Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

Round the red moon of October,
White and cold the eve-stars climb,
Birds are gone, and flowers are dying--
'Tis a lonesome, lonesome time,
Yellow leaves along the woodland
Surge to drifts--the elm bough sways,
Creaking at the homestead window
All the weary nights and days.
Dismally the rain is falling--
Very dismally and cold;
Close, within the village graveyard,
By a heap of freshest mould,
With a simple, nameless headstone,
Lies a low and narrow mound,
And the brow of Annie Clayville
Is no longer shadow-crowned.
Rest thee, lost one, rest thee calmly,
Glad to go where pain is o'er--
Where they say not, through the night-time,
"I am weary," any more.

MR. BOKER has a fine poem entitled "I have a Cottage," in the July _Graham's Magazine_.

FOOTNOTES:

[D] Weil's _History of the Khalifs_. 3 vols. octavo. Besserman, Mannhein, 1851.

_The Fine Arts._

There have been new discoveries of sculptures in Athens. The foundations of the old Council House were disclosed, and farther investigation led to the discovery of very beautiful remains. They are mostly fragmentary, but of the finest style. Especially an arm, with drapery, is very fine, and as the investigations are not yet completed, it is hoped that other parts of the statue may be obtained. More than sixty inscriptions have been also revealed. They are mostly decrees in praise of and memorials of honor to certain men. Some are of the Macedonian, others of the Roman period. Mr. Pittakis, the long resident and famous Athenian antiquariae, has been properly put at the head of the party of investigation. His topographical knowledge of Athens is probably superior to that of any other living man.

* * * * *

The German painter CORNELIUS has recently composed a picture for the hospital of the Sisters of Charity in Berlin. The cartoon is at present in Dresden, where it will be cut in wood by the artist's old friend, Director von Schnorr, for the Art-Guild there. It will afterward be engraved upon steel, and sold for the benefit of the hospital. The subject is taken from the life of Elizabeth. The mother of the Landgrave of Thuringen has seen that Elizabeth has laid a beggar on the nuptial bed, for the purpose of nursing her, and he brings her son to see how his wife forgets his dignity as well as her own. But her worldly selfishness is shamed in the most surprising manner. An angel has drawn aside the curtain, and the landgrave, instead of a beggar, beholds the Saviour himself, who, with gentle aspect, stretches his hand toward the mother and son. Under the picture is the motto, "What ye have done to the least of these brethren, that ye have done to me." In its essential character this picture resembles the cartoon for a painting upon glass in the cathedral of Aix. In both pictures the artist has reverted to the sensibility of his youth, and created forms which recall the paintings of the old German and elder Italian masters. In the present drawing the figures of Elizabeth and of the two angels (one of whom is in a reverential posture behind the bed) are radiant with celestial tenderness and loveliness. From the countenance of Christ beams the divinely mild rebuke of the deepest feeling of mistaken virtue. The landgrave, a fine manly figure, is full of the earnest expression of the knowledge fast dawning upon his mind, and his mother shows characteristic worldliness subdued by a higher power. The whole picture is penetrated by the devotional sentiment of the middle ages. These are not modern figures in middle age costume, but men who belong to their time by expression and bearing. In the freedom and simplicity of treatment we recognize the master, who may properly reproduce the life and art of a past time, from his entire sympathy with it. Another cartoon in the great series for the Berlin Campo Santo, upon which Cornelius is now engaged, represents the happiness of those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.

* * * * *

A German critic, speaking of the statues of the Greek Slave by Powers and of the Wounded Indian by Stevenson, says of the latter that the touch of genius is visible in the work, but it is only the copying of nature, and has no ideal character; and of the former that the artist must have developed his talent by long and patient study and contemplation of the finest creations of art. The forms of nature are not only reproduced, with the most poetic truth, but a glow of spiritual beauty breathes all over the work. It is most interesting, concludes the critic, to see the laying of the corner-stone of American art, an edifice whose completion none of us will live to see.

* * * * *

The Festival of the unveiling of the statue of Frederick the Great, at Berlin, on the last day of May, is represented as one of the most splendid spectacles ever witnessed in that city. The memory of "Old Fritz" is cherished with a peculiar enthusiasm by the masses, who turned out in immense numbers. The day was the 110th anniversary of Frederick's ascending the throne. The monument is a real historical work, and, besides its artistic merit, may be consulted as an authentic record of the warriors and statesmen who helped to found a great kingdom. It is an immense advance on the insipid allegorical style, with its eternal Fames with trumpets, and Victories descending with garlands. Except in one or two of the small bas-reliefs, Rauch has adhered to strict reality, only so skilfully modified that it never becomes vulgar or commonplace. His Ziethens and Winterfeldts are warriors as stern and dignified in their "regulation" uniforms as if they were presented on the fields of Torgau and and Rossbach, like Achilles and Hector on the plains of Troy. A letter in the London _Times_ says there were present about eighty aged soldiers who had served under the great King, and one old Hussar, of Ziethen's regiment, was pointed out as having actually fought in the Seven Years' War; the junior of the party could not be less than fourscore; they were all accommodated with seats specially provided for them; they wore the uniform of the period, of the old regulation cut, but newly made for the day, so that the veterans looked quite brilliant. Some of them, perhaps, had not worn a uniform for half a century.

* * * * *

The author of _Wanderings of a Pilgrim, during Four-and-Twenty Years in the East_, has employed herself, since her return to England, in superintending the painting of a Diorama of Hindostan. Perhaps no one else has so numerous a collection of beautiful sketches taken in the East, and few, indeed, possess her knowledge of Indian manners and customs.

* * * * *

At the close of last month the bronze statues of Gustavus Adolphus, and of Tegner, the Swedish poet who wrote the _Children of the last Supper_, were cast in Munich.

* * * * *

Since our last number, JENNY LIND has closed the series of her farewell concerts in New-York, and a week afterward dissolved her business relations with Mr. Barnum. Her career of nine months in this country has been a triumph unprecedented in the history of artistic success. She has appealed everywhere to the great general sympathy of the multitude, and partly, undoubtedly, owing to the prestige of her European fame, and the wonder at her remarkable vocalism, she has sung always before an audience essentially and characteristically American.

But the great service she has rendered, the fact which history would regard, is her introduction to us of some of the finest music, presented in a manner entirely adequate, and yet entirely different from all to which we were accustomed. She has illustrated the fact, that a noble nature ennobles the position of a public artist, and that the most appreciative artistic sympathy with the highest and most unpopular music, has yet something popularly sympathetic. It is the old story of great genius. It is Burns, again, at once the despair of the most brilliant and cultivated talent, and the delight of the entirely illiterate and vulgar sense. From this career of JENNY LIND must date a new era for us, both in musical taste and musical criticism. Now that she has shown us what is good music, whether popular or not, and what is perfect performance of it, whether in any favorite school or not, it will no longer do to smear mediocrity with superlatives, or to criticise music upon any grounds other than those of the criticism of all other arts. The manner in which JENNY LIND took our Penates, our _Sweet Home_, and _Auld Robin Gray_, and _Comin' thro' the Rye_, and restored them to us with a more graceful and significant life, was one of the most beautiful signs of the presence and power of genius. To that, every thing has been subservient. The large and gracious charities of the woman, the natural simplicity of her manner, and the personal magnetism which she every where diffused, were but the ornaments of the pure artistic nature, the divine priesthood of genius. JENNY LIND continues her progress through the country. It is understood that, after a month, she will retire from the public eye, for the rest which she so much requires, and afterwards, we learn from the best authority, she will, if possible, resume her concerts.

* * * * *

THE OPERA.--Immediately upon the departure of JENNY LIND, Mr. Maretzek opened the doors of the Astor Place Opera House for a short season, preparatory to his summer campaign in Castle Garden. Under his auspices BOSIO has reappeared, and BETTINI has made his bow. BOSIO is so beautiful a woman, she has a voice so subtly sweet and sympathetic, a style of singing so simple and sufficient, and an instinctive feminineness of feeling fine enough to make her acting always agreeable, that her impression as a Prima Donna is the most symmetrical we have known in New-York. Her womanliness is her charm and her success. Even in characters of so grandiose proportions in the imagination, as _Lucrezia_, she never drops for a moment the interest of the spectator, although it is new to him to find a tender feeling in his regard for the Borgia. This tenderness, however, is not fatal to the artistic effect. It is that quality of feeling which he would have for a lost but lovely Magdalen. BOSIO'S _Zerlina_ is another quite perfect representation. Its arch grace and sparkling beauty have never been surpassed by any Zerlina we have seen. BOSIO, however, sketches rather than colors. Her acting is a suggestive outline which the imagination naturally fills--and, within the range of singers possible to us, we could select none so singularly fascinating as Bosio for the summer moonlight at Castle Garden.

BETTINI is a young man, with a fresh, sweet, sympathetic tenor voice, which happily harmonizes with BOSIO'S. He has rather too magniloquent a style both of acting and singing, but is a very agreeable artist. We could lay in the shadows of his portrait delicately, yet deeply enough, by saying that he is _young_. He has made a decided hit upon the town, and the first evening at Castle Garden attracted an audience of not less than three thousand.

Donizetti's opera of _Marino Faliero_ has been produced at Castle Garden, for the first time in America. It is only second rate music, but was admirably sung by the company. MARINI looks the Doge and wears the ducal robe with great dignity and success.

NICHOLAS VON DER FLUE.

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE BY THE AUTHOR OF "RURAL HOURS."

The fifteenth century proved an eventful and important period of Swiss history. The age which preceded it gave birth to the people, and brought them an independent existence and a name; but it left them at its close the mere skeleton of a political body, and it was not until a later day that their national constitution received fulness and development--it was not until the fifteenth century that the people acquired a clearly distinct character and position among the countries of Europe.

Several of the most celebrated battles in Swiss history, those which gave the confederates military fame with other nations, belong to this period. The battle of St. Jacques is altogether one of the most extraordinary on record. Thirty thousand French troops, chiefly from the free company of Armagnac, commanded by the Dauphin, afterwards Louis XI., marched to the defence of Zurich, which had revolted against the confederacy. They arrived at Basle in August, 1444. Fifteen hundred Swiss, from the cantons of Berne, Lucerne, Soleure and Basle, were dispatched to meet them. They found several thousand of the enemy in advance. These they attacked, repulsed, and pursued to the river Birs, and then, dashing into the stream after the flying enemy, and in face of a heavy cannonade, they actually assaulted the whole army of France in their camp on the opposite shore. The daring corps were soon divided, but they fought like lions. Five hundred were in an open meadow, exposed on all sides to the enemy; the remaining nine hundred threw themselves behind a garden wall. These last repulsed the enemy there several times, and made two attacks in their turn. Hundreds and thousands of the Armagnacs fell--man by man the brave Swiss were struck down. The battle lasted ten hours before the whole corps of Swiss had fallen, for then only could the enemy pause. Fourteen hundred and ninety of the confederates were numbered with the dead, ten men only escaping by flight. Thousands upon thousands of the French army lay piled about the dead Swiss. This defeat, if such a name be fitted to the battle of St. Jacques, produced all the results of a victory: the siege of Basle was abandoned, a peace was speedily concluded, and it was in consequence of this brilliant action that Louis XI., when he ascended his father's throne, concluded with the Swiss that close alliance which has lasted nearly to the present times.

It was in the fifteenth century also that Charles of Burgundy attacked the confederates with all the forces of one of the richest and most powerful princes of the age. On the third of March, 1476, twenty thousand Swiss marched from Neufchatel to meet the army of Burgundy near Granson, a force which, with its followers, numbered one hundred thousand strong. The battle began in the morning, and at night Charles the Bold was flying through the passes of the Jura, with five companions, his brilliant army dispersed to the four winds of heaven, his choicest treasures in the hands of the frugal Swiss. In the month of June of the same year Charles again appeared in Switzerland, at the head of an army still larger than that he had commanded at Granson. On the twenty-second of June he lay before the little town of Morat, which he had assaulted in vain. The Swiss, with thirty-four thousand men, advanced to meet him, and with their usual ardor rushed upon the whole Burgundian force. In a few hours they had again routed an invading army nearly four times their own numbers. Charles fled from the field, with a small escort, leaving fifteen thousand of his army dead on the battle ground, while thousands more were drowned in the adjoining lake.

Having been thus successful when opposed to northern troops, the Swiss shortly after tried their strength against a southern foe, the Duke of Milan. On this occasion the confederates were the aggressors, although under the plea of retaliation. A party of Italians had cut timber in one of their forests. Immediately a descent upon the Italian valleys was planned, and a considerable force crossed the southern Alps. A Milanese army of fifteen thousand men marched up the Ticino to meet the mountaineers. At the village of Giornico lay the Swiss vanguard of six hundred men, from Uri, Schweyz, Lucerne, and Zurich, the main body of their troops not having yet advanced so far. It was mid-winter of the year 1478. The Swiss caused the Ticino to overflow the meadows before the village, which soon became a field of ice; and as the Milanese army advanced upon Giornico, the confederates sallied out upon _skates_, and with this advantage over their enemies, six hundred Swiss put to flight a Milanese army of fifteen thousand men.

At that period the principal weapons were crossbows, arquebuses, lances, and halberds. Battle-axes and swords were also common, as well as knives and daggers. The body was still protected by armor, generally among the Swiss of plain workmanship; the head was covered by a helmet, or among the common soldiery with a thick felt hat, ornamented with feathers of the ostrich or the cock, according to the means of the owner. A white cross was stitched on the clothing in conspicuous places, and served as a common uniform badge with the confederates.

Victories so brilliant as those of Granson, Morat, and Giornico, with a defeat so advantageous as that of St. Jacques, spread the fame of the mountaineers through Europe--princes eagerly sought their aid as mercenaries; they were frequently opposed to each other in rival armies, and as their fidelity became as well known as their courage, they were solicited to form the body-guards of royalty.

The Swiss guards of the kings of France have a place in history. Their honorable fidelity to Louis XVI. is known the world over. Even within the present century the Swiss have watched at the gates of the Tuileries, Louis XVIII. having revived the custom on his return to France. After the Hundred Days, however, the body was finally disbanded. To the present hour it is understood that the King of Naples and the Pope are still (or were very shortly since) surrounded by body-guards from the confederacy.

But much as these different wars added to Swiss glory, they were followed by serious evils to the nation. A warlike, rapacious spirit, and with it the love of a roving, restless life, spread with wonderful rapidity among the people. Their mountain homes were deserted, their lands lay fallow, their flocks were sold to procure the means of arming themselves, employment among foreign powers was eagerly sought, and when it could not be obtained, parties of disbanded soldiers and idle camp-followers spread disorder through the country to such an extent that the severest measures were resorted to, and in the space of a few months as many as fifteen hundred vagabonds of this description were publicly executed.

The rich spoils of the Burgundian army produced a very unhappy effect. The gold, and silver, and jewels found in the deserted camp gave the conquerors a taste for riches to which they had hitherto been strangers. Formerly they had been a frugal and contented people, but a few short years produced a very striking change in this respect; a thirst for gold became general, bribes were openly offered and received, and foreign coin had an all-powerful influence in directing the course of their politics. Not only were the military openly in the pay of their neighbors, but the public men of the different cantons were only too well acquainted with German florins, Italian ducats, and French crowns. It is true, this fact was not considered so disgraceful in those times as it would be to-day. For, two hundred years since, half the court of England, with the king at their head, were in the pay of Louis XIV. But it would appear that bribery became more frequent and more impudent in Swiss politics than in those of other countries at the same period. On one occasion the French minister had his money-bags publicly opened at Berne, and the royal pensions or bribes distributed in the town with the sound of the trumpet. At Friburg heaps of crowns were openly displayed, piled up with shovels, and the bystanders were asked if the silver did not sound better than the empty promises of the Emperor Maximilian, nicknamed _Pochidanari_, or the Pennyless. At another time the French ambassador went to the baths of Baden, in Arau, where people from all parts of the country were assembled, kept open house, paid the score for large troops of the company, and actually threw gold into the bathing rooms, for the women to scramble for. The result of a course like this was very injurious to Swiss character. Highly honorable for courage and fidelity, it has yet been considered as too generally colored by the love of money, verifying the proverb, "_point d'argent, point de Suisse_."

But this mercenary spirit was not the only evil brought upon the confederacy by the victories of the fifteenth century. Internal differences of the gravest nature soon followed. The division of the spoil was very unsatisfactory to the rural cantons. They made loud complaints of injustice, and became extremely jealous of the greater intelligence, power, and influence of the towns; while the burghers, in their turn, became suspicious of the pastoral cantons, accusing them of wishing to promote disturbances between themselves and their subjects--subjects, we say, for the towns having acquired by conquest or purchase parcels of territory here and there, governed them as the feudal lords governed their vassals. In short, from the whole history of that period it is evident that a spirit of suspicion and jealousy was rife throughout the confederacy, threatening disunion and revolution. In the hope of restoring confidence and unity, a council or Diet was convened at Stantz, one of the principal towns of the canton of Unterwalden.

One by one, the deputations from the different cantons made their appearance at the little town of Stantz. They came by the lake of Lucerne, or lake of the forest cantons, as it is more frequently called by the people themselves, a beautiful sheet of limpid water, lying in the bosom of noble Alpine mountains, with sweet pastoral valleys opening here and there among the solemn cliffs. There were soldiers, merchants, lawyers, and peasants in the assembly; there were burghers from Berne, Zurich, and Lucerne, with shepherds from Schwyz and Uri; in addition to the regular deputies, there were also agents from St. Gall, Appenzell, Soleure, and Friburg, applying for admission to the confederacy, to which they had been hitherto only allies. It was in the winter season that the Diet assembled. The session was scarcely opened when it became evident that they had met in an evil temper; every subject introduced was received with bitterness, mistrust, and suspicion. The angry passions of the rural cantons were thoroughly aroused; they were extremely jealous of the towns, and no reasoning could induce them to accede to the application for admission from Friburg and Soleure. These districts were headed by important cities, and every city was accused of tyranny. The burghers knew too much, they were too rich, they were too prosperous. The deputies of the larger cantons, on the other hand, were indignant at this petty jealousy, and at the refusal to receive Soleure and Friburg, whose citizens had fought side by side with them in so many of their struggles. The subject of the division of the spoils from the war with Burgundy was again advanced by the rural cantons with renewed bitterness. In short, every matter broached seemed to offer only another field for mistrust and fierce contention.

While the Diet was thus holding its stormy session at Stantz, a conspiracy against Lucerne was discovered. The peasants of a rural district subject to the town were implicated in it; they had resolved to seize the occasion of an approaching festival for attacking the burghers, murdering the governor and council, and razing the city to the ground, so that in future nothing but a village, like their own, should exist on the spot. Tidings of the discovery of this conspiracy only aggravated the evil temper of the Diet. From invective and accusation both parties proceeded to the gravest threats. The deputies of Friburg and Soleure, in the hopes of restoring a better understanding, voluntarily withdrew their application, but in vain. Both parties were too highly exasperated. Reconciliation was held to be impossible. Disunion and civil war, that most wretched, most shameful warfare, were declared inevitable.

The canton of Unterwalden was divided into two districts, each including one of the two great gorges of that region. Each of these valleys had its own towering mountains, with rocky summits, wooded heights, and green alpine pastures. Through each flowed a stream, or rather wild torrent, and the more level lands on their banks were thickly sprinkled with rustic dwellings, in near neighborhood. Stantz, the seat of the Diet, and a mere village, was the principal town of Lower Unterwalden. The sister valley of Upper Unterwalden was the most fertile and beautiful. Its chief village was Sarnen. A stream called the Melch ran through a branch of the valley, to which it gave its name of Melchthal. This dale was already noted ground in Swiss history, as the native spot of two of their heroes. Arnold von Melchthal, the companion of Tell, was a peasant of this valley, as his name denotes; and Arnold von Winkelried, to whose heroic self-sacrifice they owed the victory of Sempach, was also born and lived on the banks of the Melch. During the time of the critical Diet of Stantz, there lived in this valley a family by the name of Loewenbrugger. They were among the most important peasants of the dale. Ten children, five sons and five daughters, had been born in the paternal cottage. Some were living there at the time, with their mother, others had married and gone to different homes. The father was absent. Nicholas Loewenbrugger had for many years held a conspicuous position in his native district. He had served his country faithfully on many occasions by his wisdom and his courage. During their wars he had distinguished himself highly, not only for bravery, but also for humanity. When still in middle life, however, he had retired from the little world about him, leaving his paternal estate to the care of his wife, and choosing a cliff on one of the neighboring mountains, he there built himself a hermitage, in which he gave up his whole time to devotion and religious services. So great was the simplicity of his ascetic life, that it is said his only bed was the floor of his cell, and his pillow a stone. It was even believed that for years he had taken no other nourishment than the blessed elements of the holy sacrament. Whatever exaggerations may have been credited in that superstitious age, it is at least certain that his unfeigned piety and saintly life had acquired for him a high place in the respect of his countrymen, while the name of Nicholas von der Flue, or Nicholas of the Rock, from the spot where he dwelt, was honored far and wide through the cantons.

News of the fierce dissensions of the Diet of Stantz spread rapidly through the different valleys about the lake of the forest cantons; every hour it was expected that the assembly would break up in violence, and the deputies hurry home to prepare the different cantons for a terrible internal struggle. Every appearance warranted this opinion. The priest of Stantz, Heinrich Imgrund, was one of those who most sincerely mourned this state of things. One day, when matters were at the worst, and the danger appeared most imminent, the worthy man took his walking-staff, and proceeded to the Melchthal. It was in winter, the last week of December, and the old priest made his way over the snow and ice to the hermitage of the pious Nicholas of the Flue. There he hastened to lay before the good man the state of things in Stantz, and the dangers that threatened their common country. The hermit, unlike many of his recluse brethren, had not lost all interest in the higher events of the world to which he belonged, and he determined that every means in his power should be employed to avert the impending evil. Early on the morning of December 22d, 1481, the venerable man, now far advanced in life, left his little cell on the rock, and bent his way towards Stantz, and we may well believe that, as he went on his patriotic errand, earnest prayers were offered by him in behalf of his misguided countrymen.

Arrived at Stantz, he proceeded immediately to the hall where the Diet was in session. While yet without the walls, the stormy uproar and fierce discord of the assembly reached his ears. Hurrying his steps, the old man entered the hall. He had scarcely crossed the threshold, when his venerable figure, aged face, and hoary locks, attracted general attention; in another instant he was known to be Nicholas of the Rock. As if by instinctive impulse, the whole assembly rose to their feet. Seizing the moment of their respectful attention, the venerable man addressed them in earnest, fervent tones. There were those in the Diet to whom his voice was not strange; men, who in former years had known him as the soldier and the patriot, while to all within the walls his character for wisdom and sanctity was well known. Every eye was fixed upon his venerable countenance, every ear listened eagerly to the words which fell from his honored lips. It was a remarkable scene; a spectator could never have credited that this was an authoritative assembly into which the hermit had presented himself unbidden; it seemed rather as if that hall were the presence chamber of the wise and saintly man, and deputies from far and near--knight, merchant, and peasant--had gathered about him, and pressed forward to receive his judgment. With all the eloquence of wisdom, and a heartfelt interest, the venerable man addressed the assembly. He implored, he warned, he admonished; he reminded them the interests of a whole nation were committed to their hands, and that for the powers with which they were intrusted they were not responsible to man alone, but also to their Almighty Maker. Had they met together like traitors, like madmen, to tear asunder the body politic over which they were the appointed guardians? Where was the calmness of deliberation with which a dignified assembly should meet to utter, and to listen? Was it to revile each other, to menace, that they, grave and mature men, had come from the farthest limits of their common country? Such language as he had heard, such disorder as he had witnessed when he first crossed that threshold, was it manly, was it honorable, was it rational? He bade them pause, and tell him to what, under Providence, they owed their present position as a free and independent nation, respected by their neighbours. Every man there present knew beyond all contradiction, that it was to their union they owed this great debt of glory and prosperity. Without union they never could have attained to independence; without union they never could have preserved their freedom against one of the most powerful princes of Europe. And now, the very bond to which they and their fathers owed every national blessing and individual safety, they stood ready, in a moment of passion, to sever violently. He asked them if a national bond were absolutely nothing, that they held it now so cheap? There were men, he knew, in every land who held cheap each tie which bound them to their fellows--men who had no feeling for father, or brother, or son; but, thanks be to God, such was not the case with all. Most human hearts could value every social bond, whether of family, kindred, or country. And what course would they take, should the evil work be accomplished? Did they expect to thrive better singly--each canton to face the world and all its manifold interests alone, or did they mean to cling together, a few here, a few there, one nation broken up into half a dozen nations? Did they expect that any future union could be closer and dearer than that which had already held together for generations men of the same blood and language; men who had suffered and triumphed together? He warned them that if the evil spirit of disunion and strife were now let loose and encouraged by themselves, they must not expect it to end its work to-day, to stop short at the very hour they required it to sleep again; like all other evil influences, it must either be checked and controlled, or the fatal poison must spread farther and farther, until it ended in utter anarchy and confusion. It is not for man, made of the dust of the earth, to rouse evil and accursed passions, and bid them go thus far and no farther. He implored them to let no narrow, selfish, momentary interest blind them to interests immeasurably higher, and more lasting. It remained for the men of that generation to say whether the crisis should be a fatal one or not; it lay within their power to steer the ark of their country's hopes safely over a stormy sea, or purposely, deliberately, wilfully, to rush on the breakers, until that noble, honored fabric foundered for ever. Evil passions, suspicion, envy, jealousy, wrath, had too often, in the history of the world, worked out general, public misery: but he trusted there was yet within the bosom of their own people wisdom, patience, and moderation sufficient to carry them safely through the storm. He called upon every good man, every honest man, who could rise superior to the selfishness of the race, to move and act in the blessed cause of peace and concord. He advised them to look each at his own post and duty, and to meddle less with those of his neighbors; he implored them, for conscience' sake, not to be so ready with mutual suspicion and recrimination. He warned them that whatever evils were to be remedied, the task must be undertaken calmly and dispassionately to be well done.

Then proceeding to the subjects immediately under discussion, he continued: "Let not the towns insist on claims which are injurious to the old confederates. Let the rural cantons bear in mind how Soleure and Friburg fought by their side, and received them freely into the confederacy. Beware of intrigues, confederates! Beware of discord! Far be it for any to sacrifice his father-land for selfish interests of his own."

The old man paused. The better intentioned of the deputies, who had been silenced by the violence of their companions, pressed about him. He repeated his counsels; he entered more particularly into the subjects of dispute; more and more gathered to the ranks of peace; and, in short, it is a matter of history that the earnest address of the good man worked an entire change in the temper of the Diet. In one hour's time the country was saved. It may be doubted whether there is on record, in the whole course of history, so striking an instance of the influence of disinterested wisdom upon a public assembly at a moment so critical. Probably, such an incident could only occur in a simple state of society, where legislative pride and legislative weakness had not made such rapid strides as in later times. Happily for Switzerland, the question was decided on the spot; during that same day's session every subject under debate was peaceably settled. The confederacy was saved. Friburg and Soleure were received into the union. The venerable Nicholas had proposed that territorial conquests should be shared according to cantons, and the other spoil according to the population; both questions were immediately decided in accordance with this plan. Other points were amicably settled; and, instead of a fatal rupture, a covenant was entered into, since called the "Covenant of Stantz," by which the bonds of union were drawn closer. The deputies separated in a friendly temper, and the happy news of reconciliation spread rapidly through the quiet valleys and busy towns, while from the Alps to the Jura, the bells of town-house, church, and convent, poured forth over hill and dale their grateful peal of national joy.

To the present day the Swiss thankfully recur to the 22d of December, 1481, and the appeal of Nicholas von der Flue to the Diet of Stantz, as a memorable epoch in their history. Certainly the incident is very remarkable, and almost without a parallel in history. To us of the present day, when revolution and violence are rife, when invective and accusation form the common speech of public writers and public speakers, to us of these days of controversy the fact that the personal character and wisdom of one man should have pacified and influenced to such a degree a stormy assembly, appears all but incredible.

The traveller who visits the canton of Unterwalden to-day finds its mountains sublime, its valleys beautiful, its waters limpid and living, as of old. It is a wholly pastoral region, and the smooth green meadows are thickly sprinkled with peasant homes, neat, cheerful, and peculiar, like those of all Switzerland. The valley of the Melch is particularly populous, its green pasture grounds protected by noble mountains, rising on either side six or eight thousand feet towards the heavens, are closely dotted with pretty cottages. Among these rustic dwellings, that once inhabited by Nicholas Loewenbrugger is still shown. It is in good preservation, and much like those which surround it. Probably the architecture, like the dress of the Swiss peasantry, has varied but little for generations. Several personal relics of the venerable man are also preserved, and shown to the pilgrim traveller--these are two swords, a silver goblet, and a couple of wooden spoons. It is very probable that they were in fact what they claim to have been, the property of the good man, for we, in this country of change, have little idea of the great care taken with family relics of this description in the households of the old world. A chapel has been built near the cell occupied by the hermit; his tomb is at Sachslen, about a league from the village of Sarnen, in the principal church of the canton. Descendants of the patriot are still living in Unterwalden, where his family long held a very honorable position, and is well represented at the present day. But those who boast of his own blood and name can scarcely claim a deeper and more heartfelt veneration for his memory than that which is felt throughout the whole confederacy. There is no name in Switzerland, not even that of Tell, revered more highly than the name of Nicolas von der Flue. "Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be called the children of God."

Probably, if earnest efforts in behalf of concord, like those of the old hermit, were more frequently made, history would, on many occasions, show less gloomy pictures than those which she now unfolds to the world. But it is a singular fact that, generally, good men are more easily disheartened, and, consequently, far less active in times of internal disturbance than the selfish and intriguing. Surely this ought not to be.

A STORY WITHOUT A NAME.[E]

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

BY G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ.

_Continued from page 346._