Amid scenery of such grandeur, and which at every step transports us far back into the past, one could hardly expect to find any of the evidences of modern progress. Their presence in such a spot causes feelings of both surprise and dejection. On the edge of the precipice, which rises a thousand feet above Grütli, is a large hotel, which is always crowded with visitors in the summer and early fall. Along the face of the opposite cliff runs the telegraph wire to Italy, one of the fastenings of which is driven into the chapel of Tell. Let us hope that it may electrify the inhabitants of that land with the spirit of the hero.

The marks on the surface of the giant cliffs on either shore of this gulf are extremely interesting geologically. They seem to show that at one time, when the earth was passing through its turbulent infancy, they were united "in no faint embrace." They now stand like sturdy warriors of a remote age torn violently asunder in the heat of their conflict. With fierce glances, and armor dinted with many a blow, they still frown stern defiance at each other, though constrained to await in stony silence the day of general doom.

The chapel of Tell was built in 1388, at the expense of his native canton, and was consecrated to his memory in presence of over one hundred people to whom he had been well known either as friend or relative. This was only thirty-one years after his death. And yet, in spite of this strong evidence to the contrary, certain modern writers

have tried to prove that his whole story is a popular legend, and that his existence is as dubious as that of Achilles or Hector. In this age of general incredulity, when Homer has almost become a myth, and the attempt has been made to prove even Shakspeare but a bright dream of the past, one might, perhaps, expect that the memory of Tell would not be safe from attack. In this case, however, the sword has proved to be mightier than the pen. It has been found that few are so skeptical as to turn a deaf ear to the clearest affirmations of history; that almost none are willing to ignore the existence of him who was so great an honor to our common nature. Even we from far distant lands cannot yield him up, as the mere shadow of great deeds. We feel from our inmost hearts that he once lived and moved, like the soul of pavery triotism, among his native mountains. His life is identified with the most vivid recollections of our youth, when noble exploits exert over the mind their strongest and most lasting influence; and in our maturer years, when the heroism of the past has become to us the religion of the present, who could, or who would, deny the existence of William Tell?

Among scenes which his fame has so immortalized this seems almost a crime; and when the storm, "moaning and calling out of other lands," bursts over the Bay of Uri, it needs no vivid imagination to hear the grieved and indignant spirit of Tell in the blast hovering over his native waters, and sadly lamenting that it cannot burst the walls of its prison,

and testify by its visible presence that he once lived, and that he is yet worthy of the veneration paid to patriotic valor.

Surely it is ill for the interests of humanity thus to apply the blighting touch of historical skepticism to the great and good of the past, - to thus weaken our earliest, our purest, and our strongest impressions. Must we indeed put our fingers into the print of the nails, and thrust our hands into the side, ere we can believe? Are all our aspirations to a spotless fame in future ages to be thus deadened? Can we look calmly forward to the time when Washington, Adams, Franklin, and all our roll of great and good names, shall fade away into "the stuff that dreams are made of?" This was the feeling of Milton, when in "The History of England" he expressed, in words which do him honor, his unwillingness to give up the historical traditions relating to the early kings of that country. "From them," he says, "we cannot be so easily discharged; descents of ancestry long continued; laws and exploits not plainly seeming to be borrowed or devised, which on the common belief have wrought no small impression; defended by many, denied utterly by few." "Yet these old and inborn kings never any to have been real persons, or done in their lives at least some part of what so long hath been remembered, cannot be thought without too strict incredulity. So far as keeps aloof from impossible or absurd, attested by ancient writers from books more ancient, I refuse not as the due and proper subject of story."

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To the Swiss, Tell is a vivid reality. Painting and sculpture and poetry have gladly acted as the handmaids of history, to preserve his memory in every part of their land. They, at least, thank Heaven, have not yet reasoned away his identity. Every rock of his native valley is to them vocal with his name. Every mountain-top is an altar silently breathing forth incense in his honor. Each aspect of nature is ennobled by his worthy deeds. The traveller listens with enthusiasm to the raptures of his countrymen. "These waves," say they, were rippled with the sturdy strokes of his oar; over those crags he chased the chamois with his muscular and agile step; the vane of yonder steeple he shot from its rod with his unerring arrow; there grew the tree under which stood his son, and on that spot was Gessler; in yonder stream he died in the effort to rescue a drowning child." They take their children to his chapel, and as they chant Lavater's hymns, their muscles and veins expand, the blood rushes more quickly to their hearts, and their faces glow with all the ardor of fervent patriotism. To them he is for the moment a visible presence; and never could more enthusiastic devotion have been shown, not even when the woes of the Niobe of Austria drew every sword from its scabbard to the exulting cry, "Moriamur pro nostro rege, Maria Theresa!"

*

"Fathers have, within my own knowledge, carried their children to the chapel of the celebrated William Tell, to join in full chorus the song which Lavater composed upon the merits of that great man." - Zimmermann.

The death of Tell was worthy of his life, and his noblest sacrifice was his last, when he died to save the life of another. He was swept away to his grave in the Bay of Uri, to find in its pure and never-failing waters an emblem of his own deathless fame. Surely his death and sepulture were fitting.

"Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail

Or knock the breast; no weakness, no contempt,
Dispraise, or blame: nothing but well and fair,
And what may quiet us in a death so noble."

Two miles from Flüelen is Altorf, where Tell shot his shaft of freedom at the apple on his son's head. Marble statues of him and his child, of the size of life, mark the spot where he stood. About two hundred feet farther on is a stone fountain, which occupies the site of the venerable lime-tree to which the boy was bound. From this town the road rises gradually and continuously to the summit of the pass. It is an excellent Macadamized way, smooth, and everywhere in good repair; and diligences, heavily loaded, daily pass over it to and from Italy. So gentle is the descent, that from the highest point to Flüelen they proceed at a rapid trot. The Reuss is crossed from time to time by numberless stone bridges, generally formed of one arch, sufficiently massive to withstand even the most furious rush of its waters. The way leads on, and still on, through an endless succession of savage gorges, and at the base of huge toppling cliffs. The sublimity of the whole scene culmi