ed paragons, and circuses, and
crescents, on left and right, wondering when we were ever to emerge into
the open air. At last we reached the top--a green elevation surrounded
on two sides by streets and villas--crowned with a curious-looking
observatory, and ornamented at one end with a strange building on the
very edge of the cliff; being one of the _termini_ of the suspension
bridge, which got thus far, and no further. Going across the Green, the
sight is the most grand and striking we ever saw. Far down, skirting its
way round cliffs of prodigious height--which, however, except when they
are quarried for building purposes, are covered with the richest
foliage--along their whole descent winds the Avon, at that moment in
full tide, and covered in all its windings with sails of every shape and
hue. The rocks on the opposite side are of a glorious rich red, and
consort most beautifully with the green leaves of the plantations that
soften their rugged precipices, by festooning them to the very brink.
Then there are wild dells running back in the wooded parts of the hill,
and walks seem to be made through them for the convenience of maids who
love the moon--or more probably, and more poetically too, for the
refreshment of the toiling citizens of the smoky town, who wander about
among these sylvan recesses, with their wives and families, and enjoy
the wondrous beauty of the landscape, without having consulted Burke or
Adam Smith on the causes of their delight. As you climb upwards towards
the observatory, you fancy you are attending one of Buckland's
lectures--the whole language you hear is geological and philosophic.
About a dozen men, with little tables before them, are dispersed over
the latter part of the ascent, and keep tempting you with "fossiliferous
specimens of the oolite formation," "tertiary," "silurian," "saurian,"
"stratification," "carboniferous." It was quite wonderful to hear such a
stream of learning, and to see, at the same time, the vigour of these
terrene philosophers in polishing their specimens upon a whetstone, laid
upon their knees. A few shillings put us all in possession of memorials
of Clifton, in the shape of little slabs of different strata, polished
on both sides, and ingeniously moulded to resemble a book. A little
further up, we got besieged by another body of the Clifton Samaritans,
the proprietors of a troop of donkeys, all saddled and bridled in battle
array. Into the hands of a venerable m