'''Listen! I have influence with the
gaoler. He shall let thce pass out with the
victims to–morrow. No one will notice it, or
miss thee,——. They will be led to trial,
—even at the last moment I will save her, if
she sends me word she relents. Speak to
her, as the time draws on. Life is very
sweet,—tell her how sweet. Speak to him;
he will do more with her than thou canst.
Let him urge her to live. Even at the last
I will be at the Palais de Justice, at the
Grève. I have followers,—I have interest.
Come among the crowd that follow the
victims,—I shall see thee. It will be no worse
for him, if she escapes'—

"'Save my master, and I will do all,' said
Jacques.

"'Only on my one condition,' said Morin,
doggedly; and Jacques was hopeless of that
condition ever being fulfilled. But he did
not see why his own life might not be saved.
By remaining in prison until the next day,
he should have rendered every service in his
power to his master and the young lady. He,
poor fellow, shrank from death; and he
agreed with Morin, to escape, if he could, by
the means Morin suggested, and to bring him
word if Mademoiselle de Créquy relented.
(Jacques had no expectation that she would;
but I fancy he did not think it necessary to
tell Morin of this conviction of his.) This
bargaining with so base a man for so slight
a thing as life, was the only flaw that I
heard of in the old gardener's behaviour. Of
course, the mere re–opening of the subject was
enough to stir Virginie to displeasure.
Clément urged her, it is true; but the light
lie had gained upon Morin's motions made
him rather try to set the case before her in
as fair a manner as possible than use any
persuasive arguments. And, even as it was,
what he said on the subject made Virginie
shed tears the first that had fallen from her
since she entered the prison. So they were
summoned and went together at the fatal
call of the muster–roll of victims the next
morning. He, feeble from his wounds and his
injured health; she, calm and serene, only
petitioning to be allowed to walk next to him
in order that she might hold him up when
he turned faint and giddy with his extreme
suffering.

"Together they stood at the bar; together
they were condemned. As the words of
judgment were pronounced, Virginie turned
to Clément, and embraced him with
passionate fondness. Then, making him lean on
her, they marched out towards the Place de
la Gréve.

"Jacques was free now. He had told
Morin how fruitless his efforts at persuasion
had been; and, scarcely caring to note the
effect of his information upon the man, he
had devoted himself to watching Monsieur
and Mademoiselle de Créquy. And now he
followed them to the Place de la Grève. He
saw them mount the platform; saw them
kneel down together till plucked up by the
impatient officials; could see that she was
urging some request to the executioner; the
end of which seemed to be that Clèment,
advanced first to the guillotine, was executed
(and just at this moment there was a stir
among the crowd, as of a man pressing
forwards towards the scaffold). Then she,
standing with her face to the guillotine,
slowly made the sign of the cross, and knelt
down.

"Jacques covered his eyes, blinded with
tears. The sound of the discharge of a pistol
made him. look up. She was gone—another
victim in her place—and where there had
been the little stir in the crowd not five
minutes before, some men were carrying off a
dead body. A man had shot himself, they
said. Pierre told me who that man was."

THE SAVAGE MUSE.

IF the poets of old England are not
honoured over–much just at present in their
own country, the same cannot at least be said
of those of its colonies. Yarra Yarra, or The
Wandering Aborigine, a poetical narrative,
in thirteen books, has readied, as appears by
its title–page, the fifth edition, enlarged. Its
author, Mr. Kinahan Cornwallis, is a bard,
we believe, hitherto unknown to poetic fame
although, if we may trust to the illustrated
cover of his volume, he is a gentleman of
very distinguished personal appearance.

He is thereon depicted—unless we are
confusing him with Yarra Yarra himself, whose
name, however, occurs at a greater distance
from the portrait than his own—as a black
gentleman indifferently attired in a railway
rug suspended from his left shoulder, and
with a couple of feathers in his hair. He is
armed with an enormous javelin, and conveys
in his tout ensemble by no means the idea of a
purveyor of classical literature in eighteen
hundred and fifty–eight. Tiie description
which the author gives of himself in the
preface harmonises well with this rude and
even somewhat truculent exterior.
'It cannot,' observes he, 'be said that I am a
plodding writer; nor yet that I ever derived
literary assistance from others, as whatever I
have written has been performed freely and
silently, often amid scenes of conflicting
turmoil, and, although at irregular intervals,
with an almost unprecedented rapidity and
ease.   .   .   .   .  In all the transactions of my
eventful lifetime, of my varied career, I ever
rejected the advice of others, relying on my
own opinions, judgment, and resources, and
with manly fortitude abiding the result,
whether for good or for evil."

It would here become our painful duty to
remind Mr. Kinahan Cornwallis that "fatal
facility" in writing verse is not a good gift,
and that Don't Care was eaten by lions, but
that our author despises criticism as advice,
and defies not only the lions, but the critics.