HOW WE DID MONT BLANC. turned away; now, the Bernese mountains; till at last he studiously faced a thick mist which concealed the lower parts of Neuchatel and Vaud: but even there P. P. had him, and explained what he would have seen had there been no mist. There was nothing for it but to descend a little into denser air, so H. was ruthlessly torn from his sardines and carried off down the Calotte. About twenty minutes from the top they met a friend ascending all alone. He had left Chamonix half an hour after midnight with one porter; but this porter had come to an end of his promised pluck shortly after the Grands Mulets, and returned; and so the Herr came on alone, making use of the steps cut by P. P., and accomplishing a feat never accomplished before. While they slowly continued the descent, and the solitary adventurer passed on to the summit and drank his champagne and ate his poulet, P. P. gave expression to the most He knew this Herr's powers well, had made unbounded astonishment. many courses with him and others of the best members of the Alpine Club, and had said only the day before that there was not one who could compare with him: still he was completely overcome by the "Ah!" he kept repeating, "das ist ein adventurousness of the ascent. grieslicher Herr!" and grieslich being a new word, he was called upon for an explanation. It seemed that Christian Almer and he had been discussing various Herrscraft, and among the chief, this present Herr, whom Almer had summed up with a deep sigh, reminiscent of many a grind more severe than his soul loved, and "das war ein grieslicher Reisender!' P. P. confessed that it was patois, not meant for grässlich, and believed It was far on the that no German or French word would quite hit it off. other side of schrecklich, and a good deal beyond heillos, and heillos, a great authority has declared, means past praying for. The grieslicher Herr came up with them again at the top of the Mur de la Côte, and administered the remains of the champagne. Here G.'s physical faintness caused him to develop that excessive and sharp-tempered prudence which is so near akin to fright. To an inexperienced eye the appearance of the rapid, even slope of ice and frozen snow, across and down the face of which they must follow the steps cut in the morning, The ice was so unpleasant, that no account could well exaggerate it. seemed to shoot clean down to the Corridor, with a slight rocky edge at the bottom, beyond which an insignificant drop to the Corridor might be imagined. But in passing up the Corridor in the ascent, they had noticed this same drop, and instead of finding it insignificant, they had been struck with the grand loftiness of the precipice; and the recollection of that impression afforded a most suggestive measure of what must be the length of the slope, at the bottom of which the drop could now seem so small. H. had fed well, and was practised, and, moreover, had experienced the power of the rope. G., on the other hand, light-headed and heavyfooted, made every step in the belief that if he slipped he must inevi 35-5 tably carry the other three down with him. The grieslicher Herr, meantime, danced unroped behind, doing Albert Smith's account of the horrors of the Mur. The descent from the Corridor to the Plateau was something the same, only rather less so, to use for once a slang expression. Rather less so, inasmuch as, although steeper, it was more snow than ice, and ended in a shelving blue crevasse instead of a solid pitch over rocks; and besides, the Plateau once reached, nothing worse than fatigue remained behind. On the Plateau the party halted for a long time, and discussed the ascent. H. had never thought it could be so easy, and so little dangerous, and could scarcely believe that he had at last been up Mont Blanc. G. allowed that the ascent was in all ways less than he had expected, but expressed his great surprise that so many people had achieved the descent in safety, and his satisfaction that he was well out of it. Here for the first time he was set right about the power of the rope, and was informed that P. P. and Couttet would have held themselves and him with the most perfect ease, however wild a tumble he might have made. This would have relieved him immensely on the Mur de la Côte, but still he repeated that there was more to face than he had expected, —not of fatigue, but of apparent danger, on the Mur and on the descent to the Plateau. Then it was confessed by the guides that many Herrs require a hand, and two hands, at every trying place; require also that their feet be guided and held; pray constantly that they may be taken back, and in descending, are shunted down the worst slopes like logs of wood possessed ;—indeed, guides are in the habit of saying that they would much rather take up a log of wood of equal weight than many a Herr who has "successfully made the ascent." One illustrious Alpine traveller's name was especially taken in vain. The second party had meanwhile come down, and had already got a long start from the Plateau, so the four in the rope, with the grieslicher Herr unattached, went off at a great pace down the slopes of softened snow. As they got lower and lower on the mountain they sank lower and lower in the snow, and, for a long way, well above the knees was little more than an average depth. Their theory and practice was that they stopped for nothing; and so when one of the four stuck fast or fell, he was constrained to do the impossible, and head and arms and legs became for a while a spasmodic chaos, which turned out feet downwards and face foremost, with mechanical legs, some yards in advance of the chaos point. Farther down still, the passage of soft snow-bridges over the crevasses became more or less hazardous, and the grieslicher Herr was persuaded to lay a hand on the rope. Here, moreover, they found the other party, and taking the lead, they soon reached the Grands Mulets, and packed and started for Chamonix. Once across the last snow, and down and across the Glacier des Boissons, they ran at such a break-neck pace down the remaining part of the descent that they "did" the watchful authorities, and reached Chamonix before any one knew they were within an hour of the place, much to the disappointment of that excited town. The waiter at the door of the Royal was the first to see them, and he bolted like a rabbit with a ferret behind to order the cannon, but they triumphantly achieved their rooms before the salute was heard. From the Grands Mulets to the summit had been six hours and a half, to the Grands Mulets again three and a half -for the state of the snow did not allow a glissade-and to Chamonix well under three. Next day they got certificates from the chef-guide. These documents stated that they had made the ascent, accompanied by so-and-so-tous guides effectifs de la Société des Guides de Chamonix. Considering the illegal obstructiveness of the chef in the matter of the porter, G. pointed out to him carefully the ludicrous falseness of this clause, thereby congealing that evaded functionary, polite, and stern, and vertical even in defeat. On the back of the certificate a list of ascents down to 1855 is given. An early acquaintance will scarcely know himself as N. B. Richowor, and what English gentleman may be represented by Athbrun and Alpedecolatt, and Honourable Jackeville, it is difficult to say. Enslechndwom, Anglais, is said to have made the ascent on Aug. 16, 1854, and a like feat would scem to have been performed on Aug. 18, 1855, by M. K. G. Eirslacehndzous, Anglais also. 732 To Spring. SEASON of youth and song and sunny mirth, On scented zephyrs borne with fluttering wing, Again thou com'st to rouse the slumbering earth, O'er wood and mead and hill thy charms to fling, Fresh songs to wake, old joys anew to bring, And bid thy dear delights attend thee here, Sweetest of Seasons! happy, soft-eyed Spring, First daughter of the new awakening year, Like Phoenix rising from cold winter's bier. We hear thee laughing as thou passest by, With song of birds, and murmuring hum of bees, Through aspen leaves, whose whisperings never cease. Thus comest thou, sweet Spring, too long delaying, Fresh joy and life to withered earth conveying. Primroses star-like twinkle in the brakes, The chestnut flower lets fall its snow-white-flakes, Come, beauteous Spring! with knee-deep meadow-sweet Thomas Warton. Ir is now more than a century since the occupant of many a parsonage house scattered here and there throughout England and Wales was first cheered by the appearance at his gate of one who must have been there, as elsewhere, an honoured and a welcome guest. He would be especially honoured by a brother clergyman, because he was widely known as a scholar, an antiquary, and a poet; and would, moreover, be none the less welcome because he was something of a bon vivant, and entirely a bon camarade. This was the Reverend Thomas Warton, as it becomes his chronicler and kinsman to designate him, but who was much better known as plain Tom Warton to his familiars (as many in number as they were various in fortune and degree), and who was so spoken of by all the world beside. No wonder he was popular, for he was by no means a man of one idea. As college tutor he could keep even the idler students from yawning in his class-room while he held forth on the beauties of Theocritus and Homer; and he could delight his audience by the cloquence of the disquisitions which, as professor of poetry, it was his province to deliver in the schools. Then he could discourse with learning on black-letter volumes and Gothic architecture; and if on the latter topic his knowledge has been surpassed in later days, he was a man much before his own time in the love he bore to the subject, and in the zeal with which he tried to propagate a taste for its cultivation. But Warton, as we have hinted, though an antiquary and a scholar, was by no means a Dryasdust or a recluse. He passed his mornings in study or in teaching; but when he rose from table at the college-hall of Trinity, and adjourned to the commonroom, he was the life and soul of the assembled fellows. Not that he was a roisterer, like the jovial clerk of Copmanhurst, though he certainly did not, in precept or practice, conform to the rules of the ascetics. To be sure, he once wrote an inscription on some hermitage which had taken his fancy, in praise of solitude, a herb diet, and "the beechen cup unstain'd with wine," &c. His father (who had also been in his day professor of poetry at Oxford) had committed himself in precisely the same manner. Neither of them of course was in earnest; and their verses accordingly relished of little else than the meagre entertainment they had made believe to eulogize. On the other hand, the "Panegyric on Oxford Ale," by the junior poet, is a very cheery performance. He drew his inspiration from the fountain he dearly loved, and his sentiments have therefore about them a lively smack of reality, a pleasant, sensuous flavour of truth. A visitor like this could indeed well reckon on the certainty of a welcome, when, at the entrance of the village, he stopped his chaise, or checked the |