that he was going to rejoin me in a happier and better world. But ye have anticipated me, ye cruel and hard-hearted men; ye have shed the best and noblest blood that ever warmed a Venetian bosom. "Eternal Father!" she exclaimed, raising her clasped eyes and hands to heaven, " in whose presence I am soon to stand, if ever thou hearest the players of the afflicted one, visit in wrath upon this proud city the blood of which she is guilty!" Turning to the magistrates present, whose very souls shrunk within them at this dread and awful appeal, and in a voice that thrilled through every bosom of the assembled multitude, she exclaimed, "The curse of the murdered brave, and the broken-hearted maiden, be upon you! Di Marlini, I come to rejoin you." She cast herself upon the dead body, clasped it in her arms, and remained motionless. It was some moments ere the superintending officer could recover himself so far as to give orders that the unfortunate girl should be removed to where aid might be procured for her. So awfully affecting was the scene that had past, that none could look unmoved upon the suffering to which it had led. The very executioner, hardened as he was to scenes of blood and death, was seen to draw his rough hand across his eye, to clear away a tear to which it had long been a stranger. The assistants endeavoured to remove her from the dead body, to which she clung with a dying grasp. They at length succeeded in raising her up, but every sign of life was gone. One of them raised her hand, but it sunk again by her side-her lips were pale and colourless-her eye glassy and fixed. She was conveyed to a neighbouring apartment, and an expert leech summoned to her aid. He came, and administered every remedy which his profession suggested; but in vain. She was dead.

In conclusion to this mournful tale, we need hardly add, that her afflicted mother in a short time followed her to the grave.

How fearfully the curse of Agnes Docelli, and the curse, though not so loudly spoken, of many of the murdered sons and broken hearted daughters of Venice fell upon that once proud city, may be seen from her present condition. She, the "Ocean Queen," with whose nobles kings did not disdain to associate, into whose lap the gorgeous East poured its inexhaustible wealth, has become the prey of the stranger L. 35. 2.

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and the despot. Her 'nobles, those proud and aristocratic men, who lorded it so long over their fellows, have become the cringing servants of an arbitrary power. And many of those splendid palaces, where formerly the voice of mirth and music resounded, are desolate, and mouldering under the corroding hand of time. Her power, and her wealth, and her influence have departed. She is a monument of the instability of power founded on injustice and tyranny. • The Jew now rules in her mart, and the Greek,"-nay, worsethe Hun "in her high places."

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THE BEGGAR BOY'S TALE.

I was a child when my father fell,
And a child when I saw my mother die;
But though years have gone, I remember well
My father's last look-my mother's sigh.
She sought the red field where the war had been,
And she bore me where mangled bodies lay;
But I knew not the horrors of such a scene,
And 'mid all my young heart smiled, and was gay.

On the ground I saw my sire reclined,

But I knew not then he was dying there;
And still I prattled, and smiled, and turned
My fingers round his bloody hair.

Though so faintly he breathed, "My son, my son,"
Blessing me there with his parting breath-
Ab, little I deem'd that his days were done!
The look he gave was the look of death.

And there was my mother sitting by,

And her watch beside my sire she kept,
But no gathering tear had dull'd her eye;
I though her happy who had not wept.
How I wondered when the night came on,
They had made the cold green earth their bed;
But at morning my mother, too, was gone.
And I was an orphan-both were dead!