ary also to
keep off the wolves, with which those wilds were infested.

Provisions being spread upon a projection of the rock, the Count and his
family partook of a supper, which, in a scene less rude, would certainly
have been thought less excellent. When the repast was finished, St.
Foix, impatient for the moon, sauntered along the precipice, to a point,
that fronted the east; but all was yet wrapt in gloom, and the silence
of night was broken only by the murmuring of woods, that waved far
below, or by distant thunder, and, now and then, by the faint voices of
the party he had quitted. He viewed, with emotions of awful sublimity,
the long volumes of sulphureous clouds, that floated along the upper and
middle regions of the air, and the lightnings that flashed from them,
sometimes silently, and, at others, followed by sullen peals of thunder,
which the mountains feebly prolonged, while the whole horizon, and the
abyss, on which he stood, were discovered in the momentary light. Upon
the succeeding darkness, the fire, which had been kindled in the cave,
threw a partial gleam, illumining some points of the opposite rocks, and
the summits of pine-woods, that hung beetling on the cliffs below, while
their recesses seemed to frown in deeper shade.

St. Foix stopped to observe the picture, which the party in the cave
presented, where the elegant form of Blanche was finely contrasted by
the majestic figure of the Count, who was seated by her on a rude stone,
and each was rendered more impressive by the grotesque habits and strong
features of the guides and other attendants, who were in the back ground
of the piece. The effect of the light, too, was interesting; on the
surrounding figures it threw a strong, though pale gleam, and glittered
on their bright arms; while upon the foliage of a gigantic larch, that
impended its shade over the cliff above, appeared a red, dusky tint,
deepening almost imperceptibly into the blackness of night.

While St. Foix contemplated the scene, the moon, broad and yellow, rose
over the eastern summits, from among embattled clouds, and shewed dimly
the grandeur of the heavens, the mass of vapours, that rolled half way
down the precipice beneath, and the doubtful mountains.

What dreadful pleasure! there to stand sublime,
Like shipwreck'd mariner on desert coast,
And view th'enormous waste of vapour, tost
In billows length'ning to th'horizon round!
THE MINSTREL

From this romantic rev