seize me, I fled, and seeing an omnibus starting
for St. Denis, I got on it with a vague idea
of getting on to Calais, and crossing the
Channel to England. But having only a franc
or two in my pocket, or indeed in the world,
I did not know how to procure the means of
going forward; and whilst I was lounging
about the place, forming first one plan and
then another, I saw you in the church, and
concluding you were in pursuit of me, I thought
the best way of eluding your vigilance was to
make my way back to Paris as fast as I could;
so I set off instantly, and walked all the
way; but having no money to pay my night's
lodging, I came here to borrow a couple of
livres of my sister Claudine, who lives in the
fifth story."

"Thank Heaven!" exclaimed the dying
man; "that sin is off my soul! Natalie, dear
wife, farewell! Forgive! forgive all!"

These were the last words he uttered; the
priest, who had been summoned in haste, held
up the cross before his failing sight; a few
strong convulsions shook the poor bruised and
mangled frame; and then all was still.

And thus ended the Young Advocate's
Wedding Day.

EARTH'S HARVESTS.

"Peace hath her victories, no less renowned than War.–––
MILTON'S Sonnet to Cromwell.

Two hundred years ago, * the moon
   Shone on a battle plain;
Cold through that glowing night of June
   Lay steeds and riders slain;
And daisies, bending 'neath strange dew,
   Wept in the silver light;
The very turf a regal hue
Assumed that fatal night.

Time past–––but long, to tell the tale,
   Some battle-axe or shield,
Or cloven skull, or shattered mail,
   Were found upon the field;
The grass grew thickest on the spot
   Where high were heaped the dead,
And well it marked, had men forgot,
   Where the great charge was made.

To-day–––the sun looks laughing down
   Upon the harvest plain,
The little gleaners, rosy-brown,
   The merry reaper's train;
The rich sheaves heaped together stand,
   And resting in their shade,
A mother, working close at hand,
   Her sleeping babe hath laid.

A battle-field it-was, and is,
   For serried spears are there,
And against mighty foes upreared–––
   Gaunt hunger, pale despair.
We 'll thank God for the hearts of old,
   Their strife our freedom sealed;
We 'll praise Him for the sheaves of gold
   Now on the battle-field.

* Naseby, June 14, 1646 [1645—a mistake; DJO Team]

'THE DEVIL'S ACRE."

THERE are multitudes who believe that
Westminster is a city of palaces, of magnificent
squares, and regal terraces; that it is the
chosen seat of opulence, grandeur and
refinement; and that filth, squalor, and misery are
the denizens of other and less favoured
sections of the metropolis. The error is
not in associating with Westminster much
of the grandeur and splendour of the capital,
but in entirely dissociating it in idea from the
darker phases of metropolitan life. As the
brightest lights cast the deepest shadows, so
are the splendours and luxuries of the West-
end found in juxta-position with the most
deplorable manifestations of human wretchedness
and depravity. There is no part of the
metropolis which presents a more chequered
aspect, both physical and moral, than
Westminster. The most lordly streets are
frequently but a mask for the squalid districts
which lie behind them, whilst spots
consecrated to the most hallowed of purposes
are begirt by scenes of indescribable infamy
and pollution; the blackest tide of moral
turpitude that flows in the capital rolls its
filthy wavelets up to the very walls of
Westminster Abbey; and the law-makers for one-
seventh of the human race sit, night after
night, in deliberation, in the immediate vicinity
of the most notorious haunt of law-breakers
in the empire. There is no district in London
more filthy and disgusting, more steeped in
villany and guilt, than that on which every
morning's sun casts the sombre shadows of
the Abbey, mingled, as they soon will be,
with those of the gorgeous towers of the new
"Palace at Westminster."

The "Devil's Acre," as it is familiarly
known in the neighbourhood, is the square
block comprised between Dean, Peter, and
Tothill Streets, and Strutton Ground. It
is permeated by Orchard Street, St. Anne's
Street, Old and New Pye Streets, Pear
Street, Perkins' Rents, and Duck Lane.
From some of these, narrow covered
passage-ways lead into small quadrangular
courts, containing but a few crazy, tumble-
down-looking houses, and inhabited by
characters of the most equivocal description.
The district, which is small in area, is one
of the most populous in London, almost every
house being crowded with numerous families,
and multitudes of lodgers. There are other
parts of the town as filthy, dingy, and
forbidding in appearance as this, but these are
generally the haunts more of poverty than
crime. But there are none in which guilt
of all kinds and degrees converges in such
volume as on this, the moral plague-spot
not only of the metropolis, but also of the
kingdom. And yet from almost every point
of it you can observe the towers of the Abbey
peering down upon you, as if they were
curious to observe that to which they seem
to be indifferent.