is free and honest. It is often highly poetical in allusion, and sometimes in diction. Its value is heightened from its being the sole monument of the literature of the times, and a pleasing specimen of national talents. The first impression of it was at Basil in 1571.

From this brief sketch we find, at the commencement of the ninth century, that the perseverance of an enterprizing genius had laid the basis of progressive improvement in Germany. If manners had not been much refined, nor the arts carried to high perfection, yet, in the attempt to disseminate sound moral and religious principles, the means of arriving at these ends had been discovered and applied. A barbarous people gradually grow tame under the influence of literary pursuits, and the habits of reflection and enquiry. Mind shares the empire of man with sense, under whose united government we perceive a rapid progression from passion and debasement to dignity of character and purity of enjoyment: Secular and ecclesiastical tyranny prove the only obstacles to the realization of Utopian dreams, and from their decline and fall we shall notice a gradual expansion of our nature towards the widest limits of human comprehension and indulgence.

[To be continued.]

MEMOIR RESPECTING THE UNION OF THE
SWISS CANTONS,

And their emancipation from the House of AUSTRIA.

"Juvat exhaustos iterare labores,

"Et sulcata meis percurrere litora remis." BUCHANAN.

FEW events recorded in the history of Europe have more excited the attention of the patriot and statesman, or roused a more lively interest in the congenial breast of the American, than the freedom of the Swiss Republic. It originated from the labors and brave exploits of a few distinguished citizens. To review some of the circumstances attending the origin of this freedom, and to recal to memory the meritorious services of those brave assertors of liberty, is the design of the present memoir, chiefly translated from a "History of the Helvetic Confederacy," written by an honorable magistrate of one of the most respectable Cantons.*

Another inducement arose from the mistake, into which almost all readers of general history have been led, that WILLIAM TELL was the absolute founder of this celebrated Republic; whereas from the following account it will appear, that he hardly ought to be considered as even a subordinate agent, but that his conduct toward GESSLER, the Governor for the House of Austria, was considered as rash and injudicious, and that GESSLER's murder by TELL would have been punished by the real Confederates, had their designs at that time acquired a sufficient ripeness and consistency. WILLIAM TELL has indeed been ever honored as a brave man and a

* Alexander Louis de Watteville, of the sovereign Council of the Republic of BERNE, and bailiff of the county of Niday.

"Who with the generous rusticks sat

"On Uri's rock in dread divan,

"And wing'd the arrow sure as fate,

Which fix'd the sacred rights of man.”

H. J. Pye, quoted by Mr. ADAMS, Def. Americ, Const,

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patriot. His memory is deservedly dear to the Swiss. Their festivals, their symbols, their monuments, all recal in the most forcible manner the remembrance of their obligations to him, and it is not the wish of the compiler of this brief sketch to pluck from his venerable brow one leaf of the well-earned laurel, that encircles it. Yet in contemplating the rise of states, it is far more gratifying to the investigator of the principles of human action, to find a rational and solid cause of their grandeur and stability, than to be compelled to assign such great effects to causes of private pique and individual revenge. The name of TELL will notwithstanding be ever celebrated, and will pass to posterity with the names of BRUTUS, of HARMODIUS, of CHEREA, and of CORDAY. But the names of STAUFFACH, FURST, and MELCHTAL have far juster claims to immortality.

It ought not also to be omitted, that the whole story of TELL has been of late called in question. About the year 1780, a treatise entitled Fable Danoise was published at Berne, in which the author endeavored to destroy the belief of his romantic feats, by asserting, that they were performed in far remoter times, by a Dane of the name of Toko, against Harold, a king of Denmark in the tenth century. Though his arguments in general were by no means conclusive, yet he mentioned two circumstances, which, if true, would be convincing proofs, that the whole account was a mere fiction. He asserted, that "none of the contemporary historians, al"though they gave the minutest accounts of the tyranny of "the Austrian governor, mentioned the incident of the "apple ;" and that "the first writer, who took notice of it, "was Peterman Etterlin,* who lived in the latter end of the "fifteenth century, near two hundred years after the fact is

* The "Chronicle" of P. Etterlin was published in A. D. 1507. A writer, who, like Etterlin, should assert, that "at the battle fought by the Swiss " with the Saracens in 8r1" (the same mentioned hereafter as taking place in 829,) "near Arles, where Roland was taken prisoner, the Angels interred "the dead, and engraved the arms of each Christian upon his tomb," would indeed deserve little credit.

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supposed to have happened." A story of the same kind is also related in the annals of Denmark by Saxo Grammaticus, with scarcely any difference but that of names. Harold King of Denmark supplies the place of the Governor of Uri, and Toko that of William Tell.*

The Swiss Republic, says Watteville, had not for its founders men, who immortalize their names by enterprize of great celebrity, which are often vicious in their principle, but rendered brilliant by success, and hence admired by succeeding ages. Three individuals, almost unknown beyond the place of their birth, laid its foundations, or more properly speaking restored to their country its primæval freedom. This enterprize, established on equity and justice, was executed without violence, or effusion of blood; a revolution unparalleled in history, for such changes are seldom unaccompanied by murders and convulsions, The union of three men, animated by the same spirit of Liberty, has communicated this spirit to their countrymen; it is perpetuated among their descendents; it is to this day the spirit of the Nation.

Such was the spirit, it may be said, previous to the late unhappy subjugation of Switzerland by France. WATTEVILLE, descended from ancestors, who had been lavish of their blood in the cause of their country, and who were therefore eminent among the Patricians of Berne, felt for the national honor, and appreciated it duly. He wrote in the year 1757, a period, when the subsequent degradation of his country was an event beyond the farthest glimpse of probability, and when, as he justly intimates, the "Helvetic Body" had gained the summit of glory.

It is not however the design of this memoir to exhibit the history of the Swiss, nor to compare their civil and political institutions with those of our own country, or of other

* Wood's hist. of Switzerland, p. 140. The Cantons of Uri, Schweitz, and Underwalden were however so much offended with the author of the treatise mentioned above, for throwing any doubt upon the marvellous feats of their hero, that they presented a remonftrance to the sovereign council of Berne, who ordered the book to be burned. Wood, ibid,

republics. The only intention of it is, to detail with scrupu→ lous fidelity the causes, which occasioned, and the circumstances, which accompanied the origin of the system of government, which lately prevailed in Switzerland; and the emancipation of the cantons, particularly the three, which originally formed the Helvetic Confederacy, from the tyrannical impositions of the house of Austria.

The three individuals, who have been mentioned as the authors of this emancipation, were WALTER FURST of Uri, WER NER DE STAUFFACH of Schweitz, and ARNOLD Du Melch¬ TAL of Underwalden; three cantons, which are situated almost in the centre of Switzerland, having on the north the cantons of Lucerne, Zug, Zurich, and the Gaster; on the east, Glaris and the leagues of the Grisons; on the south, the canton of Berne and the bailiages of Italy; on the west, the cantons of Berne and Lucerne.

Passing rapidly through the early history of these three Cantons, in which it is asserted, that their inhabitants had long enjoyed the liberty of governing themselves by their own magistrates, but in which the clergy and several temporal lords had indeed both subjects and revenues among them, we find nothing peculiarly striking, except a general spirit of manly freedom. The Swiss chronicles carry the antiquity of their liberty to a remote date. According to them the inhabitants of these countries went to the assistance of Italy in the year 829, where they aided in expelling the Saracens, ranging themselves under the standards of the Marquis GUIDO PUSTERLA. They add, that the Pope, GREGORY IV, after having conferred on them the title of Defenders of the

Church," a title, which was confirmed by JULIUS II in 1512, and extended to all the cantons, obtained for them of the Emperor Louis le debonnaire the privilege of framing their own laws, and of regulating the form of their government.

However this may be it is true, that before the extinction of the house of Zaringue* they enjoyed considerable privi

* The dukes of Zäringue, Zæringhen or Zeringua were appointed governore of Burgundy long before A. D. 1126, when Conrad de Züringue, son of