Many characteristics of each were pointed out, in the course of the examination; and ludicrous as was the exhibition, it left the impression on my mind, that some judgment of the individual character might be deduced from the head, hands, and feet, though not at all to the extent claimed by the founders of these systems.

30th.-Zurich is not without considerable pretensions, as is evinced by its styling itself the Athens of Switzerland.-It boasts of having given birth, even so early as the fourteenth century, to one hundred and forty poets, of whom Roger Maness in that century, wrote an account, which is now as obsolete as the poets it was meant to tansmit to posterity. How few of the works, professedly bequeathed to it, does posterity accept ! Nevertheless every writer aspires to conciliate it, seemingly unconscious that excellence, alone, can insure its favour.

The cathedral at Zurich, said to have been built in 697, has nothing remarkable to boast of, and had lately been subjected to the barbarous operation of a thorough white-washing, on the exterior and

VOL. I.

G

interior, which gave it a most unseemly appearance. The Carolinian library, founded in the thirteenth century, has lost many of the treasures of antiquity that it is said once to have contained, but still retains the MSS. of Zuinglius, and other reformers, in sixty folio volumes, with many rare and curious black-letter books.

The town library, founded in 1628, had more attraction for us, as it boasts the possession of three letters of Lady Jane Grey, to Henricus Bulingerus; one written in Latin, in a very fine Italian hand; the others in German, and all signed with her name. The accounts handed down to us, of the beauty, grace, talents, and extraordinary acquirements of this lovely and unfortunate being, never made so deep an impression on me, as while looking at her beautiful penmanship. I seemed to see her, as her preceptor Roger Ascham found and described her (when he paid her an unexpected visit), reading Plato, while the rest of the family were occupied with the chase in the park. Her gentle voice seemed to sound in my ear, uttering those words in answer to his enquiry, of why she also was not engaged in the sports :

"The sports they are enjoying, are but as a shadow, compared to the pleasure which I derive from the sublime author I am perusing."

The rare union of such remarkable personal beauty, piety, modesty, and profound erudition, at a period when learning was as a sealed well to her sex, would always have rendered Lady Jane Grey the most interesting female character of her day. But her tragical death, and the fortitude with which she met it, stamp her as a heroine, in the best and most exalted sense of the word. It was remarked by one of our party, that had Lady Jane Grey been less beautiful and young, her accomplish

ments and misfortunes would have excited a less warm degree of sympathy in our minds. I am afraid there was more truth in the observation, than reason is willing to acknowledge. But we are all, more or less, the slaves to externals; youth and beauty must have their influence; and works that, by their freshness, prove how recently they have been formed by the All-powerful hand that creates all, must have more attractions than those which have been so long fashioned, as to have lost the traces of their divine origin. Had Mary Stuart

bowed her head to the block, some ten or fifteen years sooner, ere yet its silken honours had been blanched by the ruthless hand of time, how much more sympathy would her fate have called forth! Old heroines are an anomaly, and excite little pity, even in the hearts of those who have arrived at similar years of discretion, the epidermis of whose hearts, like that of the faces of elderly ladies, has lost its delicacy; so that the power of suffering in them is as much blunted, as the capability of causing suffering is impaired in the others. We look with interest always, and with admiration often, on the ruin of all fine objects, save the ruin of a beautiful Alas! for old beauties! they must abdicate

woman.

in time.

The town library at Zurich, contains a curious letter from Frederick of Prussia, to the Professor H. Muller, relative to a collection of Swiss songs, of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, which the professor published in 1784, and dedicated to Her Majesty. It appears, that Frederick the Great, found nothing to admire in the collection; and candidly expressed his opinion to their editor, with a naiveté and brusquerie, very charac

teristic of that monarch. This library also contains the "Psalterium Davidis," in Greek MS., the vellum purple, letters silver, and the titles in gold. It has suffered much from age; but some of the leaves are still perfect, and offer a fine specimen of the splendour of the decorations of such works in former days.

SCHAUFHAUSEN, October 1st.-The water-fall at this romantic spot is much less grand than we expected; but the beauty of the scenery around it is remarkable. The Rhine flows majestically along, bounded at each side by luxuriant vineyards, fertile fields, and rich woods, crowned by the mountains, fading into the distant horizon, until they are lost in the clouds: The foam of the cascade rises over the landscape, like a silver gauze veil; and forms a brilliant contrast with the vivid green of the river. The rushing sound of the water, which hurries on with resistless force to its destination, canopied by clouds of foam that sparkle in the sunshine, has a magical effect; and one could gaze for hours on the scene, indulging in the vague reveries it inspires. There seems to be a deep and mysterious sympathy