self away: such a happy melange of piety and pleasantry, grave wisdom and humor I had never met. At length the convent-bell tolling I rose; he took me by the hand, and, in a tone of the most complacent admonition, said, "Remember, my child! as long as you live, remember the convent of the Carmelites; and, in the innumerable evils that certainly await you if you are to live long, the words you have heard from old friar Augustine will afford you comfort."

"Father" returned I, "be assured I carry away from you a token that will never suffer me to forgot the hospitality, the advice, or the politeness of the good father Augustine. Poor as I am in natural means, I can make no other return than my good wishes, nor leave any impression behind me: but as my esteem for you, and perhaps my vanity, make me wish not to be forgotten, accept this, (a seal ring, with a device in hair, which I happened to have on my finger); and whenever you look at it, let it remind you of one of those, I dare say innumerable, instances, in which you have contributed to the happiness and improvement of your fellow-creatures."

The good old man was affected, took the ring, and attended me to the convent gate, pronouncing many blessings, and charged me to make Augsburgh my way back again to England if possible, and take one glass more of the convent ale.

茶

LETTER XXI.

LEAVING Augsburgh, I travelled through Bavaria a long way before I reached the Tyrol Country, of the natural beauty of which I had heard much, and which I therefore entered with great expectations of that sublime gratification the beauties of nature never fail to afford me. I was not disappointed; indeed, my warmest expectations were exceeded.

The first thing that strikes a traveller from Bavaria, on entering it, is the fort of Cherink, built between two

inaccessible rocks which separate Tyrol from the bishopric of Freisingen. So amply has nature provided for the security of this country against the incursion of an ene my, that there is not a pass which leads to it that is not through some narrow defile between mountains almost inaccessible; and on the rocks and brows of those passes, the emperor has constructed forts and citadels, so advantageously placed, that they command all the valleys and avenues beneath.

After a variety of windings and turnings through mountains of stupendous height and awful aspect, I began to descend, and entered the most delightful valley I had ever beheld-deep, long, and above a mile in breadth

surrounded with enormous piles of mountains, and diversified with the alternate beauties of nature and cultivation, so as to form an union rarely to be met with, and delight at once the eye of the farmer, and the fancy of him that has a true taste for rural wildness. From the heights in descending, the whole appeared in all its glory; the beautiful river Inn gliding along through it longitu dinally, its banks studded with the most romantic little villages, while a number of inferior streams were seen winding in different courses, and hastening to pour their tribute into its bosom.

Here I felt my heart overwhelmed with sensations of transport, which all the works of art could never inspire: here nature rushed irresitibly upon my senses, and, making them captive, exacted their acknowledgment of her supremacy here vanity, ambition, lust of fame and power, and all the tinselled, gaudy frippery to which habit and worldly custom enslave the mind, retired, to make way for sentiments of harmony, purity, simplicity, and truth: here Providence seemed to speak in language most persuasive, "Come, silly man, leave the wild tumult, the endless struggle, the glittering follies, the false and spurious pleasures which artifice creates, to seduce you from the true-dwell here, and in the lap of nature study me:" Here, oh! here, exclaimed I, in a transport which bereft me, for the time, of every other consideration, here will I dwell for ever. The charm was too finely spun, to withstand the hard tugs of fact; and a14

its precious delusions vanished before a host of gloomy truths deranged affairs-family afar off, with the distance daily increasing the hazards and the hardships of a long untried journey-and the East Indies, with all its horrors, in the rear. I hung my head in sorrow; and, offering up a prayer to protect my family, strengthen myself, and bring us once more together in some spot heavenly as that I passed through, was proceeding on: in a state of dejection proportionate to my previous transports, when I was roused by my postillion, who, pointing to a very high, steep rock, desired me to take notice of it. I did so; but seeing nothing very remarkable in its appearance, asked him what he meant by directing my attention to it-He answered me in the following manner, which, from the singularity of the narrative, and his strange mode of telling it, I think it would injure to take out of his own words: I will, therefore, endeavor, as well as I can, to give you a literal translation of it; and, indeed, the impression it made on my memory was such, that, I apprehend, I shall not materially differ from his words :

"You must know, Sir, (for every one in the world knows it,) that all these mountains around us, are the abodes of good and evil spirits, or genii-the latter of whom are continually doing every malicious thing they can devise, to injure the people of the country—such as leading them astray-smothering them in the snowkilling the cattle by throwing them down precipicesnay, when they can do no worse, drying up the milk in the udders of the goats-and, sometimes, putting between young men and their sweet-hearts, and stopping their marriage. Ten thousand curses light upon them! I should have been married two years ago, and had two children to-day, but for their schemes. In short, Sir, if it were not for the others-the good ones-who are always employed (and the blessed Virgin knows they have enough on their hands) in preventing the mischiefs of those devils, the whole place would be destroyed, and the country left without a living thing, man or goat!"

Here I could not, for the life of me, retain my gravity any longer, but burst, in spite of me, into an im

moderate fit of laughter, which so disconcerted and of fended him, that he sullenly refused to proceed with the story any further, but continued marking his forehead (his hat off) with a thousand crosses, uttering pious ejac ulations, looking at me with a mixture of terror, distrust, and admiration, and every now and then glancing his eye askance toward the hills, as if fearful of a descent from the evil spirits.

My curiosity was awakened by the very extraordinary commencement of his narrative; and I determined, if possible, to hear it out: so, assuring him that I meant nothing either of slight or wickedness by my laughter that I had too serious ideas of such things, to treat them with levity-and, what was more convincing logic with him, promising to reward him for it-he proceeded with his story as follows:

"Well, Sir, you say you were not sporting with those spirits and fortunate it is for you: at all events, Saint John of God be our guide, and bring us safe to Innspruck. Just so the great Maximilian was wont to laugh at them; and you shall hear how he was punished for it and that was the story I was about to tell you. The emperor Maximilian, that glory of the world, (he is now in the lap of the blessed Virgin in Paradise) once on a time, before he was emperor, that is to say, when he was archduke, was always laughing at the country people's fears of those spirits and an old father of the church forewarned him to beware, lest he should suffer for his rashness: so one day he went out hunting, and at the foot of that mountain a most beautiful chamois started before him; he shot at it, and missed it-(the first shot he had missed for many years, which you know was warning enough to him) however, he followed, shooting at and missing it, the animal standing every now and then till he came up within shot of it: thus he continued till near night, when the goat disappeared of a sudden, and he found himself buried, as it were in the bowels of the mountain; he endeavored to find his way out, but in vain; every step he took led him more astray, and he was for two days wandering about. Christ save us! in the frightful hollows of those mountains, living all the time on wild ber

ries on the second night he bethought himself of his want of faith, and of the saying of old Father Jerome : and he fell on his knees, and wept and prayed all night; and the Virgin heard his prayers, he being a good man, and above all, an emperor God bless you and me ! we should have perished-In the morning a beautiful young man, dressed in a peasant's habit, came up to him, gave him victuals and wine, and desired him to follow him, which he did, you may be sure, joyfully-but, Oh blessed Virgin think what his surprise must have been, when, getting again into the plain out of the mountain, the young man disappeared and vanished all of a sudden, just at the foot of that steep rock which I shewed you, and which ever since goes by the name of the emperor's rock -You see what a dangerous place it is, and what danger. ous spirits they must be that would not spare even the holy Roman emperor. In my mind, the best way is to say nothing against those things, as some faithless people do, and to worship the Virgin and keep a good conscience, and then one will have the less to fear."

By the time he had ended his narrative, we were in sight of Innspruck, when I annoyed and terrified him afresh, by laughing immoderately at the end of his story but atoned in some measure for it, by giving him half a florin.

On inquiring at Innspruck, I found that Maximilian had actually lost his way in the mountain, and had been conducted out of it by a peasant, who left him suddenly; the rest was an exaggerated traditionary tale, arising from the superstitious fears of the country people.

LETTER XXII.

In all nations under Heaven, and at all times since the creation, there have been men formed to make` a noise in the world to increase or impede, to direct or disturb, the calm, sober progress of social life-and, in the eagerness and violence of their efforts to reach the