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were opposing the attempt. These latter had entered the steeple of the cathedral, and suddenly poured down a volley on the crowd below, by which several persons were killed and wounded a dreadful yell now arose, and the armed men around me began to fire upon the National Guards in the church. As you may imagine, I tried to get away as fast as possible, but this was no easy matter, for I was hemmed in by the crowd; but at length I managed to get at some distance from the scene of action, when I came upon a regiment of Imperial soldiers, accompanied by artillery; this I rushed through the porte cochère of a house, and running up stairs to the first floor, with several other persons, who, like myself, were non-belligerents, I looked upon the fight that was taking place in the street below. The regular soldiers were soon put to flight, and several cannon captured by the National Guards, (not the yellow blacks,) the people and the students, or rather, as these latter term themselves, the Academic Legion. As I considered my quarters as anything but safe, I quitted the house during a temporary lull, and went off to a Viennese friend of mine, who lived in the Graben. This, however, was going out of the frying-pan into the fire, for shortly after my arrival a barricade thrown up nearly opposite the house, which was attacked by some infantry and artillery. Soon afterwards a cannon-ball passed through one of the windows and buried itself in a mirror over the fire-place. Fortunately, no one was wounded by the pieces of broken glass. A few minutes afterwards the apartment was entered by a dozen armed men, chiefly students, one of whom, addressing us very briefly, exclaimed:

was

We have to apologize, gentlemen, for disturbing you, but we require the loan of this room to fire from," and, without more ado, the party proceeded to open the windows and fire from them upon the military. You must be certain that I was by no means desirous that the insurgents should gain the day, upon this occasion; but I must frankly confess that in this one instance, I did somewhat hope that the Imperialist soldiers might be repulsed from this quarter, for I felt assured that if the barricade below were taken, that the troops would enter the house and shoot every person in it, on account of the firing from the windows. My friend, who was a most loyal subject to his Emperor, evidently entertained the same fears as myself, so that we both awaited the result in great anxiety. The defenders of the barricade, however, not only held good their own, but actually drove the troops from their position, and gained possession of the

artillery after some very sharp fighting.. Our unwelcome visitors then retired, having civilly thanked us for the use of the windows.

Shortly after this affair, several persons called upon my friend, bearing, the lamenta ble news of the murder of Count Latour, the minister of war, who, after having been stabbed in many places, had been hanged up to a lamp-post opposite his own door, notwithstanding the efforts made by M. Smoka, one of the vice presidents of the Diet, to save the nobleman's life. It was a cold-blooded, ferocious deed, worthy of the demons that disgraced the first French Revolution. I had dined at Count Latour's only two days previous to his murder.

As the fighting had ceased in the environs of the Graben, I ventured to return towards my hôtel. I came, however, almost immediately upon a picket of Imperialist troops; the soldiers of which, having arrested me, conducted me to their officer, who, on my informing him that I was an Englishman, and producing my carte de séjour, allowed me to proceed, and at about seven o'clock I reached my own quarters.

The booming of cannon and the reports of musketry kept me awake all night; and at daylight, on my descending to the court-yard, the master of the hôtel informed me that the arsenal had capitulated after a severe struggle. On going out into the streets, I found barricades erected at almost every corner, which were being fortified by cannon. During the combat in the streets very few barricades had been raised, and the present ones were for the purposes of defending the city against any attack that might eventually be made, should

the

troops return. A good many dead bodies were lying about, one of which I recognized as that of a very handsome young officer of the Imperial Guard, whom I had frequently met in society. I must, in justice to the rebels, remark, that his corpse had not been plundered, although he wore several valuable rings on his fingers, and round his neck was a beautiful Maltese chain, to which was suspended a gold chronometer, by Barwise, of London. I assisted in carrying the body into an adjoining house.

At ten in the morning the news arrived that the Emperor had fled from Schoenbrün, with his court and escort of four thousand cavalry, which was considered by the Viennese as an act of treachery on his part; as if they expected that his Majesty would quietly submit to their dictation, and surrender all his prerogatives, just because a handful of re

* Schuselka is probably meant. Ed. Dag.

bellious subjects chose to murder his minister of war, and get up a rebellion in his capital. Surely the Viennese might have contented themselves with the immense concessions already granted them by their generous sovereign, had they possessed the slightest feeling of gratitude. Anyhow, the garrison, consisting of ten thousand men, has quitted the capital, and here we are under the rule of an infuriated populace, whose power within the precincts of the city is unlimited. All respectable persons are naturally terror-struck. How all this will end, I know not; anyhow I will have no intention of quitting the place, as I consider it to be the best plan, in cases such as the present, to remain where one is. Those who quit Vienna at this moment, will in all probability find the country in a dreadful state of disturbance, and will run the risk of being plundered and murdered by roving parties. Even when the Imperial armies attack the capital, which they are certain to do, before long, should they regain possession of the city, foreigners will have nothing to fear, if they keep quiet and refrain from meddling with what does not concern them.

Oct. 31.

Since writing the above, we have been going through a series of events sufficient to satisfy the most ardent seeker after excitement; for my part, I have had a little too much of it, for it is by a miracle only that I am alive. You must have seen in the newspapers many accounts of what has occurred since the commencement of the insurrection. At this moment, thank heaven, Vienna is again in the power of its proper authorities, and good measures are being taken to ensure the preservation of order.

mind that the place could not hold out against such well disciplined troops. At length, the attack began in real earnest, a proclamation found its way to within the glacis, by which Windischgrätz declared that every one found carrying arms should be immediately shot by the Imperial troops. You may imagine my dismay, when a counter-proclamation was issued by M. Messenhauser, that every able-bodied man, whether foreign or native, who should refuse to take up arms and aid in the defence of Vienna should be immediately shot. Bitterly did I repent of my not having quitted Vienna on the outbreaking of the insurrection; for on the 29th, a band of armed men entered the Archduke Charles hôtel, and forced me and several other foreigners, among whom was a Dutch Quaker, to accompany them to Leopoldstädt, to assist in defending that Faubourg against the troops. On arriving there, we were compelled to fire from a barricade which was being attacked by a battalion of Grenadiers of the Guard. There was no use expostulating, for several infuriated insurgents in our rear levelled their muskets at our heads, and swore that they would blow out our brains should we make

any attempt at escape. I remained for some time in the midst of the firing, and you may easily imagine the feelings of a peaceable man like myself, on finding himself in such a dreadful position. All around me appeared a dream, and I loaded and fired mechanically; my shot indeed could not have occasioned much damage. At length the barricade was carried, and the troops rushed forward, putting us to flight; I say us, for although with the troops in spirit, I was corporeally with the insurgents. It was a regular sauve qui peut, During the first few days that followed the and I ran until I got among the ruins of a departure of the troops, matters within the house that had been burned down and which city went on without much disturbance, and were still smoking. I had not been long had it not been for the barricades which re- there before a company of Light Infantry mained standing, and the constant parading of passed by, following in the steps of the battalNational Guards, the Academic Legion, and ion by which the barricade had been taken. the armed populace, we should have scarcely On perceiving their captain, I recognized him imagined that we were in the midst of a be- as a Baron de Lederer, with whom I had been sieged city. Contradictory accounts kept many years acquainted. Darting from my coming in. At one moment we were in- hiding-place, I ran towards him, exclaiming, formed that the Hungarians had attacked Jel-"Lederer, my dear fellow, save me for the lachich, and routed his army, while at other love of God," adding immediately afterwards, times it was asserted that the provinces were with a loud voice, in order to prevent the solin open revolt, and were attacking General diers from firing at me, "Vive l'Empereur, Windischgrätz. Every succeeding day, how- Vive Windischgrätz." Notwithstanding these ever, affairs became more serious, and the precautions I narrowly escaped being shot constant firing and booming of cannon proved down, and would, indeed, certainly have had to us that we were in the midst of war. I as my body riddled with bullets, had not the cended St. Stephen's steeple several times, Baron recognized me, and taken me under and could perceive the Imperial forces quar- his protection. I marched with the company tered around the city, and I felt assured in my into the capital, over scenes of blood-shed and

horror, such as I fervently hope never to witness again.

Thank God, I am at this moment comfortably housed at the "Archduke Charles," re

covering from the effects of my fright and bruises. Yours very truly

HENRY WALTER D'ARCY.

Bentley's Miscellany.

MEMOIR OF ROBERT BLUM.

In the Augarten, near Vienna, on the 9th November, was shot by order of the Imperial Commander, Prince Windischgrätz, ROBERT BLUM, of Leipzig, publisher, the leader of the decided party of freedom in the Frankfort Assembly. His execution has caused an extraordinary sensation throughout Germany, and has been the subject of discussion in the Assembly of National Representatives at Frankfort, of which he was a member. The following is the official account of Blum's execution, as given in the organ of the Austrian Government, the Vienna Gazette :-"In virtue of a sentence passed by martial law on the 8th instant, Robert Blum, publisher, of Leipzig, convicted on his own confession of speeches exciting to revolt, and of armed opposition to the Imperial troops, was, in virtue of a proclamation of Prince Windischgrätz, of the 20th and 23d October, condemned to death, and the execution thereof carried into effect at half-past seven o'clock on the morning of the 9th November, 1848, by powder and lead.”

Blum is stated to have been arrested in the city hospital. He and his colleague, Froebel, went with an address. to the Diet of Vienna. There is no proof of his having joined in the resistance of the Viennese, further than having been found lodged in one of the hotels. At six in the morning, on the day of his execution, he was informed of his sentence. He replied that he expected it. A little before seven he arrived in an open van, with a guard of cuirassiers, in the Brigithenau. Both in the van, and during the fearful moments after leaving it, Blum's behaviour was manful and composed. Kneeling down, he tied the handkerchief over his eyes with his own hands. He fell dead at the first discharge, two balls having entered his chest, and one his head. The body was conveyed to the military hospital.

Robert Blum was one of the most extraordinary of the political characters which late events in Germany have brought into prominent notice. Fearless, eloquent and earnest, he was the architect of his own fortune, and became a popular leader, at a time, and during scenes, when to be so was dangerous in the extreme.

His father was a laborer, engaged in loading and unloading vessels on the banks of the Rhine. He passed his earlier years at Cologne, assisting his father in his rude occupation. He afterwards obtained employment in the Cologne theatre-first, as cleaner of lamps, and subsequently as box-opener. Though extremely awkward and ugly, he seems to have given satisfaction in this situation, and, during the many years he filled it, he spent his few leisure moments in cultivating his mind. At Leipzig, where he had the same office at the theatre, and later that of ticket-seller, he began to increase his income by writing small essays. These were much read, and brought him acquainted with the numerous litteraten, or authors, who live at Leipzig, as the centre of the bookselling trade of Germany. From the attention which he gave to the pure idiom, as spoken on the stage, he lost the vulgarity of his native Cologne dialect, and this, added to his natural eloquence, soon gave him a great ascendency in the growing political agitation of the day. He now became the editor of various political and semi-political almanacs, his own articles in which attracted considerable attention. Ronge's neo-Catholicism was adopted by him with the greatest ardor. His speeches inflamed the indifference of a great portion of the Leipzig Romanists, and he was considered the natural leader whenever a political crisis approached. In 1843, when the Romanist tendencies of Prince John of Saxony had rendered him temporarily unpopular, and a riot broke out in Leipzig, Blum gave a direction to the whole, subdued the furious mob into obedience to his will, and in the evening, resting from his dictatorship, was found selling opera tickets, as usual. He married into a family residing in Leipzig, and became a bookseller. The events of March, 1848, made him an active and indefatigable agitator from that time. His stentor-like voice, and the precision of his manner, rendered him a very popular vice-president in the famous Vorparlament at Frankfort, in the last days of that month, and his election at Leipzig was almost unanimous. In the German Parliament he was considered

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THE TOWN, ITS MEMORABLE CHARACTERS AND EVENTS.*

"Here we go up, up, up,

And here we go down, down, downy,
Here we go backward and forward,
And heigh for London towny."

This is almost the pleasantest of Leigh Hunt's many pleasant books. It is quite astonishing to contemplate the originality which he has the power of diffusing over subjects treated of by so many witers. The materials of such a work as this before us, are necessarily drawn from a thousand antiquarian writers, some of them the most leaden-headed of men, yet in the volumes there is not one dull page-not one chapter which does not carry the reader on to the end. It is a book which so enchains the attention, that it is absolutely difficult to lay it aside. In many of Mr. Hunt's works there are passages addressed to peculiarities of taste which could not be sympathized with by those living beyond the conventional wishes which were appealed to. The grotesque and the whimsical were, it would so seem, affected. We were not disposed to be reminded of Montaigne or of Addison, as often as our author wished to call them to our remembrance. Mr. Hunt, too, often seemed to be thinking, not of his subject, but of the way in which others would treat it. The reader was in earnest while his author seemed to be jesting, and this provoked momentary impatience. Still there was everywhere such exuberant good-nature, such fulness of heart, such a determination to be pleased with everything and everybody, that each successive work added to the number of Hunt's friends; for it is impossible to think of him as a stranger, whether it is so happens that his readers may have met him or not. For the last few years his publications, at least such of them as we have seen, have been for the most part reprints of his contributions to periodical

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works; and to this, in part, perhaps, is to be ascribed the feeling, that although he must now have as gray hairs as any of his critics, he yet seems a young man, and a young man he certainly is in heart and affections.

It is not very easy to give an account of this book. We have said that Hunt's style, in some of his works, is not free from something which, however natural, is not unlikely to be regarded by readers unfamiliar with his manner, as affectation. From this fault, a serious one, and which has done much to restrict the number of his readers, these volumes are wholly free. Nothing can be more perfectly English than the style is throughout. A few phrases, differing by their colloquial plainness from the ordinary language of the printed books of the present period, tell occasionally of the old writers, among whose works his favorite studies seem to lie; but this occurs not half as much, nor, to our tastes, half as pedantically, as in the works of Southey. Hunt's is a graceful, natural style for the most part-resembling spoken, rather than written language. In short, the book is a cordial, chatty, winter fireside book. We do not so much walk through London with him, as listen to him telling of his walks. His sympathies are with the great men who have lived in London, rather than with London itself. The descriptions of buildings please us less than the associations of persons, often with the humblest lanes and thoroughfares; and Mr. Hunt's book is very rich in this sort of interest. The changes of manners from the earliest times to the period of which Mr. Hunt was personally a witness, are here very amusingly shown. If the book has a fault, and one must be almost a reviewer to find one, it is that the thread of association, which in this book unites topics most remote

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from each other, is their accidental connection | never passes a church without pulling off bis with some London street. Men that you hat. This shows that he has good principles." never have thought of are presented naturally "On this" (we quote Hunt), "says Boswell, enough together to the mind of one who knows in a note, I am inclined to think he was misLondon well, by the accident of having been informed as to this circumstance. I own I am born, or lived at intervals, perhaps of cen- jealous for my worthy friend, Dr. John Campturies-in the same locality; but to all persons bell. For though Milton could, without rewho know little of the great Babel, this link of morse, absent himself from public worship, I association is one that does not ever suggest cannot." Now Hunt, like Johnson, teaches itself; and hence the contrasts are often very us to sympathize with all-to think a man may abrupt. The execution of Lord Russell, be religious who goes to church, and another for instance, prepares us but ill for an election who stays away,-to feel that there may be a promise of the Duke of Newcastle, and the good deal of stern independence becoming a extraordinary accident by which it was kept. great man, in Penn refusing to take off his hat, A very affecting passage from "Burnet's His- or honor, with bonnet-worship, his father, the tory," and "Lady Russell's Letters," harmo- old admiral; and nevertheless imagine the old nize little with "a laughable and true story," admiral by no means wrong in thinking this connected with the Duke of Newcastle, told in peculiarity of manners a very absurd one, and a curious miscellany, entitled "The Lounger's not the less absurd "for being elevated into Commonplace Book." These, however, if theological importance." The Quaker, refaults, are the faults of Mr. Hunt's subject, not fusing to take off his hat in a court of justice, his own; and we doubt, indeed, whether they are may, if judged of by the thoughts actuating faults at all. "There are,' says Goldsmith, him in resistance, be easily a more fitting "a hundred faults in this thing, and a hundred subject of admiration than the beadle, who things might be said to prove them beauties." removes it from the refractory disputant's head. This was an author's preface to one of the most The latter, however, represents society seeking charming works ever written; we speak of the to maintain the decencies of life, and the value "Vicar of Wakefield," of which we never saw of Mr. Hunt's catholic taste is this, that he one of one hundred faults, till pointed out by exhibits the inner principle, justifying each. criticism, and in spite of the criticism we forget Men are happier-men are better-men are them whenever we read the book, which we more forbearing-more charitable to each other have done again and again, and which we shall do again and again. Yet how easy would it be to write a review of it, exhibiting its impossibilities and incongruities, and dealing with fiction as if it were fact, and as if the writer who had addressed the imagination were to weave his tale on the supposition that there was no such faculty in his reader-as if all these difficulties which disturb the pedestrian critic, were difficulties or interruption at all to the winged faculty which overflies them altogether. We envy in Mr. Hunt the genial sympathies which make him think of everything in its true human aspect, which make him see, even in the most vicious states of society, such good as is in them-finding man, after all, everywhere, not a devil, but a "damaged archangel." Of Johnson, surely, among the best things we know, is the tender judgment with which he regarded all error and all frailty -the defences which he perpetually made for his friends, whose outward acts were not exactly squared by conventional standards. Of this a hundred instances might be given. We take one from Boswell, with Mr. Hunt's comment on the biographer.

"Campbell," said Johnson, "is a good man, a pious man. I am afraid he has not been in the inside of a church for many years; but he

-from the influence of such books as this. There is a pleasant poem of Leigh Hunt's, in which he gives us a little story, from D'Herbelot, which illustrates happily the train of thought which his present book suggests. We may as well transcribe it :

"Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase,)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw within the moonlight, in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An angel, writing in a book of gold:
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold;
And to the presence, in the room, he said,
'What writest thou?' The Vision raised its head,
And with a look, made of all sweet accord,
Answered, The names of those who love the Lord."
And is mine one?' said Abou. Nay, not so,'
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerly still; and said, I pray thee then,
Write me as one who loves his fellow-men.'
The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
It came again, with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had
And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.”

blessed;

The volumes before us contain, with some new matter, a good deal that Mr. Hunt had, some thirteen years ago, published under the title of "The Streets of London," in successive monthly supplements to "Leigh Hunt's London Journal;" and the publishers, who it, seems, look for a more extensive work by the same author, have thought it desirable to re

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