lizabeth sends grace and all good wishes!"

MANY VOICES.

What wants the queen with us? Her reign is done.

FUeRST (_reads_).

"In the great grief and doleful widowhood,
In which the bloody exit of her lord
Has plunged the queen, still in her mind she bears
The ancient faith and love of Switzerland."

MELCH.

She ne'er did that in her prosperity.

ROeSSEL.

Hush, let us hear!

FUeRST (_reads_).

"And she is well assured,
Her people will in due abhorrence hold
The perpetrators of this damned deed.
On the three Cantons, therefore, she relies,
That they in nowise lend the murderers aid;
But rather, that they loyally assist,
To give them up to the avenger's hand,
Remembering the love and grace which they
Of old received from Rudolph's royal house."

[_Symptoms of dissatisfaction among the peasantry_.]

MANY VOICES.

The love and grace!

STAUFF.

Grace from the father we, indeed, received,
But what have we to boast of from the song
Did he confirm the charter of our freedom,
As all preceding emperors had done?
Did he judge righteous judgment, or afford
Shelter, or stay, to innocence oppress'd?
Nay, did he e'en give audience to the men
We sent to lay our grievances before him?
Not one of all these things did the king do,
And had we not ourselves achieved our rights
By our own stalwart hands, the wrongs we bore
Had never touch'd him. Gratitude to him!
Within these vales he sowed no seeds of that;
He stood upon an eminence--he might
Have been a very father to his people,
But all his aim and pleasure was to raise
Himself and his own house: and now may those
Whom he has aggrandized, lament for him;

FUeRST.

We will not triumph in his fall, nor now
Recall to mind the wrongs that we endured.
Far be't from us! Yet, that we should avenge
The sovereign's death, who never did us good,
And hunt down those who ne'er molested us,
Becomes us not, nor is our duty. Love
Must be a tribute free, and unconstrain'd;
From all enforced duties death absolves,
And unto him we owe no further debt.

MELCH.

And if the queen laments within her bower,
Accusing Heaven in sorrow's wild despair;
Here see a people, from its anguish freed,
To that same Heav'n send up its thankful praise.
Who would reap tears must sow the seeds of love.

[_Exit the Imperial Courier_.]

STAUFFACHER (_to the people_).

But where is Tell? Shall he, our freedom's founder,
Alone be absent from our festival?
He did