a a humanity, say, “Guilty," and the terrible black cap comes forth the head of A month passes swiftly by ; in spite of one universal petition from the people, there lies a dissent from the Pharisees : Shaftesman is therefore to die on the morrow! 'Tis a calm soft April evening, a very Heaven's testimony against the sacrificial morrow, when there comes up to a turnpike leading into the town, a stout fresh-looking fellow, a little travel-worn, but with a span-new coat, and a bright hat, and a flowered waistcoat, which has a sort of odd little lump visible from under it, and a precious big nosegay in his buttonhole, all gilliflowers and early roses. Well, just as he's up to the turnpike, a mail cart going countrywards stops, and the post cries out, “ Hollo Ben! rum news this here ! The Bill o' Abolition of Death by Law has passed the Lords, and has got the Queen's blissid sig'in'ture, and yet Shaftesman 's to be hanged to-morrow; 'cause as I know a riglar tip-top tuck-upper's come all the way from Lun'un by this here mail train to do the last job handsomely; for somehow or another the feller as used to do the bisnis ain't to be found." “ Well there, well there," says the pikeman, 6 the inconsis-tin-cy o' them here men in Pari’ment be shocking! and as for him, I'd rather 'em say my se-cu-ri-ty o'the pike money. war na good, as to say the dear cree'tur's guilty. For as to the money, why the luf « Five minnits over time, Ben. Good night! The Lord o' mercy on us ! and the post drives on. Good God! the Cup—that money. — The travel-worn man soon knows all, and then, oh yes, on, on with swifter feet; on to save the innocent, and cheat Blood Law of its last unjust meal ! The common heart is forth abroad, full of wonderment, full of speculation. Groups of anxious men in every street: a crowd in the nearer one to which the gate-keeper has directed Thugg, for it is he. He forces his way through its heaving motion, just as one very pale-worn, sorrow-stricken man is bearing in his arms into a house, round which the eager gazers press and throng, a little young frail creature of a woman, death-like and insensible, a very trodden lily crushed before the blossom 's come to flower! And just behind, one very stout old gentleman, hugging in his arms, as if in its defence he'd fight the battles of a score of British Lions, a little laughing baby, whilst his countenance is an index expressing grief and scorn and anger, in a way not very common to little old comfortable gentlemen. Well , Thugg makes no hesitation to go into the house, and close the door; and whilst they are laying the little drooping creature on some chairs, and fetching a pillow for her head, he looks round, and there upon a table, thick covered with a black cloth, is what he knows to be The Cup of Mercy; and this—no one heeding for the minute he uncovers, and on each handle-formed by an angel face that seems to stoop and whisper mercy to some crushed Sorrow of the earth he placés a little wondrous cinderella of a shoe, blue as the summer sky,—ay, fair enough for those little tiny waxen feet, to print withal, with little doubting steps, earth's freshest flowers. The hangman's hand has made them; and who shall place in parallel these with the pollution of the Gibbet and the Noose! By labour of gratitude for that one poor loaf, is thy hand washed pure of blood, 0 hangman! as was apostolic body in the sacred Jordan. “Hush! stop! what are you doing? who are you?” says the little old gentleman, as he breathlessly seizes Thugg's arm. “What's proper, sir, and where these little shoes shall stand. Just your ear a minute. I'm the man that gave Shaftesman the money, and he's innocent." I knew it I knew it I said it; as my name 's John Oakfist, and as I am a timber merchant, I said it," says the old gentleman, hugging the baby and capering about, and performing in one minute a clown's list of antics ; but, more serious grown, he and others crowd round Thugg, to listen with anxious hope-joyed features. And the hangman describes the man that gave the money. · Falter,” they whisper one and all ; and ( what joy to kneel round Meg, and revive her with the good words of truth! and Thugg, as he kisses the happy baby and places it in her arms, tells how blessed was the loaf that Shaftesman gave. But there 's more serious work to do ; Marshall, and Oakfist, and Thugg are off directly to the mayor's ; and though the secret is tried to be kept, the crowd gather a deal by interpretationary faces; so good news gets noised from street to street, till when, after the mayor and sheriff (who is in the town) and magistrates hasty counsel, a body of police is sent to arrest Falter, it's found the report has warned him. He's discovered disguising himself for the purpose of effecting an escape, and with an enormous sum of money in gold and bills his upon person. 66 At first he plays the bully, but' once confronted with Thugg, his abject, sinking, faltering, drivelling cowardice is seen ; he crawling confesses his guilt; but awed by the communing law, begs to be strapped up with the stoutest rope upon the flaring gibbet of the old, rather than to endure the silent, hopeless, friendless, long life, weary punishment of prison to the body, and conscience to the soul, by which the New Law is to punish the dastard crimes of blood, instead of by the outworn Halter and its Gibbet! Well! with all these things to do, the night has passed away, and that sun which was to have risen upon blood, rises to hail the marriage of God's Mercy with the Law of Man. And with the very first conviction of Falter's guilt, the gaoler has roused Shaftesman from his quiet sleep, and with the very day, itself comes Meg, to crown the joy of life, and share the deep calm gladness of innocence. As the day wears on, it's clear it 's going to be one of triumph, for not a stitch of work is doing. Thousands are round the prison walls ; thousands of different natures in one brave human heart. At last he comes, within the surge of human joy, Meg on one arm, the baby on the other ; lily-like in the whitest of little frocks, and ay, the little waxen feet, decked with the sky-blue shoes! Well, they have him ; when some voice cries out, i; Friends, down with the gibbet!” And pretty loudly the thousands cry this out again. Well, the mayor, and the magistrates, and the sheriff, and the gaoler, who are all by the prison door, look grave at this cry, for it may be as well to preserve such a venerable piece of antiquity as the gallows, just to show to future generations the wisdom of their ancestors; but when the thousand voices will hear no denial ; when one respectable old gentleman adds, “Five of the very best planks of British oak from my yard in exchange, gentlemen;" when at this the thousands shout out their unresistible will, the venerable piece of wickedness is brought forth, and carried like a great crushed dragon as it is to the market-place, Thugg stoutly bearing the topmost beam ; and then with a barrel of pitch they set it in a-blaze, and a glorious, lusty, roaring bonfire it is, bearing on every spark a triumph over the senile statutes of Young England's “glorious ancestors." And now The Cup is brought, the Poet's Cup, the People's Cup, the Cup of Mercy, filled by old Oakfist himself with the very primest of Rhenish, and whilst they drink glory to the craftsmanpoet, who by his verse has helped the moral victory ;-whilst they drink to innocence, and cry for justice on the guilty, they by this ; poet, and by this vintage of the earth, say as one man, " Down with the gibbet, down! Down with every law that perverts the law of God! Let man learn that crime is disease ; that in his own hand lies volition to good or evil ; learn by juster government of self to become father to perfect children in body and mind ; learn that morality is happiness ; learn that infinite Progress is his. Down with the gibbet, down! and raise up the laws of Christ.” Such is the death and burial of the flaunting Gorgon-headed Gibbet. E. M. OUR BROTHER, WHO LOVETH WITHOUT HOPE. a FROM THE MOORISH. Who is he who turneth on the ground and stirreth himself in the tent when darkness is around, and sleep closeth the eyes of the weary? Who striketh his forehead with a hot palm ? Who writheth in his slumbers as on a bed of fire, and shunneth the morning light as it comes, and turning unto darkness sees therein but one image before him, even as the wanderer of the desert watcheth for the moon ? Is not this our sad brother, who loveth without hope? Who is he who standeth in the light with looks cast down, pale cheek and sunken eye, who seeketh even in the pure air the shade of an absent form, who muttereth unto himself, and casteth his arms abroad, and whose body shrinketh, who walketh with uncertain gait, and whose voice is hollow as from the tomb, and who hath ever but one thought ? Is not this our sad brother, who loveth without hope? It is that man, and he bideth here until his body scarcely casteth a shadow on the ground ; but he is now gone. His horse standeth near a small green mound, his master is below. The Wind God passed gently over the spot. The man's spirit followed him ; then said the God, " She whom thou couldst not gain in life, shalt thou embrace after death ;” and they both rode on the air. Within the tent of him of many horses sat the betrothed of another; her eyes shone too brightly, too slender was her form; hot was the blast from the desert ; she lowereth her veil, and bareth her bosom. “Breathe thou softly on her," said the Wind God; and the human Spirit approached, and stirred in her hair, and she felt a cool air pass over her face, and tarry on her lips and her bosom. And the Wind God caused her to feel the presence of the Spirit of a broken heart; then fell the hot tears, but they reached not the earth : the Spirit inhaled them. The Wind God departed, the Spirit lingered awhile, and was then born upwards. The woman sleepeth under a small green mound, and the rich man who took for himself the betrothed of another, sitteth in her tent alone. P. N. T. Dulwich, August, 1846. LINES BY REBOUL, A BAKER AT NISMES, DONE INTO ENGLISH. With beaming gaze a cherub fair Hung o'er a cradle-side, In some pellucid tide. Sweet babe !" he cried, " with me Earth is unworthy thee ! There, pain must pleasure buy ; And ecstasy a sigh. Unbidden sits with Sorrow. The tempest's shock to-niorrow. Ruffle that brow of snow ? A dimmer lustre throw ? R |