profound sleep. I had not slept so well for a long time. I awoke towards morning, immediately arose, and got through some very long hours. I breakfasted, chatted, walked about the room and on the terrace, and cast a look on my host's books. At last a letter arrived from my father.

O what joy to see again those much-loved characters! What joy to learn that my mother, my dearest mother, still lived!—that my two brothers and my eldest sister were also still alive! Alas! the youngest, the Marietta, who had entered the convent of the Visitation, as I had clandestinely learned in prison, had ceased to breathe nine months ago! It is sweet to think that I owe my liberty to those who loved me, who never ceased to intercede for

me.

On

Days passed, and permission to leave Novara did not come. the morning of the 16th September this permission was at last given me, and then I was freed from the tutelage of the carabiniers. O how many years it was since I had been able to go where I pleased, without the encumbrance of guards!

I obtained some money, received the greetings of a few persons, acquaintances of my father, and about three in the afternoon Í departed. I had as companions on the journey a lady, a merchant, a sculptor, and two young painters, one of whom was deaf and dumb. We passed the night at Vercelli. The fortunate sun of the 17th of September arose. We continued our journey, and did not reach Turin until the evening.

Who, who could describe the emotion of my heart, of the hearts of those so endeared to me, when I beheld, when I embraced my father, my mother, my brothers! My sister, my dear Josephine, was not present, as her duties detained her at Chieri; but at the first news of my return, she hastened home to pass a few days in the bosom of the family. Restored to these five objects of my tenderest affection, I was, I am the most enviable of mortals!

CONCLUSION.

After his restoration to his native country, Silvio Pellico lived for some time in the bosom of his family. In his later years he became secretary and librarian to the Marchioness of Barolo in Turin, in whose house he died in 1854. The narrative of his ten years' captivity (Le mie Prigioni), published in 1831, had an immense popularity, and was translated into all the languages of Europe. It is written with great simplicity and apparent truthfulness, and breathes a spirit of the most entire Christian resignation. produced two effects: it incited the Austrian government to introduce considerable reforms into their intolerable prison discipline; and it fixed the attention of Europe on the miserable condition of Italy, personified, as it were, in the prisoner of Spielberg. Silvio

It

Pellico did not suffer in vain; the clank of his chains served to loosen those of his country.

Of Pellico's other writings, a dramatic piece called Ester d'Engaddi, one of those composed under the Leads in Venice, was acted in Turin in 1831 with the highest applause, as well as another piece entitled Gismonda; but both were immediately suppressed by the jealousy of Italian despotism. He composed besides, other three dramas, one of them entitled Tommaso Moro. In 1837 appeared two volumes of Opere Inedite, consisting of mystical hymns, paraphrases of the Imitation of Thomas à Kempis, and other pieces. Among his latest productions was a kind of catechism on human duties (Dei Doveri degli Uomini). Long confinement and privation had completely undermined his originally feeble constitution, and induced on a mind more remarkable for sensitive goodness than strength, a tendency to mystic pietism; so that his views are better calculated to inspire passive resignation than to invigorate for action. The Count Arrivabene, who is mentioned by Silvio Pellico as having been discharged from the prison of St Michael as innocent, found himself, shortly after, exposed to the suspicions of the government, and judged it expedient to flee. His only crime was having received Porro, Pellico, and some others at his country-house near Mantua, as they returned from a trip in Porro's steam-boat from Pavia to Venice. He fled from Mantua to Brescia, where he imparted his and their danger to his friends Ugoni and Scalvini, who joined him in his endeavour to escape into Switzerland. Gendarmes had been despatched on all the routes to arrest Arrivabene as soon as his departure was known. He and his friends effected their retreat into Switzerland, disguised as cattle-drovers, but were very nearly caught. They had to pass an inn in which three gendarmes, lying in wait for them, were asleep; and at the moment they reached the Swiss frontier, they were so exhausted, from having had no interval of repose for sixty hours, that they fell upon the ground in the presence of the Austrian soldiers, who were close upon their heels when they crossed the line which separated tyranny from freedom. They were, however, safe. Count Porro also effected his escape from Italy. The gendarmes entered his house at one door as he left it by another. Confalonieri was prevented from executing the same manœuvre by finding a door locked, the key of which had been altered by his intendant without his knowledge.

32

URROUNDED by some of the most powerful nations of Europe, Switzerland, a comparatively small country, has for ages maintained a singular degree of freedom and independence, and been distinguished for the civil liberty which its people generally enjoy. For these enviable distinctions, it is allowed to have been greatly indebted to its physical character. Composed of ranges of lofty mountains, extensive lakes, almost inapproachable valleys, craggy steeps and passes, which may be easily defended, it has afforded a ready retreat from oppression, and its inhabitants have at various times defeated the largest armies brought by neighbouring powers for their subjugation. How this intrepid people originally gained their liberty, forms an exceedingly interesting page in European history.

About six hundred years ago, a large portion of Switzerland belonged to the German Empire; but this was little more than a nominal subjection to a supreme authority. Socially, it consisted of districts which were for the greater part the hereditary possessions of dukes, counts, and other nobles, who viewed the people on their properties as little better than serfs, and made free with

their lives, their industry, and their chattels. In some instances, certain cities had formed alliances for mutual protection against the rapacity of these robbers, and demolished many castles from which they exercised their oppression upon the peaceful husbandmen and merchants.

Things were in this state, when, in 1273, Rodolphe of Hapsburg, one of the most powerful of the noble proprietors, was chosen Emperor of Germany, an event which added greatly to his means of oppressing his Swiss vassals. Rodolphe, however, was a humane master, and did not abuse his power. Albert, his son, who succeeded to the imperial dynasty in 1298, was a person of a different character. He was a grasping prince, eager to extend his family possessions, and wished to unite certain free Swiss towns, with their surrounding districts, called the Waldstädte, or Forest-towns, with his hereditary estates, proposing to them to renounce their direct connection with the German Empire, and to submit themselves to him as Duke of Austria. They rejected his advances, and hence commenced the first of the memorable struggles for civil liberty in Switzerland.

As the result of a direct attempt at subjugation might be doubtful, Albert resolved to proceed cautiously and by stealth. The Foresttowns had hitherto administered their laws and collected the imperial taxes themselves; and were only visited on stated emergencies by an imperial commissioner or governor. The first encroachment, then, was to send a governor or bailiff to take up his residence in the country. According to the usual account, the first permanent imperial bailiff in the Waldstädte was Hermann Gessler, who built a fortress for himself at Küssnacht in Uri, not far from the head of the Lake of Lucerne, on which the Waldstädte bordered. Once firmly established, Gessler, who was a fit instrument for the purposes of a tyrant, assumed an insolent bearing, and scrupled not to commit the most severe acts of oppression. Every great crisis in national disasters brings forth its great man: as Scotland, under the oppression of the Edwards, produced its William Wallace; as America its Washington, when its liberty was threatened; so did Switzerland, under the viceregal domination of Gessler, produce its WILLIAM TELL.*

The story of Tell, as given in the text, has long passed current as history; that it is essentially a fable, however, may now be considered as a settled point. The earlier Swiss chroniclers, in narrating the rising of the Forest-towns, make no mention of Tell. The rude embryo of the story appears first in the Chronicle of Melchior Reuss, in the second half of the fifteenth century, and in a popular ballad of the same period. Successive versions added details and embellishments, until, in the sixteenth century, Tschudi and others gave the full-grown narrative, which Schiller has embalmed in his drama. As early, however, as the end of the sixteenth century, doubts began to be expressed as to its authenticity; and attention was called to the existence of similar legends of earlier date existing in other countries. Saxo Grammaticus, a Danish chronicler of the twelfth century, tells of a bowman named Palnatoke, who was compelled by the Danish king, Harald Blue-tooth, to shoot at an apple on his son's head, and who afterwards sent an arrow through Harald's own

William Tell, according to the received accounts, was born at Bürglen, a secluded hamlet in the canton of Uri, near the Lake of Lucerne, about the year 1275, and, like his forefathers, was the proprietor of a cottage, a few small fields, a vineyard, and an orchard. When William had reached the age of twenty, his father is said to have died, bequeathing to him these humble possessions. Endowed by nature with a lofty and energetic mind, Tell was distinguished also by great physical strength and manly beauty. He was taller by a head than most of his companions; he loved to climb the rugged rocks of his native mountains in pursuit of the chamois, and to steer his boat across the lake in time of storm and of danger. The load of wood which he could bear upon his shoulders was double that which any ordinary man could support.

In all outdoor sports Tell likewise excelled. During holidays, when the young archers were trying their skill, according to ancient Swiss custom, Tell, who had no equal in the practice of the bow, was obliged to remain an idle spectator, in order to give others a chance for the prize. With such varied qualifications, and being also characterised by a courteous disposition, Tell was a general favourite among his countrymen, and an acceptable guest at every fireside. As a wife he chose Emma, the daughter of Walter Furst, who was considered the best and fairest maiden of the whole canton of Uri. The birth of a son, who was named Walter, in honour of his grandfather, added to the felicity of the pair. Until the age of six, Walter was left to his mother's care, but at that period the father undertook his education, and made him his constant companion. Other children subsequently added to the ties of

family.

With other sources of happiness, Tell combined that of possessing an intimate friend, who dwelt amid the rocky heights separating Uri from Unterwalden. Arnold Anderhalden of Melchthal was this associate. Although similar in many salient points of character,

heart. On this saga, Oehlenschläger, the Danish poet, has founded a tragedy. The Icelandic sagas attribute the feat to various personages, some earlier, some later, than Palnatoke. Perhaps the oldest form of the arrow-shooting legend is that in the Vilkinasaga, in which it is told of the hero Eigil, brother of Weyland the Smith. As was natural, these suggestions of doubt were distasteful to Swiss patriotism, and a book on the subject was burned by the public hangman of Uri; so that Swiss historians have been cautious in speaking of the subject. Tell's Chapel, said to have been erected in 1388, only eighty years after the death of Gessler, and other monuments commemorative of incidents in the story and claiming the same antiquity, are usually held to be proofs of the reality of the events. The date of these monuments, however, is far from certain; and, at best, the most that could be inferred from them is, that, on the rising of the Forest-towns, an obscure peasant shot an Austrian bailiff on the banks of the Lake of Lucerne, and that this became, in the popular memory, the central incident of the struggle, and gradually gathered round it the widespread mythical embellishments of the tyrant, the bowman, and the apple. For one thing, the tyrant Gessler is conclusively proved to be mythical. In a work, containing a series of documents concerning early Swiss history, published in 1835 by M. Kopp of Lucerne, it is satisfactorily shewn that, although a continuous series of charters exists relative to the bailiffs of Küssnacht in the fourteenth century, there is no Gessler among them.