In the prime of his life Bruce was upward of six feet high; his shoulders were broad, his chest full and open; the cheek-bones strong and prominent, and the muscles of the back and neck of great size and thickness; his hair curled short over a broad forehead, and the general expression of his face was calm and cheerful; yet, when he pleased, he could assume a character of stern command. Such, at least, Bruce has been described by the old historian, and we may easily believe it, since the outward semblance agrees so well with what is recorded of his life and actions. ARNOLD VON WINKELRIED (DIED, 1386) [Illustration: Arnold von Winkelried.] The incident with which this name is connected is, after the purely legendary feat of Tell, the best known and most popular in the early history of the Swiss Confederation. We are told how, at a critical moment in the great battle of Sempach, when the Swiss had failed to break the serried ranks of the Austrian knights, a man of Unterwalden, Arnold von Winkelried by name, came to the rescue. Commending his wife and children to the care of his comrades, he rushed toward the Austrians, gathered a number of their spears together against his breast, and fell pierced through, having opened a way into the hostile ranks for his fellow-countrymen, though at the price of his own life. But the Tell and Winkelried stories stand in a very different position when looked at in the dry light of history; for, while in the former imaginary and impossible men (bearing now and then a real historical name) do imaginary and impossible deeds at a very uncertain period, in the latter we have some solid ground to rest on, and Winkelried's act might very well have been performed, though, as yet, the amount of genuine and early evidence in support of it is very far from being sufficient. The Winkelrieds of Stanz were a knightly family when we first hear of them, though toward the end of the fourteenth century they seem to have been but simple men without the honors of knighthood, and not always using their prefix "von." Among its members we find an Erni Winkelried acting as a witness to a contract of sale on May 1, 1367; while the same man, or perhaps another member of the family, Erni von Winkelried, is plaintiff in a suit at Stanz, on September 29, 1389, and in 1417 is the landamman (or head-man) of Unterwalden, being then called Arnold Winkelriet. We have, therefore, a real man named Arnold Winkelried living at Stanz, about the time of the battle of Sempach. The question is thus narrowed to the points, was he present at the battle, and did he then perform the deed commonly attributed to him? The determination of this question requires a minute investigation of the history of that battle, to ascertain if there are any authentic traces of this incident, or any opportunity for it to have taken place.