only previous traveller who is known, or at least recorded, to have passed this way, is M. Godefroy, the author of a little work entitled Notice sur les Glaciers, and so our party were the more surprised to find the pass itself marked by a small iron cross, showing that it was at all events frequented by the country people. They now also ascertained the secret cause of their guide's acquaintance with it. He admitted that he had frequently travelled that way with bands of smugglers, who avail themselves of these less-frequented passes to introduce into the Piedmontese valleys various contraband articles which are of free commerce in Switzerland. to be in a state of frightful decay, and covered nature, and, as it were, the more immediate pres- The party reached the Col de Collon in three hours from the Châlet. It was a bright and beautiful autumnal morning, and they sat a long time among the rocks enjoying the noble scene, which, however, notwithstanding its height of 10,333 feet, is by no means extensive, so much is it surrounded by summits of still more majestic elevation. As they were now far above the limits where water occurs upon a glacier, the professor had recourse to his portable furnace, with which he melted a sufficiency of snow for the use of the party, ascertaining, at the same time, the temperature of boiling water to be then and there 195° 15'. Our readers of the fairer sex will bear in mind that it has been ascertained that the temperature of the boil-help, and human sympathy-our loneliness with ing point falls one degree of Fahrenheit for every 550 feet of ascent, uniformly for all heights; so that the making of a good cup of tea on the summit of The strong guide of Biona then raised the rigid a lofty mountain may be not only a friendly but a form, and ransacked the clothing, with a view to philosophical occupation. After an hour of great discover something which might tend to identify enjoyment, they renewed their journey in a cheerful mood, in order to descend the lengthened stretch the dead. They found, however, nothing in the of ice which lay before them. When fairly abreast pockets but a knife and snuff-box, and, concealed in a waistband, a little treasury of mixed coins of of Mont Collon, the guide startled the air by very Switzerland and Piedmont. It was afterwards a wild cry, rousing the rarely awakened echoes of those stupendous precipices, which sent back the ascertained at the Châlets of Arolla that towards sound in still more fantastic tones. He stated that the end of October of the preceding year, a party this echo was well known to the smugglers, and of twelve men had set off to cross the Col, but that the reverberation of the mountain served to being overtaken by a tremendous storm they deterguide them in foggy weather-" in a track," adds mined to return-a resolution adopted too late for Mr. Forbes," which must then be singularly per- with cold, were at last abandoned in the snow. three, who, worn out with fatigue, and benumbed ilous, from the great breadth and monotony of the glacier, and the number of branches into which it Two of the bodies had been previously recovered, divides, any one of which might easily be mistaken and now measures were immediately taken to have the third brought down for interment. A little farther on traces were found of another vic for another." But while thus amusing themselves with merry shoutings, and listening to the answering voices of those "viewless spirits of the elements," their attention was suddenly attracted to a far different matter. "A dark object was descried on the snow to our left, just under the precipices of Mont Collon. We were not yet low enough to have entered on the ice, but were still on snow. This proved to be the body of a man fully clothed, fallen with his head in the direction in which we were going. From the appearance of the body as it lay, it might have been presumed to be recent; but when it was raised, the head and face were found tim-shreds of clothes and remnants of a knapsack-but the fleshy tabernacle had disappeared. "Still lower, the remains of the bones and skin of two chamois, and near them the complete bones of a man. The latter were arranged in a very singular manner, nearly the whole skeleton being then in detached bones, laid in order along the ice the skull lowest, next the arms and ribs, and finally the bones of the pelvis, legs, and feet, disposed along the glacier, so that the distance between the head and feet might be five yards-a disposition certainly arising from some natural cause not very easy to assign."-p. 281. Our friends now descended to the western branch | melted so much more completely than on the forof the head of the Val d'Erin, by continuing their mer occasion as to cut off all communication with course down the great glacier of Arolla. This the glacier, for there was a height of at least glacier is quite normal in its structure, exemplify- by no means circumvent. Thus, all was to do thirty vertical feet of rocky wall, which we could ing well the parallel and vertical bands, sweeping round in the conoidal forms proper to the terminal or unsupported portion. "The stream which descends the valley rises from beneath an arch of ice at the foot of the glacier. The bottom of the valley is wide, gravelly; and waste. A number of desolate and stunted pine trees occupy the western bank, and seem chilled by the near approach of the ice; many are dead, and some fallen. They serve to give a scale to the majestic scenery behind. Their species is the pinus cembra, the hardiest of their class which grows to any size in Switzerland, and they are consequently to be met with at great elevations. This pine has various names. In the patois of Savoy, and many other places, it is called Arolla,' whence the name of the valley and glacier. It yields an edible fruit, and the wood is soft, and well fitted for carving, for which it is preferred, especially in the Tyrol and Eastern Alps."-p. 282. Descending to Evolena, the pedestrians were received after a most cold and niggardly fashion in the dwelling of the curé, whose sister, "a person of ungovernable temper and rude manners, seemed to find pleasure in the arrival of strangers only as fresh subjects whereon to vent her spleen, and to show how heartily she despised the inhabitants of her brother's parish, compared to the aristocratic burghers of the decayed town of Sion," her usual residence. We have no doubt that her inhospitality was exceeded only by her ugliness, but on this point the philosopher is silent. Jaded by a fatiguing journey, and without any prospect of beds for the night, she let them sit around a table, for a couple of hours, till some soup, prepared from their own rice, was at last placed before them. At a late hour in the evening they were told that one bed might be had somewhere in the village; so they left the manse, shaking the dust from their feet, and proceeded to their destined lodging, where, drawing lots for the place of repose, our professor gained the prize. "Where M. Studer slept never transpired;-he had, however, spent a night of misery"—-and they parted shortly afterwards, under agreement to meet again at Zermatt. We close our citations with a fragment from the professor's descent in that direction upon the glacier of Zmutt. "Pralong proposed to attempt descending the cliff, by which he recollected to have passed when he last crossed, and to have successfully reached the glacier below. We began cautiously to descend, for it was an absolute precipice: Pralong first, and I following, leaving the other guides to wait about the middle, until we should see whether or not a passage could be effected. The precipice was several hundred feet high. Some bad turns were passed, and I began to hope that no insurmountable difficulty would appear, when Pralong announced that the snow this year had over again, and the cliff was reäscended. We looked right and left for a more feasible spot, but descried none. Having regained the snows above, we cautiously skirted the precipice until we should the rocks became mostly masked under steep find a place favorable to the attempt. At length snow-slopes, and down one of these, Pralong, with no common courage, proposed to venture, and put himself at once in the place of danger. We were now separated by perhaps but 200 feet from soft deep snow, lying at a high angle. There was the glacier beneath. The slope was chiefly of no difficulty in securing our footing in it, but the danger was of producing an avalanche by our weight. This, it may be thought, was a small matter, if we were to alight on the glacier below; but such a surface of snow upon rock rarely connects with a glacier without a break, and we all knew very well that the formidable Bergschrund' was open to receive the avalanche and its charge if it should take place. We had no ladder, but a pretty long rope. Pralong was tied to it. We all held fast on the rope, having planted ourselves as well as we could on the slope of snow, and let him down by degrees, to ascertain the nature and breadth of the crevasse, of which the upper edge icicles. Were that covering to fail, he might be usually overhangs like the roof of a cave, dropping plunged, and drag us, into a chasm beneath. He, however, effected the passage with a coolness which I have never seen surpassed, and shouted the intelligence that the chasm had been choked by previous avalanches, and that we might pass without danger. He then (having loosed himself from the rope) proceeded to explore the footing on the glacier, leaving me and the other two guides to extricate ourselves. I descended first by the rope, then Biona, and lastly Tairraz, who, being unsupported, did not at all like the slide, the termination of which it was quite impossible to see from above. We then followed Pralong, and proceeded with great precaution to sound our way down the upper glacier of Zmutt, which is here sufficiently steep to be deeply fissured, and which is covered with perpetual snow, now soft with the heat of the morning sun. It was a dangerous passage, and required many wide circuits; but at length we reached, in a slanting direction, the second terrace or precipice of rock which separates the upper and lower glacier of Zmutt. When we were fairly on the debris we stopped to repose, and to congratulate ourselves on the success of this wished to ask a favor of me. To my astonishdifficult passage. Pralong then said that he ment, this was that he might be allowed to return to Erin instead of descending the glacier to Zermatt. He was afraid, he said, of change of weather, and did not wish to lose time by going round by Visp. Of course I readily granted his request, and paid him the full sum agreed upon. To return all alone (and it was now afternoon) over the track we had just accomplished was a piece of spirit which would scarcely have entered the imagination of any of the corps of guides of Chamouni. I almost hesitated at allowing him to expose himself, but he was resolved and confident; and having given him most of the provisions, and all the wine, we saw him depart."-pp. 304-306. We have not touched on many instructive and entertaining chapters; but enough, we hope, has been done to give our readers some notion of glacier-exploring, and also of the skill with which this energetic successor of Playfair manages to combine scientific disquisition and picturesque description. From the Examiner. LES HOMMES DES LETTRES. M. Comte is the inventor of one of the most efficient checks upon the licentiousness of the press that have ever yet been found. The stamp on French journals being about a half-penny, and the postage but four fifths of one, of course all journals go through the post office. Any fine morning M. Comte gives an order, that all the numbers of any journal shall be seized and sealed up in a bag. He may do this for a week consecutively, thereby burking the journal. Should the law authorities prosecute the said journal, and should it be acquitted, M. Comte returns the papers-six months after date. But in no case can any editor or action against M. Comte; proprietor bring an they must first obtain leave of the Council of State, and that gentleman is of course one of its members. This being on the orthodox plan of prevention better than cure, we recommend it to Sir James, whom the queen's press certainly doth abuse most vilely. Ir was the custom in France in Napoleon's time, and in that of Louis the Eighteenth, for the solemn sittings of cabinet councils to be opened, not by prayer and thanksgiving, but by a daily report from the police and the post office. Before entering upon the grave discussion of the business of the nation, the council was enlightened as to the comings and goings of this and that personage, In parts of Germany, not the most envied, perwith extracts from their letters, revelations of their sons who write, and don't like to have their seals amours, and records of their social quarrels. A broken-for when they are awkwardly broken prime minister once protested against this custom the letter is sacrificed-put their names on the as an egregious loss of time. back of the letters, and some add a summary of "Do you want to the contents. rob me of the only entertaining part of cabinet This saves police and post office councils?" asked the king. "You can't expect much trouble, and might be adopted advantame to sit out your solemn tragedies unless you geously by the refugee population around the Hayindulge me in my police and post office inter-market during the administration of the Baronet ludes." The other ministers agreed with the of Netherby. monarch, who was always put in good humor The paternal government of Austria has a way by prying into the billet-dour of his courtiers. of its own. Fouché had a collection that would have furnished forth another edition of Brantome's Dames Galantes. No one knew where he kept it. Napoleon, who paid him to spy, paid another genius to act spy upon him. As the whole French system has been transplanted and acclimated here, we wonder who is employed to watch Sir James. Quis custodiet istum custodem. our But Louis Philippe keeps a man of letters and research far more clever than either Fouché or Graham. His insight is quite miraculous, and his mode of arriving at the contents of a letter without breaking the seal is indeed prodigious. No Mazzini ever complained in France that his letters were opened, no Stolzman dunned a Liberal deputy to state that his missives were interrupted. And this is statesmanship as it should be. A chancellor of the exchequer should pick our pockets without superadding the annoyance of being conscious of it, and a home secretary should read our letters without disturbing our confidence by stating the mean fact. "They manage these matters better in France." M. Comte is Louis Philippe's man of letters, a gay, convivial, courtly old gentleman, and with such a fund of anecdote the latter easily accounted for. He is a walking Biographie des Contemporains, knows everything that was said, thought or written by an eminent personage of either sex for the last forty years. No man has brought to such perfection as Comte the art of judging of people's characters by their hand-writing. Sir J. Graham might go to school to him. One inestimable quality of such a master would be invaluable to such a pupil-this is the impossibility of being turned out of his office. Most Liberal ministers, who have come into power in France, have commenced by insisting on the removal of M. Comte. All were convinced in a few minutes, that the thing was impossible, or, at least, that it would be attended with the greatest possible inconvenience-to themselves. It is most anxious after the health of its subjects, and is haunted by the idea that the plague might circulate in a letter, or the cholera be enwrapped in a billet-doux. The Austrian police therefore breaks the seal, unfolds the letter, takes a copy of the contents by some very awkward mode of impression, which leaves the letter as if it had come off a lithographic stone, and then the double-headed eagle is stamped upon every page. The sight of this tutelary eagle ensures to the worthy Austrian that his letter is free from either plague or political sin, and he blesses the providence of the emperor. Why should not the Netherby arms attest the purity of John Bull's correspondence after examination? We trust that a commission will be appointed to inquire into and collect these foreign improvements in so interesting a science. The practice of sending commercial delegates has been abandoned, from the hopelessness of concluding treatowards them. Let the salaries be transferred to ties, or the determination to make no concession ABC division of St. Martin's-le-Grand, and the delegates from the A division of Bow street, the PRY council chamber of Whitehall. DOMESTIC GAS-APPARATUS.-Scientific journals notice, among their novelties, an apparatus for the production of gas from any fire which is kept in constant use, such as a common kitchen grate, a steam-engine or other large furnace. The invention is the property of Messrs. Cordon and Smith of Nottingham, who have recently obtained a patent for the apparatus, which is described as exceedingly simple and manageable, and capable of generating an abundant supPly of gas at little or no expense beyond the original cost. We have slight hopes, we must confess, of every household becoming its own gas manufacturer; but if the promise of the invention be fulfilled, there can be no doubt of its adoption in factories and other establishments having furnaces at their command, and requiring an almost constant supply of this now necessary article of illumination.-Chambers' Journal. From the Quarterly Review. Die Königliche Rede an einen Katelischen Bischoff, &c. Frankfort, 1842. which we ourselves owe to the Reformation, and lish Revolution, the Pope speaks, or rather is made to speak, in very strong terms of certain unquiet spirits which had been for many years troubling the Holy See with unreasonable requests-requests which, although always refused, were with unconquerable pertinacity continually renewed; but they who merely read this letter were as much in the dark as ever as to the nature of these demands; it was not the intention, as it was not the policy, of the Court of Rome to declare them openly. The subject has been referred time, but always in such a way that none could to in divers journals and pamphlets from time to understand the points at issue save those who had other means of information. The censorship of the press, which in most Roman Catholic countries, is in the hands of ecclesiastics, and generally of Dominicans, effectually prevents any thing from transpiring that could give information to the bosom of the Roman Church itself has much Roman Catholic laity: and no question within the chance to attract the attention of Protestant polem ists. M. TOPFER, born and bred a Genevese republican and Calvinist, observes in his entertaining "Voyages en Zigzags," p. 457, on entering into Italy, "on reconnoît, bientôt qu'on vient d'entrer dans une contrée sui generis, dévote mais religieuse, fidèle à son culte, à ses traditions, à ses mœurs, saine à sa manière; chez une nation enfin, et non pas chez un assemblage d'esprits sans lien et sans unité" Fully alive to all the blessings more keenly sensible than most, from a thorough and intimate knowledge, derived from long residence in the bosom of Romanist families, both at home and abroad, of the practical evils of the papal system, we, nevertheless, acknowledge that we never passed from France or Switzerland into Italy without something near akin to the feeling so well expressed by M. Topfer. It is, therefore, with no unmixed pleasure that we proceed to give an account of certain workings which have been long operating secretly amongst the members of because nothing but the fear of schism has preWe say within the bosom of the church itselfthe Church of Rome, and which must soon pro- vented many members of the Church of Rome in duce a division amongst them, similar to that which has just taken place in the Church of Scot-Germany from long ere now taking effectual land. Not that we have any disposition to justify which they complain. Down to this moment they measures for ensuring the redress of the things of or palliate tyranny and cruelty, civil or ecclesiasti- have avowed and acted on the resolution not to cal, in Russia or in Rome. But we confess that, admit of any discussion of, or departure from, any looking at the European continent as a whole, it is not from that quarter that we think the danger desire of alteration to such things as are mere one doctrine or article of faith; confining their is most imminent. To exclaim in these days matters of discipline, and which the Pope might against oppression and superstition is much as if a Frenchman, an Italian, or a German, in the midst rectify to-morrow if he pleased; and, till very of a deluge of rain, were to be taking precautions lately, they also professed their determination to suffer anything rather than produce a separation against a fire. It is impossible to have resided in from the See of Rome. A change, however, has these countries, and not sympathize to some extent with those sober and reflective natives who dread now been wrought on this latter point-and fully all attempts to gain increased liberty and increased admitting the dangers of schism, and all the diffireligious light by appeals to the million, as being culty of preserving, after separation, anything like but masks for the furtherance of revolution and authority in matters of government or doctrineinfidelity. If it were necessary to choose between these evils rather than suffer the things of which they are, nevertheless, at last resolved to risk all any such extremes, most Englishmen would prefer to live under the government of Austria rather they complain to continue. than in America, and the faith of Rome to the (so called) theology of the North of Germany. Those amongst our readers who are acquainted with the Life of Monseigneur de Wessenberg, the Prince Primate of Constance, are aware of the contest which was carried on during the whole of his episcopate between him and the Roman government; but in this, as in most similar cases, the true source of disagreement does not appear in any printed account:-all that is manifest is a mere skirmishing of outposts, not the real cause of war. In like manner, in the encyclical letter to the bishops in Poland, transmitted at the time of the Po *The words in the EPISTOLA ENCYCLICA (1832) are as follows: Agamus idcirco in unitate spiritûs communem nostram, seu verius Dei causam, et contra communes hostes pro totius populi salute una omnium sit vigilantia, una contentio. "Id porro apprime præstabitis, si, quod vestri, muneris ratio postulat, attendatis vobis, et doctrinæ, illud assidue revolventes animo, universalem ecclesiam quâcumque novitate pulsari, atque, ex sancto Agathonis pontificis monitu, nihil de iis quæ sunt regulariter definita minui debere, nihil mutari, nihil adjici, sed ea et verbis et sensibus illibata esse custodienda. Immota inde consistet firmitas unitatis, quæ hâc B. Petri Cathedrà suo veluti fundamento continetur, ut undè in ecclesias omnes venerandæ communionis jura dimanant: ibi universis et mu It is obvious that these persons must have a rus sit, et securitas, et portus expers fluctuum, et bono- "In hoc ideò elaborandum vobis est, assiduèque vigi- very strong case, or at least think they have a very | had been the intention of any body of men to cor strong case, before, with such sentiments as we rupt the morals of the human race, to habituate have described them to hold, they could be brought children of both sexes to impurity, filth, and proffito adopt the measures they now contemplate. gacy, it would have been impossible to have Slowly and reluctantly must they have made up devised a scheme more completely adapted to protheir minds that, without a bold movement against duce that effect than the practise of the confesauthority, their case is a hopeless one. They are sional, as it is now carried on in the Church of well aware of the difficulties they must find in Rome. The common sense of mankind, the ordijustifying their final resolution to the Roman nary feelings of morality, would have made it Catholic world at large; and one great difficulty impossible to carry into practice such a project, with which they have to contend, and which is a unless it had assumed the mask of religious duty difficulty to us in stating their case now, arises to God; and when the sense of morality is so far from their justification being complete exactly in deadened, as that any persons should suppose that the proportion in which it is unfit for the eye of burning alive can be well pleasing to God, it is not the public. difficult for such to imagine that obscenity in thought and language should be so likewise. Whilst it is obvious that it is impossible here to prove our assertion, we will at least furnish the means by which any one who is so inclined may satisfy himself; we recommend such an one to read the ordinary English Roman Catholic prayerbook, called, "The Garden of the Soul," at the parts which relate to self-examination in order to confession; next, the books which are written to instruct the priests to extort from reluctant females in the confession things which no pure-minded woman has ever imagined; e. g., “La Méthode pour la direction des ames dans le tribunal de la Pénitence, et pour le gouvernement des Paroisses, The four points upon which they have been insisting are, first, that the public worship shall be performed in all countries in the vernacular tongue; secondly, that the cup shall be given, as well as the bread, in the Sacrament, to the laity; thirdly, that the frequenting of the confessional shall not be compulsory; fourthly, that vows of celibacy shall not be obligatory on the clergy. fessioni della gente di campagna, Bologna, 1824;" "Le Rituel de Toulon;" or any similar books which make in all countries the stock in trade of a priest, and some or other of which are to be found in all their houses; and then let them read any work of Theologia Moralis on the confessional and the seventh commandment. With regard to the first of these points-they complain not of the doctrine that "the law of the church is one and unchangeable;" but they assert and complain that the doctrine has been pushed and used so as to have the effect of a fraud. They complain that the priests of Rome have multiplied the unchangeable laws to an extent which they Paris, 1834;" "Il Confessore diretto per le conknow it is impossible to maintain, in order that they may obtain money for dispensations to break them. They complain, too, that this particular law against vernacular prayers has been relaxed elsewhere-but not for them. In France the people commonly use a prayer-book called the "Paroissien," which has the Latin service and the French translation in parallel columns; but This subject in Protestant countries is merely such a work is prohibited in Italy, Spain, Portu- either a matter of speculation and theory, or a gal, and all countries where the power of the handle for controversialists wherewith to attack church is absolute. In the North of Germany papists—a task for which, it must be confessed. and the Tyrol they use a German mass-book, but the heroes of "discussion meetings" are singuit is rarely to be met with in Austria, Bohemia, or larly ill qualified. But with the honest eccleStyria. Nor let it not be supposed that this is a siastics of Germany, the Tyrol, German Switzerquestion affecting the laity only; a large majority land, Poland, Bohemia, and Hungary, these things of the priests in these regions are as ignorant of are no speculations and theories, but sad and the meaning of the Latin which they chaunt, as painful realities. They know that corruption of the Jews are of the Hebrew which they read in the youthful mind is the natural and almost invathe synagogue. Jews and Romish priests learn to riable result; and some are determined that the read Hebrew and Latin, but they do not learn to fruits of this system shall not be hid in a corner understand it; even in the towns, to say nothing any more; but, let the consequences be what they of the country parishes very many priests under-may, the secret recesses of infamy shall be exstand no more of Latin than the people; and posed, and the system be put an end to. hence the importance, even as respects the clergy, It is impossible in the very nature of things that of this first point for which they are contending. a young female, or almost any female, can have On the second point, the custom of the Church such a burden on her conscience as can make her of Rome is for none but the celebrants to partake desire often to resort to special and private confesof the chalice; the expression, therefore, "re-sion to a priest; and certainly it ought not to be fusing the cup to the laity," so common at Exeter tolerated that she should have indecent thoughts Hall and elsewhere, is not correct; priests are as suggested to her, even at the early age of seven much refused as laymen if they present them- years old; for at this period do they begin to selves to receive the blessed sacrament; but they insinuate their filth in the convents in which girls seldom present themselves, because each one are commonly educated. The heads of the church ought to say mass himself every day, and there-themselves admit the liability of abuse through the fore he would not go a second time to receive it. It is certainly remarkable that of the two elements, the one of which it is specially said, "Drink ye ALL of it," should be that one which is refused to all. With the third point commences our difficulty, and one before which we confess ourselves compelled to yield; we are precluded from the possibility of proving our position, and we must state at once our conclusion, which is this-that if it confessional, and frequent exhortations are published desiring all women who have improper solicitations made to them there to denounce the confessor; but a moment's consideration will show the inutility of this exhortation; and one instance which we will give must suffice for all. Italian gentleman of our acquaintance removed with his family from the place of his nativity to a town in another state; soon after their arrival the wife went to the confessional in the parish church, An |