!

[_The whole bridal company surround the dying man with an expression
of unsympathising horror._

STUeSSI. Look there! How pale he grows! Now! Death is coming
Round his heart: his eyes grow dim and fixed.

ARMGART [_lifts up one of her children_].
See, children, how a miscreant departs!

RUDOLPH. Out on you, crazy hags! Have ye no touch
Of feeling in you, that ye feast your eyes
On such an object? Help me, lend your hands!
Will no one help to pull the tort'ring arrow
From his breast?

WOMEN [_start back_]. _We_ touch him whom God has smote!

RUDOLPH. My curse upon you! [_Draws his sword._

STUeSSI [_lays his hand on Rudolph's arm_]. Softly, my good Sir!
Your government is at an end. The Tyrant
Is fallen: we will endure no farther violence:
We are free.

ALL [_tumultuously_]. The land is free!

RUDOLPH. Ha! runs it so?
Are rev'rence and obedience gone already?

[_To the armed Attendants, who press in._

You see the murd'rous deed that has been done.
Our help is vain, vain to pursue the murd'rer;
Other cares demand us. On! To Kuessnacht!
To save the Kaiser's fortress! For at present
All bonds of order, duty, are unloosed,
No man's fidelity is to be trusted.

[_Whilst he departs with the Attendants, appear six Fratres
Misericordiae._

ARMGART. Room! Room! Here come the Friars of Mercy.

STUeSSI. The victim slain, the ravens are assembling!

FRATRES MISERICORDIAE [_form a half-circle round the dead body,
and sing in a deep tone_].

With noiseless tread death comes on man,
No plea, no prayer delivers him;
From midst of busy life's unfinished plan,
With sudden hand, it severs him:
And ready or not ready,--no delay,
Forth to his Judge's bar he must away!

The death of Gessler, which forms the leading object of the plot,
happens at the end of the fourth act; the fifth, occupied with
representing the expulsion of his satellites, and the final triumph
and liberation of the Swiss, though diversified with occurrences and
spectacles, moves on with inferior animation. A certain want of unity
is, indeed, distinctly felt throughout all the piece; the incidents do
not point one way; there is no connexion, or a very slight one,
between the enterprise of Tell and that of the men of Ruetli. This is
the principal, or rather sole, deficiency of the present work; a
deficiency inseparable from the faithful disp