Some carried in their minds the sight of a printer's boy leaning back against a shop-front, because, though the lad was killed, the proofsheets which he was carrying had remained in his hands, and were red with his blood, and were fluttering in the wind. The military historian of these achievements permitted himself to speak with a kind of joy of the number of women who suffered. After accusing the gentler sex of the crime of sheltering men from the fire of the troops, the Colonel writes it down that "many an amazon of the Boulevard has paid dearly for her imprudent collusion with that new sort of barricade," and then he goes on to express a hope that women will profit by the example, and derive from it " a lesson for the future." One woman who fell and died clasping her child, was suffered to keep her hold in death as in life, for the child too was killed. Words which long have been used for making figures of speech recovered their ancient use, being wanted again in the world for the picturing of things real and physical. Musket

shots do not shed much blood in proportion to the slaughter which they work, but still in so many places the foot-pavement was wet and red, that, except by care, no one could pass along it without gathering blood. Round each of the trees in the Boulevards a little space of earth is left unpaved in order to give room for the expansion of the trunk. The blood collecting in pools upon the asphalte, drained down at last into these hollows, and, there becoming coagulated, it remained for more than a day, and was observed by many. "Their blood," says the English officer before quoted, "their blood lay in the hollows round the trees the next morning when we passed at twelve o'clock. The Boulevards and the adjacent streets," he goes on to say, "were at some points a perfect shambles." Incredible as it may seem, artillery was brought to bear upon some of the houses in the Boulevard. On its north side the houses were so battered that the foot-pavement beneath them was laden with plaster and such ruins as field-guns can bring down.

66

HAVE you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay, That was built in such a logical way,

It ran a hundred years to a day,
And then, of a sudden, it-ah, but stay;
I'll tell you what happened without delay,
Scaring the parson into fits,
Frightening people out of their wits-
Have you ever heard of that, I say?
Seventeen hundred and fifty-five.
Georgius Secundus was then alive-
Snuffy old drone from the German hive
That was the year when Lisbon town
Saw the earth open and gulp her down,
And Braddock's army was done so brown.
Left without a scalp to its crown.
It was on the terrible Earthquake day
That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay.
Now, in building of chaises, I tell you what,
There is always somewhere a weakest spot--
In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill,
In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill,
In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace-lurking still,
Find it somewhere you must and will,
Above or below, or within or without-
And that's the reason, beyond a doubt,
A chaise breaks down, but doesn't wear out.
But the Deacon swore (as Deacons do,
With an "I dew vum," or an "I tell yeou"),

He would build one shay to beat the taown 'n' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun';

It should be so built that it couldn' break daown: "Fur," said the Deacon, "'t's mighty plain Thut the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain; 'n' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain,

Is only jest

T' make that place uz strong uz the rest.” So the Deacon inquired of the village folk Where he could find the strongest oak, That couldn't be split nor bent nor broke— That was for spokes and floor and sills; He sent for lancewood to make the thills; The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees; The panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese, But lasts like iron for things like these; The hubs of logs from the "Settler's ellum Last of its timber-they couldn't sell 'em, Never an axe had seen their chips, And the wedges flew from between their lips, Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips; Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw, Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too, Steel of the finest, bright and blue; Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide; Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide Found in the pit when the tanner died. That was the way he "put her through." "There!" said the Deacon, "naow she'll dew!"

Do! I tell you, I rather guess

She was a wonder, and nothing less.
Colts grew horses, beards turned grey,
Deacon and deaconess dropped away,
Children and grandchildren—where were they?
But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay
As fresh as on Lisbon earthquake-day!
EIGHTEEN HUNDRED-it came and found
The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound.
Eighteen hundred increased by ten;
“Hahnsum kerridge" they called it then.
Eighteen hundred and twenty came;
Running as usual; much the same.
Thirty and forty at last arrive,

And then come fifty, and FIFTY-FIVE.

Little of all we value here

Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year
Without both feeling and looking queer.
In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth,
So far as I know, but a tree and truth.
(This is a moral that runs at large;
Take it. You're welcome. No extra charge.)

FIRST OF NOVEMBER-the Earthquake-day.
There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay,
A general flavour of mild decay,
But nothing local, as one may say.
There couldn't be-for the Deacon's art

Had made it so like in every part
That there wasn't a chance for one to start.
For the wheels were just as strong as the thills,
And the floor was just as strong as the sills,
And the panels just as strong as the floor,

And the whippletree neither less nor more,
And the back crossbar as strong as the fore,
And spring and axle and hub encore.
And yet, as a whole, it is past a doubt
In another hour it will be worn out!

First of November, 'Fifty-five!
This morning the parson takes a drive.
Now, small boys, get out of the way!
Here comes the wonderful one-hoss shay,
Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay.
"Huddup!" said the parson-off went they.

The parson was working his Sunday's text-
Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed
At what the-Moses-was coming next.
All at once the horse stood still,
Close by the meet'n'-house on the hill.
First a shiver, and then a thrill,
Then something decidedly like a spill-
And the parson was sitting upon a rock,
At half-past nine by the meet'n'-house clock-
Just the hour of the Earthquake shock!
What do you think the parson found,
When he got up and stared around?
The poor old chaise in a heap or mound,
As if it had been to the mill and ground!
You see, of course, if you're not a dunce,
How it went to pieces all at once-
All at once, and nothing first—
Just as bubbles do when they burst.

End of the wonderful one-hoss shay.
Logic is logic. That's all I say.

NEW.

Inconstant still for her, or him; "Tis only a capricious whim,

Up to the brim.

She, young and fair, expects delight,
Expects delight.

Forsooth, because the morn is bright,
She deems it never will be night,
That youth hath not a wing for flight:
Forsooth, because the morn is bright,
Expects delight.

The rose, once gathered, cannot please,
It cannot please.

Ah! simple maid, a rose to seize, That only blooms to tempt and tease, With thorns to rob the heart of ease: Ah! simple maid, a rose to seize,

It cannot please.

"Tis winter, but she pines for spring, She pines for spring.

No bliss its frosts and follies bring,
A bird of passage on the wing,
Unhappy, discontented thing:
No bliss its frosts and follies bring,
She pines for spring:

Delicious May, and azure skies,

And azure skies.

With flowers of paradisial dyes: Now, maiden, happy be and wise. Ah! June can only charm her eyes, With flowers of paradisial dyes,

And azure skies.

The glowing, tranquil summer-time,

The summer-time;

Too listless in a maiden's prime,
Dull, melancholy pantomime.
Oh, for a gay autumnal clime!
Too listless in a maiden's prime,
The summer-time.

October, with earth's richest store,

Earth's richest store;

Alas! insipid as before:

Days, months, and seasons o'er and o'er Remotest lands their treasures pour; Alas! insipid as before,

Earth's richest store.

Love nestles in that gentle breast,

That gentle breast;

Ah! love will never let it rest,
The cruel, sly, ungrateful guest;
A viper in a linnet's nest:
Ah! love will never let it rest,

That gentle breast.

Could she embark on fashion's tide,
On fashion's tide,

How gaily might a maiden glide:
Contentment, innocence, and pride,
All stranded upon either side.
How gaily might a maiden glide
On fashion's tide.

Ah! maiden, time will make thee smart,
Will make thee smart:
Some new, and keen, and poisoned dart
Will pierce at last that restless heart.
Youth, friends, and beauty will depart;
Some new, and keen, and poisoned dart
Will make thee smart.

So pants for change the fickle fair,

The fickle fair.

A feather floating in the air,
Still wafted here and wafted there,
No charm, no hazard worth her care;
A feather floating in the air-

The fickle fair.

How sad his lot, the hapless swain, The hapless swain ;

With care and toil, in heat and rain,
To speed the plough, or harvest-wain,
Still reaping only fields of grain.
With care and toil, in heat and rain,
The hapless swain.

Youth, weary youth, 'twill soon be past
"Twill soon be past;

His manhood's happiness shall last,
Renown and riches, far and fast

Their potent charms shall round him cast :
His manhood's happiness shall last—

"Twill soon be past.

Now toiling up ambition's steep,
Ambition's steep,

The rugged path is hard to keep;
The spring how far, the well how deep!
Ah! me, in folly's tower asleep;

The rugged path is hard to keep-
Ambition's steep.

The dream fulfilled-rank, fortune, fame,
Rank, fortune, fame:

Vain fuel for celestial flame!

He wins and wears a glittering name,
Yet sighs his longing soul the same;
Vain fuel for celestial flame,

Rank, fortune, fame!

Sweet beauty aims with Cupid's bow,
With Cupid's bow.

Can she transfix him now? Ah! no.
Amid the fairest flowers that blow,
The torment but alights—to go:
Can she transfix him now? Ah! no,
With Cupid's bow.

Indulgent Heaven! oh, grant but this,

Oh, grant but this

The boon shall be enough of bliss:
A home, with true affection's kiss,
To mend whate'er may hap amiss;
The boon shall be enough of bliss:
Oh, grant but this.

The Eden won, insatiate still,
Insatiate still,

A wider, fairer range, he will;
Some mountain higher than his hill,
Some prospect fancy's map to fill;
A wider, fairer range, he will,
Insatiate still.

From maid to matron, son to sire,

From son to sire,

Each bosom burns with quenchless fire,
Where life's vain phantasies expire

In some new phoenix of desire:
Each bosom burns with quenchless fire,

From son to sire.

OR the most wild yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not; and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburden my soul. My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events. In their consequences, those events have terrified-have tortured -have destroyed me.

From my infancy I was noted for the docility and humanity of my disposition. My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make me the jest of my companions. I was especially fond of animals, and was indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets. With these I spent most of my time, and never was so happy as when feeding and caressing them. This peculiarity of character grew with my growth, and in my manhood I derived from it one of my principal sources of pleasure. To those who have cherished an affection for a faithful and sagacious dog I need hardly be at the trouble of explaining the nature or the intensity of gratification thus derivable. There is something in the unselfish and selfsacrificing love of a brute which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere man.

I married early, and was happy to find in my wife a disposition not uncongenial with my own. Observing my partiality for domestic pets, she lost no opportunity of procuring those of the most agreeable kind. We had birds, gold-fish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey, and a cat.

This latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree. In speaking of his intelligence, my wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise. Not that she was ever serious upon this point; and I mention the matter at all for no better reason than that it happens just now to be remembered.

Pluto this was the cat's name-was my favourite pet and playmate. I alone fed him, and he attended me wherever I went about the house. It was even with difficulty that I could

prevent him from following me through the streets.

Our friendship lasted in this manner for several years, during which my general temperament and character, through the instrumentality of the fiend Intemperance, had (I blush to confess it) experienced a radical alteration for the worse. I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others. I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife. At length, I even offered her personal violence. My pets, of course, were made to feel the change in my disposition. I not only neglected but ill-used them. For Pluto, however, I still retained sufficient regard to restrain me from maltreating him, as I made no scruple of maltreating the rabbits, the monkey, or even the dog, when by accident, or through affection, they came in my way. But my disease grew upon me for what disease is like Alcohol?— and at length even Pluto, who was now becoming old, and consequently somewhat peevish-even Pluto began to experience the effects of my illtemper.

One night, returning home much intoxicated from one of my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence. I seized him; when, in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with his teeth. The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed at once to take its flight from my body; and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame. I took from my waistcoat-pocket a penknife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket! I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the horrible atrocity.

When reason returned with the morning-when I had slept off the fumes of the night's debauchI experienced a sentiment half of horror, half of remorse, for the crime of which I had been guilty; but it was at best a feeble and equivocal feeling, and the soul remained untouched. I again plunged into excess, and soon drowned in wine all memory of the deed.

In the meantime the cat slowly recovered. The socket of the lost eye presented, it is true, a frightful appearance, but he no longer appeared to suffer any pain. He went about the house as usual, but, as might be expected, fled in extreme terror at my approach. I had so much of my old heart left, as to be at first grieved by this evident dislike on the part of a creature which had once so loved me. But this feeling soon gave place to irritation: and

then came, as if to my final and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of Perverseness. It caused my final overthrow. It was this unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself—to offer violence to its own nature-to do wrong for the wrong's sake only—that urged me to continue and finally to consummate the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending brute. One morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree; hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart; hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt that it had given me no reason of offence; hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin.

On the night of the day on which this cruel deed was done, I was aroused from sleep by the cry of fire. The curtains of my bed were in flames; the whole house was blazing. It was with great difficulty that my wife, a servant, and myself, made our escape from the conflagration. The destruction was complete. My entire worldly wealth was swallowed up, and I resigned myself thenceforward to despair.

I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect between the disaster and the atrocity. But I am detailing a chain of facts, and wish not to leave even a possible link imperfect. On the day succeeding the fire I visited the ruins. The walls, with one exception, had fallen in. This exception was found in a compartment wall, not very thick, which stood about the middle of the house, and against which had rested the head of my bed. The plastering had here, in great measure, resisted the action of the fire a fact which I attributed to its having been recently spread. About this wall a dense crowd were collected. I approached and saw, as if graven in bas relief upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic cat. The impression was given with an accuracy truly marvellous. There was a rope about the animal's neck.

When I first beheld this apparition-for I could scarcely regard it as less-my wonder and my terror were extreme. But at length reflection came to my aid. The cat, I remembered, had been hung in a garden adjacent to the house. Upon the alarm of fire, this garden had been immediately filled by the crowd, by some one of whom the animal must have been cut from the tree and thrown through an open window into my chamber. This had probably been done with the view of arousing me from sleep. The falling of other walls had compressed the victim of my cruelty into the substance of the freshly-spread plaster; the lime of which, with the flames, and the ammonia from the carcass, had then accomplished the portraiture as I saw it.

son, if not altogether to my conscience, for the startling fact just detailed, it did not the less fail to make a deep impression upon my fancy. For months I could not rid myself of the phantasm of the cat; and during this period there came back into my spirit a half-sentiment that seemed, but was not, remorse. I went so far as to regret the loss of the animal, and to look about me, among the vile haunts which I now habitually frequented, for another pet of the same species, and of somewhat similar appearance, with which to supply its place.

One night as I sat, half stupefied, in a den of more than infamy, my attention was suddenly drawn to some black object, reposing upon the head of one of the immense hogsheads of gin, or of rum, which constituted the chief furniture of the apartment. I had been looking steadily at the top of this hogshead for some minutes, and what now caused me surprise was the fact that I had not sooner perceived the object thereupon. I approached it, and touched it with my hand. It was a black cat—a very large one-fully as large as Pluto, and closely resembling him in every respect but one. Pluto had not a white hair upon any portion of his body; but this cat had a large, although indefinite splotch of white, covering nearly the whole region of the breast.

Upon my touching him, he immediately arose, purred loudly, rubbed against my hand, and appeared delighted with my notice. This, then, was the very creature of which I was in search. I at once offered to purchase it of the landlord; but this person made no claim to it, knew nothing of it, had never seen it before.

I continued my caresses, and, when I prepared to go home, the animal evinced a disposition to accompany me. I permitted it to do so; occasion. ally stooping and patting it as I proceeded. When it reached the house it domesticated itself at once, and became immediately a great favourite with my wife.