which impedes her in the performance of her proper functions. A hundred examples prove that she will be none the less religious when a doctrinal profession is no longer a passport to her offices. That she should again become, as in the first and brightest period of her history, the intellectual leader of the country, is not be looked for, although even now it is hard to over-estimate the value of places where science may be cultivated apart from its practical results, where learning may be pursued more deeply than by men engaged in active professions, where the real bearings of a political problem may be investigated away from the disturbing influence of party conflicts, where, in the common meeting ground of all studies, the relations of the several branches of human knowledge and their methods may be most fitly discussed. But, admitting the narrower scope of her present duties, enough is left to make her welfare a matter of the most vital interest to all of us. In the Middle Ages she was national, and it was because the learning and intelligence of the whole people centred in her that her mission was so great and so beneficent. She was then the constant foe of Ultramontanism, as well as the foremost leader of domestic progress. That position she cannot indeed resume, nor is it to be wished that she should; but she may still confer incalculable benefits on the people, if released from the control of a party, which, while it cherishes all that was worst and weakest in the mediæval system, sets itself to oppose the spirit, of which the medieval University was the chosen seat, the spirit of progress and intelligence. To the modern University that spirit may again return, when, by ceasing to be a sectarian, she has become a national institution, and when the removal of obsolete restrictions has set her once more free for her own great work of education.

ART. V.-1. A Map of the Chain of Mont Blanc, from a Survey by A. ADAMS REILLY, Esq. Privately Photographed, 1864. 2. The Alpine Journal. Vol. I. 1864. 8vo. Longman and

Co.

3. Scenes from the Snow Fields of Mont Blanc. By EDMUND T. COLEMAN, Esq. With Coloured Lithographs by VINCENT BROOKS. Folio. 1859. Longman and Co.

COULD Windham and Pococke revisit Chamouni in the year of grace 1865, after their sleep of a century, no doubt they would be somewhat astonished. Instead of the poor cabaret, with its bush hanging out as a sign, they would find luxurious hotels, thronged by wealthy and fashionable parties, and placarded with advertisements in English of the "Chamouni Hotels Company (Limited); capital, £100,000!" Not less would the pious. Saint François de Sales be scandalized to find his priory defunct, and a place of English Protestant worship built not far from the massive Catholic church erected during his episcopacy. But it may be doubted whether the consternation of these worthies would not be exceeded by that of the great De Saussure (though he lived far later than either), to find that parties of active young Englishmen, fresh from barristers' chambers and mercantile counting-houses, stroll unconcernedly amongst the "seracs" of the glaciers of Géant and Bossons, start one morning à l'improviste for the summit of Mont Blanc, and cross as many dangerous cols, and ascend as many aiguilles in one week as the sedate Genevese (more frugal in his excitements) thought of undertaking in a twelvemonth. We say nothing here of the spirit of feminine adventure, of bivouacs at the Tacul, and of pic-nics at the Jardin; these are every-day

matters.

It is refreshing to think that while fashion and civilisation have altered so much, Nature in her stupendous constancy remains unchanged. A new road or bridge may make a scar here or there, but the trace is lost amidst the gigantic scenery around; cultivation may be pressed a little higher than formerly, but the eternal hills and the inexhaustible ice-floods keep their own without challenge. The voice of gay or of discordant music, the rattle of equipages, and the many-tongued voice of the crowd, assembled out of every nation under heaven, are altogether but as an inaudible whisper in the boundlessness of that mountain space, whose echoes can resound only to the crash of thunder, the ill-boding fitful noise of distant cataracts, and the roar of the icy avalanche. Happily, we say, there are some things which human art cannot utterly spoil. Of these

Chamouni (by which we mean the Alpine district of which it is the capital) is one.

To return for a few moments to Windham and Pococke. Their visit to Chamouni and Montanvert took place in June 1741. It was related with much simplicity and absence of exaggeration, in a letter from Mr. Windham to his friend M. Arlaud, a landscape-painter at Geneva, which was published later (1743) as a small quarto pamphlet, in English, which appears to be rare, as but a single copy has ever fallen under the notice of the present writer.

It is quite true, in a general sense, that Windham and his companions were the discoverers of Chamouni. Unquestionably, a Priory had existed there for several centuries previously. It had been visited by bishops and other dignified clergy in the course of their ecclesiastical journeys; the valley was inhabited and cultivated, had an annual fair, and traded with the neighbouring town of Sallenches in agricultural produce. But all this did not bring it within the ken of the general outer world, or even of the more curious prying travellers and naturalists, the Simlers, the Merians, the Fatios, the Wagners, and the Scheuchzers, not to mention foreigners, such as Burnett and Addison.1 It appears to be unquestionable, however surprising, that the cultivated men of Geneva had never yet thought of penetrating to the foot of that noble snowy range, which forms one of the chief glories of their landscape; nay, they believed that the mass of the glaciers lay to the north, instead of the south of Chamouni; that is to say, between Chamouni and Sixt. J. C. Fatio de Duillier, a Genevese of some reputation, and a member of the Royal Society of London (where, however, his brother Nicolas was better known), although he estimated with considerable accuracy the height of Mont Blanc from trigonometrical measures taken at a distance, propagated these errors, and manifested the same incredible absence of curiosity. This was in the first quarter of the eighteenth century. Chamouni and the district of Mont Blanc

1 Chamouni knew more of the outer world than the outer world knew of Chamouni. The natives, with what appears to be the instinct of the Savoyard and the dwellers in the Piedmontese valleys, even at that early period, went abroad in the prime of life to learn trades and make money in foreign countries, but generally returned to settle and to die in their native glens. Let us here say, once for all, that we adhere to the good oldfashioned spelling of Chamouni, sanctioned by De Saussure, in preference to the modern official corruption of Chamonix. The derivation of the name is ascribed by Captain Sherwill, with great probability, to the Latin words campus munitus, by which it is designated in an early monastic charter. And it is interesting to find in Scheuchzer's map of Switzerland, antecedent to the time of Windham, that the spelling is given Chammuny, approaching still nearer to the Latin.

were to all intents and purposes (save ecclesiastical) unknown. to the outer world until Windham's journey; and its subsequent notoriety is directly traceable to that alone. So that our modern guide-books (such as Mr. Murray's and Mr. Ball's) have gone somewhat towards the opposite extreme from the older ones of Ebel and Reichard, when they represent Chamouni to have been well known to strangers at the period to which we refer.

Windham and Pococke were both remarkable men; and we think it not without interest for our readers to note a few particulars respecting the society of Englishmen who thus invaded the peaceful valley which has since become so celebrated. Pococke, the best known of the group, had just returned from his important travels in the East, which had lasted from 1737 to 1741, when, happening to pass through Geneva, he became associated with a party of his countrymen, who for several winters had made that city their home. This intelligent and cultivated society consisted of William Windham of Felbrigg, in Norfolk, father of the statesman who was the contemporary and colleague of Pitt; his tutor Benjamin Stillingfleet, the naturalist; Lord Haddington and his brother Mr. Baillie, with their tutor Mr. Williamson, an eminent but somewhat eccentric scholar; Mr. Aldborough Neville, an ancestor of the present Lord Braybrooke; Robert Price, a man of great worth and accomplishment, father of Uvedale Price; Mr. Chetwynd; and last of all Pococke, as already mentioned, who joined, but did not originate the expedi

All those above named, except Mr. Williamson (whose health did not allow it) took part in the excursion to Chamouni. But Windham was the leader, for which post his alert, muscular, and ardent temperament well fitted him. He is described as having been tall, thin, and narrow-chested, yet eminently handsome, so fond of athletic sport as to have been known in London as "boxing Windham." He rather affected the air of a gay man of fashion, impatient of restraint, yet he was an excellent linguist, and was acquainted besides with the sciences and fine arts to an extent of which few believed him capable. Had he lived a hundred years later, he must inevitably have been first President of the Alpine Club. He was exemplary in private life, and several of his friends have recorded the attachment which he inspired; especially his tutor Stillingfleet, both in prose and verse.1 Windham and Price both died in 1761; Pococke in 1765, having previously become an Irish bishop.

1 See Literary Life of Benjamin Stillingfleet, 3 vols. 1811. From this interesting work we have extracted these particulars of Windham. Had it not appeared too great a digression, some account of the other members of this remarkable group of men might have been added.

Next to Windham, Price and Stillingfleet seem to have taken most interest in the expedition to Chamouni; the former acted as draughtsman, the latter as naturalist. It is stated in a Swiss publication that Pococke amazed the population of Sallenches by appearing in the dress of an Arabian Emir, an account which seems scarcely probable. The journey was undertaken in June 1741, and occupied seven days. The first they slept at Bonneville; the second at Servoz; the third, they proceeded to Chamouni, visited Montanvert, descended on the glacier, and returned to Chamouni to sleep. The fourth day they slept at Sallenches, the fifth at Bonneville. There is no exaggeration to be found in the narrative. Considering the unfrequented nature of the country, and the size and character of the party, it was natural for them to take their own servants, horses, provisions, and a tent. That they carried fire-arms was conformable to the habits of travellers of the period, even in Britain. Windham's party were too short a time on the glacier to make more than passing observations. That it resembled the seas of Greenland, or a lake put in agitation by a strong wind and frozen all at once, were the apt comparisons by which they described it. The magnificent slab on the Moraine near Montanvert, which has the names of Windham and Pococke painted on it, still traditionally commemorates the spot where they took refreshment. It has been immemorially called "La pierre des Anglais," but was unfortunately broken in half some years ago by some foolish persons lighting a fire upon it. Another possibly less certain tradition exists, that one Tairraz, an ancestor of the present or recent proprietor of the Hôtel de Londres, had the honour of lodging the English party in his humble inn, and that Windham himself suggested the name for the hotel.

Windham, by his letter to Arlaud the Genevese, had made known the wonders of Chamouni to the curious of that capital, who for ages had lingered listlessly under the shadow of Mont Blanc. In 1742, accordingly, a party from Geneva, better provided than the English had been with the means of observation, made a more detailed survey of the Valley of Chamouni and the Mer de Glace. They made a sort of rude survey of the ground, measured the heights of some mountains, and recorded many useful and correct observations on the phenomena of glaciers, as well as on the mineralogy of the district. Pierre Martel, an engineer and teacher of mathematics, seems to have taken the lead in this matter, and published an English account of it in a letter to Windham, along with which we find, for the first time, Windham's own letter to Arlaud.1

1 The full title of the book or pamphlet is, "An Account of the Glaciers or Ice Alps in Savoy, in Two Letters, one from an English Gentleman [Wind