of the court. Hans gazed after him till a turn of the road hid horse and rider from his view, and then returned into the house, to dissipate by a whisper the last shadow of doubt and anxiety that still clouded the happiness, and weighed upon the gentle heart, of Christina Thorsen.

From that day no word was heard in Funen of Martin Thy the horsedealer.

Nearly a century and a half had elapsed since the incidents above narrated. It was the month of July in one of the last years in the eighteenth century. The day had been oppressively hot, but in the afternoon a storm and shower had cooled and lightened the air. The minister at Vinding had a stranger stopping with him. This was a young gentleman from Copenhagen, whose pale thought ful countenance told of assiduous toil in the paths of learning, and of late vigils by the study lamp. Notwith standing the elegance of his attire, and the courtly arrangement of his hairgathered together upon his nape into a tail, according to the fashion of the day-the thorough Danish cut of his features, and a certain homely plainness of mien, seemed to indicate plebeian descent, and to warrant a conjecture that his father's hand had been more familiar with the plough handle than with general's baton or magistrate's wand. His speech also, notwithstanding the advantages of an excellent education, was tinged with the accent of the province in which he then found himself. He had journeyed from the capital to his native place, for the purpose of examining whatever relics of antiquity there existed, and of discovering, if possible, some hitherto unknown. Not a Runic stone, or moss-grown font, or battered chalice, cracked bell, or stained window, not a tombstone or altar-piece, could escape his searching eye and investigating finger. Besides these mute memorials of ancient days, he interested himself greatly in the old rhymes and legends still current in Funen. To aid him in the collection of these, and in his other antiquarian researches, he had applied to the right man. The venerable minister was in every way as enthusiastic

an admirer as the student of the vestiges of old days; and having besides some knowledge of music, which his companion did not possess, he would sing with great unction, in a voice somewhat cracked but not disagreeable, strange wild ballads about Sivard, and Varland, and Vidrick, and of the good horse Skimming, and of King Waldemar and his queen Dagmar; whilst the young man stood by, his hand in his breast, and his eyes upon the ground, listening and musing.

"The rain is quite over," said the old clergyman, turning to the student "let us go into the garden, for the sultry air is not yet out of the house. See here, how dry it is beneath these chestnut trees, notwithstanding the pelting shower we have had; and mark how the drops patter from leaf to leaf above our heads! A severe storm this has been. At one time, I thought our church was struck by lightning: I am sure the thunderbolt fell very near the steeple. But see yonder, what a splendid rainbow! looks exactly as if it had one foot in my meadow. Let us sit here awhile, my dear young friend: the bench is quite dry. Ah! how fragrant smells the tobacco in the fresh open air! But you do not appreciate it. You prefer a Danish ditty to all the aromatic vapours of the noble Nicotian herb."

It

walk?" he said: " I must visit one of my parishioners. I may perhaps, have an opportunity to show you something more worthy your antiquarian attention than the legend of St. Matthew and his fountain."*

The two men took hat and stick and followed the peasant, who led them through the village to his little farm, across a garden and a small meadow, till he stopped before a knoll of ground, and turned to his compa

nions.

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Your reverence must know," said he," that here upon the hillock, and round about, an oak copse formerly grew, for which reason we still call the field Oak Meadow,' although no one now living remembers any oaks here save yonder old one, cloven by this day's lightning. It was quite hollow, but that could not be seen till now. If your reverence will take the trouble to come up the knoll-stay, give me your hand, I will help you."

"Thank you, my son," said the minister, "I can do without assist

ance."

And the worthy man gently ascended the little eminence. One half of the huge oak still stood erect, surmounted by rich green foliage-the other moiety had been riven away by the lightning's power-and the whole interior of the tree was exposed to view like an open cupboard. It was melancholy to behold this forest monarch thus rent and overthrown, his verdant crown defaced and trailing in the dust. But this reflection found no place in the minds of either clergyman or student-their attention was engrossed by a variety of objects that lay in a confused heap in the cavity of the oak. Upon near examination these proved to consist of the remains of a human skeleton, which to judge from the position of the bones, must have stood upright in the tree, its arms extended upwards. A pair of large iron spurs, several nails and brass buckles, a long sword, nearly consumed by rust, pieces of iron and brass belonging to a dragoon's helmet, some coins of the reign of Charles Gustavus, and finally a broad gold fingerring, were also discovered. Upon

the last the initials J. S. were plainly legible; and on the hilt of the sword, as on some of the fragments of metal, were the letters F.R.F.D., standing for First Regiment Finland Dragoons.

Although it was at once evident that these relics had not the age requisite to give them value in antiquarian eyes, the student and his venerable friend did not the less examine them with strong interest. On their way to the oak, the minister and Johann Thorsen had told their companion the story of the Swedish sergeant and his wonderful disappearance. The tradition was current amongst the peasantry, and some details of it were still in existence in an old vestry register. That day's storm had cleared up the marvel, and explained the mystery, there could be no doubt that the skeleton discovered in the oak was that of poor Svartberg. The letters upon the sabre and buckles, and especially those upon the gold ring, sufficiently proved this; the latter unquestionably stood for Jon Svartberg. It was evident that the young Swede pursued by those from whom he had little mercy to expect, and impeded in running by the weight of his accoutrements had climbed the oak for safety, and had slipped down into the hollow, between whose narrow sides he got closely wedged, and was thence unable to extricate himself. There he remained immured alive in a living sarcophagus; and there upon every one of seven-score succeeding springs, the deceitful oak (like DeadSea apples, all freshness without and rottenness within) had put forth, above his mouldering remains, a wreath of brilliant green.

Upon the same Sunday on which little Thor Hansen was christened in the church of Vinding, Svartberg's remains were consigned to consecrated ground. John Thorsen and the student stood beside his grave: the old minister threw earth upon his ashes and wished him good rest. Some sorry jesters in the village-tavern opined he would need it, after being so long upon his legs.

So fleeting are the scenes of revo lutionary history-so phantasmagoric are they in their character, as well from their quickly evanescent nature as from their wild and startling effect -so rapid are the changes that every day, and almost every hour, produce, that before they can be well sketched they have flitted away from before the eyes, to be replaced by others as strange and startling. Those that have been hastily transferred to the note-book are gone as soon as traced those that follow upon the next leaf grow pale, however high and bold their colouring, by the side of the still more vivid picture that is placed in contrast the next day. The interest of the present swallows up that of the past: that of the future will shortly devour the interest of the present. In no country is the difficulty of seizing the revolutionary physiognomy before it changes, and stamping it in permanent daguerreotype, more sensible than among the easily excited, and consequently ever-changeful French-in no place on the earth more than in that fickle and capricious city, the capital of revolutionized France. There, more than elsewhere, the scenes of revolution have the attribute of dissolving views. They are before your eyes at one moment; as you still gaze, they change-they run into other colours and other forms,-they have given way to a complete transformation.

Such scenes have all the effect of the flickering, uncertain, and varying phantom pictures of the mirage of the desert and this effect, so observable in the outward state of things,--in the aspect of the streets, in the tumu't, or the sulky calm, in the rapidly rolling panorama of the day, changed in all its objects and its colours on the morrow, is just as remarkable in moral influences, in the enthusiasm of one hour, which becomes execration in the next; in the hope, the fear, the confidence, and the despair. This is true, and perhaps even to a greater extent, in men, as well as things or deeds. Have we not seen so lately the hero, the idol, the demigod of one moment,

become, by a sudden and almost unconnected transition, the object of hatred, suspicion, and mistrust, at another? On such occasions the dissolving views have scarcely time to dissolve.

Nothing, then, is more difficult or a more thankless task, than to sketch scenes of a revolutionary time among such a rapidly self-revolutionizing people. Scarcely is the scene sketched, but it is superseded by one of newer, and consequently more powerful interest; its effect has faded utterly away; it is old, rococo, unsatisfactory: the new one alone claims every eye, and the tribute of all emotions. With such fearful expresstrain hurry and dash does history rush along, that the history of yesterday seems already "ancient" history, and the tale of the last hour "a tale of other times," no longer fit to command a thought, or excite a sensation; or, at best, it may be said to belong only to those grubbing antiquaries in political considerations, who live out of the whirling movement of their age. On those who linger among such scenes, this feeling is so powerfully impressed that they seem to themselves to grow old with frightful rapidity, and to have lived ten years at least in as many days.

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Thus, in opening a Parisian Sketchbook, in which many a scene has been traced during the last few months, the feeling that the sketches therein hastily made are already too old, too flat, stale, and unprofitable," to please the novelty-craving public eye, that even the latest, while being exhibited, may be thrown into the shade by newer and more vivid scenes, which would afford subjects for fresher pictures,-deters from their exhibition. But still there may be some of those grubbing antiquaries in revolutionary history, who may not be sorry to have a specimen of " old times" in the shape of a vignette or two drawn upon the spot, although it was done yesterday, or even the day before, placed within his hands; and so the Sketch-book shall be opened, and turned over at hap-hazard, and a few sketches of revolutionary Paris offered to public gaze.

See! first of all we fall upon a rapid tracing or two of scenes from those wild abysses, in which have sunk industry, trade, confidence, and principle-the ateliers nationaux. The pencil of a moral Salvator Rosa is alone worthy to paint them! But great breadth of light and shade, and powerful colouring, must not be sought for in a scrap of a vignette. Perhaps we have not stumbled so utterly malà propos upon these pictures; for since the ateliers nationaux were so intimately connected with the pretexted causes, and the fearful organization, of the bloody insurrection in the latter end of June, they may be supposed, as events go rattling on, to belong to the middle ages" of the past French revolutionary history, and not to be so positively lost already in its "dark ages" as to have become utterly uninteresting.

The sketch is taken in the park of Monceaux, at the western extremity of the capital. The old trees stand there pretty nearly as they did, although some have been cut down or torn up, no one can well say why, unless it may have been from a spirit of devastation for devastation's sake; the old clumps, and the grass-plots, although sadly worn, are still there; bnt how different is the aspect of the spot from that which might have been sketched last year in the same sweet spring-tide! The calm and the makebelieve rurality are gone. Where nurse-maids and children gambolled on the greensward, or a couple of lovers lingered so near the tumult of the capital, and yet so secluded and unobserved, or the dreamer lounged to dream at ease, although the roar of the great city still rang in his ears, is now a scene of confusion and disorder. A herd of miserable, or idle and reckless men, have been there got together; and the spot has been allotted as one of the newly constituted revolutionary national workshops. Workshops!" what irony in the word! Work there is none for the wretched men to do; profit there is none, at the very best, to expect from it.

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The impoverished and harassed country is burdened with new taxes, to keep the dangerous and disorderly in a seeming state of quiet; the fears of a government, or even its treacher

ous designs, call for funds from all the country to pay this herd of men, who prefer eating the bread of idleness as their due-for have not they been told that they are the masters, and that the country must support them?-to earning their bread by the sweat of their brow, when they are enabled to do it: and all this sacrifice shall not hereafter avert the danger anticipated by those fears.

The first impression conveyed by the scene is that, some how or other, we have been suddenly transported into the "back woods" of a Transatlantic settlement. A few huts of wood are knocked up in different parts under the trees, for the use of those paid superintendents who have nothing to superintend, and who only aid in fostering the passions of the wild men whom they are vainly said to have under their command, and in organizing into revolutionary bands, to work the will of a disappointed and frantic party, a host of half-savage beings, disorganized to every social tie. The hundreds of half-dressed men who are grouped hither and thither, with instruments of labour in their hands, might be supposed, were they really employed upon any exertion, to be the settlers, occupied in effecting a clearance. Some even might be taken, from their wild looks and wilder gestures, for a few of the last remnants of the aboriginal savages, who had just sold the heritage of their fathers for deep draughts of the "fire-water." But when we look more nearly to the details in the composition of the picture, we shall find component parts of it perfectly exceptional, and peculiarly belonging to the circumstances of the place and of the day. Some of the men in the groups, it is true, bear all the air of sturdy workmen, although they are demoralized by their position of real idleness, that “root of all evil," and disgusted with having their energies employed upon "make-believe" work. "Make-believe" indeed! for children could scarcely be seduced into the fantasy that they were really doing any labour of positive utility. Some again are strong men, capable of bearing exertion as settlers or forest clearers; but they are not the men of the "woods and wilds." Those hands plunged down into the deep pockets of

their full trousers, without the least show of willingness to work; those heads tossed back, that sharp cunning roll of the evil eye, that leer, that sardohic grin, that mouth carelessly pursed up to whistle, all betray the common citythief, who knows not why he should not share in the bounty of the country to the idle and disorderly, particularly when his own trade thrives so ill in these days of the patrollings and marchings, and drummings about the streets, by night as well as day, of the national guards: among those faces, also, we may find the dark scowl of the branded felon and the murderer. But look at those pale puny men, with their lank hair and scanty beards! How out of place they seem in these “backwoods" of civilization! How miserably they hang their heads, and look upon the earth! They are the poor weavers, and fabricators of jewellery, and makers of all kinds of articles of luxury, whose trade is closed to them by the ruin caused to all wealth and luxury, by the revolution, and who are out of employ. They are real objects of charity and they are true objects of pity also, as they thus stand, unable and unwilling to work at their useless trades, and brood over their misery, and think of their wives and babes, for whom they, who might have before earned a decent livelihood, must now beg, from a nation's reckless charity, a scanty subsistence. Poor woe-begone wretches they have cursed the revolution in the bitterness of their hearts; although by a strange but not uncommon revulsion of feeling, they will throw themselves, perhaps, soon into the arms of their enemy, and espouse, in despair, its wildest, bloodiest doctrines, with the hope that any change, however desperate, may tend to relieve them from their utter misery, but to find out, at last, that they have plunged into a still more fearful abyss. Look! in that corner, beneath that further clump of trees, are some who have thrown themselves gloomily upon the ground, to dream of a gloomy future; or lean their backs against the stems, to raise their eyes despairingly to heaven: or see! perhaps they laugh wildly, to affect a gaiety far from their hearts. Poor fellows! The deity they have worshipped is thrown down from the

high pedestal on which they had put her up aloft, or one is replaced by another, wearing a hideously coarse red cap of liberty; their fair dream, in which they lived, has flown, with its bright rainbow colours, and left before them nothing but a naked, rugged, hideous reality; the poetry, as well as the necessary materialism of their lives, have been cut off at once; the pleasant sward on which they trod forward, "with daisies pied," has terminated on a sudden, upon an abyss formed by the unexpected convulsion of an earthquake. Their divinity was Art; she has fled with a sob before the advance of coarse democracy, that proclaims her a useless and foolish idol. Their dream was the worship in the temple of Art; the temple has fallen to the ground, and the rainbow coruscations of its altar have vanished. The path which was to lead on to fame and fortune has abruptly terminated. There is no hand to foster the neglected and degraded deity; the poor artists, who were just commencing their career, are now reduced to penury; for the most part, these poor orphan children of art are pennylessalmost houseless; they have been forced to lay aside the brush for the spade or pick-axe - the brightlycoloured pallet for the dull earth; and now they brood here, in the ateliers nationaux, over their fantasies flown and their real misery-happy even that they can receive the national pittance to prevent them from starving. Look to those young men, sprinkled here and there in groups-boys they are almost sometimes-with their thin delicate mustaches, and their hair arranged with some coquetry of curl, even in the midst of their disorder, and in spite of the blouse with which their attire is covered. Look at their hands! they are white and delicatethey are not used to handle the implements of labour. If they work, the drops of perspiration trickle over their pale faces like tears which will find a passage, even if the eyes refuse to let them go. They have been evidently used, the weak boys, to a certain degree of luxury, and their harsh occupation is repugnant to their feelings. They are young lads from the many shops of the luxuries of manufacture