had stabbed him to the heart, the monsters! my poor, poor Jules!

"While we were hanging, maddened by our misery, over his blood-stained corpse, a second yell, like that we had heard in the Palais Royal only ten times more revolting, started us from the bedside, and, rushing to the windows, we beheld a hideous, furious, drunken mob, armed with missiles of every description, pouring through the street from all its openings, and tearing up the stones to aid them in their deeds of death. Onward the torrent rolled, howling and roaring towards the Tuileries. Those who have seen a mob ascending in all its terrors as I've so often done, know but too well its fearful strength; those who have not can little guess the horrors of its march.

"We were living then, as I think you know, in the Rue St. Honoré-that was the great scene of slaughter. I will not tire you by a relation of all the miseries which came beneath my notice during these three terrible days; I shall tell no more than what immediately relates to myself, and that will sufficiently explain why I have no desire to participate in the rejoicings of to-morrow."

This word was uttered with a bitter, bitter smile. Poor soul! what a sickening mockery must it have sounded to her ear!

"In the midst of this hideous din a cry arose, louder, more fiend-like than the rest, shouting, To the Tuileries! to the Tuileries! quick, quick! put him on the throne! put him on the throne! to the Tuileries!" and a moment after we saw approaching, borne on the shoulders of six frantic wretches, the half-naked body of a young man covered with the blood that slowly trickled from a dozen ghastly wounds! Marie! my poor, poor Marie !" moaned the unhappy old woman, quite overcome by those many heart-breaking memories this relation of her miseries so vividly

recalled.

"My child! my Marie!" repeated she, in touching accents; "my lost, my murdered Marie!" and closing her eyes she fell back in her chair perfectly motionless. I had seen her so once or twice before, and well knowing that unbroken silence was the best restorative, I neither moved nor spoke. At length she slowly opened her eyes, and again taking up her knitting, calmly continued her melancholy story.

"From which party he received his death-blow none could tell; whether from a random shot of the soldiery or a stab from the patriots I know not, but he and my son Jules were among the first victims who fell. They were murdered on their way to my residence; they had been intercepted by the mob and

"Jules did not drop the moment he was struck; enough of life was left to enable him to reach home; the assassins did their cruel work more quickly upon Henri.

"The rabble seized his corpse, and choosing to turn it to their own account, stripped it to the waist, stabbed it in twenty places to make it appear more terrible, and in that state bore it in triumph to the Palace of the Tuileries, and amid shouts of fiend-like laughter placed it on the throne!

Henri St. Roch was a student of the Polytechnique, and the affianced husband of my lost Marie.

Poor darling! as she hung over the balcony gazing in speechless agony on the mangled corpse of him she loved so truly, a monster from an opposite house demanded in a hoarse, savage voice to which side we belonged. At the risk of my conscience I cried out as loudly as I could shriek, The people! the people! liberty! liberty!" Whether the miscreant really did not hear me, or wilfully chose to misunderstand me, I cannot tell; but levelling a gun he held in his hand, he paused for an instant; I saw his deadly aim and endeavoured to draw my poor stupified child away-alas! alas! 'twas all too late. I heard a laugh like that of the infernal, and the next moment my hapless Marie lay dead in my arms; the ball had pierced her young heart and stopped its pulses for ever!

"It is very kind of you to weep for my sorrows," said the old lady, seeing I was vainly endeavouring to stifle the tears that would force themselves despite my best efforts to check them. "Yes, very kind; you English have feeling hearts. Ah! your sympathies have never been seared by the sight of war and bloodshed; an Englishwoman can little comprehend the terrors of such scenes as these poor old eyes have witnessed. I saw my husband beheaded; he suffered the same day-nay, the very hour in which Louis Seizieme ended all his miseries. I'll tell you about him some day-not now, not now.

"We were ever staunch adherents of that unfortunate family, and though we have suffered so bitterly by our attachment, I love them still-ah! well, well.

"When the Three Days were over, and something like peace restored, they began to think about collecting the dead. The soldiers were ordered to remove the bodies, but they positively refused to give the slightest assistance. A number of labourers, lured by the promise of double wages, consented to commence the dismal work, but in so brutal and slovenly a manner did they go about it, that they rather obstructed than aided each other.

66

One scene made a fearful impression upon my mind even amid all the horrors of my own wretched position. I had gone to the front of the house to close our windows, the stench from the street, which was literally mudded with blood, becoming more unbearable every minute. As I leaned out to reach the shutter a burst of mocking laughter smote painfully on my ear, and looking down I beheld a baker's cart, in which they had piled some ten or Oct. 1845.-VOL. XLIV. NO. CLXXIV.

M

twelve corpses, laying on its side, the bodies having scarcely any covering (for no sooner did a victim fall than the women rushed upon it, and carried away every article that was of the slightest value), being heaped one upon another in the middle of the horse road. Oh! 'twas a fearful, sickening sight.

"After standing a minute to contemplate this hideous spectacle the wretches set up a second stunning shout and ran off, leaving the cart and its ghastly load immediately under our windows.

"The weather had now become intensely hot; pestilence seemed to menace us from every quarter-what was to be done? Plenty were found to direct, though none would obey. At last, as the only chance left of staying this threatened plague, the landlords called upon their tenants to assist in clearing the streets, and gentlemen of wealth and rank might be seen removing the dead and replacing the torn-up pavement.

They wanted to bury my Marie and her father with the martyrs, but I would not consent to that; they lie side by side in Père la Chaise; I will take you to see their tomb some day.

"Do you wonder now why I have no wish to participate in the rejoicings of to-morrow? The revolution that placed Louis Philippe on the throne made me a lonely, desolate old woman; took from me all I loved, or lived for. I will not go with you to the Tuileries." E. P.

"Paris, July, 1845."

CLAUDINE.

A SKETCH FROM LIFE.

BY MRS. EDWARD THOMAS.

ENCHANTING as young innocence,
As guileless, too, of each offence,
Was the fair creature brought to me,
To 'trance with sudden ecstasy!
Still, I behold the radiant thing
Like sunbeam brightly hovering;
Irradiating with its light

The heart despair made dark as night;
Shedding a brilliance on Hope's grave,
As rays let in to dismal cave

Will gems reveal long sparkling there
Unwotted of, most costly, rare!
Once more unmingled rapture fill'd
My breast, as each pulsation thrill'd
Ecstatical, to clasp so near

The daughter of a friend most dear!

Her winning ways, her artless look,
By sweet surprise the senses took ;
And, yielding to a charm so new,
Hour after hour unheeded flew,
Till came the time to bid farewell;
When sympathetic tear-drops fell-
Hers soon to dry, mine to remain
Till something cheer'd my soul again—
Something like her, a beauty FELT
As well as SEEN, the heart to melt.
Description is too powerless

To paint her nameless loveliness;
Hers were those starry, beaming eyes,
Cerulean as the azure skies,
Whose silken lashes partial shade
The glance ENAMOUR'D Nature made,
Replete with tenderness and love,
And mild as cherubim's above!
A cheek that varied from the blush
Of deep vermilion, to the flush
That scarcely tinges the wild rose
When spring its timid buds unclose,
As o'er it each emotion broke,
Awak'd by thought's electric stroke!
Her gorgeous hair, like shining threads,
Which fay to costly pearl-drops weds,
Fell, yet could scarce be said to fall,
O'er a brow most beautiful,

Whose fairness dazzled the rapt sight,
As snow oft, with its wondrous white.
Her coral lips were held apart
By the mere gladness of her heart;
And gleamy teeth shone in her glee
Like blossoms of the hawthorn tree.
Dearest! propitious be thy fate!
May kindred angels on thee wait
To guard from every shade of ill!
Seraphic infant! be thou still
Emblem of innocence serene!
Benignant Heaven! protect Claudine!
Teach her that woman's beauty lies
Not merely in expressive eyes,
Nor stainless brow, nor shining hair,
Nor form with Graces' might compare ;
But in the lovelier charms of mind,
Humility with love combin❜d,
And charity, most prone to hide
The errors of frail human pride.
Fatally sure as northern blight

That to young blossoms steals at night,
Time's ruthless breath the flowers will kill
That beauty deems her triumph still!
But the perennials of the heart
A fragrance e'en to death impart,
And even from the grave arise
An incense proper for the skies!

REVERIES ON RAILROADS.*

We live in startling times-so many things have come to pass which our grandfathers laughed at the mere mention of, that projects of our own day are no longer received with caution, but their practicability at once admitted, and the sole consideration is the amount of reward to the projectors.

Hudson Gurney once said that Birmingham was formerly ten miles further from London than in the year 1826-referring to the improvements made in the roads-and that he "should not be surprised at retiring to rest some night with the knowledge that a sovereign was worth twenty shillings, on waking the next morning most unexpectedly finding, by the London papers, that it was only worth eighteen." Lord Brougham's "Schoolmaster" has been very active. He has made a most miraculous exertion with his birch, which may, perhaps, account for much of our present illumination. Had he been equally active in other countries, Mrs. Lushington would not have been so many months in her overland journey from India. Had Sir Charles Dance ever been on that road or Gurney-not Hudson Gurney-she might have been puffed along by steam as fast as a sunbeam. We do not despair of breakfasting at St. Petersburgh, and dining the next day with Mrs. Ramsbottom on the walls of China. Gas and steam have only, as yet, commenced their operations; how they will finish, the next age will scarcely be able to tell. Gunpowder and the mitre have had their day; and steam, it has been predicted, will henceforth govern the world.

Nothing has unquestionably a greater tendency to contribute to the rapid civilization of a country, and to accelerate the development of its resources, than facility of communication. Even in the dark ages, its utility, better felt than understood, rendered it an object of monopoly even to the church itself. "To build a bridge," says a lively female writer of the present day, "or clear a forest, were deeds of salvation for the next world as for this; and royal and noble sinners literally paved their way to heaven, and reached the gates of Paradise by causeways made on earth."

If, with a philosophic eye, we attentively scan the volume of history, we shall discover that most of the grand climacterics of

This paper was written twelve years ago, and as the subject now possesses so intense and universal an interest, the "speculations" of the author cannot fail to attract unusual attention. The lapse of a dozen years has played sad havoc with the writer's theories respecting the unproductiveness and evils of railways.—ED. METROPOLITAN.