THE VALLEY OF SERVOZ.

A SAVOYARD TALE.

Servoz! sweet Servoz! there is not a Vale
On Earth's green bosom nursed, so beautiful
As thou! How lovely yon cerulean sky
Glittering with blue and gold, and all the charms
It canopies. The purple vines which feed

On thy rich veins; the flowers whose fragrant breath
Satiate the sense with sweetness; the tall groves
With their eternal whisperings in thine ear,
Of blessedness and joy; thy guardian fence
Of hills which o'er thee rise, Alp over Alp,
As though each peer'd above his fellow, anxious
To snatch a glance at thee; and sweeter still,
Thy Vale's deep quiet, which no sound disturbs,
Save the sweet brawling of the silver Arve;
The wild bee's hum; the grasshopper's shrill note;
And distant tinklings mingled with the lay
Which the swarth peasant o'er the furrow chaunts,
Echoed by village maids. But most I love
Thy Churchyard's grassy precincts: in such spots,
While the foot rambles, the soul treasures up
Truth's holiest lessons; and as the green-sward
Springs freshest over graves, so there the heart
Brings forth it's kindliest feelings, and distils
Dews precious as the drops which fall from heaven.
HENRY NEELE.

It was in the Summer of the year 1820 that, at the close of a fine July day, I found myself, for

the first time, in the village of Servoz. This is a beautiful, quiet group of cottages, deposited, if I may use the term, in the bosom of the Valley from which it takes it's name, in one of the most romantic and secluded parts of Savoy. It is impossible for language to do justice to the delightful and varied scenery which surrounds it. That peculiar characteristic of Alpine views, the union of wildness with fertility, is here exhibited in a surprising degree. The Valley seems absolutely saturated with the sweetness and the fecundity of Nature. Flowers of the most brilliant hues and enchanting fragrance, and fruits of the most delicious flavour, abound in every part; in the middle is seen the river Arve, in some places leaping and foaming over the rocks by which it's course is impeded, and in others quietly watering the Valley. All around rise gigantic hills, the bases of which are clothed with vines; whilst midway extend enormous forests, and on their summits is a mantle of everlasting snow. At the time at which I was entering the Village, the whole scene was surmounted by a clear, blue sky, of whose glorious tints those who have never travelled out of England cannot have the faintest conception; and the setting Sun had thrown it's own radiant hues upon Mont Blanc; whose summit, even while I gazed upon it, became suddenly changed from a brilliant

white to a gorgeous red, and "Sun-set," as Lord Byron expresses it, "into rose-hues saw it wrought." This gradually faded away, exhibiting, as the Sun declined, the most exquisite variety of colour, until the brilliant white, which can be compared to nothing so well as to molten silver, resumed it's original dominion.

Be

There is much truth in the maxim of Rousseau, that "On s'exerce a voir comme a sentir, ou plutôt une vue exquise n'est qu'un sentiment delicat et fin." Certainly, the same scenes excite very different emotions in different minds; and even in the same mind at different moments. this as it may, at the time of which I am writing, I felt as fully persuaded as ever Sterne did, that I had a Soul; and, like him, could have defied all the materialists in the world to persuade me to the contrary. On arriving at such a place, the first objects of my research are the Village Inn, and the Church-yard; for from those places I gather the history of the spot, and get an insight into the minds and manners of the inhabitants. I see them in the house of mirth, and in the house of mourning; I mix with them in the pleasures, and in the business of life; and I learn how they support the intrusions of death, and what are their hopes beyond the regions of mortality. On this

occasion, not finding much to interest me at the Inn, I merely took some slight refreshment, and, disencumbering myself from the staff and wallet with which I had performed my journey, proceeded to take a ramble among the tombs. They were many and interesting. Here rested the Patriarch of the Village, gathered full of years and honours to his fathers. There, a modest stone told a simple but melancholy tale of an unfortunate Traveller engulphed in a glacier, as he was travelling these lonely, but dangerous, regions without a guide. Here the Soldier rested from the battle, and the Chamois-hunter from the chase. The gay ceased to smile, and the unhappy forgot to weep; Death garnered up his harvest here, and methought that there was among it food that might be wholesome and invigorating for the mind.

Amongst those memorials of the dead, there was one by which I found my steps irresistibly arrested : this was a heap of turf, surrounded by beds of flowers. It was undistinguished by any stone; but a wooden cross, of the rudest workmanship, was raised upon it, on which hung a chaplet of lilies. The cross was evidently some years old, but the lilies were fresh gathered, and blooming; and some young girls were watering the flowerbeds which surrounded the grave. From them, and

from others of the neighbours, I gathered the history of this tomb. It was a simple tale: but I have seen tears raining plenteously at it's recital, from some of the brightest eyes which ever borrowed from southern suns their lustre, and their warmth; and big drops roll down the faded cheeks of age like juices forced from fruits which seemed withering upon their stalks.

If the rustic annalists of the Valley of Servoz may be credited, there never moved upon the earth a being more exquisitely beautiful than Annette de la Cluse. Her form was tall, and moulded to the finest symmetry; her eyes black and sparkling; and her hair of the same colour, and almost of the same brightness. Some of the rural connoisseurs of the Village considered her face too pale: as it has been described to me, it must have been beautifully fair; but the sun of that climate, which usually marks the daughters of the Valley for his own, had so slightly tinged her cheeks with the rose, that it was only in moments of extraordinary animation and feeling that it was perceptible; and during the last year of her life it entirely vanished. Her disposition was pensive, but far from gloomy; and during the little Village festivals, with which the Romish Calendars abound, a more gay and hearty laugh was seldom heard