between the extreme western terrace of the Alps, and the first or eastern ridge of the Jura. In its immediate vicinity there are vast morasses, which have been laid dry by canals, cut in every direction, so as to render the soil fertile and the air salubrious. The well-cultivated plain is watered by the river Orbe, which, issuing from the caverns of the Jura, at the distance of no more than a day's journey from Yverdon, and descending through the romantic scenery of Valorbe, forms a superb cascade about the middle of its rapid course, where the whole river, swelled in the early part of summer, by the thaw of the mountain snows, into a majestic torrent, precipitates itself with a sudden fall of about twenty feet over a mass of steep rocks, and fills the neighbouring forest with the echoes of its never ceasing thunders. From thence its turbulent waves roll on over their rough bed, now expanding over a verdant plain, closely surrounded by an amphitheatre of hills and woods; and now again narrowly hemmed in between crags which descend perpendicularly upon the margin of the floods, and whose corresponding angles testify that, united in one mountain in ages unrecorded, they were rent asunder on one of those days when the foundations of the hills moved and were shaken.' A gradual ascent of successive terraces leads from the plain of Yverdon to the eminence which, at a terrific depth beneath, the Orbe is seen bathing with the foam of its mouth the foot of the immovable rocks, and at last working out his passage into the plain through which, as if conscious of his triumph, he proceeds in a slow and circuitous course, to blend his pale waters with the deep azure of the lake. This fine landscape in the back-ground is beautifully contrasted by the prospect of a longitudinal sheet of water, of from six to ten miles in breadth, extending in the direction of N.N.E. to a distance at which the opposite shore can only be distinguished in a perfectly clear state of the atmosphere. The eastern border is formed by several chains of hills, covered with wood, which run parallel to each other, and whose promontories, projecting into the lake, break the uniformity of their gloomy aspect. Violent hurricanes, descending from time to time with a sudden gust from the opposite heights of the Jura, where they are generated by conflicting currents of air in the narrow mountain passes, and stirring up the waters to the very depth, have heaped up the sands on this side, and created extensive shoals, which render navigation, even in still weather, impracticable. The opposite shore, on the contrary, presents a fine coast, rising in an easy slope from the water's edge, whose laughing vineyards, interrupted only by gay villages, are overshadowed by the dark firs with which the Jura is girded round its breast, while its broad front presents, in the region of the clouds, long tracts of rich pasture, with now and then a small hamlet boldly hanging on the brow. To complete the magnificence of this scene, one-half of the horizon, from northeast to south-west, is crowned with the snowy pinnacles of the Alps, raised above one another; and, towering above them all, the giant Mont Blanc, with his everlasting pillars of ice. "Such was the school in which the pupils of Pestalozzi learned how the earth is fashioned, and what is the appointed course of the waters. He taught them to watch the gathering up of the morning mists, and the shadows of the early clouds, which, passing over the glittering lake, hid for a moment, as with a veil of dark gauze, its streams of undulating gold. He directed their eyes to the flaming characters with which the sun writes the farewell of day on the trackless surface of eternal snow-he stood listening with them to the majestic voice of Nature, when the autumnal gale, howling on the floods, rolled billow after billow to the bleak shore-he guided their steps to the mountain caves, from whose deep recesses the stately rivers draw their inexhaustible supplies. Wherever he found a leaf in the mysterious book of creation laid open, he gave it them to read; and thus, within the narrow sphere of their horizon, taught them more of earth and earth-born beings than they could have learned by travelling, in the pages of a heavy volume, all round the globe." Though Pestalozzi's method was organised into a system, it was not sacrificed to system, like many similiar institutions, but kept up through Pestalozzi's vigorous lifetime its essentially intuitional character. Its normal constitution was altogether subordinate to this, what may be termed the spiritual life which gave that constitution vitality. In the hands of many who imitated him, however, it degenerated into a dead normal factory, where educational fabrics were woven to clothe the nakedness of ignorance, exciting a negative heat, and neglecting the true internal source-the living thought— which never shall be cast off, but shall pass with us, as part of our eternal garmentry, to heaven. Pestalozzi was no scholar, but he was what was infinitely better-a thinker. He required but the elements of knowledge for his purpose, for he used them but as materials for thinking, and the young minds he was training could only digest elementary knowledge. We must not, however, deem Pestalozzi a superficial thinker. He thought for himself, and that, with much natural power, made him a strong and penetrating thinker. Power He was earnest, His heart, too, was as sound and as great as his intellect. and simplicity were alike characteristic of him. and that was much. His own description of himself we had realised ere we had read its confession: "Thousands pass away, as nature gave them birth, in the corruption of sensual gratification, and they seek no more. "Tens of thousands are overwhelmed by the burdens of craft and trade, by the weight of the hammer, the ell, or the crown, and they seek no more. "But I know a man who did seek more. The joy of simplicity dwelt in his heart, and he had faith in mankind such as few men have; his soul was made for friendship: love was his aliment, and fidelity his strongest tie. "But he was not made by this world, nor for it; and wherever he was placed in it, he was found unfit. "And the world that found him thus, asked not whether it was his fault, or the fault of another; but it bruised him with an iron hammer, as the bricklayers break an old brick to fill up crevices. "But though bruised, he yet trusted in mankind more than in himself; and he proposed to himself a great purpose, which to attain, he suffered agonies, and learned lessons such as few mortals had learned before him. "He could not, nor would he become generally useful, but for his purpose he was more useful than most men are for theirs, and he expected justice at the hands of mankind, whom he still loved with an innocent love. But he found Those that erected themselves into his judges, without further examination, confirmed the former sentence, that he was generally and absolutely useless. "This was the grain of sand which decided the doubtful balance of his wretched destines. none. "He is no more; thou wouldst know him no more; all that remains of him are the decayed remnants of his destroyed existence. "He fell as a fruit that falls before it is ripe, whose blossom has been nipped by the northern gale, or whose core is eaten out by the gnawing worm. "Stranger that passest by, refuse not a tear of sympathy; even in falling, this fruit turned itself towards the stem, on the branches of which it lingered through the summer, and it whispered to the tree, Verily, even in my death will I nourish thy roots.' "Stranger that passest by, spare the perishing fruit, and allow the dust of its corruption to nourish the roots of the tree on whose branches it lived, sickened, and died." But though Pestalozzi had the gratification of proving the practicability of his scheme, he had to submit to the pain of seeing his institution ruined by internal discord, caused by one of his assistants, Joseph Schmid. This cast a gloom over the last days of his life darker than he had ever felt before, and that, when his years precluded the buoyant indulgence of hope. A mind, however, such as his must have felt a serious satisfaction in having worked out to the utmost of his ability that mission which the extent and character of his capacities so well qualified him to undertake as the distinctive duty he was called upon by the terms of his existence to perform. He died at Brugg, in the Canton of Basle, on Feb. 17, 1827. He was one of those few great original thinkers, who seem born specially for their time to direct the current of civilisation into its true channel. A TALE OF STRATH-CLUTHA. "TWAS calm: 'twas stilly calm; beneath the eye Of molten silver, whilst on either side In all the pride of his high-vaulting strength, Bathed for one little moment, and then dropped In the clear moonlight you could trace full well Far in the distance, Gourock's glimmering lights Eclipsing all, save her own children fair The bright-eyed stars that form her glorious train, Sped a light bark with outspread bank of oars, With steady buoyant prow, urged by the nerve *The Cloch Lighthouse. A fifth with guiding hand controlled her course. To him the scene was new, and he had come O'er the wide world he'd been, where'er there was He learned to love-and in his youth had stood For daring deeds that made the bravest quail. Why dost thou fear, fond heart? Is there a sign With terror heard the rising wind sweep past, Hath not found safety in some neighbouring port! The fury of the scene, but late so calm. "Quick-let us hasten to the Lighthouse point," Where they would try to make their landing good. Were eager hastening to regain their home In the mid channel by the first fell blast Right towards the Cloch they bend the boat's swift course; And wrathful waves cut off all other ports; |