With solemn rites between,

'Twas sung, how they were lovely in their lives,
And in their deaths had not divided been.
Touch'd by the music, and the melting scene,
Was scarce one tearless eye amidst the crowd;-
Stern warriors, resting on their swords, were seen
To veil their eyes, as pass'd each much lov'd shroud-
While woman's softer soul in woe dissolv'd aloud.

Campbell.

In the midst of a smiling valley, through which the infant Rhine pursues its devious windings, lies the little town of Mayenfield, the capital of a district of the same name in the Grisons. Situated on a sunny declivity, surrounded by fruitful fields, luxuriant vineyards, and pastures of the brightest verdure, it seems as if seated in a delightful garden-lies open to the mild influence of the southern breezes-and is sheltered from the fierce north wind by the lofty barriers of the Rheticon *. The

* Rheticon-a chain of mountains, inclosing the Canton of the Grisons on the north-east. Some of their pinnacles are 9000 feet in height.

Silvan, with its Alps* and Horns, † forms the eastern extremity of this majestic wall of mountains, along which tower the heights of the Furnis, the stupendous Falknis, the rocky pyramids of the Glebbwand, and the grassy steeps of the Guscha. Innumerable torrents rush wildly through the deep ravines of these gigantic rocks, bearing down immense masses of stones and rubbish, and preci pitating their impetuous waters into the calm bosom of the Rhine. Below, nature is seen to smile in the softest exuberance; while above, a gloomy grandeur sits enthroned amidst the ruins of primeval creations. Three pathways lead in different directions from Mayenfield up the mountains. These paths unite on the eastern declivity of the summit, called the Kamm, from whence the track proceeds along the Flescher Alp, passes through a pine forest, and leads down to the deep solitude of 3 silent valley on the southern side of the Mayenfelder Alp. Here, on the grassy plain, where two rude huts afford a scanty shelter, during the summer, to the cowherds and their cattle, and where the remains of an old wall mark the spot once hallowed by a chapel dedicated to St. Meinrad, three hundred years ago, a race of Free Walsers ‡, inhabited the village of Stürvis, now long

* An Alp, in the language of the country, is a high moun tain pasture. These tracts of verdure are situated between ridges of rocks, which form them, as it were, into terraces, rising one above another, until they reach the snowy region. + Horn-a pointed summit, a peak.

Walser, a stranger-from Walen, to speak an unknown

since vanished from the face of the earth. Not the thundering avalanche, nor the awful overthrow of a convulsed mountain, occasioned the destruction of this little hamlet-its huts, forsaken by their inhabitants, gave way to the gradual devastations of time. But the neighbouring mountaineers preserve a romantic tradition of the days of old, which perpetuates the memory of an ill-fated young pair, and of the sad catastrophe that induced the Stürvisers to exchange their free dwelling place amidst the silent Alps, for the smiling, yet defenceless plains of Mayenfield.

Elly, Elly, come out, I beseech you," said Oswald, in a low, supplicating voice, as he crept, in the twilight, to the cottage of old Goutta Halder, and tapped at the little low window. Elly, the flower of Stürvis, opened the window, and answered in a whisper, "Do not be

language. At the commencement of the fendal system, when large tracts of country were still uncultivated, the German kings, and the Frank and Allemannic nobles, were anxious to promote the establishment of settlers in Rhætia. Certain proportions of land, amongst the wild mountain regions, were allotted them for a very trifling rent, to be paid in kind; and many peculiar privileges were conferred upon them, As they were not bondmen, and as they continued for a long time the use of their own language, they were called Free Walsers, and the places they inhabited were denominated Walsersitze. The Walser freedom was annexed, not to the people, but to the land, and might be enjoyed by the occupants, even when they were not descended from the original settlers.