Horatio obeys. The obedience is evidently consistent with the whole character; but the momentary triumph of an intense suffering is not less 80. Hamlet loved in Horatio, not an insensible man, but

a

man whose sensibilities were under a fixed control.

It was natural that he should appeal to such a man to be the vindicator of his fame. The silent, reserved, just man, would speak only to convince, he would not waste his force, he would live to tell the story truly and faithfully, and his story would be believed.

Hamlet appeals in the first instance to that strong manhood, which he with his more passionate and feminine characteristics clings to;

but in the next, to the selfdenying tenderness which his own fine susceptibilities have been able to recognise. And 80 we see Horatio survive to fulfil the last wish, to take upon himself the sacred office (and what is more sacred than this?) to defend the dead from slander, to keep the name that remains pure from taint as the life was that is gone-to preserve a high reputation from the attacks of the base, from the rust and moth that corrupt, and from the thieves who break through and steal-to instruct, with a view to this end, the yet unknowing world how these things came about, not when the blow has once fallen passing into the extravagances of grief and mourning, but entering immediately upon a plain recital of facts, and addressing himself to Fortinbras with the settled composure which is becoming to a faithful messenger.

Particular qualities distinguish families, races, and nations; the northern races are the more restrained, the southern the more demonstrative. The English are noted at once as a reserved and as a poetical people.

La nation Anglaise,' says M. Ch. de Rémusat, with a just acknowledgment of our national qualities rare in a French writer, 'est loin d'être un peuple sans imagination. Quel pays moderne plus fertile en grands poëtes ?'

The French, with their profuse words, their love of attitude, their natural tendency to display, diffuse

their emotions over a wide surface, and their writers are sentimental and epigrammatic rather than passionate and poetical.

The sang froid Anglais, which, being truly translated, is English reserve, is at once a theme for the satire and the respect of the French authors. The well got-up English gentleman in French comedy is ludicrous in his composure. With a sandy wig, sandy whiskers, an eye-glass, and a stoop of the neck, he walks quietly through the most agitated scenes, never hurrying his step nor altering his favourite position. And when things have reached their dramatic climax, in the general torrent and whirlwind of passion, continuing to take his cool observation of proceedings, and uttering nothing more than these two monosyllables, 'Oh! yes.'

But the most eloquent, ardent, and imaginative of French writers has chosen a calm Englishman for the hero of her romance. While Lord Nevil is sailing away in serene dignity, Corinne is beating her head against a stone.

The impulsive nature is undoubtedly the more popular, but the reserved commands a higher and a deeper love. The impulsive, ardent in profession, eager in expression, in action can do no more than keep pace with promise, and more commonly falls below it; while the reserved and self-contained, making no promise, holding out no hope, is ever in advance of his own word, and the smallest act of kindness comes from him like a deed of grace. 'Dark, and true, and tender is the north,' says the poet; and fierce, and false, and tickle is the south.'

But this is rather in semblance than in fact.

The cold and silent north seems true by refraining from speech; the hot and forward south seems fickle, by speaking too much; for it is certain that no human being is altogether constant and consistent; only as long as he suppresses his opinions and feelings, the changes they undergo are not found out, while those who are given to much speaking, furnish the record of their own fluctuations, and are judged or misjudged accordingly, being often accused of insincerity

where they should be the rather praised for their candour in admitting the error of a preconceived opinion, too great a haste in publication being the only fault of which they are really guilty.

The danger of the ready speaker lies in an expenditure of force. He runs the risk of being satisfied with the good word, to the neglect of the good deed; while the reserved man runs the risk of totally extinguishing the fire that he seeks to hide; for affection at last will languish to death for want of expression-and life of all kinds will lose itself in darkness.

If a nature be nobly stamped, is it not a pity to call in art to alter its face? Let vice have recourse to the screen, let the deformed visage be thickly covered, but let. virtue show us something of the fairness of her aspect, and let the veil she wears be delicate, that we may discern through it the sweetness of her countenance.

Reserve is often mistaken for shyness, and sometimes for pride; with shyness it has in truth no kindred. Shyness is a timidity, an embarrassment in the presence of others, which proceeds rather from the physical condition of the nerves, than from any peculiar mental quality. Reserve is a mental effort. A baby may be shy, but a baby cannot be reserved. Reserve is steadfast and not troubled; and except where the emotions are called into play, does not affect the flow of social intercourse. With the reserved man, so long as you remain in the regions of taste and fancy, you may walk pleasantly through sunny paths and meadows, and pull sweet flowers as you go. It is only when you would enter upon the avenues of feeling that you run against the high closed gate.

Wordsworth in describing a poet has described a reserved man:

He is retired as noontide dew,

Or fountain in a noonday grove; And you must love him, ere to you He will seem worthy of your love. The outward shows of sky and earth, Of hill and valley he has viewed, And impulses of deeper birth

Have come to him in solitude.

But how, cries the hasty reader,

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ved? Is it not life to proclaim

can a poet the business his passion, tetail to the public all the conflicts, struggles,_and agonies of his fighting soul? Does he not confide his griefs, and open the inner shrine of his heart, to printer and publisher?

It is true, and yet he could not do it to a friend. He can address a public whom he does not see, but not the friend whom he does see, because he knows the exact boundary of his friend's sympathies; while in that large mass of unknown, there are unsounded depths of sensibility to appeal to, and to them, as the player to his audience, he may make his soliloquy aloud.

The height and depth of the love cherished towards the reserved has been spoken of. It is so deep, because we admire the more reveren

tially whatever is beyond the extent of our perception. Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter yet.' And there is the unknown joy that knowing

kills.' Is not the fascination of the difficult and the dark entrancing in its kind? See how navigators are pressing on constantly to the north pole, at the risk of being ice-bound, wrecked, and miserably starved, merely because there is something to be discovered.

This affection is so high, so exalted, because it is free from the taint of self-love, and does not venture to ask for a return; content with the happiness of esteeming a true excellence and of giving without expecting to receive.

The impulsive man trusts his friend too much: the reserved man trusts only himself. The impulsive man may be despised, but cannot be hated. The reserved man may be hated, but cannot be despised. He occupies the fortress; he holds the strong, impregnable position. He is behind the walls, and our shots whiz past him. He reveals no front to the foe. He will tire out the besieger. Only let him take care that while he makes his lines of defence against the enemy so strong he does not also close the way to friendly supplies.

All virtues may be carried into an excess which converts them into faults; and reserve, which is, after all, control, may pass into a repelling

stoicism. Such a danger attends its constant exercise. And yet, if the present writer could be transported by the touch of a wizard's wand back into childhood, and then be asked by too indulgent parents what he would wish to be in after life, he would unhesitatingly reply, 'a reserved man,' in order to taste those peculiar pleasures, that timid homage, that proud sense of impenetrability, which have here been described. There is no wizard's

wand; and no such choice is offered to him; he has nearly run his course out, and there is no turning back. He cannot disguise from himself (not being apt at disguise) that he has not been hitherto a reserved man; but he may do his best with the little space that remains; and in writing at the present moment, he is conscious of viewing himself with a respectful satisfaction for the concealment that he practises while he holds back his name.

THE library of works relating to

the scenery, geography, and natural history of the Alps has now attained such dimensions that it is time to take stock, so to speak, of the mass of literature devoted to these subjects, and classify it, if only for the benefit of that army of tourists that will before many days are over occupy Switzerland, and whose arrival is looked forward to by the patriots of that country with an interest no doubt quite as deep and sincere as that which attended the advent of a certain other liberal army a few weeks ago on the other side of the Alps. The tourist may well feel an embarras des richesses, and be puzzled as to what he should read, take, and avoid, when he sees the number of books that are recommended as being a most useful and almost necessary appendage to the traveller's outfit,' or a trustworthy and invaluable companion for those who visit the land where nature appears in her grandest and most eccentric moods." It may be of some assistance to him, therefore, if we analyse the pile before us, which is composed of what seem to be the most noteworthy of the books that relate to Alpine travel. It is a goodly pile to look at, and it must be confessed most of the volumes composing it are got up in a style that makes the fate in store for them seem a sad one by force of contrast. What will be the condition in October next of these elegant and luxurious tomes? Where will be all their bravery of blue, and buff, and pink, and gold, after a couple of months spent for

the most part in the society of boots and brushes and other chance companions in the bag or portmanteau; not to speak of the horny thumbs of vigilant officials, who will pounce upon them, hoping to catch a Bible in disguise, or an edition de luxe of Napoléon le Petit? One or two, to be sure, have a chance of escape, their dimensions being suggestive of a displacement rather greater than many old travellers will consent to, but still one cannot help thinking, as Gilderoy's wife thought of her husband's being hung, that it is a hard fate for sic handsome books.

There is another reflection which the sight suggests-viz., how thoroughly English all this is, and how indicative of that rambling, scrambling, exercise-loving disposition which makes foreigners fancy, with the first grave-digger in Hamlet, that insanity is the normal condition of mind in this kingdom. French, Americans, and Germans are to be met with in numbers every summer in Switzerland, but we shall have to wait a long time before we see such a library of books on this subject produced by the combined forces of the three nations. It is not that we are naturally more given to bookmaking; the percentage of authors in the general population is not so much larger here than in America, and in all probability is smaller than in France or Germany. The truth is, perhaps, that we take a peculiar, and it may be insular, view of Switzerland and its attractions. It is not, to the majority at least of English travellers, a mere outlying Baden-Baden,

1859.]

or remoter Homburg, where striking scenery gives a zest to lounging, and forms an agreeable adjunct to the pleasures of the table-d'hôte ; but a country to be walked, ridden, or driven over-a country for active rather than passive enjoyment-a kind of gymnasium for mind as well as body, out of which we must try and get as much benefit as our time may permit. It may be no doubt national vanity that makes us think so, but still there certainly seem to be reasons for supposing that we do succeed; and that we enjoy Switzerland more thoroughly than our neighbours, either through having a keener relish for nature, or being better adapted, physically and constitutionally, for making the necessary exertion a pleasure. Even the German, who on occasion is quite as enterprising and enthusiastic a mountaineer, never seems to enjoy himself among the Alps in the way an Englishman does. As you look at him, it is hard to help fancying that he is trying to settle in his own mind the source of his pleasure, whether it be an appeal from nature to his inner consciousness, or the operation of the all-pervading world-spirit. Whereas the other, glum as he may look, is obviously serenely content and satisfied that everything is all right, which we take to be a state of mind much more in harmony with the dignity and purpose of nature. However, laying aside the unsatisfactory question of national distinctions, let us come back to facts. We have here some half dozen books addressed especially to Swiss tourists, and all professing to give advice as to the routes to be chosen, places to be visited, things to be observed, modes of travelling to be adopted, and other essential points. That there happen to be so many is to a great extent due to the fact that the genus Swiss tourist is capable of subdivision into several species. Provision must be made for the requirements of lady and family tourists, who, however enthusiastic about glaciers and snow-mountains,

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must nevertheless allow considerations of hotels and roads to enter largely into their plans. Then there are tourists en garçon, who in the main have a sincere respect for personal comfort, though they do not object to roughing it occasionally on sufficient cause being shown. There are also the knapsacked pedestrian, who, in Galway phrase, takes the country as God made it; the explorer who studiously avoids the beaten tracks, and always prefers to break new ground; the mountain climber, for whom a new ascent or an untried pass has charms independent of novelty or scenery; the scientific traveller, to whom the natural phenomena, geology, botany, or zoology of the Alps are sources of pleasure. For each of these classes there is something in the heap of books before us.

*

Place aux dames. A Lady's Tour round Monte Rosat is intended to show how a lady, without undergoing any greater hardships than the not very luxurious accommodation of an humble inn, and an occasional scrambling walk or mule ride over a rough path, can explore a part of the Alps which has hitherto been generally left to pedestrians, and thus enjoy some of the very sublimest scenery in the world at the cost of as little inconvenience supposing that to be an object-as would be entailed by a tour in the Highlands or in Connemara. Persons who are not familiar with the Alps, and with Monte Rosa in particular, will perhaps wonder how the circuit of a mountain can by any courtesy of language be dignified with the title of tour,' and how it could possibly furnish materials for an octavo volume of four hundred pages. A glance, however, at any tolerably good map of Switzerland will convince them that after all it may not be such a trifle as they imagine. They will perceive that from Mont Blanc to far to the eastwards of Monte Rosa there stretches, not a succession of mountains with deep valleys between them, but a chain,

capped with snow that lies almost unbroken throughout the whole length of the range, and suggests an ascent of at least nine or ten thousand feet above the sea level, before a passage from one side to the other can be effected. Of this range Monte Rosa is, next to Mont Blanc, the highest peak, and as the extension of its base is proportioned to its altitude, it follows that to make the tour round it one must go a good way round. Beside which, the mere approach to the mountain is by no means so simple a matter as it seems to be on the map. It is wonderful how easy map-travelling is in Switzerland. On the map, from this point to that often seems just such a nice little excursion as one might make of an afternoon, and be in time for dinner at the end of it; but how different is the real thing. That little valley suggesting a pleasant stroll up winding paths through fir-woods broken by patches of pasture, where mountain stream and cattle-bell tinkle in rivalry, is perhaps filled with a glacier, a wild mass of tumultuous ice-blocks at the bottom, a labyrinth of yawning crevasses in the middle, and a slope of deceitful snow at the top. That table-land above is no breezy mountain plain; you will meet no goats filing soberly homewards at milking time as you enter upon that dreary expanse; no bee will hum across your path up there. It is a great sheet of blinding whiteness, avoided even by the chamois and the marmot, crossed by no living creature but man and the lämmergeier, and swept by a wind compared with which the black North-Easter of Mr. Kingsley is a zephyr. The gentle hill-side by which you propose to descend is, ten to one, a combination of inclined planes of ice at an angle of sixty, and precipices which, even if practicable, shed roeks upon your head freely; and when at last you do succeed in reuniting yourself with the human species, you find it to be a humanity that has not advanced beyond the rudest of chalets for a habitation, the sourest of milk and bread for food, and hay for bed and bedding. These, of course, are

things which on occasion may be not only endured but enjoyed, but which, if you are not prepared for them, are inconvenient, if not insurmountable.

With respect to Monte Rosa, no matter how plain the sailing may seem according to the map, there is but one approach from the north for those who are not willing to face some, if not all, of the difficulties just mentioned. To get near Monte Rosa from the Valais side and keep even the semblance of a path under your feet the whole way, you must go by the valley of St. Nicholas. At the head of this valley lies Zermatt, from which, or rather from the heights immediately above it, the only good views of this side of Monte Rosa are to be obtained. Very likely the traveller who has trudged or ridden that seven-and-twenty miles from Visp will be somewhat disappointed with the Queen of the Alps. As seen from the neighbourhood of Zermatt, at least from the more practicable points, her claims to the title do not strike one as being incontestable. For example, in that noble panorama which surrounds the spectator as he stands on the Görnergrat, Monte Rosa does not play a very conspicuous part. Its vast breadth is certainly striking, but it does not seem to overtop much, if at all, the nearer masses of the Lyskamm and Breithorn ; while to the right the Matterhorn, the grandest mountain in the grandest mountain-land in the world, and further round, the graceful cone of the Weisshorn, are infinitely more impressive. The fact is, that to see Monte Rosa aright you must either reach a great height on the Swiss side, or else cross over to the Italian side. There are just three passes by which the latter object may be effected immediately from Zermatt. There is the St. Theodule, leading into the Val Tournanche, which, although over ice and perpetual snow, and more than ten thousand feet above the level of the sea at its highest point, is neither dangerous nor difficult, and may in fine weather be travelled almost throughout its entire length on horse or mule-back.* Nearer to Monte