THE TOWN OF BERN,

IN SWITZERLAND.

BERN, the capital of the canton of the same name, is one of the largest and most populous towns in Switzerland. Its origin is altogether modern it was founded in the year 1191 by Berthold the Fifth, duke of Zähringen, who designed it as an instrument for repressing the refractory spirit of his nobles. Upon his death, in 1218, it was elevated to the rank of an imperial city by the emperor Frederic the Second, who, besides conferring upon the inhabitants many considerable privileges, is said to have also compiled for them a legislative code, which served for a long time subsequent as the basis of their civil laws. By the charter, or bull, which he then granted, the magistrates and the council of government were chosen in a general assembly of the citizens, every one of whom possessing a house in the town had a vote.

In the course of time, the citizens were divided into four tribes, or guilds, each headed by a "banneret," or standard-bearer, whose office was one of considerable dignity, and who was enabled to exercise great influence at the elections. The burghers, as a body, did not long retain their political privileges; the members of the council came gradually to hold their functions for life, and to fill up all vacancies in their number from a few powerful families, without reference to the general assemblies. At an early period of its history Bern was involved, after the custom of the middle ages, in constant broils with the feudal lords in its neighbourhood. Some of these, indeed, became burghers of the rising city, and thus eventually obtained a share in its government; but others struggled against it to the extent of their power, till in the end they were all defeated. Their territories passed successively into the hands of the conquerors, either by sale or surrender; and the authority of the city being thus extended, its governors became the rulers of a comparatively large and populous state.

dissatisfaction to the rest of the canton; and in the revolutionary ferment which agitated Switzerland as well as other countries of Europe in the latter part of 1830, its removal was demanded. A new constitution was completed by the middle of the following representative system was placed on a new footing, year; extensive popular changes were made,-the the members of the council were elected by the town and country districts, according to their population, and the last remnant of the ancient supremacy of the burghers of Bern was entirely obliterated.

The situation of Bern is remarkable. It stands upon the left bank of the rapid Aar, which sweeps in a sudden bend round three of its sides; the fourth opens towards the west, upon the neck of the little promontory thus formed, and is fortified. bed of the river is much below the level of the town; The rocky and its steep, craggy banks, serve for a considerable position, Bern is seen to great advantage, especially distance as a natural rampart. Placed in this elevated from the opposite side of the Aar.

writer,) it stood out brightly on its beautiful peninsula ; As we descended the hill to the bridge, (says a modern houses and trees, churches and gardens, hanging one above another, like the sunny terraces of Italy, all blended in harmonious confusion, while the rushing Aar, green and beautiful, swept proudly round its base, encircled in its character of beauty which marks its sweet vicinity. We turn by sloping banks full of the bland and pastoral were cheated out of the silver Alps by a mountain of clouds, which very ungenteelly put its wool-packs in the way; but the picture sustained itself, and superbly too, even without those powerful auxiliaries.

The canton of Bern is remarkable for the excellence of its roads. Simond describes them as resembling the best of England, and as being wider. The principal road leading to the capital is a superb causeway planted with lime-trees, which in the summer season impart a delightful perfume to the air: the magnificence of this entrance is thought to detract from the effect produced by the first view of the town itself. It seems to denote the vicinity of a large city, and when "quiet, unpretending Bern develops its steep streets and cloistered colonnades," a feeling of disappointment may be experienced. Simond says that the impression of a stranger on entering Bern is that it is an ancient and extensive city; yet before the twelfth century it had not a name, and its size and

The rising strength of Bern excited the jealousy of the empire scarcely a century after its foundation. Rodolph of Hapsburg, the founder of the House of Austria, and his son Albert the First, strove in vain to humble it; and the defeat of the emperor, Louis the Fifth (of Bavaria), in 1339, served only to consolidate its power, and raise it to the first rank among the states of Western Helvetia. A few years after-population are still comparatively insignificant. wards it was admitted into the Swiss confederation, of which it eventually became the largest and most populous canton. Its last conquest was that of the Pays de Vaud, which was wrested from the Duke of Savoy in 1536, in consequence of an attack made by him upon Geneva, the ally of Bern. From that time forward, the various acquisitions of territory which the city had made, remained peaceably annexed to it, and quietly governed by baillis, chosen from among the members of the council, until the changes brought about by the French revolution, and the triumphs of Buonaparte. A French army entered the canton in 1798, and met a brave resistance; but the government being destitute of energy and decision, the enemy penetrated to the capital, which they plundered in their usual manner. Henceforward, the absolute supremacy of the city as the ruling power of the whole canton ceased. By the constitution of 1815, the country districts obtained the power of returning, through the agency of electoral colleges, ninety-nine out of the two hundred and ninety-nine members of the sovereign council; two hundred being still chosen from among the burghers of Bern, by a commission of the council itself. Yet this preponderance on the part of the city was a source of

It is a republic; yet it looks kingly. Something of Roman majesty appears in its lofty terraces; in those massy arches on each side of the streets; in the abundance of water flowing night and day into gigantic basins; in the of bustle, a certain stateliness and reserved demeanour in magnificent avenues of trees. The very silence and absence the inhabitants, by showing it to be not a money-making town, implies that its wealth springs from more solid and permanent sources than trade can afford, and that another spirit animates its inhabitants. In short, of all the first sight impressions and guesses about Bern, that of its Luxury at Bern seems wholly directed to objects of public being a Roman town would be nearer right than any other. utility: by the side of those gigantic terraces, of those fine fountains and noble shades, you see none but simple and solid dwellings, yet scarcely any beggarly ones; not an equipage to be seen, but many a country wagon coming to market with a capital team of horses or oxen. Reminiscences of the Rhine, &c.) strike a stranger on Two things (says another writer, the author of Slight approaching Bern. The first is the marked attention paid to the wants and comforts of the humbler classes of society, for whom the path seems smoothed, the benches placed, the shelves to rest their loads upon arranged with paternal care. Nothing here is magnificent except the roads, which highest order; but everything denotes an equality of comare broad and noble, shaded by fine trees, and kept in the forts. The pageantry with which an absolute government (however narrow may be its sphere of action,) loves to

surround itself is here dispensed with. There are few carriages-no shows-I believe no theatre [this is a mistake]; but (and this is the second point that fixes the stranger's attention) instead of the pompous trappings of an arrogant aristocracy, the eye is recreated by the sight of a happy population, well fed, well dressed, well lodged, and having an air of contentment about them indicative of the absence of anxiety.

turned to this spot while I remained in Bern, and contemplated this magnificent amphitheatre in all the varieties lent to it by the different lights and hues of morning, noon, and evening, and so vivid and pleasing are my recollections of the hours I spent there, that were I asked to enumerate the advantages of different spots as to places of residence, I should certainly bear this platform in mind. Many other cities have fine promenades, and pointes de vue, as the French call them; but then an hour or two, perhaps, is required to get at them; whereas one may walk from any part of Bern to the platform in ten minutes.

The mountains here spoken of are the Bernese Alps; they present one of the most interesting objects in nature. At a distance of forty miles, the whole quarter of the horizon from south to west is terminated by a bold outline of extraordinary forms, rude and strange, perhaps, in themselves, yet blending in perfect harmony. Every instant is marked by a change of scene, every hue is successively displayed, till the whole central chain of the Alps, so lately burning under the level rays of the setting sun, presents only a succession of pale and livid forms sinking into night.

Bern is justly accounted one of the neatest cities of Europe; regularity without monotony is its characteristic. The principal streets are broad, and of the length of the town from east to west, in which direction they run parallel to each other, and not quite straight, according to Coxe, but gently curved; "I do not recollect many streets in England," says Mr. Inglis, "superior to the Grande Rue of Bern." This regular disposition of the city has not been the gradual work of time, but it is to be traced to a very early period; Bern was rebuilt on its present plan after its entire destruction by fire in 1405. The streets are abundantly supplied with fountains decorated with an extensive variety of appendages, and often presenting the oddest appearance imaginable, It is at first difficult (says Simond,) to account for the with their "stiff warriors, grogram dames, and allenew and lively interest a knowledge of the names of these gorical conundrums which might puzzle even Spenser mountains adds to the contemplation of the prospect, but himself." The houses are generally lofty and hand-positions which at once explains shades of colour and of this implies a knowledge of their geography or respective some, their material being stone, and their style of distinctness unnoticed before, and enables us to mark the building uniform. Most of the streets have arcades, hidden lake or deep valley by the scarcely perceptible vaaffording a sheltered communication with the shops. pour rising between these distant ridges. Thus it is botany These "side-galleries" (says Simond,) are the prototypes mineralogy to the contemplation of heaven and earth. adds to the pleasure we receive from plants, astronomy and of the Palais Royal at Paris, and of several new construc tions in that capital and in London, as they were originally imitated from the Lombard towns, which, from their superior state of civilization, were the models of the Imperial towns of Germany and Switzerland as to architecture and municipal institutions; therefore they should not be too severely criticised: the pillars indeed are too massy, and the arches are too low for the shops to have sufficient light and air. Covered ways screening passengers from the Winter storms seem absolutely requisite in a situation like that of Bern, elevated to more than 1700 feet above the level of the sea; they would scarcely be less useful in a tropical climate, and their convenience is so obvious in all climates, that they will be adopted in time all over Europe.

The public buildings of Bern require little in the way of description, though Coxe says that they are built "in a noble simplicity of style, and announce the riches and grandeur of this republic." At the head of them stands the münster, or cathedral—“ a noble piece of Gothic architecture," according to the same writer-which dates from the rebuilding of the town in the early part of the fifteenth century. All that need be said of it is, that it has an unfinished steeple-some curious sculpture in the chief entrance -and some fine painted glass in the windows. But the terrace on which it stands deserves more notice. This is an artificial platform (the Plateforme, indeed, is its name), raised at a great expense, more than a hundred feet above the river at its base, and planted with noble chestnut trees.

The chief attraction, however, of the Plateforme, and that which has rendered it the favourite walk of the inhabitants, is the magnificent view which it affords,-a view, which as Coxe observes would be most striking anywhere, but the effect of which is greatly heightened when seen from the midst of a large town. Tourists speak of it with rapture.

The Aar (says Mr. Inglis,) sweeps in a noble stream below, gardens in terraces hang upon the bank, which for a mile in length presents a beautiful declivity, covered with fruit-trees, and evergreens, and weeping willows, and enamelled with the dyes of a thousand flowers. Beyond the river the eye ranges over a country rich in every kind of verdure, sprinkled with villages, and thickly studded with white houses and cottages; and beyond stretches the vast line of mountains, their summits distinguishable from the clouds only by their greater purity. I frequently re

Among the public buildings of Bern, besides the cathedral, we may particularize two large hospitals, -the Burgerspital, or Burgher Hospital, and the Inselspital, or Island Hospital. There is a noble edifice of freestone, serving as a prison and house of correction; it is the largest of its kind in Switzerland. The Town Hall is a lumbering mass of antiquity, and the Corn Magazine, which rests upon pillars, a large and splendid building. The Library, the Museum, the Arsenal, the Theatre, or Hotel de Musique, the Casino upon the Platform, and some charitable institutions besides those mentioned, all contribute to that general air of neatness and elegance which pervades the city. The Museum contains some excellent models of the Alps. Before the invasion of the French, the Arsenal was well stocked with arms and ammunition for 60,000 men, Coxe says; they emptied it, of course, at the same time that they plundered the treasury of more than 30,000,000 of francs in gold and silver. There are two barrières, which are spoken of as handsome structures; near one of them, that of Aarberg, is the bärengraben, or bear-ditch, in which a family of bears has been constantly maintained at the expense of the state for some hundred years.

One of the many terraces adorning the town contains on its parapet-wall, which is 108 feet in height, an inscription recording a singular accident, which happened there about the middle of the seventeenth century. A young student having mounted a horse, which was grazing on the terrace, his companions frighted the animal, and caused it to leap over. The horse was killed, but though the imprudent rider had several limbs broken, he survived.

Looking over (says Simond), we observed that the wall projects gradually below, forming an inclined plane, which, though little deviating from the vertical, must have retarded the fall. As if there was something catching in it, a woman condemned to the wheel-barrow for some crime, and employed in sweeping the terrace with other prisoners, took her opportunity and jumped over at the same place two years ago, but she was killed on the spot.

The practice here alluded to of employing convicts in chains to clean the streets, existed till lately in

!