represented their heroes as men of enormous size and strength. Homer speaks of the men who fought at Troy as hurling stones at each other, that twenty men of these degenerate days could scarcely lift; but when we examine the armor of those redoubtable warriors, we are convinced that it could hardly be worn by the English Life Guards spoken of. This is found to be the case with the armor of the knights who won such renown by their prowess in the crusades and tournaments of England. They were very terrible, no doubt, to the monks and unarmed peasantry, but even in point of physical strength were in no way superior to the present generation of Englishmen.

Upon the whole, then, we conclude that giants have always been rarities, that there never was a race of giants, and that the common stature of mankind has remained much the same ever since the Flood-the Patagonians being as large, and the Esquimaux and the Bushmen as small, as any races of men that ever lived.-London Leisure Hour.

SCENES IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

H

ISTORY scarcely presents us with scenes so diversified with horror, or so fraught with tragic interest, as those which mark the period of the great French Revolution. While we peruse the records of this fearful era, we are inclined to ask to what remote and savage nation and period they refer; yet the nation is that whose territory is nearest our own on the globe's surface, being only on "the other side of the water;" and the period is so recent as to be within the memory of many who are now living. Fully told the dread tale will never be. Its leading incidents are familiar to us from our cradles, yet fresh reminiscences are ever coming forth; the new often surpassing the old; nor can we wonder that such a narrative should live and burn on history's page. The worst passions of our depraved nature seem here wrought into a moral frenzy; men are transformed into demons; and their fell swoop of crime inspires the thought, that some malign and mighty influence must have been permitted for an appointed season to work its will, and to incite those wretched beings to scathe and scourge the land. Some of the first writers of the present age have directed their studious efforts to the tracing out of this gloomy story. They have explored this region of the shadow of death, and have brought to light facts and incidents which harrow

up the soul. Led by them, we may follow out the intracacies of the labyrinth, and, as it were, witness the pulling down, and the building up of creeds and systems, the dire career of fierce and guilty spirits, who, having grasped for a brief space the ensigns of power, and stained them with deeds of blood and crime, were struck down by those who followed in the same dark course. Truly the history of that period is like the roll of the prophet, "filled with lamentation, and mourning, and woe." The nation seemed left to itself, openly renouncing and defying the authority of the Almighty; its history points a solemn warning to mankind, showing the impotence and wretchedness of all, whether nations or individuals, whom God abandons to their own devices. The leaders of this mighty convulsion seem all alike to have been actuated by principles as monstrously false as they were sanguinary and destructive; and the scenes of violence constantly taking place, exhibit a state of society in which the common virtues of humanity, and even the mere exterior of virtue, were blasted beneath the pestilence which swept the land. The only stars of this stormy night were the victims; and among them there are, indeed, to be found instances of heroism and noble courage, both to do and suffer.

The following anecdotes were related by an eye-witness, an aged man, who remembers with vivid emotion these experiences of his early days. He was of a respectable family in Bretagne, one of the western provinces of France. It lies close to La Vendee, the Loire forming the boundary between the two provinces; and though the Bretons were not, as a body, united with the Vendeans in their noble enterprise, they were loyal, and many were mingled in the ranks of the Vendean army. Bretagne having been once an independent duchy, there were in it at the time of the Revolution many old and high families, who took the loyal side, and were the objects of revolutionary hatred. The narrator of the anecdote was one of this class; he and his brothers joined the Vendean troops, in which two fell victims-one in battle, the other in a way more appalling. It happened that after an action in which the Vendeans were victorious, the insurgent prisoners were tried by a court-martial, and sentenced to death. Among them was a young man who had been a servant in M. le Peltier's family. This officer interceded in behalf of his old domestic, and obtained his life. In the fluctuating progress of the loyalist party, it fell out, not many months afterward, that a party of revolutionists surrounded and sacked the house of

the same family, and among the assailants was ease similar to that which carried off Charles IX, seen the miscreant whose life had been rescued of execrable memory. Blood issued from the through M. le Peltier's generosity. There was pores of the skin, as if emblematic of the sanan overpowering force, and all that the unfor-guinary deluge which he had caused to flow. tunate victims could do was to escape with their The above are small items in the sum of horlives. As the narrator of the tale was flying, herors, which the days of the first French Revolusaw from a distance the man who had been tion disclosed. The old gentleman who related saved in the act of singling out his brother; the them added, "When I hear of the good of revnext moment he saw him shoot him, after which, olutions; that they are to uproot evil, and regenwith the fiend-like savageness of the period, he erate society; I shudder at the words, recollecting beat out his brains with his own hands. The the miseries which my eyes have seen." It may agonized feelings of the poor man, who was too be hoped, that neither in the country where far off to render aid, may be conceived; nor can these scenes occurred, nor in any other, will the we wonder that under such excitement he re- like be again enacted. At all events, there is solved to avenge his brother's blood, should the reason to believe that the terrible lesson has murderer ever cross his path. Strange to say, inspired some salutary fear in the minds of the not very long afterward, he met the man alone, rash and fiery people of France. With much in a retired country path; the thought rushed up energy of character, and with great knowledge in his mind, "Now is the moment granted." and advancement in the liberal arts, they have He seized the man by the collar, and said, "Your still the "tete chaudee," which rushes into change, last hour is come;" but as the old soldier now and kindles like "fire and tow" on the slightest says, "une pensee de ciel," seemed to whisper in provocation. To this trait of natural temperahis heart, and after sternly reminding his victim ment may, perhaps, be attributed those acts of of the past, and of what he then could do, he let ferocity, that tiger spirit, which certainly estranges him go. But here comes the catastrophe of the from them the feelings of peaceable and sober story, in which the hand of Almighty retribution, English people, who, congregated at their own the unquenchable fire lighting its livid flame even firesides, judge of "the French" from what they in this life, is surely seen. In a few months the read; and which, assuredly, is a dangerous charsame man, without any bodily injury, or cause acteristic under any troubled atmosphere. that could be traced, went raving mad. Nothing could be done for him, and, an object of terror and loathing to all, he was put to death in the lawlessness of that period like a wild beast. Such an incident would seem to remind us, that even in seasons when His government is defied, "Verily, there is a God that judgeth the earth." Another incident, worthy of being recorded, occurred in La Vendee, and in the personal recollection of the gentleman who related that which has just been given.

A relation of Carrier, one of the well-known republican generals in La Vendee, was passing with a party of his troops a church where the congregation were assembled. He stopped, ordered his men to wait till they dispersed, and then to shoot all the handsome individuals among them. So brutalized and callous to the feelings of our common nature were many of the leading revolutionists, that a spirit of sport and pleasanterie may often be observed in their acts of wanton cruelty. In this instance, however, a judgment soon followed, the specific character of which seemed to have a peculiar reference to the awful crime which appeared to have brought it down; the wretched man who had commanded this outrageous act died not long afterward of a dis

It is the opinion of most of the more celebrated interpreters of prophecy, that one of the vials of Divine wrath was poured out at the fearful epoch of the great French Revolution; and certainly, if ever the deadly effects of the wrath of God were visible, they were then to be read in characters of blood and fire. And if, during this dark and stormy night, when the law of God was disowned, and his authority publicly disavowed; when his temples were desecrated, and his ministers persecuted and butchered; there were occasionally, as in the instances above related, solemn voices of individual and retributive judgment, showing how puny is the wild rage of man, and how the Almighty hand can crush it in a moment-such occurrences are surely well worthy of careful observation. Those who look at history through the glass of Scripture, who see in it a "Governor of the people," can scarcely fail to perceive in the horrors which, toward the close of the eighteenth century, convulsed France, the retributive judgment of God upon long ages of crime. The blood of his martyred saints had flowed in torrents during the reign of the De Medici line; and we know that such blood doth cry for vengeance "on them that dwell on the earth," however that vengeance

he reached back his arm to draw the child good wife, hoping all things, and trusting all toward him. things, in spite of the terrible threatening of the

The old horses reared, one over the neck of the other, at the sudden pulling on the reins, and coming to their feet again looked inquiringly and wonderingly back, for the reins now dangled loose and no guiding hand was to be seen. There was a stirring of the ground leaves and a cracking of limbs about the woods, and a crying and calling of, "Natty, O Natty!" with intervals of silence deep, deep and awful. The grandfather had missed his little darling, and with gray hair streaming on the wind, and with his eyes opened with a terrified stare, was running up and down the woods, and to the same place again and again. When he noticed the little boy last it was in the field but a little way from the cabinhome, and how or where he is gone he can not tell; that he is gone, and lost, is all he knows. He must have slid from the wagon accidentally, the old man thinks, and it is likeliest that he has run back home. So leaving wagon and horses where they are in the woods, he takes the nearest direction to the house. The sun is down, and it is quite dusky now, so he can not distinguish substance from shadow always, and stops and strains his aching eyes now and then, half believing he sees the faded frock and torn hat of the little boy; but, no, it was the cruel cheat of something or nothing, and he rushes on again.

day.

In the lane, striped green and gray with dust and grass, stand, in gentle patience, the white cow, and the brindled cow, and the little red cow, with black ears and crumply horns; and there is Hepsie, Nathan's timid, loving young sister, hurrying with her milking, that she may not be last to welcome back her brother, and hear what news he brings-the red cedar pail, with shining yellow bands, is full, and heaped up with froth, and from the bottom of the tin pail, deep and bell-shaped, music is ringing up. Suddenly the white cow, gentlest of all, wheels quick about, and Hespie looks up, her heart beating so fast and so loud it almost stifles her. She almost expects to see the black colt, riderless, and snorting at the gate-foam on his flanks and terror in his bloodshot eyes; and while in her earnest looking she bends forward, the trembling and failing voice of her father calls, "Hepsie! O Hepsie! is little Nattie here?"

"Why, no, father; he went with you. What has happened? I know he went with you, for I myself tied on his hat. Poor, poor little Nattie! O, how did you lose him away from you?"

It seems to the old man for a moment that the earth is sinking from under his feet; the tears run down his cheeks, and his lip quivers with the shaking and trembling of his heart.

"O my child, my child!" cries the young mother, forgetful of every thing beside, "I shall never, never see him again! Why did I not keep him with me! O father, father, what shall we do?"

But the father can only say, "Don't cry, children!" crying all the time himself. And so they go over the house, and to the barn, and to the pen in the corner of the meadow, where the spotted calf and the black calf are eating their milk; saying to one another, "O, what shall we do?" and asking, "Do you see him? do you hear him?" all the time.

The house is full in sight now; the smoke curling thick and blue above the low clapboard roof; for the young wife and mother is busy with preparations for supper, hoping and trying to believe that her husband will presently be home, alive and well, and bringing good news-. perhaps that Pitcairn and half his men are dead, and done with fighting. And what, she thinks, if Nathan himself should have struck some good blows for his country-blows to make his little son proud in after years, to be written in history, and to make him as great in the eyes of the world as he is to her! She is thinking more of all this than of the flying shot, and the heavy saber stroke, and the black oblivion that buries so many names where they can never, never come up to the light, and never be remembered beyond the little circle of homestead friends; for she can not understand how the full, smiling lips of Nathan should stop their smiling, and lie compressed and pale together, or how his shining brown curls should be diming their hands. with dust and powder, and trodden down in the red mire of battle; he is so strong and so brave; O, he could put a thousand to flight, thinks the

There was one dreadful fear in all their hearts that none of them had spoken-some strongarmed Indian had smothered his cries in his blanket, and borne him away, and what more they dare not even think. Yet urged by that hope, which, maddened by despair, clings to the shadow of a straw, they went hurrying here and there, calling and listening, and crying and wring"Dont, children! don't, my children!" the tired and troubled old man would say, but his fears were no less terrible, and his sufferings no less miserable than theirs. Twenty times