thirteen Cantons of the Swiss Confederacy, extending two hundred miles, from east to west, and a hundred and thirty, from north to south, would lie at the feet of a soaring Æronaut, who might look down with ease and safety upon the tremendous precipices of der Schreckhorn [the peak of terror] surrounded at unequal distances by spiral protuberances of solid granite; whose perpendicular strata would be seen to rise out of a troubled ocean of snow and ice, in the shape of battered pyramids, and broken obelisksnow whelmed in clouds, impregnated with thunder-now penetrating, in unbroken silence, the ambient air.

Far beneath these stupendous crags, would be seen at intervals, green vales, and azure lakes, studded with towns and

villages,

villages, whose slender spiracles, plated with tin, would glitter in the sun, while the mountain torrent, or the path-way of the heath, would shew a streak of silver -coursing the winding valley, or traversing (with marked direction) the extended plain.

The lake of Constance would limit the fairy scene, on the north-east; and, on the south-west, the lucid crescent that receives the Rhone from the Pais de Vallais, and imperceptibly conveys it by Lau, sanne (the calm retirement in which Gibbon contemplated the decay of Empires) to pierce the walls of Geneva, and join the torrent of the Arve.

On the north the green current of the Rhine, like the coloured pencilling of a

map,

map, would mark the confines of Germany-on the west, the blue ridge of Mount Jura would distinguish it from France-and on the south, from Italy, the long chain of Alpine summits, whitened with ice and snow.

Among the central peaks of St. Gothard would be seen to issue, from transparent Glaciers, the Rhine, the Rhone, and a source of the Po-descending in bright cascades, by opening ravines, to irrigate the plains of Europe, and empty themselves into the Atlantic-the Mediterranean-or the Adriatic Gulph.

In the heart of this chaos of rocks and woods-in whose profound recesses hardy Swains, descended from Aboriginal Mountaineers, had quietly submitted to

the

the German yoke, ever since the decay of the Roman Empire-in the year one thousand three hundred and eight, Werner de Stauffacken, of Schweitz, Walter Furst, of Uri, and Arnold de Melchthal, of Unterwalden-a patriotic Triumvirate, planned and effected the independence of their country, by expelling the proconsular Tyrants, whose growing impositions had at length become insupportable.

The Emperor Albert, then reigning, was assassinated by his own Nephew, John of Hapsburg, as he was preparing to quell the insurrection; and the Insurgents had gathered such strength, by the time that Leopold Duke of Austria, marched against the confederated Cantons, in the year 1315, that thirteen

hundred

1

hundred Swiss, defended the pass of Morgarten, against twenty thousand Austrians, and repulsed the Invaders, with dreadful slaughter.

The Cantons of Uri, Schweitz, and Unterwalden, now contracted a perpetual alliance, which became the foundation of the Helvetic Confederacy, successively acceded to for mutual defence, by the neighbouring Cantons of Zurich, Glarus, Zug, Berne, Lucerne, Friburgh, Soleure, Schaffhausen, Basil, and Appenzel -A motley intermixture of aristocratic and democratic Republics, which maintained their independence, and preserved inviolate the advantages—and the defects of their antiquated constitutions-till the compact of five hundred years, was dissolved, in a moment, by the seducing professions