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 . 16, 1861.]  fact, it was the very dinner that I had once partaken of at the table of Mr. S. C., the great English gourmand, resident in Paris. Then the wine was not only from the choicest districts, but of the choicest vintages, Sillery of the year ’32; Claret of ’46, and a fine hock, finer than Johannisberger, but with a name so long that I shall not remember it till I dream the same dream again. I need hardly say that the bishops dined with me instead of with the governor. During the meal the bishop of continually urged on my attention that “it was nothing—I should be cut down—take care you fall easily.” After the second bottle of Sillery the archbishop, to my great consolation, echoed the words, and assured me that I might be certain of being cut down. The only notice that my relatives and friends who had formed the jury took of me was their coming and grinning through the grating of my cell during the dinner.

The day—the hour—the moment came, and squeezing my hand, the excellent bishop assured me for the last time that “it was nothing, I should be cut down.” I ascended the scaffold with a determined, Straffordish, or Charles the First sort of feeling, only to meet the yells and execrations of the assembled thousands below, and especially of my friends and relatives, who had engaged the windows in the Old Bailey, directly opposite, amongst whom, above all vociferous, was one lady cousin, who was beholden to me for long years of kind offices.

The night-cap was pulled over my face; but I managed, manacled though I was, to keep a small aperture to see through, not straight forward, but in the direction of my feet, as we do at the game of “Blind Man.” The cord was adjusted, the drop fell, and I swung. I felt, however, no decided pain, merely a sort of numbed, quiet sensation, not in the least disagreeable. I could just see out of the aperture in the cap the assembled multitude below; but a singular phenomenon presented itself, instead of remaining in one place; people, houses, and all, slowly but steadily moved round me, when at the end of one revolution they stopped a moment, and turned once round in the opposite direction. Thus did they continue passing and repassing before my eyes, like a moving panorama, till a few minutes’ consideration, assured me that the phenomenon was nothing more than the effect of my own gyrations on the rope by which I was suspended.

No part of the dream was more distinct, or more full of minor detail than the period during which I hung thus. The most trifling events stood out sharp and defined. More than twice or thrice did I mark a man at my feet pull out his watch, and note the minutes as they passed to the time when I was to be cut down. At length, five minutes to nine arrived, when I could see immediately below me the executioner enter the dark chamber formed by the scaffold, and with long slow passes proceed to sharpen a huge knife on the flag-stones of the pavement. This operation occupied the remaining five minutes, when it was over, he ascended the scaffold, and taking hold of the rope just above my head, began to saw at it with his knife. This action occasioned the first pain I experienced during the entire operation—or more correctly speaking—execution. The action of the knife seemed to thrill and grate through every nerve and fibre of my body. He cut through one strand of the rope, and a jerk shook my whole frame; in a moment more, another strand went, and again the painful jerk was repeated; again, the executioner sawed away, the third strand went, and I was precipitated on the stones beneath. At this juncture, I awoke, and found that the rope by which my hammock was suspended had given way, and I was rolling on the floor.

T. H.

is a very significant saying that “you can’t see the wind for the trees.” In journeying through our great museums this truth is well exemplified. The objects exposed are so multitudinous, that the despair of ever mastering them, acts, in many cases, as a bar to our making any examination at all. “It would take a week to see all these things,” is the universal remark of the confused visitor, and in this frame of mind he ends by seeing nothing. Possibly the more careful inquiry we have made into this seeming chaos, may enable us to point out a few things worthy of observation. When the visitor has given up his umbrella, he sees before him a staircase which even habitués of the place do not often ascend, tempted as they are by the art-collection around them; if he does happen to wander in these upper latitudes, he finds himself in a region of raw material, very interesting to those versed in manufactures, and especially in the great textile manufactures of cloth and wool, but not so attractive to mere pleasure-seekers.

Beyond this long gallery, however, is the Food Department of the Museum, which contains many explanations of necessary household truths, and also many curiosities calculated to interest and instruct. At the very threshold of the apartment we are met with selected specimens of the various varieties of wheat and maize grown throughout the world. It has long been suspected that the cereal grains are but cultivated examples of wild cereal grasses—that they were not created as corn, but that they have been improved by culture into their present condition. This supposition was confirmed by M. Fabre, of Agde, in the south of France, who, in 1838, sowed some grains of the Ægilops ovata, a common cereal grass, and, by successive sowings in garden soil, produced, in 1846, crops of real wheat as tine as any to be found in the neighbourhood. This experiment is now being carried on by the professor of geology and botany in the Royal Agricultural College, and the grass is gradually undergoing the same transformation into the true cereal grain.

The production of the oat-plant from a common field-grass has been demonstrated by experiments made by the same gentleman. Rye is still found wild in the mountains of the Crimea, and barley has been gathered in a like condition in Mesopotamia.

As there are a great number of wild cereal