Does he suppose we are cannibals, to feed on human flesh and drink human blood? He has done nothing for us; we will do nothing for him." Such was the language of the populace in the most revolutionary quarter of Paris. The fever of innovation had exhausted itself; even the lowest of the people were dissatisfied with the rulers they had chosen for themselves. At midnight the rumor began loudly to spread through the ranks of the insurgents. that the municipality had been declared outlawed, that the sections had joined the Convention, and that their forces were advancing against the insurgents. To obviate its impression, Payan read aloud in the council-room the decree of the Convention, and inserted in it the names of all those of their party whom he observed in the gallery, hoping thereby to attach them, from desperation, to the cause of Robespierre; but an opposite effect immediately ensued, as they all instantly took to flight, leaving the gallery deserted. Nor did affairs wear a more promising aspect out of doors. There were about two thousand men stationed in the Place de Grève, with a powerful train of artillery; but their dispositions were already much shaken by the obvious defection of their fellow-citizens, when the light of the torches showed the heads of the columns of the National Guards appearing in all the avenues which led to the square. The moment was terrible. Ten pieces of the artillery of the Convention were placed in battery, while the cannoneers of the municipality, with their lighted matches in their hands, stood beside their guns on the opposite side. But the authority of the law prevailed: the decree of the legislature was read by torchlight, and the insurgent troops refused to resist it. Some emissaries of the Convention glided into the ranks of the municipality and raised the cry Long live the Convention!" The insurgents were moved by the harangue of Meda, the commander of the national artillery, and in a short time the Place de Grève was deserted and the whole cannoneers retired to their homes or ranged themselves on the side of the Assembly. Henriot descended the stair of the Hôtel de Ville, but, seeing the square deserted, he vented his execrations on his faithless followers, who had for the most part abandoned the king in the same manner on the 10th of August, and hastened back to his comrades. The conspirators, finding themselves unsupported. gave themselves up to despair. The National Guard rushed rapidly up the stair and entered the room where Robespierre and the leaders of the revolt were assembled. Robespierre was sitting with his elbow on his knees and his head resting on his hand; Meda discharged his pistol, which broke his underjaw, and he fell under the table. St. Just implored Le Bas to put an end to his life. "Coward, follow my example," said he, and blew out his brains. Couthon was seized under a table, feebly attempting to strike with a knife, which he wanted the courage to plunge in his heart. Coffinhal and the younger Robespierre threw themselves from the windows, and were seized in the inner court of the building. Henriot had been thrown down the stair by Coffinhal, but, though bruised and mutilated, he contrived to crawl into the entrance of a sewer, from whence he was dragged out by the troops of the Convention. Robespierre and Couthon, being supposed to be dead, were dragged by the heels to the Quai Pelletier, where it was proposed to throw them into the river; but it being discovered, when day returned, that they still breathed, they were stretched on a board and carried to the Assembly. The members having refused to admit them, they were conveyed to the Committee of General Safety, where Robespierre lay for nine hours stretched on a table the same with that where he had signed the death-warrant of so many noble citizens with his broken jaw still bleeding and suffering alike under bodily pain and the execrations and insults of those around him. During the whole time that this cruel torture lasted he evinced a stoical apathy; foam merely issued from his mouth, which the humanity of some around him led them to wipe off; but his finger, still with convulsive energy, was fixed on the holster of the pistol which he had not had the courage to discharge. From thence he was sent to the Conciergerie, where he was confined in the same cell which had been occupied by Danton, Hebert and Chaumette. At length he was brought, with all his associates, to the Revolutionary Tribunal, and as soon as the identity of their persons was established they were condemned. At four in the morning on the 29th of July all Paris was in motion to witness the death of the tyrant. He was placed on the chariot between Henriot and Couthon, whose remains were as mutilated as his own; the crowd, which for long had ceased to attend the executions, manifested the utmost joy at their fate. He was conducted to the Place de la Révolution; the scaffold was placed on the spot where Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette had suffered. The blood from his jaw burst through the bandage and overflowed his dress; his face was ghastly pale. He shut his eyes, but could not close his ears against the imprecations of the multitude. A woman, breaking from the crowd, exclaimed, "Murderers of all my kindred, your agony fills me with joy. Descend to hell covered with the curses of every mother in France!" Twenty of his comrades were executed before him. When he ascended the scaffold, the executioner tore the bandage from his face; the lower jaw fell upon his breast, and he uttered a yell which filled every heart with horror. For some minutes the frightful figure was held up to the multitude; he was then placed under the axe, and the last sounds which reached his ears were the exulting shouts, which were prolonged for some minutes after his death. Along with Robespierre were executed Henriot, Couthon, St. Just, Dumas, Coffinhal, Simon and all the leaders of the revolt. St. Just alone displayed the firmness which had so often been witnessed among the victims whom they had sent to the scaffold. Couthon wept with terror; the others died uttering blasphemies, which were drowned in the cheers of the people. They shed tears for joy; they embraced each other in transport; they crowded round the scaffold to behold the bloody remains of the tyrants. "Yes. Robespierre, there is a God!" said a poor man as he approached the lifeless body of one so lately the object of dread. His fall was felt by all present as an immediate manifestation of the Divinity. Thus terminated the Reign of Terror—a period fraught with greater political instruction than any of equal duration which has existed since the beginning of the world. ARCHIBALD ALISON. WAS CHARLES SWAIN AS born in Manchester in 1803. His father died before he had attained the age of six years. His mother was by birth a Parisian, and the son inherited from her a poetical temperament. Placed at an early the French and German languages. [He died ROBERT SOUTHEY, LL.D., age under care of the Rev. W. Johns of WAS the son of a linen-draper of BrisManchester, he became in a few years a good general scholar. At fifteen, however, he quitted school for the dye-works of his mother's brother, M. Tavaré, who was at that time settled in Manchester, but, abandoning that business, he joined the firm of Messrs. Lockett & Co., engravers, of Manchester, of whom he afterward purchased a branch of their business. A poem of his published in the Literary Gazette first attracted notice, and in due time he became pretty generally known to the public through the annuals and other periodicals. In 1827 he made his first independent adventure in a volume entitled Metrical Essays, the success of which encouraged him to renew the experiment. In 1831 he published The Mind, and Other Poems, a volume of which several editions have been exhausted. This poem gave him a position in modern poetical literature which he has fully maintained. It was followed by Dryburgh Abbey" (1832), a poem on the death of Sir Walter Scott. In 1847 appeared Mr. Swain's Dramatic Chapters, and Other Poems, a collection of sketches. In 1849 he published a volume of lyrics, under the title of English Melodies, and in 1853 The Letters of Laura d'Auverne, and Other Poems. In 1862 appeared Leonardo da Vinci, Giulio Romano and Other Art-Sketches. Several of his songs have been adapted to music. In America as well as in England frequent editions of his poems have been reprinted, and some of them have been translated into tol, where he was born, August 12, 1774; received his early education at Bristol, Corston and (from 1788 to 1792) Westminster; was admitted to Balliol College, Oxford. November 3, 1792 (his uncle, the Rev. Herbert Hill, intending him for the Church); went up to reside, January, 1793, and left in 1794, in which year he published Wat Tyler, a dramatic poem; was married to Miss Edith Fricker of Bristol, November 14, 1795, and on the same day started for Lisbon with his uncle, who was chaplain to the British factory at that place; returned to Bristol in the summer of 1796; removed to London in February, 1797; entered himself a student of Gray's Inn, and commenced the study of law, which he soon, however, relinquished; again visited Lisbon, and after his return became, in 1801, private secretary to Mr. Corry, chancellor of the exchequer for Ireland; resigned this office in a little over six months, and resolved to devote himself to literature, to which he had already made some published contributions; in 1804 established himself at Greta Hall, near Keswick, Cumberland, and there spent the remaining forty years of a most industrious life; lost his first wife, who had previously suffered for about three years under derangement, November 16, 1837; married Caroline Anne Bowles, June 5, 1839; shortly afterward sank into a state of mental imbecility, from which he never fully recovered, and died in very his sixty-ninth year, March 21, 1843. In his youth he was for a short time "a liberal," both in politics and religion; his later opinions respecting Church and State were of a different cast. In 1807 he received for literary services a pension, of which the clear receipts-one hundred and forty-four pounds per annum-were appropriated to pay the premiums on his life insurance (he had previously been indebted to his friend C. W. W. Wynn for one hundred and sixty pounds per annum); on the death of Pye he was made poet-laureate; in 1821 he was honored by the University of Oxford with the degree of LL.D.; in 1835, by the good offices of Sir Robert Peel, he was placed upon the civil list for a pension of three hundred pounds, having previously declined a baronetcy; he was also returned to Parliament for the borough of Downton, but refused to serve. Greatly embarrassed for many years of his life by the res angusta domi, he was yet enabled by dint of strenuous exertion and provident foresight in his life insurance to leave. to his heirs about twelve thousand pounds and a very valuable library, afterward sold at auction in London. S. AUSTIN ALLIBONE. JAMES HENRY LEIGH HUNT. THIS poet and essayist was born in Southgate, England, October 19, 1784. His father, the son of a West India clergyman, was for a time a lawyer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but left this country on account of his sympathies with the royal cause. Leigh Hunt was educated at Christ Church, and was a liberal in politics when, in England, to be a liberal was to be a martyr. In 1808 he became joint editor and proprietor of The Examiner, and for an attack in this paper on the prince regent, calling him "a fat Adonis of fifty," he was fined five hundred pounds and imprisoned for two years. His persecution by the government brought him hosts of friends, among whom were Byron, Moore and Shelley, thus making his jaillife one of pleasure rather than of punishment. He excelled especially in narrative poetry, and his story of "Rimini" is the most celebrated of his poems. His short poem "Abou ben Adhem" is the most widely known of all his productions. Literature, and not politics, was his true calling. 'He was grave, just and pious; he had no vices, but many foibles." He was deeply indebted for assistance and true friendship to the poet Shelley and his family. He suffered from poverty during the most of his life, but the close of his days was made easy by a pension from the government of two hundred pounds per annum. His death occurred at Highgate, August 29, 1859. WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT. THESE authors were both of Quaker origin, and were united in matrimony in A. D. 1823. William, the husband. was born at Heanor, Derbyshire, England, in the year 1795. His wife, whose maidenname was Botham, was also born in England, at Uttoxeter, and was nine years younger than her husband. They were both distinguished and voluminous writers in prose and poetry, and united in the authorship of many of their works. One of their joint productions was the Literature and Romance of Northern Europe, containing a complete history of the literature of Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Iceland. He died at Rome, March 3, 1879. I SEE THEM ON THEIR WINDING WAY. SEE them on their winding The rogue is growing a little old; Five years we've tramped through wind and weather, And slept out-doors when nights were cold, And ate and drank-and starved-together. We've learned what comfort is, I tell you! A bed on the floor, a bit of rosin, A fire to thaw our thumbs (poor fellow ! The paw he holds up there's been frozen), for Plenty of catgut my fiddle (This out-door business is bad for the strings), Then a few nice buckwheats hot from the griddle, And Roger and I set up for kings. sir ; I never drink : No, thank ye, He's thirsty, too; see him nod his head? The truth is, sir, now I reflect, I've been so sadly given to grog I wonder I've not lost the respect (Here's to you, sir!) even of my dog. |