crack dinners; and the man who doubts the
healing virtue of a good dinner, is sunk into
the lowest abyss of scepticism. Better bring
one's savings to a good bal, than send them
to friendly Pennsylvanian repudiators.
Singular enough, that bals should give dinners;
but the "pusser," or if you prefer it, the
purser, would be wretched without them.
Is it not clear that any one who can seriously
and soberly find fault with the appearance of
a bal, must be a soured and spiteful
misanthrope, who does it through sheer envy? Why,
the very crumbs from their table are worth
picking. Depend upon it, the remains of the
dinner would give us an excellent luncheon
next day, if we could but hit upon the correct
date. I am far from despising creature-
comforts; and shall in future adapt new
words to the beautiful glee:—

"Mine be a bal beside a hill,
  A bee-hive's hum shall soothe mine ear,
And milky streams adown the rill
  With many a fall shall linger near."

"With many a fall shall linger near!—
—The prosperous idea makes one quite
vocal.

But a deep narrow valley receives us;
an avenue of hills, with the Atlantic to close
the perspective. We descend; we cross the
little brook at the bottom; we mount again,
in persevering pursuit of our wandering black
birds. Not all the concentrated cunning of
the corvidæ can save them when man has
once set a determined foot upon their trail.
We now are going to try the environs of the
Logan Rock: and this is the village; a droll,
crinkum-crankum, helter-skelter group of
houses, over which might float a flag with
the inscription, "THE WORLD'S END." No one
would deny its propriety.

And now comes the inn; a tidy, comfortable
looking snuggery, with clean white
window-curtains, and a prepossessing appearance
of well-aired beds, where a botanist, an
artist, or a pen-and-ink gentleman, might put
up for a week, and profitably pursue his
studies in the neighbourhood. I have only to
observe further, that if the sign of this inn is
an accurate representation of the Logan Rock,
my curiosity is satisfied, and I do not care to
see any more of it. Neither Stanfield, nor
Turner, nor Copley Fielding, nor Martin, left
this oil-painting in discharge for an unpaid
score.

I must here remark, at the risk of letting
loose a whole host of enterprising dilettanti,
that Cornwall is exactly the subject for an
artistic mind to grapple with. The special
reason may be told in few words: at the
same time that it contains great variety
of detail, including objects suggestive of the
deepest thought; while it is original, fresh,
devoid of conventional picturesqueness, and
is naturally, not artificially, romantic, it is
neither so vast nor so wide spread as to be
beyond the admirer's grasp. It is all
perfectly comprehensible, perfectly reducible,
both on canvas and in print.

There are in the world Immensities which
defy art. Though they may not satisfy the
imagination, they baffle the copyist, and
perhaps, also, disgust by their monotony. Even
in the heart of the Tyrol or of Savoy, scenery
on a still grander scale is perfectly imaginable
by the amateur, whose sketch-book and
whose journal have long been cast aside, as
useless incumbrances. It is after having been
thus vanquished by the unbearable weight of
Nature's magnificence, that the traveller, who
is in search of something more than the mere
excitement of wonder, is charmed to find a
perfect whole, sufficient to delight, but
insufficient to overpower him. Just such a spot
is Cornwall. The artist there, escaped from
the vast features of Continental landscapes,
has exactly the feeling of a man who has
long been burdened by the cares of a large
house and establishment far beyond his
means; and who finds himself at last, by a
prudent coup d'état, the tenant of a pleasant
cottage, with every comfort, and with no
superfluities attached to it.

The "World's End" is behind us, and the
fag-end of all things begins to promise well.
We walk along the uppermost convexity of a
rounded promontory, not utterly destitute of
a little sheep's "meat." At last we descend
amidst some granite rocks that have been
carelessly tossed about on the slope of the
declivity. Two guides, a senior and a junior,
have not offered their services, but have joined
company. Is not the wilderness free to all?
Before us is a most exquisite pile of granite
rocks, heaped together in pyramidal form:
harmonious in colouring and perfect in
arrangement; with patches of green grass, grey
and yellow lichen, dark tufts of fern
protruding from obscure crannies; with the
purple sea and its white foam; and us, little
things of men, groping about and displaying our
littleness by contrast with the vast blocks of
stone—altogether, it is one of the most complete
pictures I have ever seen. There is nothing
out of place; nothing incongruous to spoil it.

What is that absurd noise? Looking back
to the declivity already passed, we see a
foolish dog giving chase and tongue to a
rabbit he has started. Capital fun for the
rabbit! In and out, between the massive
lumps, his white tail flashes and dodges, till
he thinks he has given the colly a sufficient
breathing; then he is seen no more.

To the left, a narrow sheep-path winds
round the outside of the pyramid, overhanging
the sea. You will surely not go that way.—
Why not? Where the sheep walks, there
walk I. Why should there be more real
danger for the man than for the quadruped?
It is not reason which is the guide in such
performances—it is nerve and instinct; a
consciousness of ability to do it. I would not
mind taking a high-spirited child to see the
Logan Rock, being careful all the while never