overmastering recollections on
that subject, which I proposed to indulge at my leisure on the spot
which was supposed to give them birth, and which I accordingly did. I
did not, on a re-perusal, find my once favourite work quite so vapid,
quite so void of eloquence or sentiment as some critics (it is true, not
much beholden to it) would insinuate. The following passage, among
others, seemed to me the perfection of style:—‘_Mais vois la rapidité de
cet astre, qui vole et ne s’arrête jamais; le tems fuit, l’occasion
échappe, ta beauté, ta beauté même aura son terme, elle doit flétrir et
périr un jour comme un fleur qui tombe sans avoir été cueilli!_’ What a
difference between the sound of this passage and of Mr. Moore’s verse or
prose! Nay, there is more imagination in the single epithet _astre_,
applied as it is here to this brilliant and fleeting scene of things,
than in all our fashionable poet’s writings! At least I thought so,
reading St. Preux’s Letter in the wood near Clarens, and stealing
occasional glances at the lake and rocks of Meillerie. But I am
anticipating.
The mountains on either side of the Valley of the Simplon present a
gloomy succession of cliffs, often covered with snow, and contrasting by
no means agreeably with the marshy grounds below, through which the
Rhone wanders scarce noticed, scarce credited. It is of a whitish muddy
colour (from the snow and sand mingled with its course, very much as if
had been poured out of a washing-tub), and very different from the deep
purple tint it assumes on oozing out from the other side of the Lake,
after having drank its cerulean waters. The woods near the lofty peaks
of the Clise-Horn, and bordering on Monteroso, are said to be still the
frequent haunt of bears, though a price is set upon their heads. As we
advanced farther on beyond Tortomania, the whole breadth of the valley
was sometimes covered with pine-forests, which gave a relief to the eye,
and afforded scope to the imagination. The fault of mountain scenery in
general is, that it is too barren and naked, and that the whole is
exposed in enormous and unvarying masses to the view at once. The
clothing of trees is no less wanted as an ornament than partially to
conceal objects, and thus present occasional new points of view. Without
something to intercept and break the aggregate extent of surface, you
gain no advantage by change of place; the same elevation and ground-plan
of hill and valley are still before you—you might as well carry a map or
landscape in your hand. In this part of our journey, however, besides
the natural wildness and grandeur of the scenery, the road was rough and
uneven, and frequently crossed rude bridges over the Rhone, or over
rivulets pouring into it: the gloomy recesses of the forests might be
the abode of wild beasts or of the lurking robber. The huge fragments of
rock that had tumbled from the overhanging precipices often made a
turning in the road necessary, and for a moment interrupted the view
beyond; the towns, built on the sides of the hills, resembled shattered
heaps of rock, scarcely distinguishable from the grey peaks and crags
with which they were surrounded, giving an agreeable play to the fancy;
while the snowy tops of the Simplon mountains, now coming in sight, now
hidden behind the nearer summits, threw us back to the scenes we had
left, and measured the distance we had traversed. The way in which these
mighty landmarks of the Alpine regions ascertain this point is, however,
contrary to the usual one: for it is by appearing plainer, the farther
you retire from them. They tower with airy shape and dazzling whiteness
above the lengthening perspective; and it is the intervening objects
that dwindle in the comparison, and are lost sight of in succession. In
the midst of the most lonely and singular part of this scene, just as we
passed a loose bridge of rough fir-planks over a brawling brook, and as
a storm seemed to threaten us, we met a party of English gentlemen in an
open carriage, though their courteous looks and waving salutation almost
‘forbade us to interpret them such.’ Certainly there is no people in
whom urbanity is more a duty than the English; for there is no people
that feel it more. Travelling confounds our ideas, not of place only,
but of time; and I could not help making a sudden transition from the
party we had by chance encountered to the Chevalier Grandison and his
friends, paying their last visit to Bologna. Pshaw! Why do I indulge in
such idle fancies? Yet why in truth should I not, when I am a thousand
miles from home, and when every object one meets is like a dream? _Passe
pour cela._
We reached Sion that evening. It is one of the dirtiest and least
comfortable towns on the road; nor does the chief inn deserve the
epithet so applicable to Swiss inns in general—_simplex munditiis_. It
was here that Rousseau, in one of his early peregrinations, was
recommended by his landlord to an iron-foundry in the neighbourhood (the
smoke of which, I believe, we saw at a little distance), where he would
be likely to procure employment, mistaking ‘the pauper lad’ for a
journeyman blacksmith. Perhaps the author of the _Rhymes on the Road_
will think it a pity he did not embrace this proposal, instead of
forging thunderbolts for kingly crowns. Alas! Mr. Moore would then never
have had to write his ‘Fables for the Holy Alliance.’ Haunted by some
indistinct recollection of this adventure, I asked at the Inn, ‘If Jean
Jacques Rousseau had ever resided in the town?’ The waiter himself could
not tell, but soon after brought back for answer, ‘That Monsieur
Rousseau had never lived there, but that he had passed through about
fourteen years before on his way to Italy, when he had only time to stop
to take tea!’—Was this a mere stupid blunder, or one of the refractions
of fame, founded on his mission as Secretary to the Venetian Ambassador
a hundred years before? There is a tradition in the neighbourhood of
Milton’s house in York-street, Westminster, that ‘one Mr. _Milford_, a
celebrated poet, formerly lived there!’ We set forward the next morning
on our way to Martigny, through the most dreary valley possible, and in
an absolute straight line for twelve or fifteen miles of level road,
which was terminated by the village-spire and by the hills leading to
the Great St. Bernard and Mont-Blanc. The wind poured down from these
tremendous hills, and blew with unabated fury in our faces the whole
way. It was a most unpleasant ride, nor did the accommodations at the
inn (the Swan, I think) make us amends. The rooms were cold and empty.
It might be supposed that the desolation without had subdued the
imagination to its own hue and quality, so that it rejected all attempts
at improvement; that the more niggard Nature had been to it, the more
churlish it became to itself; and through habit, neither felt the want
of comforts nor a wish to supply others with them. Close to the bridge
stands a steep rock with a castle at the top of it (attributed to the
times of the Romans). At a distance it was hardly discernible; and
afterwards, when we crossed over to Chamouni, we saw it miles below us
like a dove-cot, or a dirt-pye raised by children. Yet viewed from
beneath, it seemed to present an imposing and formidable attitude, and
to elevate its pigmy front in a line with the stately heights around. So
Mr. Washington Irvine binds up his own portrait with Goldsmith’s in the
Paris edition of his works, and to many people seems the _genteeler_
man! From the definite and dwarfish, we turned to the snow-clad and
cloud-capt; and strolled to the other side of the village, where the
road parts to St. Bernard and Chamouni, anxiously gazing at the steep
pathway on either side, and half tempted to launch into that billowy sea
of mist and mountain: but we reserved this for a subsequent period. As
we were loitering at the foot of the dizzy ascent, our postilion, who
had staid behind us a couple of hours the day before to play at bowls,
now drove on half an hour before his time, and when we turned a corner
which gave us a view of our inn, no cabriolet was there. He, however,
soon found his mistake, and turned back to meet us. The only picturesque
objects between this and Bex are a waterfall about two hundred feet in
height, issuing through the cavities of the mountain from the immense
glacier in the valley of Trie, and the romantic bridge of St. Maurice,
the boundary between Savoy and the Pays de Vaud. On the ledge of a rocky
precipice, as you approach St. Maurice, stands a hermitage in full view
of the road; and possibly the inmate consoles himself in his voluntary
retreat by watching the carriages as they come in sight, and fancying
that the driver is pointing out his aërial dwelling to the inquisitive
and wondering traveller! If a man could transport himself to one of the
fixed stars, so far from being lifted above this sublunary sphere, he
would still wish his fellow-mortals to point to it as his particular
abode, and the scene of his marvellous adventures. We go into a crowd to
be seen: we go into solitude that we may be distinguished from the
crowd, and talked of. We travel into foreign parts to get the start of
those who stay behind us; we return home to hear what has been said of
us in our absence. Lord Byron mounted on his pedestal of pride on the
shores of the Adriatic, as Mr. Hobhouse rides in the car of popularity
through the streets of Westminster. The one object could be seen at a
distance; the other, whose mind is more Sancho-Panza-ish and
_pug-featured_, requires to be brought nearer to the eye for
stage-effect! Bex itself is delicious. It stands in a little nook of
quiet, almost out of the world, nestling in rural beauty, in mountain
sublimity. There is an excellent inn, a country church before it, a
large ash tree, a circulating library, a rookery, every thing useful and
comfortable for the life of man. Behind, there is a ridge of dark rocks;
beyond them tall and bare mountains—and a higher range still appears
through rolling clouds and circling mists. Our reception at the inn was
every way what we could wish, and we were half disposed to stop here for
some months. But something whispered me on to Vevey:—this we reached the
next day in a drizzling shower of rain, which prevented our seeing much
of the country, excepting the black masses of rock and pine-trees that
rose perpendicularly from the roadside. The day after my arrival, I
found a lodging at a farm-house, a mile out of Vevey, so ‘lapped in
luxury,’ so retired, so reasonable, and in every respect convenient,
that we remained here for the rest of the summer, and felt no small
regret at leaving it.
The country round Vevey is, I must nevertheless own, the least
picturesque part of the borders of the Lake of Geneva. I wonder
Rousseau, who was a good judge and an admirable describer of romantic
situations, should have fixed upon it as the scene of the ‘New Eloise.’
You have passed the rocky and precipitous defiles at the entrance into
the valley, and have not yet come into the open and more agreeable parts
of it. The immediate vicinity of Vevey is entirely occupied with
vineyards slanting to the south, and inclosed between stone-walls
without any kind of variety or relief. The walks are uneven and bad, and
you in general see little (for the walls on each side of you) but the
glassy surface of the Lake, the rocky barrier of the Savoy Alps opposite
(one of them crowned all the year round with snow, and which, though it
is twenty miles off, seems as if you could touch it with your hand, so
completely does size neutralize the effect of distance), the green hills
of an inferior class over Clarens, with the Dent de Jamant sticking out
of them like an iron tooth, and the winding valley leading northward
towards Berne and Fribourg. Here stands Gelamont (the name of the
_Campagna_ which we took), on a bank sloping down to the brook that
passes by Vevey, and so entirely embosomed in trees and ‘upland swells,’
that it might be called, in poetical phrase, ‘the peasant’s nest.’ Here
every thing was perfectly clean and commodious. The _fermier_ or
vineyard-keeper, with his family, lived below, and we had six or seven
rooms on a floor (furnished with every article or convenience that a
London lodging affords) for thirty Napoleons for four months, or about
thirty shillings a week. This first expense we found the greatest during
our stay, and nearly equal to all the rest, that of a servant included.
The number of English settled here had made lodgings dear, and an
English gentleman told me he was acquainted with not less than
three-and-twenty English families in the neighbourhood. To give those
who may feel an inclination to try foreign air, an idea of the
comparative cheapness of living abroad, I will mention that mutton
(equal to the best Welch mutton, and fed on the high grounds near
Moudon) is two batz, that is, threepence English per pound; and the beef
(which is also good, though not of so fine a quality) is the same.
Trout, caught in the Lake, you get almost for nothing. A couple of fowls
is eighteen-pence. The wine of the country, which though not rich, is
exceedingly palatable, is three pence a bottle. You may have a basket of
grapes in the season for one shilling or fifteen pence.[48] The bread,
butter and milk are equally cheap and excellent. They have not the art
here of adulterating every thing. You find the same things as in
England, served up in the same plain and decent manner, but in greater
plenty, and generally speaking, of a better and more wholesome quality,
and at least twice as cheap. In England they have few things, and they
contrive to spoil those few. There is a good deal of ill-nature and
churlishness, as well as a narrow policy in this. The trading principle
seems to be to give you the worst, and make you pay as dear for it as
possible. It is a vile principle. As soon as you land at Dover, you feel
the force of this _home_ truth. They cheat you to your face, and laugh
at you. I must say, that it appears to me, whatever may be the faults or
vices of other nations, the English _population_ is the only one to
which the epithet _blackguard_ is applicable. They are, in a word, the
only people who make a merit of giving others pain, and triumph in their
impudence and ill-behaviour, as proofs of a manly and independent
spirit. Afraid that you may complain of the absence of foreign luxuries,
they are determined to let you understand beforehand, they do not care
about what you may think, and wanting the art to please, resort to the
easier and surer way of keeping up their importance by practising every
kind of annoyance. Instead of their being at your mercy, you find
yourself at theirs, subjected to the sullen airs of the masters, and to
the impertinent fatuity of the waiters. They dissipate your theory of
English comfort and hospitality at the threshold. What do they care that
you have cherished a fond hope of getting a nice, _snug_ little dinner
on your arrival, better than any you have had in France? ‘The French may
be d——,’ is the answer that passes through their minds—‘the dinner is
good enough, if it is English!’ Let us take care, that by assuming an
insolent local superiority over all the world, we do not sink below them
in every thing, liberty not excepted. While the name of any thing passes
current, we may dispense with the reality, and keep the start of the
rest of mankind, simply by asserting that we have it, and treating all
foreigners as a set of poor wretches, who neither know how, nor are in
truth fit to live! Against this post, alas! John Bull is continually
running his head, but as yet without knocking his brains out. The
beef-steak which you order at Dover with patriotic tender yearnings for
its reputation, is accordingly filled with cinders—the mutton is done to
a rag—the soup not eatable—the porter sour—the bread gritty—the butter
rancid. Game, poultry, grapes, wine it is in vain to think of; and as
you may be mortified at the privation, they punish you for your
unreasonable dissatisfaction by giving you cause for it in the
mismanagement of what remains.[49] In the midst of this ill fare you
meet with equally bad treatment. While you are trying to digest a tough
beef-steak, a fellow comes in and peremptorily demands your fare, on the
assurance that you will get your baggage from the clutches of the
Custom-house in time to go by the six o’clock coach; and when you find
that this is impossible, and that you are to be trundled off at two in
the morning, or by the next day’s coach, _if_ it is not _full_, and
complain to that personification of blind justice, an English mob, you
hear the arch _slang_ reply, ‘Do you think the Gentleman such a fool as
to part with his money without knowing why?’ and should the natural
rejoinder rise to your lips—‘Do you take me for a fool, because I did
not take you for a rogue?’ the defendant immediately stands at bay upon
the national character for honesty and morality. ‘I hope there are no
rogues here!’ is echoed through the dense atmosphere of English
intellect, though but the moment before they had been laughing in their
sleeves (or out loud) at the idea of a stranger having been tricked by a
townsman. Happy country! equally and stupidly satisfied with its vulgar
vices and boasted virtues!
‘Oh! for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless continuity of shade!’
Yet to what purpose utter such a wish, since it is impossible to stay
there, and the moment you are separated from your fellows, you think
better of them, begin to form chimeras with which you would fain compare
the realities, find them the same as ever to your cost and shame—
‘And disappointed still, are still deceived!’
I found little of this _tracasserie_ at Gelamont. Days, weeks, months,
and even years might have passed on much in the same manner, with ‘but
the season’s difference.’ We breakfasted at the same hour, and the
tea-kettle was always boiling (an excellent thing in housewifery)—a
_lounge_ in the orchard for an hour or two, and twice a week we could
see the steam-boat creeping like a spider over the surface of the lake;
a volume of the Scotch novels (to be had in every library on the
Continent, in English, French, German, or Italian, as the reader
pleases), or M. Galignani’s Paris and London _Observer_, amused us till
dinner time; then tea and a walk till the moon unveiled itself,
‘apparent queen of night,’ or the brook, swoln with a transient shower,
was heard more distinctly in the darkness, mingling with the soft,
rustling breeze; and the next morning the song of peasants broke upon
refreshing sleep, as the sun glanced among the clustering vine-leaves,
or the shadowy hills, as the mists retired from their summits, looked in
at our windows. The uniformity of this mode of life was only broken
during fifteen weeks that we remained in Switzerland, by the civilities
of Monsieur Le Vade, a Doctor of medicine and octogenarian, who had been
personally acquainted with Rousseau in his younger days; by some
attempts by our neighbours to _lay us under obligations_, by parting
with rare curiosities to Monsieur l’Anglois for half their value; and by
an excursion to Chamouni, of which I must defer the account to my next.