ACdoUNT OF BOOKS. 



489 



decline, and dissolution of the con- 

 federacy ; and the first chapter 

 opens with a short sketch of the 

 transactions of the council of Con- 

 stance. The proceedings of this 

 assembly, of such note in its day, 

 throw new light on the actual state 

 of Europe at the time, and on its 

 subsequent history. It is a curious 

 circumstance that this assembly, 

 though catholic, and though the 

 documents relating to it are princi- 

 pally German, has found in I'En- 

 fant, a protestant, and a French- 

 man, a more fair and satisfactory 

 historian thanit has been the fate of 

 other councils to obtain. We make 

 no exception in favour of the esti- 

 mable Fra Paoii. It will not suffice 

 to traverse the beaten roads : we 

 must wander into bye-paths, if we 

 would thoroughly know the vast 

 field of history. 



We have seen the Helvetic body- 

 politic reach its prime, and we now 

 are called to witness the operation 

 of those seeds of dissolution, which 

 are inherent in all the works of 

 man ; to observe the shocks which 

 convulse the solid frame, which 

 tend to undermine some pillar, or to 

 break some hinge, and which com- 

 mence the gradual change from per- 

 fection to decay. 



No votaries have been more in- 

 toxicated than those of liberty. — 

 ITiey attribute to their divinity 

 every possible excellence ; and they 

 describe her as pacific and moder- 

 ate. History forces on us a differ- 

 ent opinion, and wrests from us a 

 confession which we take no plea- 

 sure in making ; that liberty in- 

 spires her sons too often with ambi- 

 tion, and with the love of aggran- 

 dizement. This is instanced in a 

 very remarkable manner, in the 



case of the Cantons of Uri and 

 Underwalden ; whose sequestered 

 situation, it might have been ex- 

 pected, would have guarded them 

 against sacrificing at the shrine of 

 ambition. It was in an attempt to 

 make good a foreign acquisition, 

 (that of Bellinzona), that victory 

 first proved unfaithful to the Swiss 

 banners ; and it was at the battle of 

 St. Paul's before that city, that a 

 Swiss was first known to surrender 

 himself a prisoner of war. 



Previously to the Italian disaster, 

 in the course of the troubles of the 

 Vallais, a spirit had discovered it- 

 self, widely different from that 

 which animated the confederacy in 

 its better days. A demagogic cere- 

 mony, practised by the insurgents, 

 is too curious to be passed over ; we 

 shall transcribe the author's account 

 of it, as given in a note : 



' The mode in which the authors 

 of the commotion effected their pur- 

 pose, is singular, though analogous 

 to what popular leaders ever prac- 

 tise in order to concentrate the 

 various grievances complained of 

 into one single image, word, or 

 sentence. They produced a club, 

 on which a human face was rudely 

 sculptured, and tied it to a young 

 birch-tree, which they plucked up 

 by the root. This they called the 

 Mace, and set it up as an emblem 

 of the injured people. The figure 

 was asked who it had chiefly to 

 complain of ; and the names of the 

 principal families being called over, 

 when that of the person aimed at 

 was mentioned, it was imade to bow 

 profoundly in token of humiliation, 

 and earnest en treaty for relief. All 

 those who took compassion on it 

 drove a hob-nail into the trunk of 

 tiic tree, thereby denoting their 



