STAUF. (to Walter Fuerst, with astonishment.) Who is the FUERST. Alas, alas, for the poor youth! STAUF. His son? Merciful God! Far, far away from him! Who is it? [Walter Fuerst answers by a sign. And I must be Both eyes bored out? FUERST.. Command your sorrow! Bear it like a man! MELCH. All for my fault, - all for my wickedness! Blind? Is it possible? really, wholly blind? The fount of vision is dried up; On him the cheerful sun shall smile no more. MELCH. Never, never more! [Presses his hands to his eyes, and, after a few moments' silence, turns from one to the other, and in a low voice, choked with tears, says O what a noble gift of Heaven to man Is the eye's light-all beings live on light. The ruddy heavens may glow, the flow'ret bloom; So piteously? I have two sound eyes, No, not one glimmer of that sea of light, Which on my eye in dazzling splendor pours. STAUF. Would I might heal your anguish; but alas! I must say that will widen still the wound. The inhuman Vogt has robbed him of his all; Naked and blind he begs from door to door. MELCH. Only a staff to the poor, blind old man! A boon the meanest of God's creatures share! And ingrate that I am, myself to save, nought, henceforth, But bloody retribution fill my thoughts! I'll go like lightning- none shall hold me back In the cold life-blood of the monster! FUERST. Stay! The odds are fearful! In his lordly tower On Sarnen's heights he sits, and laughs to scorn, Through the thick walls, our threats and our assaults. Trembling and quaking for your hearths and homes, There under Heaven's broad roof, where souls are free, I'll utter in each ear the monstrous deed. STAUF (to Walter Fuerst). Oppression 's at its height and shall we wait Till the worst come? MELCH. The worst has come already. What can be worse, when e'en the ball of sight Are we defenceless? Why then were we taught With formidable antler bays the pack — The chamois lures the huntsman to the steep- That bows the monstrous might of his broad neck FUERST. If the three Cantons felt as we three feel, Then haply something might be brought to pass. STAUF. When Uri calls and Unterwalden helps, Each Switzer will revere the old covenants. ye MELCH. In Unterwalden I have many friends, pp. 24-28. The delineation of the hero is natural. Tell, the hardy son of the mountain, the unpretending friend of man, known to all by his true-heartedness, his bravery, and his kindly activity, dreams not, in his own honest, simple pursuits, of revolutions, nor of anything to lift him out of his endeared privacy. The true mountain air of virtue breathes through the whole character of the man. Innocent of all conscious patriotism, yet we always find him free, true, manly, and philanthropic. Wrongs, brought home to his own door, call him out, and unite him with the patriotic purpose, which had been sometime ripening in others, but which he had had no part in planning. What he did was pure Nature's act, not the fruit of thought or counsel. "But whatsoe'er you do, bid me not come Into your councils - 't is not in my soul but when once you need The firm resolve, the deed of daring - then, The play is full of stirring incident. Without confusion a wonderful deal is compressed into it. The whole history of the period is here shortly told. The vision is complete; it takes entire possession of us, as we read. It is a living work of Art, not a mechanical copy. It has the integrity of nature; it shows us much, and convinces us of incalculably more. The first Act is a picture of the place and times, it naturalizes us in this little world, so pregnant with great events. The sufferings of the peasants, the wildest mountain-haunts sought out by tyranny, men meeting to tell each other what oppressions they have felt or seen, the story of Melchthal's father, in short, the vale of innocence, suddenly darkened over by man's tyranny, and the first movements of Nature to recover herself; it is a panorama, rather than a drama. The main action of the piece has not begun. As yet, Tell but appears incidentally as the providential deliverer of a countryman from danger. The second Act contains the meeting of the confederates at Rütli. Tell is not with them. Here we are made acquainted with the historical and political condition of the three Cantons. And what strikes us most is the calm, serious, reverential spirit, in which they proceed to the work, not of overthrowing the laws, but of taking measures for securing to themselves their chartered rights. It is purely a moral revolution. It commands our respect. These are men, whom we can trust. It is no mob; no boys' restlessness; this mountain element is as con servative, as it is free. The third Act introduces us to the simple home of Tell; and charms us with that blessed domestic peace, so soon to be disturbed. Then comes Tell's intercourse with Gessler, the hat in the market-place at Altdorf, and the shooting of the apple from his son's head. The fourth Act shows us the lake in its fury; Tell's daring escape from the boat in which Gessler is conveying him away to prison; and his bloody retribution upon the tyrant. His soliloquy, as he lies in wait for him, speaks out the whole man, and the whole history. We intended to quote it, but are prevented by our straitened limits. The last Act is the general rising, the fulfilment of the revolution, which gives back Tell to his suffering family, and freedom to Switzerland. But it was not our intention to analyze or to criticise the play; but rather to call attention to this excellent translation of it. We have seen another, which was published in England in 1829, and which has also great merits. We can hardly tell which of the two is the more literal; and yet in all the bolder passages and phrases, we must give the preference to this of Mr. Brooks. The other is on the whole more polished, perhaps more true throughout in point of euphony and rhythm. But this has the most strength and animation, we might say, the most of the mountain air. We are happy to understand that Mr. Brooks has also accomplished a version of Schiller's "Maid of Orleans," which will appear, if the success of "Tell" evince any demand for it. We trust it shall soon be forthcoming, so far as that is the condition. J. S. D. ART. VII.- The Christian Teacher; a Theological and Literary Journal. New [quarterly] Series. Nos. I. II. July, October, 1838. London. 8vo. pp. 202. WE have had occasion heretofore to allude to this Journal, as a monthly Magazine under the care of the Rev. John R. Beard of Manchester, who, in a spirit of disinterested enterprise, set it on foot, and with great zeal conducted it for four years. It deserved a better support than it appears to have received. He was rewarded with thanks and honor for his labors, but, in regard to pecuniary compensation, seems to have been much in the predicament of one of our ministers in the country, who, on being told that the subscription for his salary fell short sixty dollars, observed that that was not creditable to the parish, and rather than its minister should be so treated, he would subscribe himself; and accordingly he made up the deficit from his own purse. So it seems that Mr. Beard took it on himself to pay the editor of the "Teacher" for his labors. Notwithstanding, |