Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1888-03-15

n
!. commissioner to administer Oaths.
1 Still it is an unquestiOnable advantage
; to any one who would celebrate in music
= or drama great national uprising
r against an Oppressor to know that he is
: dealing with actual facts. The histori-
cal bent of Schiller's dramatic genius, as
) shown in the attraction exercised over
= him by such striking and picturesque
figures as Wallenstein and Mary Stuart,
might well have made him regret the
noble Swiss story had he suspected its
authenticity; while, as for Rossini, he
lived at any rate worked at the time
when music could still draw its inspira-
ton from the great facts of life, and had
not yet drifted away into cold Wagnerian
symbolism.
On the whole, we may well be glad that
the legend of Tell still enjoyed the hos
pltality of history in the days of both
these masters. 1t has served its purpose
IN the world, if only in supplying them
with subject; and we NAV, perhaps,
hazard the conjecture that the words of
the German poet and the numbers of the
Italian musician will be still fresh on the
lips and in the ears of millions when the
name and fame of Prof. Kopp-who is
even now in some danger of being con-
fused with the great philOlOgist Prof.
Bopp-will be beginning to melt into
the infinite azure of the past"
Moreoyer-and this alone is a great
source of reinsurance is by no means
improbable that the popular belief in the
| legend will itself Outlive the Professor.
Myths, We are glad to know, or at any
rate myths of the agreeable order, die
hard; and if Herr KOpp imagines because
he has scientifically killed William Tell
that that hero is dead he nightly de-
ceiveS himself. The hero is alive and
shooting still, and that not only in the
minds of the vulgar, but in the belief of
those who are by courtesy supposed to
keep abreast of all the latest historical
discoveries. There are people, indeed,
who are thoroughly "posted up" in the
most recent "inds" of the historian
people who know that William Wallace
was aWelshman of doubtful antecedents;
Tiberius, meek ascetic of singularly hu-
name disposition and Puritanic propriety
of morals; Henry VIII. henpecked hus-
band, driven to severity only by intOler-
able domestic prosecutions are
people, we say, who, although perfectly
enlightened in all these particulars, are,
or lately were. in blissful ignorance of
the fact that William Tell is not a real,
but only legendary parsonage. Several
years after Herr Kopp's ever-memorable
discovery was given to the world, a
brother Professor of his, the eminent oc-
cupant of an historical chair at Oxford,
found it necessary to read a severe lee
ture on this very piece of ignorance to
writer who should have been ashamed,
if not of being guilty of it, at all events
of having failed to conceal it. Hence
we may safely infer that the great body
of the public who still walk in darkness
on the subject of Wallace, Tiberius and
Henry VIII. would be as prepared to bet
on the reality of William Tell and his ex-
plOits as on that of the person, and per-
fOrmances of last years Queens Prize
man at Wimbledon. Even if that body
were to get all the facts and arguments
of the skeptical historian into its great
head, it would make no difference
The popular mind in all countries will
no more consent to abandon its belief in
William Tell, because the professors de
clare his life and deeds to be fable, than
the popular mind in England would con-
sent to regard the archer of merry Sher-
wood as solar myth. How many pro-
fessors would it take to convince an Or
dinary Englishman that Robin Hood is in
reality the sun, and his arrows the shafts
Of light; that Maid Marian represents the
moon. and Friar Tuck, from his rOtund-
ity, the earth? A wilderness of profess
Ors, to employ Shylock's expansive met
lphor, would fail to do so. They might
as well try to persuade us that there was
no Alfred the Great, or that, if there was,
ne did not lat the peasant wOman's cakes
burn, and that the story is simply an al
egorical version of the fact that his SOL
liers "got il hot" from the Danes through
| neglect Of military precautions. Le-
yends which have become embodied in
history and have endeared themselves to
he national heart in any country are
practically ineradicable; and with all re-
,pect for the labOrs of historical Dryas-
lusts, We are glad that such should be
he case.