and all our dry clothes were wrapped around him. Hot water bottles were placed at his feet, and his back was briskly rubbed. He continued to groan a long time; but, finally, both this and the trembling ceased. Bennen watched him solemnly, and, at length, muttered in anguish, “Sir, he is dead!' 24. I leaned over the man, and found him breathing gently; I felt his pulse, it was beating tranquilly. "Not dead, dear old Bennen; he will be able to crawl home with us in the morning." The prediction was justified by the event; and two days afterwards, we saw him at Laax, minus a bit of his ear, with a bruise upon his cheek, and a few scars upon his hand, but without a broken bone or serious injury of any kind. John Tyndall. CIX. CAVALRY SONG. OUR good steeds snuff the evening air, Our pulses with their purpose tingle; The foeman's fires are twinkling there; Each carbine sends its whizzing ball: 2. Dash on beneath the smoking dome : CHARGE! Cling! clang! forward all! Heaven help those whose horses fall: 3. They flee before our fierce attack! They fall! they spread in broken surges. WHEEL! The bugles sound the swift recall : Home, and good night! EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN. CX.- EXECUTION OF MARIE ANTOINETTE. ON N Monday, the 14th of October, 1793, a cause was pending in the Hall of Justice, in the new Revolutionary Court, such as those old stone walls never before witnessed, the trial of Marie Antoinette. The once brightest of queens, now tarnished, defaced, forsaken, stands here at the judgment-bar, answering for her life. The indictment was delivered her last night. To such changes of human fortune, what words are adequate ! Silence alone is adequate. 2. Marie Antoinette, in this her abandonment and hour of extreme need, is not wanting to herself the imperial woman. Her look, they say, as that hideous indictment was read, continued calm. "She was sometimes observed moving her fingers, as when one plays on the piano." You discern, not without interest, across that dim revolutionary bulletin itself, how she bears herself queen-like. Her answers are prompt, clear, often of laconic brevity; resolution, which has grown contemptuous without ceasing to be dignified, veils itself in calm words. "You persist, then, in denial?" 66 'My plan is not denial; it is the truth I have said, and I persist in that." 3. At four o'clock on Wednesday morning, after two days and two nights of interrogating, jury-charging, and other darkening of counsel, the result comes out, -sentence of death! "Have you anything to say?" The accused shook her head, without speech. Night's candles are burning out; and with her, too, time is finishing, and it will be Eternity and Day. The Hall of Justice is dark and ill-lighted, except where she stands. Silently, she withdraws from it, to die. 4. Two processions, or royal progresses, three and twenty years apart, have often struck us with a strange feeling of contrast. The first is of a beautiful archduchess and dauphiness, quitting her mother's city, at the age of fifteen, towards hopes, such as no other daughter of Eve then had. "On the morrow," says Weber, an eye-witness," the dauphiness left Vienna. The whole city crowded out; at first, with a sorrow which was silent. She appeared; you saw her sunk back into her carriage, her face bathed in tears; hiding her eyes, now with her handkerchief, now with her hands; several times putting out her head to see, yet again, this palace of her fathers, whither she was to return no more. 5. "She motioned her regret, her gratitude, to the good nation which was crowding here to bid her farewell. Then arose not only tears, but piercing cries, on all sides. Men and women, alike, abandoned themselves to such expression of their sorrow. It was an audible sound of wail, in the streets and avenues of Vienna. The last courier that followed her disappeared, and the crowd melted away." 6. The young, imperial maiden of fifteen has now become a worn, discrowned widow of thirty-eight, gray before her time. This is the last procession: "A few minutes after the trial ended, the drums were beating to arms in all sections; at sunrise, the armed force was on foot, cannons getting placed at the extremities of the bridges, in the squares and crossways. By ten o'clock, numerous patrols were circulating in the streets; thirty thousand foot and horse were drawn up under arms. 7. At eleven, Marie Antoinette was brought out, dressed in white. She was led to the place of execution in the same manner as an ordinary criminal ; - bound on a cart, accompanied by a constitutional priest in lay dress, escorted by numerous detachments of infantry and cavalry. These, and the double row of troops all along her road, she appeared to regard with indifference. 8. On her countenance there was visible neither abashment nor pride. To the cries of, "Live the Republic," and, "Down with Tyranny," which attended her all the way, she seemed to pay no heed. The tricolor streamers on the house-tops, and the inscriptions on the housefronts, occupied her attention. She mounted the scaffold with courage, and, at a quarter past twelve, her head fell; the executioner showed it to the people, amid universal, long-continued cries of, "Vive la République." Thomas Carlyle. CXI. -TUBAL CAIN. LD Tubal Cain was a man of might OLD In the days when the earth was young; The strokes of his hammer rung; And he lifted high his brawny hand On the iron glowing clear, Till the sparks rushed out in scarlet showers, And he sang, "Hurrah for my handiwork! Hurrah for the hand that shall wield them well! For he shall be king and lord.” 2. To Tubal Cain came many a one, And each one prayed for a strong steel blade, And he made them weapons, sharp and strong, And gave him gifts of pearls and gold, And spoils of forest free. And they sang, "Hurrah for Tubal Cain, Who hath given us strength anew! Hurrah for the smith! hurrah for the fire! 3. But a sudden change came o'er his heart And Tubal Cain was filled with pain He saw that men, with rage and hate, Made war upon their kind; That the land was red with the blood they shed In their lust for carnage, blind. And he said, "Alas, that ever I made, Or that skill of mine should plan, The spear and the sword, for men whose joy 4. And, for many a day, old Tubal Cain And his hand forbore to smite the ore, And bared his strong right arm for work, "Not alone for the blade was the bright steel made,” And he fashioned the first plowshare. |