Of course, critics have arisen, who attempt the destruction of this story. Some would not account themselves progressive if they did not try to annihilate the
THE URI-ROTHSTOCK SEEN FROM BRUNNEN
past, or turn it upside down, or inside out. Bacon was Shakespeare; Homer was a crowd of at least twenty scribes; a Welshman, and not Columbus, discovered America; and Bonivard, the Prisoner of Chillon, was an out-and-out scamp. So would some deal with Tell. They would treat him as the lake on Mount Pilatus was treated—they would throw stones at him, scoff at his simple, heroic virtue, and drain him even of his existence. Listen to what Baedeker, in his guide to Switzerland, has to say of “the romantic but unfounded tradition of William Tell”:
“The legend of the national hero of Switzerland, as well as the story of the expulsion of the Austrian bailiffs in 1308, is destitute of historical foundation. No trace of such a person is to be found in the work of John of Winterthur (Vitoduranus, 1349), or that of Conrad Justinger of Bern (1420), the earliest Swiss historians. Mention is made of him for the first time in the Sarner Chronik of 1470, and the myth was subsequently embellished by Ægidius Tschudi of Glarus (d. 1542), and still more by Johann von Müller (d. 1809), while Schiller’s famous play has finally secured to the hero a world-wide celebrity. Similar traditions are met with among various northern nations, such as the Danes and Icelanders.”
Does not such reading as this appear to damage the scenery of Uri’s Bay? It seems at least but poor service to render to the tourist—this killing of half of the district’s wild romance. Those who cling to the stout, red little volume as to a dear and trusted friend, must nevertheless feel something like a pang of regret as they climb up through the beech wood to the green slope and the old chalet of the Rütli and drink water from the three famous springs; nor can they be unconscious of a certain feeling of loss as they walk by the bushes of mountain honeysuckle along the path to the little chapel on the Tellsplatte and gaze through the ironwork screen at the fine mural pictures of this outrageous but glorious myth. Tradition is a hard thing to kick against.
Sentiment, however, is of no use for confounding the critics. But let the Baedeker-beridden tourist take heart; there is evidence, after all, not only that Tell may have lived, but that he may have done something to earn his reputation. William Peter, in the Appendix to his English translation of Schiller’s play, voices this evidence. Among other points in favour of the substantial veracity of tradition, he gives two facts of special hopefulness:—
“The many old German Songs and Romances in which he (Tell) is celebrated, and which are so remarkable for their ancient dialect and simplicity as to leave little doubt either of their own authenticity or of the truth of the deeds which they commemorate”;