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

the never ending demands for money.
and had written to tell his son to expect
nothing more except his allowance and
the check he enclosed.
90 be concluded Rert lceek)
THE TALE OF WILLIAM TELL.
London Telegraph.
In one of the least perfect of his poems
COleridge congratulates the beautiful
Georgiana, Duchess of DevOnshire, on
the enthusiasm for liberty which induced
her to hail the chapel, hail the platform
wild" where William Tell slew the tyrant
Gessler and liberated his Swiss country
men. The Duchess had celebrated this
supposed historical event in verse of the
"album" " or keepsake" order, and the
poet was moved by the performance to
an admiration which appears nowadays
a little excessive. "Oh, lady, nursed in
pOmp and pleasure" j" he exclaims, where
learnt you thai heroic measured" and to-
ward the close of the ode he arrives, ap-
parently in all seriousness. at the cOnclu-
sion that the Duchess healthy sympa-
thies were due to the fact of her having
reared her children without the assist
ance Of a wet nurse.
We have no means Of knowing whether
this explanation obtained cOtemporary
acceptance; but, whatever may have been
the secret of the noble lady's enthusiasm,
there was in those days, and for long af-
terwards, no suspicion in the mind of any
one that it was waste of graceful SEN
timent. Skeptics had not arisen to as
sure us that GesSler is a myth, Tell le-
gend, and the apple as fabulous a fruit
as the golden pippins Of the Hesperides.
Now, however, we have reached a period
when " everybody knows" that the whole
story is unhistOric and its personages i'm
aginary, and when, accordingly, the news
that the Chateau of Gessler is about to
be demolished" reads very much like an
that the residence of Mrs. (
Camps friend, Mrs. Harris, is marked
down for destruction under an improve
ment scheme of the metropolitan Board
Of Works. let such is the intelligence ,
with which We were able to supply the |.
public yesterday on the authority of our |
Paris correspondent.
For some reason best known to them |
selves, the authorities of Canton Lucerne
Ire about to remove the ruins which lie |
IN the wooded slope of the hill near Kuss-
lacht, on the shores of the lovely Lake
If the Four Forest CantOns, and which
nave always borne the name of Gessler's
Castle. Whether their icOnoclastic zeal |
will carry them still a little further up
his reach of the lake and a little nearer
o the ideal OF gratuitOus vandalism, we
10 not know; but we should not be in the
east surprised to hear in a few months
IT years that the chapel on the platform
Wild - is also doomed. Indeed. it would
eem to be only logical to destroy the
hrine of the liberator along with the
tronghold of the tyrant. If Gessler is a
legendary Oppressor, and if, in the words
# a famous and venerable iconOclast.
there was never no such person" as
William Tell, it seems inconsistent to
reserve memorials of the one after these
f the other have been done away with.
We would suggest that Tells Chapel
hould be at once removed and its place
He'd by a colossal statue of Prof. KOpp,
f Lucerne, to whom belongs, We believe,
he glory of having demolished the myth.
)r, if it be thought desirable to perpetu-
tie the achievement of exploding this
ncient legend. the work of the sculptor
night take the form of ian allegOry on
he banks" of the lake, and the Profes-
or might appear in the act of transiixing
he apple of Fable with the arrow of Crit
oism. To make the group SymbOlicallv
erfect, however. the bearer of the fruit,
he beautiful youth Romance should be
epresented not as escaping scathlesS, but S
S stricken dead by the fatal shot.
1t is to be regretted that there are no
leans of turEing-Or Of returning the I
shaft. We are told, indeed,
nat the historical controversy as to Tells S
xistence has been revived, and perhaps I
here may be still historians who are will
lg to strike blow on behalf Of the ma
Onal hero. We fear. however. that the
lSe of the skepticS is too strong. Tell /
supposed to have won the independ-
L
inning of the fourteenth century. Yet
is the fact that no trace OF such per- {
m is to be found in historical records of S
he periods nearest to his own. John of |
Iinterthur. who flouriShed about 400, ,
lakes no mention of him. neither is his y
anne to be found in the pages of Conrad c
ustneger. of Bern (Il20), another of the :
irlieSt Swiss historians. He makes his 5
Dpearance for the first time on the page I
history in the S0THer Chro8iE. OF l47O, |
good deal more than a century and Il |
llf after the date of his supposed eX- a
oitS-a period more than long enough l
II an infant myth to develop into the L
OSt robust manhood. q
The next chronicler to add new touches ;
the heroic to the hero'S figure was Egi- :
us Tschudi, of Glarus, who died in 1912: :,
nd SO this game of Swiss romance. like v
lat of Russian scandal, was still going 81
l. in the hands of Johann Won Miller,
) late as the beginning Of the present
,ntury. Fortunate is il for the world of .,
t and letters that the legend lived SO d
ng; for it is quite possible that if the c
ory of Tell had met its KopP in the see I