No More Learning

'Petrarch'. ]


[Footnote I: The river along whose banks you descend in crossing the
Alps by the Semplon pass. From the striking contrast of it's features,
this pass I should imagine to be the most interesting among the Alps. ]


[Footnote J: Most of the bridges among the Alps are of wood and covered:
these bridges have a heavy appearance, and rather injure the effect of
the scenery in some places. ]


[Footnote K:

"Red came the river down, and loud, and oft
The angry Spirit of the water shriek'd. "

HOME'S 'Douglas'. ]


[Footnote L: The Catholic religion prevails here, these cells are, as is
well known, very common in the Catholic countries, planted, like the
Roman tombs, along the road side. ]


[Footnote M: Crosses commemorative of the deaths of travellers by the
fall of snow and other accidents very common along this dreadful road. ]


[Footnote N: The houses in the more retired Swiss valleys are all built
of wood. ]


[Footnote O: I had once given to these sketches the title of
Picturesque; but the Alps are insulted in applying to them that term.
Whoever, in attempting to describe their sublime features, should
confine himself to the cold rules of painting would give his reader but
a very imperfect idea of those emotions which they have the irresistible
power of communicating to the most impassive imaginations. The fact is,
that controuling influence, which distinguishes the Alps from all other
scenery, is derived from images which disdain the pencil. Had I wished
to make a picture of this scene I had thrown much less light into it.
But I consulted nature and my feelings. The ideas excited by the stormy
sunset I am here describing owed their sublimity to that deluge of
light, or rather of fire, in which nature had wrapped the immense forms
around me; any intrusion of shade, by destroying the unity of the
impression, had necessarily diminished its grandeur.
]


[Footnote P: Pike is a word very commonly used in the north of England,
to signify a high mountain of the conic form, as Langdale pike, etc. ]


[Footnote Q: For most of the images in the next sixteen verses I am
indebted to M. Raymond's interesting observations annexed to his
translation of Coxe's 'Tour in Switzerland'. ]


[Footnote R: The rays of the sun drying the rocks frequently produce on
their surface a dust so subtile and slippery, that the wretched
chamois-chasers are obliged to bleed themselves in the legs and feet in
order to secure a footing. ]


[Footnote S: The people of this Canton are supposed to be of a more
melancholy disposition than the other inhabitants of the Alps: this, if
true, may proceed from their living more secluded. ]


[Footnote T: These summer hamlets are most probably (as I have seen
observed by a critic in the 'Gentleman's Magazine') what Virgil alludes
to in the expression "Castella in tumulis. "]


[Footnote U: Sugh, a Scotch word expressive of the sound of the wind
through the trees. ]


[Footnote V: This wind, which announces the spring to the Swiss, is
called in their language Foen; and is according to M. Raymond the Syroco
of the Italians. ]


[Footnote W: This tradition of the golden age of the Alps, as M. Raymond
observes, is highly interesting, interesting not less to the philosopher
than to the poet. Here I cannot help remarking, that the superstitions
of the Alps appear to be far from possessing that poetical character
which so eminently distinguishes those of Scotland and the other
mountainous northern countries. The Devil with his horns, etc. , seems to
be in their idea, the principal agent that brings about the sublime
natural revolutions that take place daily before their eyes. ]


[Footnote X: Alluding to several battles which the Swiss in very small
numbers have gained over their oppressors the house of Austria; and in
particular, to one fought at Naeffels near Glarus, where three hundred
and thirty men defeated an army of between fifteen and twenty thousand
Austrians. Scattered over the valley are to be found eleven stones, with
this inscription, 1388, the year the battle was fought, marking out as I
was told upon the spot, the several places where the Austrians
attempting to make a stand were repulsed anew.