ountains; and that there are roses enough to
smother the whole establishment of the _Daily News_ in. Likewise, there
is a pavilion in the garden, which has but two rooms in it; in one of
which, I think you shall do your work when you come. As to bowers for
reading and smoking, there are as many scattered about the grounds, as
there are in Chalk-farm tea-gardens. But the Rosemont bowers are really
beautiful. Will you come to the bowers. . . ?"

Very pleasant were the earliest impressions of Switzerland with which
this first letter closed. "The country is delightful in the extreme--as
leafy, green, and shady, as England; full of deep glens, and branchy
places (rather a Leigh Huntish expression), and bright with all sorts of
flowers in profusion.[110] It abounds in singing birds besides--very
pleasant after Italy; and the moonlight on the lake is noble. Prodigious
mountains rise up from its opposite shore (it is eight or nine miles
across, at this point), and the Simplon, the St. Gothard, Mont Blanc,
and all the Alpine wonders are piled there, in tremendous grandeur. The
cultivation is uncommonly rich and profuse. There are all manner of
walks, vineyards, green lanes, cornfields, and pastures full of hay. The
general neatness is as remarkable as in England. There are no priests or
monks in the streets, and the people appear to be industrious and
thriving. French (and very intelligible and pleasant French) seems to be
the universal language. I never saw so many booksellers' shops crammed
within the same space, as in the steep up-and-down streets of Lausanne."

Of the little town he spoke in his next letter as having its natural
dulness increased by that fact of its streets going up and down hill
abruptly and steeply, like the streets in a dream; and the consequent
difficulty of getting about it. "There are some suppressed churches in
it, now used as packers' warehouses: with cranes and pulleys growing out
of steeple-towers; little doors for lowering goods through, fitted into
blocked-up oriel windows; and cart-horses stabled in crypts. These also
help to give it a deserted and disused appearance. On the other hand, as
it is a perfectly free place subject to no prohibitions or restrictions
of any kind, there are all sorts of new French books and publications in
it, and all sorts of fresh intelligence from the world beyond the Jura
mountains. It contains only one Roman Catholic church, which is mainly
for the use of the Savoy