rmanent gratification of the eye requires finer gradations of tone,
and a more delicate blending of hues into each other. Besides, it is
only in spring and late autumn that cattle animate by their presence the
Swiss lawns; and, though the pastures of the higher regions where they
feed during the summer are left in their natural state of flowery
herbage, those pastures are so remote, that their texture and colour are
of no consequence in the composition of any picture in which a lake of
the Vales is a feature. Yet in those lofty regions, how vegetation is
invigorated by the genial climate of that country! Among the luxuriant
flowers there met with, groves, or forests, if I may so call them, of
Monks-hood are frequently seen; the plant of deep, rich blue, and as
tall as in our gardens; and this at an elevation where, in Cumberland,
Icelandic moss would only be found, or the stony summits be utterly
bare.

We have, then, for the colouring of Switzerland, _principally_ a vivid
green herbage, black woods, and dazzling snows, presented in masses with
a grandeur to which no one can be insensible; but not often graduated by
Nature into soothing harmony, and so ill suited to the pencil, that
though abundance of good subjects may be there found, they are not such
as can be deemed _characteristic_ of the country; nor is this unfitness
confined to colour: the forms of the mountains, though many of them in
some points of view the noblest that can be conceived, are apt to run
into spikes and needles, and present a jagged outline which has a mean
effect, transferred to canvass. This must have been felt by the ancient
masters; for, if I am not mistaken, they have not left a single
landscape, the materials of which are taken from the _peculiar_ features
of the Alps; yet Titian passed his life almost in their neighbourhood;
the Poussins and Claude must have been well acquainted with their
aspects; and several admirable painters, as Tibaldi and Luino, were born
among the Italian Alps. A few experiments have lately been made by
Englishmen, but they only prove that courage, skill, and judgment, may
surmount any obstacles; and it may be safely affirmed, that they who
have done best in this bold adventure, will be the least likely to
repeat the attempt. But, though our scenes are better suited to painting
than those of the Alps, I should be sorry to contemplate either country
in reference to that art, further than as its fitness or unfitness f