from the numerous worlds that throng the firmament at midnight, Where depth, height, breadth, Are lost in their extremes, and where to count When Simond and his companions were on the summit of the Righi, their guide, who was an old soldier, pointed out to them the spots where many a fearful struggle had taken place. "You see this lake," said the guide, pointing to one immediately beneath; "in ancient times there was a wall across the defile, between the lake and the mountain, and the same on the other side of the lake to the Mossberg; our canton was thus safe under lock and key, it is now no longer so. There it was that the French endeavoured to penetrate on the 2nd of May, 1798; but our marksmen, stationed among the rocks and precipices on their flanks, took aim as at a herd of chamois; every shot told, and most of their officers being killed or wounded, they were obliged to retire. Another attack was made at the same time on Morgarten, near the lake which you see in front of us, partly hidden by the Mossberg. It was there also that we fought, a great while ago (1315), our first great battle against Austria, in which 1,300 of our people, commanded by Rodolph Reding, defeated 20,000 enemies. It was a Reding also who commanded us in 1798. During four successive days the enemy had been repulsed everywhere, even at the point of the bayonet; they had buried 3,000 of their men, and we not 500; but a few more such victories, and we were annihilated, having only 4,000 men able to bear arms. Several positions were occupied by our women only, who made fascines, and dragged cannon, night and day, over the mountains. At last we found it necessary to listen to the terms held out, and to submit for the present to the new government imposed on us, rather than come to such extremities as those poor people on the other side "-turning round and pointing beyond the lake of Lucerne. "You see," he continued, "Stantz, in that green valley at the foot of Mount Pilatus, the highest snowy mountain south-west of us; the spire of the church is just now glittering in the sun; there is a fine dark wood behind, and the valley, smooth as velvet, winds up between the mountains as far as Sarnen-that beautiful little lake as blue as the skies, so shady and green all round.” Simond saw the speck, but could hardly believe it was a lake; yet he was assured it was two hours long and nearly one hour wide. "Those high mountains on the left, whose snows look like white wreaths thrown over their dark blue sides from one summit to another, are the Surren Alps, which surround the Underwald with an almost inaccessible rampart. They form a striking contrast with the comparatively gentle and smooth irregularities which diversify the intermediate landscape. In a glen of the Melchthal, three leagues behind Stantz, the lowly cell is still shown where Nicholas de Flue, the pacificator and legislator of his country, lived a hermit in the fifteenth century. "Twenty years ago," continued the guide, "the innocent, harmless people of Unterwald, rich and happy in their obscurity, were all at once invaded by a foreign army, for the avowed purpose of imposing on them that new government to which we had submitted four months before. The French first endeavoured to starve them into compliance by cutting off their supplies, but this mode was too slow for their impatience. On the 3rd of September, 1798, General Schawenberg, their commander, directed a general attack to be made, by means of boats, from Lucerne, as well as by the Oberland. Repulsed with great spirit by the inhabitants, only two thousand strong, the attack was renewed every day from the 3rd to the 9th of September. On this last day, towards two in the afternoon, new reinforcements having penetrated by the land side with fieldpieces, the invaders forced their way into the very heart of the country. In their despair, the people rushed on them with very inferior arms; whole families perished together; no quarter was given on either side. Eighteen young women were found among the dead side by side, with their fathers and brothers near the chapel of Winkelrcid. Sixty-three persons, who had taken shelter in the church of Stantz, were slaughtered there with the priest at the altar. Every house in the open country, in all six hundred, was burnt down; Stantz itself excepted, which was saved by the humanity of a chef de brigade. The inhabitants who survived this day, wandering in the mountains without the means of subsistence, would have died during the ensuing winter, if they had not received timely assistance from the other cantons, from Germany and England, and from the French army itself, after its first fury was abated. The enemy knew very well, that if the attack of the 9th of September had not succeeded, the people of Zug were ready, with the whole country, to rise again; and they punished us for the intention, by the occupation of our town of Arth, where they remained to the end of the year. On the 10th of October, we were called upon to deliver up the warlike trophies of former times, preserved in many private families, although worn by our ancestors, in the defence of liberty, against those very Austrians with whom the French were at war! Our expostulations and prayers were all in vain; swords and banners, halberts and shields, were thrown into a fire, lighted for the purpose, on the public square of Arth, and the iron that remained was sunk in the lake. The day after this wanton insult, another was added, by the erection of a pole and cap of liberty on the still warm ashes. An insurrection, which broke out in April following, served only to render our situation worse. "See there," said the guide, pointing east, "those two spiral heights, each a naked insulated rock, with white clouds gathering on one side, like a fantastic crest of feathers, they are Kleine Mythe and Grosse Mythe; so called, because from a certain position they have, together, the form of a huge mitre over the head of Schwitz, which you sec below, with the lake of Lowertz before it. More to the right observe, between a high mountain, with a torrent issuing out of it: that is the entrance of the Monottathal, or valley of Monotta, where Suwarrow, with an army of twenty-five thousand Russians, coming from Italy by the St. Gothard, appeared the 29th of September, 1799, on his way to Massena's position on the Albis, intending to surprise that general, who, he knew, had been there a long while watching another Russian army, under Korsakau, in possession of Zurich. But Massena, well apprised of his approach, had already attacked and defeated the other Russian army, and detached the divisions of Soult and Mortier to meet Suwarrow on his way. They met at the entrance of the Monottathal, and a desperate engagement ensued. Many French and Russian soldiers fell together into the Monotta from the bridge, which a projecting point hides from our sight. This bridge was taken and retaken many times; the mingled blood of the two nations crimsoned the stream, which carried down their floating bodies. All the efforts of the Russians, during two successive days, to force the passage, proved unavailing; nor could their success have answered any purpose, after the defeat at Zurich. A retreat became unavoidable, and Suwarrow effected it by Glaris, instead of by Altdorf, whence he had come. No traveller, probably, had ever before passed the Kientzigkoulm from Altdorf to the Monottathal: the very shepherds take off their shoes, and hold by their hands, where armies marched and fought during that memorable campaign. The precipices were strewn with bodies of fallen soldiers; not a mossy rock beside a running spring that had not been chosen by some of them to lay down his head upon and die; and when, in the ensuing spring, the melting of the snows left the corpses uncovered, the ravenous birds of prey became so dainty, that they fed their young ones only with the eyes!" The winter of 1435 was so excessively cold, that the whole course of the Rhine froze to the sea, and the lakes of Zurich and Constance were crossed both on horseback and in carriages. When the lake of Zug began to thaw in the early part of the spring, the inhabitants were alarmed by discovering profound rents under that part of the town which is nearest to the water, and in consequence many of the towns-people fled. In the early part of March, two streets with part of the walls of the town suddenly fell into the lake, carrying with them sixty persons, and among others the first magistrate of the canton; his infant son, who was found in his cradle, lived to a very advanced age and succeeded to the dignity of his father. About a hundred and fifty years after this, a few houses again sunk, although the lake is only from twenty to thirty fathoms deep near Zug, while it is two hundred fathoms in some places, it being the deepest lake in Switzerland after Constance. Zug, one of the smaller cantons of the Swiss confederation, is situated nearly in the centre of Switzerland, and is bounded on the north by the canton of Zurich, on the east and south by Schwitz, and on the west by Lucerne and Aargau. It lies in the basin of the river Reuss, an affluent of the Rhine, and its waters flow in a northern direction. The northern part of the lake of Zug occupies the centre of the canton; the southern part is in the territory of Schwitz. The lake is a fine piece of water, about eight miles long and between one or two miles wide, surrounded by a delightful country. The little town of Zug boasts its remote antiquity, being one of the twelve destroyed by the Helvetii, when they attempted to emigrate into the Roman provinces in Cæsar's time, having been rebuilt on their return. Strabo mentions it, and Bochat the antiquarian says that its name means, in the Celtic language, "near deep waters." Schwitz is one of the cantons of the Swiss confederation which has given its name to all Switzerland. It lies on the west side of the high Alps of Glarus, of which the Glärnisch, 9,000 feet high, is the loftiest summit. It consists of several long valleys between lower offsets of the Alps, the summits of which are from 4,000 to 6,000 feet high, and of a plateau or table-land in the centre of the canton. The waters of the northern part of the canton of Schwitz run in a north direction into the lake of Zurich; those of the central part flow north-west by the river Sihl into the Leinmat; and those of the southern part run southwards into the lake of Lucerne. Besides bordering on those lakes, the canton embraces within its territory the southern part of the lake of Zug, and it also entirely encloses the small lake of Lowerz, which is about two miles long and one mile wide. The small island of Schwanau, on which are the ruins of a feudal castle, rises in the middle of the lake. North-west of the lake of Lowerz, and between it and the lake of Zug, is the valley of Goldau, between Mount Righi and the Rossberg. The capital of the canton is situated at the junction of the valley of Muota with two other valleys, one of which runs southwards to Brunnen on the shore of the lake of Lucerne, and the other westward towards the little lake of Lowerz. The conicallyshaped mountain called Mythe, nearly 6,000 feet high, rises immediately north-east of the town, and seems to threaten to overwhelm it by its fall. The country around Schwitz is beautiful and very fertile, and the scenery is splendid. It is an open town, having good streets, a large square, a very handsome church, and various public buildings. The town of Einsiedeln, situated about ten miles north of Schwitz, is a thriving place. Its prosperity is owing to its celebrated sanctuary in the church of the abbey, which attracts, it is said, annually, 150,000 pilgrims. It was founded in the tenth century, and is very rich. CHAPTER XXVI. THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE-VARIED HISTORY OF THE SWISS-THE REFORMATION. IN the fifteenth century, the famous Council of Constance began. No less than three popes, John XXIII., Gregory, and Benedict, contended for the see of Rome. The emperor Sigismund, determining to put an end to the scandal and distraction which in consequence arose, convoked this council. But his disposition was false and rapacious. To John Huss, the celebrated preacher of Bohemia, when accused of heresy, he gave a safe conduct; yet, when he appeared before the council, Sigismund allowed him, as well as his disciple Jerome of Prague, to be surrendered to the civil power and burnt alive. The duke Frederick of Austria favoured John XXIII., a prelate of a profligate character, protecting and abetting him, even after he was deposed by the council, as well as the two other pretenders to the papacy, and elected in their place Martin V. For this Frederick was excommunicated by the council, whilst Sigismund, jealous of the power of Austria, and covetous of its vast dominions, put him under the ban of the empire and invited all the imperial vassals and towns to make war against him. The same invitation was addressed to the Swiss cantons. The Swiss refused at first, with the exception of Berne, ever ready to seize a favourable opportunity for its own aggrandisement. The old forest cantons hesitated; they had lately renewed their truce with the duke of Austria for fifty years longer, and although the bishops, in council assembled, absolved them from their engagements, and the emperor promised them the permanent possession of all the conquests they should make on Frederick, they for some time withstood the temptation, saying, "that a breach of faith could never be justified either by the church or the empire." But Zurich, more covetous and less scrupulous than the rest, having followed the example of Berne, the other cantons, threatened on the one hand and tempted on the other, also declared war against Austria, in April, 1415. The canton of Uri, and the brave shepherds of Appenzell, formed the only honourable exceptions; they remained faithful to their truce with Frederick, and took no part either in the war or the spoil. Berne, joined by Soleure and Bienne, entered the Aargau. This fine province was the cradle of the house of Hapsburg; it extends from the Aar to the Limmat, and northward to the Rhine, and was divided between towns enjoying franchises under the protection of the dukes of Austria, and several lords, vassals of the duke. Hearing of Frederick's interdict, and of the movements of the cantons, they assembled a diet at Sursee. The towns were for remaining neutral in the approaching struggle, and forming a close alliance among all the districts of Aargau for the defence of their liberties, with leave to treat with the Swiss confederates in case of necessity, and to join them in a distinct canton, as Glaris and Zug had done. But the nobles did not accede to the compact; they preferred having the duke as their master to placing themselves on a level with the burghers. This was the cause of |