The bust of M. Rocca[C] was standing in the Baron de Stael’s dressing-room:  I was more struck with it than any thing I saw, not only as a chef-d’oeuvre, but from the perfect and regular beauty of the head, and the charm of the expression.  It was just such a mouth as we might suppose to have uttered his well-known reply—­“Je l’aimerai tellement qu’elle finira par m’aimer.” Madame de Stael had a son by this marriage, who had just been brought home by his brother, the Baron, from a school in the neighbourhood.  He is about seven years old.  If we may believe the servant, Madame de Stael did not acknowledge this son till just before her death; and she described the wonder of the boy on being brought home to the chateau, and desired to call Monsieur le Baron “Mon frere” and “Auguste.”  This part of Madame de Stael’s conduct seems incomprehensible; but her death is recent, the circumstances little known, and it is difficult to judge her motives.  As a woman, as a wife, she might not have been able to brave “the world’s dread laugh”—­but as a mother?——­

We have also seen Ferney—­a place which did not interest me much, for I have no sympathies with Voltaire:—­and some other beautiful scenes in the neighbourhood.

The Panorama exhibited in London just before I left it, is wonderfully correct, with one pardonable exception:  the artist did not venture to make the waters of the lake of the intense ultramarine tinged with violet as I now see them before me;

    “So darkly, deeply, beautifully blue;”

it would have shocked English eyes as an exaggeration, or rather impossibility.

    THE PANORAMA OF LAUSANNE.

    Now blest for ever be that heaven-sprung art
    Which can transport us in its magic power
    From all the turmoil of the busy crowd,
    From the gay haunts where pleasure is ador’d,
    ’Mid the hot sick’ning glare of pomp and light;
    And fashion worshipp’d by a gaudy throng
    Of heartless idlers—­from the jarring world
    And all its passions, follies, cares, and crimes—­
    And bids us gaze, even in the city’s heart,
    On such a scene as this!  O fairest spot! 
    If but the pictured semblance, the dead image
    Of thy majestic beauty, hath a power
    To wake such deep delight; if that blue lake,
    Over whose lifeless breast no breezes play,
    Those mimic mountains robed in purple light,
    Yon painted verdure that but seems to glow,
    Those forms unbreathing, and those motionless woods,
    A beauteous mockery all—­can ravish thus,
    What would it be, could we now gaze indeed
    Upon thy living landscape? could we breathe
    Thy mountain air, and listen to thy waves,
    As they run rippling past our feet, and see
    That lake lit up by dancing sunbeams—­and
    Those light leaves quivering in the summer air;