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there they had been for thirty hours-oh! how long and how dreadful in their weariness! An officer told me that one soldier who was close to the abatis, when he saw a few men come out of an embrasure, raised himself on his elbow, and, fearing he should be unnoticed and passed by, raised his cap on a stick and waved it till he fell back exhausted. Again he rose, and managed to tear off his shirt, which he agitated in the air till his strength failed him. His face could be seen through a glass, and my friend said he never could forget the expression of resignation and despair with which the poor fellow at last abandoned his useless efforts, and folded his shirt under his head to await the mercy of Heaven. Whether he was alive or not when our men went out, I cannot say; but five hours of thirst, fever, and pain under a fierce sun, would make awful odds against him. The red-coats lay sadly thick over the broken ground in front of the abatis of the Redan, and blue and gray coats were scattered about or lay in piles in the rain-courses before the Malakoff.

From "London Times.

ARCHITECTURE IN VENICE.

JOHN RUSKIN.

WHEN sensuality and idolatry had done their work, and the religion of the empire was laid asleep in a glittering sepulchre, the living light rose upon both horizons, and the fierce swords of the Lombard and Arab were shaken over its golden paralysis.

The work of the Lombard was to give hardihood and system to the enervated body and enfeebled mind of Christendom; that of the Arab was to punish idolatry, and to proclaim the spirituality of worship. The Lombard covered every church which he built with the sculptured representations of bodily exercises, hunting and war. The Arab banished all imagination of creature from his temples, and proclaimed from their minarets, "There is no God but God." Opposite in their character and mission, alike in their magnificence of energy, they came from the north and from the south, the glacier torrent and the lava stream; they met and contended over the wreck of the Roman Empire; and the very centre of the struggle, the point of pause of both, the dead water of the opposite eddies, charged with embayed fragments of the Roman wreck, is VENICE.

The Ducal Palace of Venice contains the three elements in exactly equal proportions-the Roman, Lombard, and Arab. It is the central building of the world.

From "The Stones of Venice."

THE EXECUTION OF ANDRE.

THE procession wound slowly up a moderately-rising ground, about a quarter of a mile to the west. On the top was a field without any enclosure; and on this was a very high gallows, made by setting up two poles or crotchets, and laying a pole on the top.

The wagon that contained the coffin was drawn directly under the gallows. In a short time André stepped into the hind end of the wagon, then on his coffin, took off his hat, and laid it down; then placed his hands upon his hips, and walked very uprightly back and forth, as far as the length of the wagon would permit, at the same time casting his eyes up to the pole over his head, and the whole scenery by which he was surrounded.

He was dressed in a complete British uniform. His coat was of the brightest scarlet, faced and trimmed with the most beautiful green. His under-clothes, vest, and breeches were bright buff; he had a long and beautiful head of hair, which, agreeably to the fashion, was wound with a black ribbon, and hung down his back.

Not many minutes after he took his stand upon the coffin, the executioner stepped into the wagon with a halter in his hand, on one end of which was what the soldiers in those days called "a hangman's knot," which he attempted to put over the head and around the neck of André ; but by a sudden movement of his hand this was prevented.

André now took off the handkerchief from his neck, unpinned his shirt-collar, and deliberately took the cord of the halter, put it over his head, and placed the knot directly under his right ear, and drew it very snugly to his neck. He then took from his coat-pocket a handkerchief, and tied it before his eyes. This done, the officer who commanded spoke in rather a loud voice, and said:

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André at once pulled down the handkerchief which he had just tied over his eyes, and drew from his pocket a second one, which he gave to the executioner, and then replaced his handkerchief.

His arms at this time were tied just above the elbow, and behind the back.

The rope was then made fast to the pole overhead. The wagon was very suddenly drawn from under the gallows, which, together with the length of rope, gave him a most tremendous swing back and forth; but in a few moments he hung entirely still.

From "Harper's Magazine."

THE HOSPITAL AT SEBASTOPOL.

Or all the pictures of the horrors of war which have ever been presented to the world, the hospital of Sebastopol presents the most horrible, heart-rending, and revolting. It cannot be described, and the imagination of a Fuseli could not conceive anything at all unlike unto it. How the poor human body can be mutilated and yet hold its soul within, when every limb is shattered, and every vein and artery is pouring out the life-stream, one might study here at every step, and at the same time wonder how little will kill! The building used as an hospital is one of the noble piles inside the dock-yard wall, and is situated in the centre of the row at right angles to the line of the Redan. The whole row was peculiarly exposed to the action of shot and shell bounding over the Redan, and to the missiles directed at the Barrack Battery, and it bears, in sides, roofs, windows, and doors, frequent and destructive proofs of the severity of the cannonade.

Entering one of these doors, I beheld such a sight as few men, thank God, have ever witnessed! In a long, low room, supported by square pillars, arched at the top, and dimly lighted through shattered and unglazed window-frames, lay the wounded Russians, who had been abandoned to our mercies by their general. The wounded, did I say? No, but the dead, the rotten and festering corpses of the soldiers who were left to die in their extreme agony, untended, uncared for, packed as close as they could be stowed, some on the floor, others on wretched trestles and bedsteads, or pallets of straw, sopped and saturated with blood, which oozed and trickled through upon the floor, mingled with the droppings of corruption. Many lay, yet alive, with maggots crawling about in their wounds. Many, nearly mad by the scenes around them, or seeking escape from it in their extremest agony, had rolled away under the beds, and glared out on the heart-stricken spectators, oh! with such looks. Many, with legs and arms broken and twisted, the jagged splinters sticking through the raw flesh, implored aid, water, food, or pity, or, deprived of speech by the approach of death, or by dreadful injuries on the head or trunk, pointed to the lethal spot. Many seemed bent alone on making their peace with Heaven. The attitudes of some were so hideously fantastic as to appal and root one to the ground by a sort of dreadful fascination.

Could that bloody mass of clothing and white bones ever have been a human being, or that burnt black mass of flesh have ever had a human soul? It was fearful to think what the answer must be. The bodies of numbers of men were swollen and bloated to an incredible degree, and the features distended to a gigantic size, with eyes protruding from the sockets, and the blackened tongue lolling out of the mouth, compressed tightly by the teeth which had set upon it in the death

rattle, made one shudder and reel round. In the midst of one of these "chambers of horror"-for there were many of them-were found some dead and some living English soldiers, and among them poor Captain Vaughan, of the 90th, who has since succumbed to his wounds. I confess, it was impossible for me to stand at the sight which horrified our most experienced surgeons-the deadly, clammy stench, the smell of the gangrened wounds, of corrupt blood, of rotting flesh, were intolerable and odious-beyond endurance. But what must the wounded have felt who were obliged to endure all this, and who passed away without a hand to give them a cup of water, or a voice to say one kindly word to them!

From "The London Times."

BYRON AND BURNS.

THOMAS CARLYLE.

THE words of Milton are true in all times, and were never truer than in this: "He who would write heroic poems, must make his whole life an heroic poem." If he cannot first so make his life, then let him hasten from this arena; for neither its lofty glories, nor its fearful perils, are for him. Let him dwindle into a modish ballad- ̧ monger; let him worship and be-sing the idols of the time, and the time will not fail to reward him,-if, indeed, he can endure to live in that capacity!

Byron and Burns could not live as idol-priests, but the fire of their own hearts consumed them; and better it was for them that they could not. For it is not in the favor of the great, or of the small, but in a life of truth, and in the inexpugnable citadel of his own soul, that a Byron's or a Burns's strength must lie. Let the great stand aloof from him, or know how to reverence him. Beautiful is the union of wealth with favor and furtherance for literature; like the costliest flower-jar enclosing the loveliest amaranth. Yet let not the relation be mistaken. A true poet is not one whom they can hire by money or flattery to be a minister of their pleasures, their writer of occasional verses, their purveyor of table-wit; he cannot be their menial, he cannot even be their partisan. At the peril of both parties, let no such union be attempted! Will a Courser of the Sun work softly in the harness of a Dray-horse? His hoofs are of fire, and his path is through the heavens, bringing light to all lands; will he lumber on mud highways, dragging ale for earthly appetites, froin door to door?

From "Essay on Burns."

THE ASSAULT ON THE MALAKOFF.

Ar half past ten o'clock General Pelissier and his staff went up to the French Observatory, on the right. The French trenches were crowded with men as close as they could pack, and we could see our men through the breaks in the clouds of dust, which were most irritating, all ready in their trenches. The cannonade languished purposely towards noon; but the Russians, catching sight of the cavalry and troops in front, began to shell Catheart's Hill and the Heights, and disturbed the equanimity of some of the spectators by their shells bursting with loud "thuds" right over their heads.

A few minutes before twelve o'clock the French, like a swarm of bees, issued forth from their trenches close to the doomed Malakoff, swarmed up its face, and were through the embrasures in the twinkling of an eye. They crossed the seven metres of ground which separated them from the enemy at a few bounds-they drifted as lightly and quickly as autumn leaves before the wind, battalion after battalion, into the embrasures, and in a minute or two after the head of their column issued from the ditch, the tricolor was floating over the Korniloff bastion. The musketry was very feeble at first-indeed, our allies took the Russians quite by surprise, and very few of the latter were in the Malakoff; but they soon recovered themselves, and, from twelve o'clock till past seven in the evening, the French had to meet and defeat the repeated attempts of the enemy to regain the work and the Little Redan, when, weary of the fearful slaughter of his men, who lay in thousands over the exterior of the works, the Muscovite general, despairing of success, withdrew his exhausted legions, and prepared, with admirable skill, to evacuate the place.

From "The London Times," 1855.

THE STRUGGLE IN THE REDAN.

THE struggle that took place was short, desperate, and bloody. Our soldiers, taken at every disadvantage, met the enemy with the bayonet, too, and isolated combats took place in which the brave fellows, who stood their ground, had to defend themselves against three or four adversaries at once. In this melée, the officers, armed only with their swords, had little chance; nor had those who carried pistols much opportunity of using them in such a rapid contest.

They fell like heroes, and many a gallant soldier with them. The bodies of the English and Russians, inside the Redan, locked in an embrace which death could not relax, but had rather cemented all the closer, lay next day inside the Redan, as evidences of the terrible ani

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