sweetest recompense for the many bitter pangs I have caused you to suffer. Accept, therefore, this young lady, whom you thought my spouse, and her brother, as your children and mine. They are the same which you and many others believed I had been the means of cruelly murdering and I am your husband, who love and value you above all things; assuring myself that no person in the world can be happier in a wife than I am.' With this he embraced her most affectionately, when, rising up together (she weeping for joy), they went where their daughter was sitting, quite astonished with these things, and tenderly saluted both her and her brother, undeceiving them and the whole company. At this the women all arose, overjoyed, from the tables, and taking Griselda into the chamber, they clothed her with her own noble apparel, and as a marchioness, resembling such an one even in rags, and brought her into the hall. And being extremely rejoiced with her son and daughter, and every one expressing the utmost satisfaction at what had come to pass, the feasting was prolonged many days. The marquis was judged a very wise man, though abundantly too severe, and the trial of his lady most intolerable; but as for Griselda, she was beyond compare. In a few days the Count de Panago returned to Bologna, and the marquis took Giannucolo from his drudgery, and maintained him as his father-in-law, and so he lived very comfortably to a good old age. Gualtieri afterwards

married his daughter to one of equal nobility, continuing the rest of his life with Griselda, and shewing her all the respect and honour that was possible. What can we say, then, but that divine spirits may descend from heaven into the meanest cottages; whilst royal palaces shall produce such as seem rather adapted to have the care of hogs, than the government of men. Who but Griselda

could, not only without a tear, but even with seeming satisfaction, undergo the most rigid and unheard-of trials of her husband?

NATURE'S HAUNTS.

STRANGER, if thou hast learned a truth, which needs
Experience more than reason, that the world
Is full of guilt and misery, and hast known
Enough of all its sorrows, crimes and cares,
To tire thee of it-enter this wild wood,

And view the haunts of Nature. The calm shade
Shall bring a kindred calm, and the sweet breeze,
That makes the green leaves dance, shall waft a balm
To thy sick heart. Thou wilt find nothing here
Of all that pained thee in the haunts of men,
And made thee loathe thy life.

And hence these shades are still the abodes
Of undissembled gladness: the thick roof
Of green and stirring branches is alive
And musical with birds, that sing and sport
In wantonness of spirit; while, below,

The squirrel, with raised paws and form erect,
Chirps merrily. Throngs of insects in the glade
Try their thin wings, and dance in the warm beam
That waked them into life. Even the green trees
Partake the deep contentment: as they bend
To the soft winds, the sun from the blue sky
Looks in and sheds a blessing on the scene.
Scarce less the cleft-born wild-flower seems to enjoy
Existence, than the winged plunderer

That sucks its sweets. The massy rocks themselves,
The old and ponderous trunks of prostrate trees,
That lead from knoll to knoll, a causey rude,
Or bridge the sunken brook, and their dark roots,
With all their earth upon them; twisting high,
Breathe fixed tranquillity. The rivulet
Sends forth glad sounds, and, tripping o'er its bed
Of pebbly sands, or leaping down the rocks,
Seems with continuous laughter to rejoice

In its own being. Softly tread the marge,
Lest from her midway perch thou scare the wren
That dips her bill in water. The cool wind,
That stirs the stream in play, shall come to thee,
Like one that loves thee, nor will let thee pass
Ungrected, and shall give its light embrace.

BRYANT.

WILLIAM TEL L.

ABOUT the period at which Edward, king of England, set up a false claim of right to the sovereignty of Scotland, and thus roused the patriotism of Wallace to vindicate his country's independence, a claim of a very similar nature was put forward (1273) by Albert I,, Duke of Austria, to certain districts or cantons in Switzerland, which had hitherto belonged to the confederation of states composing the German Empire. Never, except perhaps in the parallel case of Edward, had there been a claim more unjust and tyrannical. Albert, however, was a man of violent and haughty disposition; and possessing large armies, he soon secured the cantons which were the objects of his ambition, and placed them under the oppressive sway of local governors. Those whom he appointed to govern the cantons of Schwytz, Uri, and Unterwalden, were Herman Gessler of Bruneck and Berenger de Landenberg, whose extortions and proceedings were in accordance with the resolution of the emperor as he was entitled from his connection with Germany-to break the independent spirit of the Swiss by oppression. Landenberg fixed his residence in Unterwalden, and Gessler built himself a castle near Altdorf, in Uri, whence he overawed that canton and its neighbour Schwytz. It was impossible for Albert to have selected two more brutal instruments of his will than these two men. Not satisfied with exercising their power to the

injury of the people, they added to the wrong by bitter taunts. To Werner de Stauffacher, one of the principal inhabitants of Schwytz, Gessler remarked in an insulting tone: That his house was too good for a slavish peasant.' The observation was treasured up, and yielded bitter fruits to the utterer. Nor was Landenberg behind his coadjutor. When he had wrested from some unfortunate farmers their oxen and beasts of burden, he replied to their remonstrances by telling them, That if they wanted to grow corn and till their lands, they might draw the plough themselves!'

The minds of the Swiss were exasperated at this treatment, but still their spirit was kept down by reflecting upon the enormous power wielded by their oppressor. But Werner Stauffacher, stung by his country's wrongs and his individual degradation, secretly visited Walter Fürst, of the canton of Uri, who, calling to their counsel Arnold de Melchithald of Unterwalden, the patriotism of each was influenced by mutual exhortations, and an agreement entered into, to vindicate their country's rights, or perish in the attempt. The future meetings of these resolute men were held in the field of Rutli, a desolate spot on the borders of the Waldstatter Lake, and near the confines of Uri and Unterwalden. Here, Fürst and

Melchthald repaired by unfrequented paths, whilst Stauffacher kept the rendezvous in a little boat, which he rowed across the lake in the gloom of night. Each imparted the design to his most intimate friends; and upon an appointed night, the three patriots conducted to Rutli thirty confederates, who joined in a solemn covenant to devote themselves to the emancipation of their country. Their generous resolution was fortified by an oath, taken in the name of 'that God who has created, out of the same clay, the peasant and the emperor, and gifted every rational being with the same inalienable rights. This important compact, the germ of Helvetian freedom, was made on the night of Thursday preceding the feast of Martinmas 1307.

The suspicion of a brutal despot is easily aroused.

Whether Gessler had information of the conspiracy that was hatching, or was influenced by that incessant doubting which haunts the breast of a tyrant, his proceedings became more outrageous than before. As he joined a singular ignorance and infatuation to the natural cruelty of his disposition, he hit upon the notable expedient of testing the loyalty of the people, by erecting a pole, and placing on it a cap, to which all were ordered to pay the reverence that was due to the emperor himself. To this degrading ceremony, the free and noble spirit of one man instantly and openly announced its intention not to submit. This man was William Tell. He was a native of Bürglen, one of the ten districts which compose the canton of Uri, and the son-in-law of Walter Fürst. He had been present at the compact of Rutli. His reputation amongst his countrymen for undaunted energy and skill in arms, had rendered his accession to the league a primary object with the first devisers of the plot. His bold promptitude now accelerated the movement for which the associated patriots were more slowly preparing.

Gessler summoned before him the intrepid peasant of Bürglen. His traitorous neglect of the ordained ceremonial to the phantom representative of sovereignty was objected to him. The reply of Tell was unyielding and defying. The rage of the furious Gessler was roused to madness at the calm courage of the simple peasant. Any ordinary punishment was too meagre for such a crime. His invention was fertile in malignancy; and knowing his prisoner to be a father, he determined to make the warm and sacred feelings of a parent his sport and scorn. The young and first-born son of Tell was ordered to be torn from its mother's arms, and brought before the tyrant and his murderous band. The ordeal seems too severe for human nerves, yet Tell passed through it. The wretch in whose power he was, informed him that his only chance of life was to shoot an apple from the head of his own child at a distance to which only the most vigorous arm could send an arrow from the bow, and the most skilful and unmoved marksman