all the prisoners had assembled to greet her return, she looked at them smilingly, and drawing her right hand across her throat, made a sign expressive of cutting off a head. This was her only farewell; it was tragic as her destiny, joyous as her deliverance; and well was it understood by those who saw it. Many who were incapable of weeping for their own fate shed tears of unfeigned sorrow for hers. On that day (November 10, 1793) a greater number than usual of carts laden with victims rolled onward toward the scaffold. Madame Roland was placed in the last, beside an infirm old man named Lamarche. She wore a white robe, as a symbol of her innocence, of which she was anxious to convince the people; her magnificent hair, black and glossy as a raven's wing, fell in thick masses almost to her knees; her complexion, purified by her long captivity, and now glowing under the influence of a sharp, frosty November day, bloomed with all the freshness of early youth. Her eyes were full of expression; her whole countenance seemed radiant with glory, while a movement between pity and contempt agitated her lips. A crowd followed them, uttering the coarsest threats and most revolting expressions. "To the guillotine to the guillotine!" exclaimed the female part of the rabble. 66 "I am going to the guillotine," replied Madame Roland; 'a few moments and I shall be there; but those who send me thither will follow me ere long. I go innocent, but they will come stained with blood, and you who applaud our execution will then applaud theirs with equal zeal." Sometimes she would turn away her head that she might not appear to hear the insults with which she was assailed, and would lean with almost filial tenderness over the aged partner of her execution. The poor old man wept bitterly, and she kindly and cheeringly encouraged him to bear up with firmness, and to suffer with resignation. She even tried to enliven the dreary journey they were performing together by little attempts at cheerfulness, and at length succeeded in winning a smile from her fellow-sufferer. A colossal statue of Liberty, composed of clay, like the liberty of the time, then stood in the middle of the Place de la Concorde, on the spot now occupied by the Obelisk; the scaffold was erected beside this statute. Upon arriving there, Madame Roland descended from the cart in which she had been conveyed. Just as the executioner had seized her arm. 66 to enable her to be the first to mount to the guillotine, she displayed an instance of that noble and tender consideration for others which only a woman's heart could conceive, or put into practice at such a moment. Stay! said she, momentarily resisting the man's grasp. "I have only one favor to ask, and that is not for myself; I beseech you grant it me." Then turning to the old man she said, "Do you precede me to the scaffold; to see my blood flow would be making you suffer the bitterness of death twice over. I must spare you the pain of witnessing my punishment." The executioner allowed this arrangement to be made. With what sensibility and firmness must the mind have been imbued which could, at such a time, forget its own sufferings, to think only of saving one pang to an unknown old man! and how clearly does this one little trait attest the heroic calmness with which this celebrated woman met her death! After the execution of Lamarche, which she witnessed without changing color, Madame Roland stepped lightly up to the scaffold, and bowing before the statue of Liberty, as though to do homage to a power for whom she was about to die, exclaimed, "O Liberty! Liberty! how many crimes are committed in thy name!" She then resigned herself to the hands of the executioner, and in a few seconds her head fell into the basket placed to receive it. LAMARTINE. SCHNEIDER'S TOMATOES. Schneider is very fond of tomatoes. Schneider has a friend in the country who raises " garden sass, and sich." Schneider had an invitation to visit this friend last week, and regale himself on his favorite vegetable. His friend Pfeiffer being busy negotiating with a city produce dealer, on his arrival, Schneider thought he would take a stroll in the garden, and see some of his favorites in their pristine beauty. We will let him tell the rest of his story in his own language: "Vell I valks shust a liddle vhile roundt, vhen I sees some of dose dermarters, vot vas so red und nice as I nefer dit see any more, und I dinks I vill put mineself oudside about a gouple-a-tozen, shust to geef me a liddle abbedite vor dinner. So I bulls off von ov der reddest und pest lookin' ov dose dermarters, und dakes a pooty good pite out ov dot, und vas chewing it oup pooty qvick, vhen-py shiminy!-I dort I hat a peese of red-hot goals in mine mout, or vas chewing oup dwo or dree bapers of needles; und I velt so pad, alreaty, dot mine eyes vas vool of tears; und I mate vor an 'olt oken pucket,' vot I seen hangin' in der vell, as I vas goomin' along. "Shust den mine vriend Pfeiffer game oup, und ask me vot mate me veel so pad, und if any of mine vamily vas dead. I dold him dot I vas der only von ov der vamily dot vas pooty sick; und den I ask him vot kind of dermarters dose vas vot I hat shust peen bicking; und, mine cracious! how dot landsman laughft, und said dot dose vas red beppers, dot he vas raising vor bepper-sauce. You pet my life, I vas mat. I radder you geef me feefty tollars as to eat some more ov dose bepper-sauce dermarters. CHARLES F. ADAMS. THE CHARCOAL MAN. Though rudely blows the wintry blast, While echo faint and far replies, "Hark, O! hark, O!" 66 "Charco' !"—" Hark, O!"— Such cheery sounds The dust begrimes his ancient hat; His coat is darker far than that; All speckled with the feathery storm; Yet in his honest bosom lies Nor spot, nor speck,- though still he cries, "Charco'! charco'!" And many a roguish lad replies, "Ark, ho! ark, ho!” 66 "Charco' !"—" Ark, ho!"-Such various sounds Thus all the cold and wintry day When through the shades of eve he spies And Martha from the door replies, "Charco'!"-" Mark, ho!"— Such joy abounds When he has closed his daily rounds. The hearth is warm, the fire is bright; His glowing face bends fondly o'er The crib wherein his darling lies, And baby with a laugh replies,- "Charco' !". 66 Ah, go!". I while at the sounds The mother's heart with gladness bounds. Then honored be the charcoal man! Though dusky as an African, Tis not for you, that chance to be A little better clad than he, His honest manhood to despise, Although from morn till eve he cries,"Charco' charco' ! While mocking echo still replies, "Hark, O! hark, O!" "Charco' ! "" 66 Hark, O!"-Long may the sounds Proclaim Mark Haley's daily rounds! J. T. TROWBRIDGE. JERUSALEM BY MOONLIGHT. The broad moon lingers on the summit of Mount Olivet, but its beam has long left the garden of Gethsemane and the tomb of Absalom, the waters of Kedron and the dark abyss of Jehoshaphat. Full falls its splendor, however, on the opposite city, vivid and defined in its silver blaze. A lofty wall, with turrets and towers, and frequent gates, undulates with the unequal ground which it covers, as it encircles the lost capital of Jehovah. It is a city of hills, far more famous than those of Rome; for all Europe has heard of Sion and of Calvary, while the Arab and the Assyrian, and the tribes and nations beyond, are ignorant of the Capitolian and Aventine Mounts. The broad steep of Sion, crowned with the tower of David; nearer still, Mount Moriah, with the gorgeous temple of the God of Abraham, but built, alas! by the child of Hagar, and not by Sarah's chosen one; close to its cedars and its cypresses, its lofty spires and airy arches, the moonlight falls. upon Bethesda's pool; farther on, entered by the gate of St. Stephen, the eye, though 'tis the noon of night, traces with ease the street of Grief, a long, winding ascent to a vast cupolaed pile that now covers Calvary,-called the street of Grief, because there the most illustrious of the human as well as of the Hebrew race, the descendant of King David, and the divine Son of the most favored of women, twice sank under that burden of suffering and shame, which is now throughout all Christendom the emblem of triumph and of honor; passing over groups and masses of houses built of stone, with terraced roofs, or surmounted with small domes, we reach the hill of Salem, where Melchisadek built his mystic citadel; and still remains the hill of Scopas, where Titus gazed upon Jerusalem on the eve of his final assault. Titus destroyed the temple. The religion of Judea has in turn subverted the fanes which were raised to his father and to himself in their imperial capital; and the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, is now worshiped before every altar in Rome. The moon has sunk behind the Mount of Olives, and the stars in the darker sky shine doubly bright over the sacred city. The all-pervading stillness is broken by a breeze that seems to have traveled over the plain of Sharon from the sea, It wails among the tombs, and sighs among the cypress groves. |