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    the road excellent , and the conveyance so good , that I could almost have believed myself to be travelling in an English mail-coach . At Sesto we took the steam-boat as far as the Borromean Islands , which lie in a bay on the western side of the lake . The first of these which we visited was the Isola Madre , a small island about a fifth of a mile long , occupied by a house and pleasure grounds belonging to the Count Borromeo . It would be

    difficult either to form or to imagine a more charming spot than this . The whole surface of the island is laid out in groves , orchards , and gardens , in a style which approaches much more nearly to the freedom of the jardin Anglais than any thing that I have seen on the Continent ; and then there is a luxuriance and a variety in the trees and shrubs which our English gardens cannot boast . The laurels shoot up green and flourishing ; the lemons hang ripe on the espaliers ; pines , cedars , and cypresses , form an impenetrable shade above ; and roses , and rhododendrons , and a multitude of beautiful

    plants which I have not botany enough to name , are tastefully disposed below . In the midst of all this , a number of pheasants enjoy themselves , as if they neither feared nor knew the molestation of man ; and , at every little turn in the winding walks , the eye catches a glimpse , of some of the grandest scenery in the world . I felt an almost indescribable sensation of delight when I gazed upon the mountains which shut in the head of the lake ; for their stupendous height , and bold and broken summits proclaimed , beyond the

    possibility of mistake , that I was now on the borders of Switzerland . I seemed to greet and welcome these rugged forms , as something peculiarly congenial to my own wild , adventurous spirit ; I longed to wander once more among them , free , and joyous , and independent ; and I half reproached myself that I had ever deserted them , to seek for any thing else with which to gratify my taste . Let Italy enjoy her own meed of praise . Her woody

    heights and rich productive valleys , her churches and her palaces , her paintings , her statues , and her antiquities , and , above all , her " human '' forms " divine , " are peculiar to herself ; but , with all her wonders , she has no Alps towering high , in unapproachable majesty , above the other productions of nature , and realizing to every soul that is not dead to feeling , all that can possibly be conceived of the grand , the sublime , and the terrible . In this respect she must be content to yield the palm to her undisputed superior .

    From the Isola Madre we rowed to the Isola Bella , and thence to Baveno , where the diligence took me up , and conveyed me in forty-eight hours across the Simplon , and along the Valais , to Lausanne . I stayed there two nights , and reached Geneva , by the steam-boat , on Saturday , May 24 th . I was never so much struck with the change in national face and expression as I was in coming out of Italy into Switzerland . The conducteur of the diligence , from Domo d' Ossola , and a woman , who was one of our

    fellow-passengers , had faces so essentially Swiss , that it was impossible to mistake them ; and when we had passed the boundary , there was not an individual whom we saw who did not forcibly remind us that we were now among a different race . The high and sprightly looks , the finely drawn profiles , and the jet black hair of the proud dames of Italy , are such as might

    grace a court , or afford living models to the painter or the statuary ; but the fuller , and softer , and plainer features of the Swiss women , have no pretensions to be denominated handsome , and they indicate no disposition which would care to stray beyond the narrow circle of domestic occupations and every-day interests . For the first day or two that I was among them , I thought them scarcely tolerable ; but 1 was soon won over by their good

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    17 & Journal of a Tour on the Continent .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1829, page 176, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2570/page/24/