glowing in the mild sunshine of the poet's fancy. The
tyranny of Gessler, and the misery to which it has reduced the land;
the exasperation, yet patient courage of the people; their characters,
and those of their leaders, Fuerst, Stauffacher, and Melchthal; their
exertions and ultimate success, described as they are here, keep up a
constant interest in the piece. It abounds in action, as much as the
_Bride of Messina_ is defective in that point.

But the finest delineation is undoubtedly the character of Wilhelm
Tell, the hero of the Swiss Revolt, and of the present drama. In Tell
are combined all the attributes of a great man, without the help of
education or of great occasions to develop them. His knowledge has
been gathered chiefly from his own experience, and this is bounded by
his native mountains: he has had no lessons or examples of splendid
virtue, no wish or opportunity to earn renown: he has grown up to
manhood, a simple yeoman of the Alps, among simple yeomen; and has
never aimed at being more. Yet we trace in him a deep, reflective,
earnest spirit, thirsting for activity, yet bound in by the wholesome
dictates of prudence; a heart benevolent, generous, unconscious alike
of boasting or of fear. It is this salubrious air of rustic,
unpretending honesty that forms the great beauty in Tell's character:
all is native, all is genuine; he does not declaim: he dislikes to
talk of noble conduct, he exhibits it. He speaks little of his
freedom, because he has always enjoyed it, and feels that he can
always defend it. His reasons for destroying Gessler are not drawn
from jurisconsults and writers on morality, but from the everlasting
instincts of Nature: the Austrian Vogt must die; because if not, the
wife and children of Tell will be destroyed by him. The scene, where
the peaceful but indomitable archer sits waiting for Gessler in the
hollow way among the rocks of Kuessnacht, presents him in a striking
light. Former scenes had shown us Tell under many amiable and
attractive aspects; we knew that he was tender as well as brave, that
he loved to haunt the mountain tops, and inhale in silent dreams the
influence of their wild and magnificent beauty: we had seen him the
most manly and warm-hearted of fathers and husbands; intrepid, modest,
and decisive in the midst of peril, and venturing his life to bring
help to the oppressed. But here his mind is exalted into stern
solemnity; its principles of action come before us wit