i est vraiment
joli," resounded on all sides; and so general and good-humoured was
their admiration of this rickety bauble, that we did our best to
acquiesce in it. After all, we could admire, without any breach of
sincerity, the natural beauties of this spot, which very much resembles
the more open parts of the glen where Matlock is situated, and which all
these abominations could not entirely deface. How to account for this
perversion of eye in a people of sensibility and taste, I am rather at a
loss; but this last is by no means a singular instance. "Bientot vous
allez sortir de ces tristes bois," compassionately observed a very
gentleman-like officer, with whom we had fallen in during a stage of
beautiful forest scenery; and not a soul in a voiture which breakfasted
in the salle a manger at Rochepot, could understand why we stopped to
admire the distant prospect of the Alps. Not to multiply instances of
the indifference to the beauties of simple nature, which will, I think,
be allowed to exist in the French, as contrasted with ourselves, I am
inclined to extend the line of distinction still farther, and to affirm,
that this deficiency in taste appears generally to distinguish the
Teutonic from the Southern blood. It is no exaggeration to say, that for
one French or Italian traveller in Switzerland, twenty English, or ten
Germans, may be reckoned. The French taste in landscape gardening is
well known, and that of the Italians[4] is but a shade or two better:
witness the detestable baby-house with which they have defaced one of
the finest scenes in the world, and which they distinguish, _par
excellence_, as the Isola Bella; to say nothing of a host of similar
instances, as contrasted with our own Longleat and Rydal Park.

[Footnote 4: The characteristic beauties of Italy are no proof of the
picturesque taste of the Italians themselves, as planners and
architects. The commanding situation of their villages, and the small
proportion of window to wall, are circumstances favourable to landscape,
but intended merely as the means of catching and retaining cool air.
Their classical ruins are preserved as a source of pride and profit, and
the natural features of the country cannot be altered.]

The fairest account of the matter, perhaps, is, that this inferiority in
one branch of taste may result from a difference of temperament in our
lively southern neighbours, which, in other respects, has its
advantages. Restless, acute,