vorite, Mortimer. But this momentary promise of health and
vigor soon passed away, and it became plain to all that the life of this
brave and sagacious monarch was drawing rapidly to a close. In
expectation of the final event he had given orders to have a magnificent
tomb made at Paris; which was brought to Bruges, thence through England
into Scotland, and on its arrival erected in the church of the
Benedictines at Dunfermline.

Bruce died in his fifty-fifth year, and was buried in the abbey-church
of Dunfermline, as he had desired.

In the prime of his life Bruce was upward of six feet high; his
shoulders were broad, his chest full and open; the cheek-bones strong
and prominent, and the muscles of the back and neck of great size and
thickness; his hair curled short over a broad forehead, and the general
expression of his face was calm and cheerful; yet, when he pleased, he
could assume a character of stern command. Such, at least, Bruce has
been described by the old historian, and we may easily believe it, since
the outward semblance agrees so well with what is recorded of his life
and actions.

ARNOLD VON WINKELRIED

(DIED, 1386)

[Illustration: Arnold von Winkelried.]

The incident with which this name is connected is, after the purely
legendary feat of Tell, the best known and most popular in the early
history of the Swiss Confederation. We are told how, at a critical
moment in the great battle of Sempach, when the Swiss had failed to
break the serried ranks of the Austrian knights, a man of Unterwalden,
Arnold von Winkelried by name, came to the rescue. Commending his wife
and children to the care of his comrades, he rushed toward the
Austrians, gathered a number of their spears together against his
breast, and fell pierced through, having opened a way into the hostile
ranks for his fellow-countrymen, though at the price of his own life.
But the Tell and Winkelried stories stand in a very different position
when looked at in the dry light of history; for, while in the former
imaginary and impossible men (bearing now and then a real historical
name) do imaginary and impossible deeds at a very uncertain period, in
the latter we have some solid ground to rest on, and Winkelried's act
might very well have been performed, though, as yet, the amount of
genuine and early evidence in support of it is very far from being
sufficient.

The Winkelrieds of Stanz were a knightly family when we first hear of
the