arms, and brandishing their rude weapons, yet dripping with gore, they sang the Ca Ira' and shouted Death to the king!' The shout roused Henri. He trembled as he thought that such had been his own watch-word only the night before, and he endeavored to extricate himself from the mass. But his efforts were unsuccessful, and he was carried with them toward the Assembly: there it was said the king was. As they approached the place, the very crowd verified the rumor, and with difficulty the first of this new column, among whom was Henri, gained entrance to the galleries.

It was the twilight of evening. As he entered a faint light was glimmering through the glass in the high dome. It grew more clear and intense. Then the broad sashes were flung open, and the great chandelier descended. Its glare flashed into every corner of the gloomy building, and revealed a scene altogether unique in history. Opposite to him, on the long and rising benches, sat the representatives of that renowned party, so often traduced, so little understood, the Girondists. But they were at this time a splendid company, for they were apparently in the zenith of their fame and success. Joy diffused itself among them as they heard of the great victory. Hope brightened their anxious countenances.

There were the intellectual heads of those philosophers who had started the revolution; whose writings had wrung and urged to madness the hearts of millions; whose speculations, modified and corrected by nothing but classic experience, contemplated with rapture a pure democracy as a model republic, and whose philanthropy would embrace under its beneficent influence all the world. Sad indeed was it that their ignorance of practical detail not only made the country a sufferer, but themselves martyrs. And there too was that fair array of orators whose eloquence, lingered over even now with mournful admiration, adorned and illustrated a philosophy so humane, so mistaken.

Glowing with no generous emotions, but darkly lowering like the legions of the lost, the ranks of the Jacobins frowned down from their lofty seats on all below. The success of republicanism brought but little satisfaction to them. The triumph of all was not the victory of a party. Already the insatiable craving for sole domination was gnawing within; already the fierce thirst for blood, which, as in beasts, grows by indulgence, was consuming them. Their whole being was engrossed by one absorbing contemplation; their eyes gleamed with an unnatural fire. The firm compression of the lip, the knitted brow, every lineament, bespoke that resolute determination, so awful, so invincible, and which, in an hour of unexampled confusion, a reign of terror, was to make them supreme.

Prominent among them stood Robespierre. Emerging from his concealment when the dropping fire of the musketry told that the heat of conflict was over, he came to claim the credit of the day.' His melancholy face exhibited no trace of feeling; hard, passionless, like a statue, his very smile froze as the smile of death. No conjuncture bewildered his clear sagacity, no adversity appalled his steady will. Around this solemn man the dread cohorts gathered.

He was their unswerving champion; the chosen chief; the incorruptible.

Between these two factions was the body of neutrals. The motley throng shrank from the sinister glances of the Jacobins, but were not uniformly allured by the benevolent aspect of the Girondists. High over all appeared the illustrious Vergniaud, the pride of the Gironde; the most accomplished orator of the Assembly; destined to be a martyr to true liberty. Through all that troubled day he had maintained his equanimity. Serene amid the tumult, he calmed their rage and governed their course.

In a temporary enclosure on his right was a group which excited the attention of all, and the commiseration of many. There were the representatives of those imperial and royal houses which had survived centuries, and for two hundred years had been foes. But when at length their proud eminence seemed secure and confirmed by the union of Austria and France, in the persons of Louis the Sixteenth and Marie Antoinette; behold the issue! It was a sublime lesson upon the instability of human grandeur.

In that little narrow seat, which they were happy to be permitted to occupy alone, exposed to contumely and the object of pity, was Maria Theresa's daughter and the grandson of the Grand Monarque. She held in her arms the infant Dauphin. Unconscious of the horrors around him, the boy slept. Tears dropped fast upon his innocent face from his mother's eyes. She thought of the home of her ancestors, of her own shining court; she looked forward to the dark dungeon. She shuddered with strange forebodings. The mild and excellent Louis beheld his people with a benignant eye, for he felt that he had striven to be their father; and secure in the possession of a good conscience, he endured their ignominies with dignity. The demon phalanx of Jacobins laughed as they looked on him. He confronted them with calm and indignant severity. The majesty of his mien indicated his august lineage.

Such was the varied assembly which met Henri's view. When he entered, the house was comparatively quiet. There was a momentary lull in the storm.

The session, during the time that the result of the Battle of the People was doubtful, was indescribable. At the first discharge of musketry a profound silence prevailed; but when the stunning reverberations of the cannon, peal upon peal, shook the building to its foundations, consternation aroused them from their stupor. Some, in a paroxysm of fear, rose to flee; others awaited the conclusion with Roman firmness; while the greater part sought to reassure their shaken spirits by indulging in frantic declamations. The mob soon burst the doors of the galleries, and came roaring in like the hoarse breakers of the sea. At intervals, deputations from the municipality, accompanied by squads of rough and brutal men, fresh from the strife, and grim with blood, crowded to the bar, demanding, with savage gestures toward him, the death of the king. Suddenly the firing grew louder and more sustained. All paused; it was the crisis of their fate. There was a sharp volley, and then

pro

the firing ceased. Then came a rush at the gallery doors, and then the deafening voice of the people drowned all other noises, and claimed the fate of the monarchy. An hour had now elapsed since the determination of the strife, and as we have said, deputies had recovered their natural appearance, and the house was calm.

For a time, as if exhausted by the alarms of the day, they continued talking to each other, and seemed hesitating to act. But soon the distant and growing clamor of the rabble, who choked every avenue to the house, announced the approach of some new element of disorder. Reluctantly as Henri had entered, he had hardly done so, and looked around, before he became deeply interested. He now bent over the gallery and watched the proceedings with intense eagerness. Presently he saw the doors next the Jacobin side open, and preceded by a large concourse, fierce-looking, but less outrageous in their dress and deportment than their predecessors, appeared the monarch of the day. His form, gigantic in stature, athletic, gross, but commanding, loomed up amid the surrounding multitude, and provoked a rapturous welcome from the galleries, in which many on the floor joined. He came with the air and the words of a conqueror, to command the dethronement of the king and the calling of a national convention. A member rose to speak. It was the Girondist, Brissot. Danton raised his arm; in the name of the sovereign people he hurled forth the most audacious menaces against traitors; and even while the swell of his thundering voice yet smote upon their ears, the deputies dissolved the assembly.

Henri lingered behind the departing mob to avoid the crush. While watching the retiring Girondists, for he now felt a predominant sympathy with them, his attention was arrested by a familiar face, and he recognized his old companion Auguste. His first impulse was to call out to him, but then bitter reflections crowded on his mind. He remembered all that had intervened during the years of their separation, and he would have left without addressing him. But Auguste, struck by noticing a man so intently observing him, on that day of suspicion, turned full upon him. In a moment he saw who it was. A smile of gratification passed over his features, and coming toward him in the warmest manner, he saluted Henri, and requested him to meet him in the base court. There in a few moments the friends met. They embraced, and as they walked slowly toward Auguste's hotel, the happiness of their meeting dispelled their cares and anxieties.

E. G. P.

CONSOLATION

IN AGE: FROM THE

SCOTTISH.

O WHEN We leave this habitation,
We'll depart with a good commendation;
We'll go hand in hand, I wiss,
To a better home than this,
To make room for the next generation.

TO A CITY PUMP.

BY A. PENN.

'WHAT & commodious pump! The handle within reach of the smallest child !'-T. Hoox.

VI.

Ye Naiad votaries of this frail machine,
Pause, and reflect upon its fallen state!
Time's warning finger on the pump is seen,

Which points no less to your impending fate.
Bethink you, slipshod nymphs! and thinking, pray
That when life's sorrowing troubles all are o'er,
You may awake to hail a brighter day,

Where toil shall cease and pumps be worked no more.

VII.

Decay strides onward with resistless power;

Man trembles at the dread destroyer's name,
And at the last inevitable hour,

Sinks in dismay, and owns its awful claim.
Kings, empires, worlds obey the great behest,
And disappear beneath the stream of time,
Submerged, in one incongruous mass to rest

With thee, O PUMP! and this elegiac rhyme.

THE AMERICAN AND ENGLISH ACTRESS.

IN A LETTER FROM AN ENGLISHMAN TO A FRIEND.

You ask me for my opinion of the new American actress. I have had a good opportunity during the last two weeks of gathering the means of fulfilling your request. I have been in Boston while the boards of the two principal theatres have been occupied with the performances of Mrs. MoWATT, and our old acquaintance, Mrs. CHARLES KEAN. I have seen them both repeatedly, and have watched the effect of the acting of each upon their audiences. Both have been playing to what is technically termed a 'good business.' Both have had staunch friends and advocates among the leaders of fashion; (yes, do not smile; there are such characters even in Yankee-land ;) and both have terminated their engagements with éclat. Mrs. Kean has been supported by her husband, who, although he holds a higher histrionic position at home than she has ever attained, is looked upon as a very secondary personage in this country. Mrs. Mowatt has been associated with a young actor named DAVENPORT, who has his reputation yet to make.

I had frequently heard Mrs. Mowatt spoken of, in the emphatic phraseology of her western admirers, as a tall actress,' a 'screamer,' one who could do nothing else' but act. I set all this down as a specimen of American gasconade and exaggeration; for the same journals that praised her performances imparted the information that she had been only sixteen months upon the stage; during all which time she had played 'star engagements' only. It is true that all this while she had sustained herself with brilliant success against the Keans in the same line of plays; but I had learned to distrust