wards annexed a part of Burgundy to his possessions. The Swiss mountaineers have ever been distinguished for their ardent love of liberty and free institutions. Accordingly the peasantry began to form a fourth and independent class of the community in this country so early as the ages of the Crusades, and never afterwards relinquished their privileges as freemen. The dukes of Zähringen, and the counts of Savoy, Kyburg, and Hapsburg or Habsburg, were the most powerful lords of the country at this period; and the personal influence of the nobility was greatly increased when, after the death of Berthold of Zähringen in 1218, Alemannia reverted to the German emperor. To protect themselves against the tyranny of the powerful nobility, the towns of Zurich, Berne, Basel, Soleure, Uri, Schweiz, and Underwalden, which had purchased or received in donation their territorial rights from the German emperors, and called themselves towns or counties of the empire, united in a league of mutual defence, and destroyed the castles of several of the knights who had rendered themselves obnoxious by their robberies and oppression. But when, in addition to his own domains, count Rudolph of Habsburg, by the death of his uncle, count Hardmann, became liege lord of Kyburg also, in 1264, the whole country was compelled to acknowledge the rule of so potent a chief. The ambition of his son and successor, Albrecht, however, excited the country to shake off its ignominious yoke. Albrecht wished to unite the forest towns,' as they were called, with his Austrian possessions; and on their refusal to renounce their allegiance to the German empire, he instructed his governors to harass the independent citizens by every means in their power. Driven almost to despair by the tyranny of their rulers, thirty-three brave and patriotic men, among whom were Fürst of Uri and his son William Tell, Stauffacher of Schweiz, and Mechthal of Underwalden, assembled on the Rutli, a meadow on the banks of the lake of Lucerne, on the night of the 7th of November, 1307, and there solemnly swore to defend the ancient liberties of their country against Austrian oppression. The designs of these noble-minded men were somewhat prematurely revealed, by an incident familiar to every reader. Gessler, the Austrian bailiff or governor, in the wantonness of tyranny, had directed a hat to be set up on a pole, and ordered every Swiss to uncover his head when he passed before this symbol of the power of Austria. William Tell scorned to obey this order, and passed before the dreaded hat without uncovering himself. Gessler, incensed at this mark of disrespect, ordered Tell to be led to instant execution unless he should cleave, with an arrow, an apple placed on the head of his own son. Tell, who was an expert marksman, accepted of this fearful alternative, and hit the apple without wounding his child; but the governor's attention having been excited by a second arrow which Tell wore in his belt during this dreadful trial of his skill, he inquired what he meant to have done with it, as he would not have been allowed more than one shot whether he hit or failed. "This arrow," exclaimed the undaunted Swiss, 66 was meant for your heart, had the boy fallen under my hand!" Gessler was too genuine a tyrant to allow the heroism of this answer to atone for its boldness; he ordered his guards to seize Tell and conduct him a prisoner to his own castle. On their way, while crossing the lake of Lucerne, a storm arose which threatened the instant destruction of the governor's barge, whereupon Tell-who was an

The four cantons of Schweiz, Uri, Zug and Underwalden, were called the forest

towns.

expert pilot-was freed from his chains, and allowed to steer the vessel, which he did successfully, but watching his opportunity as the barge approached the shore, he made a sudden spring,-gained the ledge of a projecting rock near the Axelberg, with his bow in his hand,—and pushed the boat off again with a vigorous arm. He then betook himself to flight, but directed his steps towards the ravine of Rüssnacht, through which he knew the barge must pass if it weathered the storm. Here he concealed himself amidst the rocks, and on the approach of the vessel took vengeance on his country's tyrant, by shooting him through the heart with the single arrow which still remained in his belt. Gessler's death was the signal of a general rising; and a fierce war ensued between the Swiss and Austrians which lasted till the close of the 15th century. Tell was present at the battle of Morgarten, and is said to have lost his life in 1350, during an inundation of the river Schächenbach.2

Struggle with Austria.] On the 1st of January, 1308, the Swiss began one of the most gallant struggles for national independence which history records. Albrecht doubtless rejoiced at the pretext now offered him for sending Austrian troops into Switzerland; but before he could put his design into execution, he fell a victim to a conspiracy which his unjust treatment of his nephew, John duke of Suabia, had fomented. The rising liberties of Switzerland were protected, and the privileges of the Forest towns confirmed by Henry VII. Albrecht's successor in the German empire; but the house of Austria struggled hard to regain its ascendancy in this country. The victory, however, which the gallant Swiss obtained over the archduke Leopold, at Morgarten, on the 6th of December, 1315, was followed by the confederacy of Brunn between the five ancient cantons, as they came to be called, of Lucerne, Zurich, Glarus, Zug, and Berne. Shortly after this, guilds were established throughout the commercial cities of Europe, by which the common people and tradesmen obtained a share in the administration, which put an end to the oligarchy of noble families. The successive victories of Sempach, on the 9th of July, 1386, and Näfels, on the 9th of April, 1389, obtained an insecure peace for the Swiss; and foreign powers began to court alliance with the confederacy. On the 20th of August, 1444, the Swiss fought a battle worthy of eternal fame, when the church-yard of St Jacob, at Basle, became a second Thermopylæ, by the gallant and effective stand which 1600 Swiss made in it against a French army of 20,000 men, which Frederic III. had called into Switzerland for the protection of his hereditary possession of Habsburg. They next excited the ambition of Charles the Bold of Burgundy, whom they defeated

* Whether every part of this interesting story be historically true, this is not the place to inquire. At the same time, we must be allowed the liberty of remarking, that the tradition is confirmed by the existence of several chapels said to have been built in memory of the deliverance which Tell's gallant action achieved for the liberties of his country, by the names given to various parts of the rocks of the Rüssnacht,-by several very old paintings, and by various other species of evidence which, though not amounting to historical certainty, ought at least to obtain a certain degree of respect for the tradition. John Müller, the celebrated Swiss historian, and Planta, the historian of the Helvetic confederacy, have each adopted the story; and there is one circumstance which we think greatly confirms its historical veracity, namely, the fact that the Swiss were long in the habit of making yearly pilgrimages to the rock where Tell saved himself by leaping ashore, and that so early as 1388, the canton of Uri had built a chapel near the spot, which it is said was visited, the first year after its erection, by no less than 114 pilgrims, who had personally known Tell. A very similar story is indeed told by Saxo Grammaticus, of a Danish king Harold and a certain person named Tholko; but the tradition might easily have passed from Helvetia to the North, by means of the intercourse which the Hanseatic towns kept up between every part of Europe at this period

6

at Granson, with the loss of 700 men; whereupon the confederates were joined by the duke of Lorraine and several of the Imperial towns. At Morat, the proud, the patriot field'—where the confederates, however, were superior in number-the duke was again defeated by the brotherly, and civic band,' with the loss of 8000 men. Discouraged by these successive reverses, the duke, in a fit of desperation, gave battle again, at Nancy, and was slain with most of his nobility. These successes emboldened the Swiss to assume the part of aggression; and in 1460, they seized upon Thurgau, then belonging to Austria. In 1481, the league was joined by the cantons of Friburg and Soleure; and shortly afterwards the confederates allied themselves with the Grisons, in opposition to the views of the emperor Maximilian I. who wished to force them to join the Suabian league. This circumstance gave rise to the Suabian war, which was terminated by the peace of Basle, in 1499, after a struggle in which the Swiss gained no fewer than six successive victories over the German forces. The cantons of Basle and Schaffhausen joined the confederacy in 1501, and the canton of Appenzell, in 1513. In 1512, the Swiss conquered the Valteline and Chiavenna, and also took from Milan the Italian bailliwicks now forming the canton of Tessino. Having lost the battle of Marignano against Francis I. the confederates concluded a peace with France at Friburg, in 1516; and five years afterwards entered into an alliance with that country. The Reformation.] About this period the doctrines of the Reformation began to be taught in Switzerland. Zuinglius, after having attacked various doctrines of the Catholic church, preached openly against the sale of indulgences in 1518: as Luther had already done in Germany the preceding year. The cantons of Zurich, Berne, Schaffhausen, Basle, St Gall, Mühlhausen, and Bienne, embraced the new doctrines; and violent disputes arose betwixt the protestant and catholic cantons. In Glarus, Appenzell, and the Grisons, the people were divided between the two creeds; but the inhabitants of Lucerne, Uri, Schweiz, Underwalden, Zug, Friburg, Soleure, Vallis, and the Italian bailliwicks, adhered to catholicism. Religious zeal soon degenerated into fanaticism; and the mutual hatred of the parties kindled a civil war. A protestant preacher had already suffered death in the flames at Schweiz, and the two parties were drawn up in hostile array against each other, when matters were accommodated by the interference of some of the more moderate leaders on both sides, in a treaty of peace in 1529; but the war soon broke out afresh. Geneva-which had been governed by a bishop and count from the middle ages, and had at last come under the house of Savoy-shook off its allegiance in 1524, and concluded an alliance with Berne and Friburg; while Calvin, who had come from France to Geneva, placed himself, by his talents and integrity, at the head of the Reformation in Switzerland, and even for a while conducted the civil affairs of Geneva. Though Calvin differed in many points of doctrine from the great German reformer, the adversaries of the protestant cause made no distinction betwixt their followers; nor was it till after the conference of Poissy, in 1561, when the adherents of Calvin rejected several articles in the confession of Augsburg, that the latter took the name of Calvinists. In 1531, Berne and Geneva concluded an alliance, and the former canton got possession of the Pays de Vaud, which was not, however, entirely ceded by Savoy till the peace of Lausanne in 1564. From this period until the recognition of the independence of the Swiss confederacy in the Westphalian peace of 1648, religious and political dissensions continued to agitate Switzerland; aristocratical and democratical

principles came into constant collision with each other; and the connexion between the confederated states and Germany became daily less intimate. Nor was this unhappy state of things greatly modified by the season of repose which Switzerland now enjoyed. "After the first heroic period, from 1308 to the battle of Morat in 1476," says Simond, "the cantons became jealous and selfish, evincing towards each other that unfriendly spirit which foreign States usually entertain for their next neighbour. They learnt to calculate their individual distance from danger, before they afforded each other assistance; and were apt to seek in foreign alliances that protection of which they were not certain at home. Thence interminable quarrels among themselves. Their general diets could rarely agree upon, and seldom execute measures of public utility; and although the Reforma. tion might afterwards change the nature of their civil dissensions, and purify their motives, it did not put an end to them; and a long succession of religious wars left the federal bond more lax and inefficient than ever. The various governments of Switzerland had overlooked the changes which time, and a variety of events to which they had been strangers, had operated among their neighbours, and the alterations of manners and opinions among their own citizens as subjects themselves. An uninterrupted state of peace, for more than 300 years, had left them in ignorance of their present strength, which they continued to estimate by the battles of the 15th century. Engrossed with paltry jealousies, and divided among themselves, they heeded not the awful warning of the French revolution, and neglected to take advantage of the six or seven years' breathing-time allowed them to compromise matters with the new principles: as if they fancied they might be stopped at the customhouses on the frontier."

Helvetic Republic.] It has been ingeniously said of Switzerland, that the hand of Nature herself appears to have marked out that country for the citadel of Europe, where Freedom might be safely lodged when driven from less secure regions. Unfortunately, the extraordinary supineness and selfishness of her rulers during the modern part of her history, have been such as to strip her of the enviable distinction she might otherwise have borne amid the nations of Europe, and to place her in the very lowest grade of the political scale. Geneva was the first of the cantons to catch the spirit of her Gallic neighbours; and the reign of terror was established in this little republic in 1794. The inhabitants of the Pays de Vaud, irritated by the aristocratical government of Berne, cast themselves, in 1796, on French protection; and their example was quickly followed by the inhabitants of the Valtelline, the Bormio, and Chiavenna, whom the Grisons had obstinately refused to admit to a community of civil and political rights, but whom Buonaparte instantly received into the Cisalpine republic. After vain negotiation, the French army, under generals Brune and Schauenburg, entered Switzerland to the number of 40,000 men; and having defeated the Bernese on the 2d and 5th of March, 1798, united Geneva to the French republic, and established a new constitution in Switzerland, under the name of the Helvetic republic. By this constitution the whole country was divided into 22 departments, each of which was to send 4 senators and 8 councillors to the general legislative assembly. The French Directory now determined, for the purpose of forwarding a vast plan of campaign against the Allies, to take military possession of Switzerland; and a series of brilliant military manœuvres were executed on this theatre by the opposed forces of France and the Allies. After the peace of Luneville, the first consul invited the attendance of deputies from the

aristocratical and democratical parties of the Helvetic republic at Paris, to whom he presented a new Act of mediation, as it was called, on the 19th of February, 1803. By this new constitution the republic was divided into 19 cantons; but in 1806, Neufchatel was given to prince Alexander Berthier, one of Napoleon's generals; and in 1810, the Valais was incor porated with France.

Recent Act of Confederacy.] Such was the political situation of Switzerland when the Allies entered it in December 1813, after the decisive battle of Leipsig. On the 8th of September, 1814, a new Act of confederacy was entered into at Zurich, by the 19 republics, which were joined on the 12th of the same month by the cantons of Geneva, the Valais, and Neufchatel. The congress of Vienna, on the 20th of November, 1815, recognized the perpetual neutrality of the Swiss cantons; but Austrian influence is nevertheless felt and acknowledged in every quarter of the confederacy. Placed between the rival powers of France and Austria, Switzerland will ever be in great danger of being made the theatre of war in the contentions of these powers, her frontier of 50 leagues in extent offering a point d'appui to the movements of two armies; at present she owes her security to the mutual jealousies of the other States. May the time be not far distant when the Swiss cantons, united amongst themselves, and fired by the remembrance of 'deeds which should not pass away, and names that must not wither,' shall vindicate the ancient glories of their land, and reclaim to themselves that heritage of right which was purchased for them by the blood of their noblest ancestors I

CHAP. II-PHYSICAL FEATURES-CLIMATE-PRODUCTIONS

AGRICULTURE-INDUSTRY, AND COMMERCE.

Physical Features.] SWITZERLAND has been celebrated by every traveller for its magnificent and picturesque scenery; and is certainly one of the most remarkable countries in Europe. Nature offers here the most striking contrasts; here the icy climate of the poles alternates with the heat of the equator,-the sterility of Greenland, with the smiling appearance of the valley of Tempe; icebergs rise towering into the air close upon the borders of fertile valleys,-luxuriant corn-fields are surrounded by immense and dreary plains of ice; in one step the traveller passes from the everlasting snow to the freshest verdure,―or from glaciers of chilling coldness to valleys from whose rocky sides the sunbeams are reflected with almost scorching power.

Mountains.] Switzerland is the most mountainous district of Europe. The northern parts are the most level; but even these present mountains rising upwards of 2000 feet above the level of the sea. The land rises gradually from N. to S.; and is throughout its whole extent covered by the system of the Alps, of which the centre seems to be the St Gotthard, from which the other chains-in which the highest points are found-diverge like radii in every direction. Only three groups of these gigantic mountains properly belong to Switzerland: namely, 1st. The Swiss Alps, or Alpes Lepontiæ, or Adulæ, which run from the centre in a S. W. direction, or from Monte Rosa on both sides of the Rhone, through the Vallisthal, by St Gotthard, to the Muschelhorn and the Bernhardino in the Grisons, and separate Switzerland from Lombardy;