LETTER III.

Pedestrian Tour among the Lesser Cantons.

HERE is a constant succession of

TH

agreeable Company, from all parts of Europe, at the genteel table d'hotes in Switzerland; and they are frequented, without scruple, by Ladies, as well as Gentlemen.-Even English Travellers here overcome their National aversion to a public table, and condescend to partake the pleasures of general intercourse, and receive the benefit of mutual information. Where all are Strangers no one is strange, and a New-Comer readily familiarises himself with Persons in the same predicament though he has never seen them before, and may never see them again. Where

all are supposed equally ignorant of each other, Nobody inquires who Such a One is of Any Body else; and Every Body is too much absorbed in his own whence and whither to trouble himself about other People's.

In such a situation my B- had no inclination to expose her wavering health to the fatigues of a desultory ramble from mountain to mountain, and from valley to valley; and, preferring the tranquil amusements of Zurich, to all the scenery of the Alps, she permitted her Husband and a French Gentleman, actuated by the same restless curiosity, to fatigue themselves at their leisure, in a pedestrian tour through the Lesser Cantons, so singularly isolated from the rest of the world by adamantine ridges.

The

The cultivated tracts of the heart of Switzerland exhibit little distinctive character, beyond the peculiarly sheltered look of broad thatched roofs, projecting over low walls, and parsimoniously including, under one inclosure, house, barn and stable. We therefore took Coach for Berne, and must have been half asleep in our stupifying conveyance (which was admirably calculated for the exclusion of extensive prospects) as we traversed the vallies watered by the Reuss, the Limmat, and the Aar, without noticing amidst surrounding woods, the mingled ruins of the ancient Vindonissa, and the modern Hapsburg-the modest patrimony of Rhodolph, a Swiss Baron, who, in an Age less fertile of political revolutions than the present, became Emperor of Germany, and Founder of the House of Austria.

The

The bridge of Wettingen, celebrated as the last work of Ulric Grubenman, suspended over the Limmat by an arch of timber two hundred and forty feet over, was destroyed by the French. It was covered with a hange werk or pent-house, as usual in Switzerland—a style of finish totally destructive of picturesque effect. But it must have been the widest arch in the World, excepting that which has been thrown two hundred and forty-four feet over the river Piscataqua, in New Hampshire, by Timothy Palmer-another selftaught Architect; since it somewhat exceeded the justly boasted iron bridge of Sunderland in Great Britain.*

As

• The Pont y Pridd, sprung over the river Taafe, in Wales, by William Edward, in 1750, is supposed to be the boldest stone arch in the world-its chord is one hundred and forty feet.

As we passed through Hindelbanck, we stopped to see the famous tomb whose striking design has given it a celebrity to which its execution could not entitle it.→→→ The Wife of a Pastor of the village, happening to die in child-bed, while an eminent Statuary was employed in erecting a monument for a Person of Quality, he conceived the sublime idea of representing the Mother, bursting through a flat tomb stone, at the sound of the last trumpet, and exclaiming as she ascends to glcry with the Child in her arms,

Herr! hier bin ich, und das kind so du mir gegeben hast.*

Strangers now rarely pass through the town of Hindelbanck without inquiring

* Lord! here am I, and the Child which thou hast given me.

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