It was soon publicly known in Fez that the day approached when the beautiful young Jewess was to be beheaded for blaspheming the name of the Prophet. The Moors, whose religious fanaticism is great beyond comparison, looked upon this execution as an occasion for rejoicings. The Jews, powerless to remedy it, were overcome by the deepest feelings of despondency: unwilling to remain entirely passive, they commenced a subscription, ready to be invested in any way that might best suit the emergency. The parents and relations who were in Tangier, whose efforts to save this beloved victim would have been unavailing, even had they been capable of devising any means for her rescue, were plunged into despair; their hopes had suffered shipwreck upon the rock of a relentless fatality, and they, like the young maiden herself, had no consolation but those imparted from heaven. The afflicted Sol spent the whole day in meditation, she refused all food, and looked anxiously for the hour which would end her life. That fatal hour arrived at length. With a trembling step, the cadi entered her apartment, and found her, as before, in prayer. He was much agitated, and could speak to her only with the utmost difficulty. At length he said:

"Sol-beautiful Sol! the arbiters of life and death may meet together. Behold me here! Know you wherefore I am come?" "I do know it," replied the maiden.

"And have you determined upon your fate?" asked the cadi. Rising from the ground, and with firmness, Sol answered:-"I have determined. Lead me to the place where I am to shed my blood." "Unhappy girl!" said the cadi, "never, till my death, will thine image leave my memory!" He then desired a soldier to handcuff and lead her to the prison.

The authorities of Fez, at the emperor's desire, having determined to give the scene as much publicity as possible, resolved that the execution should take place upon the Soco-a large square in Fez, where the market is held. The previous day, too, having been one of the weekly market days, when the concourse of persons was always very considerable, the news had circulated far and wide, and but little else was talked of. Very early in the morning, a strong picquet of soldiers had been posted on the Soco, in order to excite attention and attract more spectators; but so numerous was the crowd, that this precaution was scarcely necessary. The Jews who resided in Fez, when they saw that hope was at an end, went to the emperor, and proffered the large sum they had collected, as was previously stated, in exchange for the permission to inter the remains of the young Sol after her execution; to which the emperor offered no opposition.

The dreadful moment had now arrived, when the fair victim was to be conducted from her prison to the place of execution. Till it arrived, her devotions had been uninterrupted, and the executioners sent to fetch her, found her still praying to that Eternal Being in whom her faith was centered, that He would endow her with strength and fortitude to receive the bitter cup that awaited her. When the door of her prison opened, she saw the executioners enter without manifesting any emotion or surprise, but looked meekly towards them, waiting for the fulfilment of their mission. But these men, whose nature is hardened to the most savage cruelty, after intimating to her that they were come to conduct her to death, tied around her neck a thick rope, by which they commenced dragging her along as though she were a

wild beast. The lovely young girl, wrapped in her haïque,* her eyes fixed on the earth, which she moistened with her bitter tears, followed them with faltering steps. As she passed, compassion, grief, tenderness, and every painful emotion of the heart, might be traced in the countenances of the Jews; but among the Mahometans there were no visible relentings of humanity. The Moors, of all sects and ages, who crowded the streets, rent the air with their discordant rejoicings. "She comes!" they cried; "she comes, who blasphemed the name of the Prophet. Let her die for her impiety!"

From the prison to the Soco, the crowds every minute augmented, though the square formed by the troops prevented their penetrating to the scaffold. Every alley and lane was crowded, and amid the most extreme confusion the executioner arrived with Sol at the appointed spot. The pen refuses to describe the incidents of the few succeeding moments. Some few, even amongst the Moors, were moved, and wept freely and bitterly. The executioner † unsheathed his sharp scimetar, and whirled it twice or thrice in the air, as a signal for silence, when the uproar of the Moors was hushed. The beautiful Sol was then directed to kneel down,-at which moment she begged for a little water to wash her hands. It was immediately brought, when she performed the ablution required by the Jewish custom before engaging in prayer. The spectators were anxiously observant of all the actions of the victim. Lifting her eyes to heaven, and amid many tears, she recited the Semà (the prayer offered by those of her nation before death), and then, turning to the executioners, "I have finished," said she, "dispose of my life;" and, fixing her gaze upon the earth, she knelt to receive the fatal stroke.

The scene had by this time begun to change its aspect. The vast concourse of people, seeing Sol's meek gentleness, could not but be moved; many wept, and all felt a degree of compassion for her fate. The executioner, then, seizing the arms of the victim, and twisting them behind her back, bound them with a rope, and whirling his sword in the air, laid hold of the long hair of Sol's head, and wounded her slightly, as he had been commanded, yet so that the blood flowed instantly from the wound, dying her breast and garments. "There is yet time," said they to her; "be converted, yet be spared."

your life may

But Sol, turning her face to the cruel executioner, repliedSlay me, and let me not linger in my sufferings; dying innocently, as I do, the God of Abraham will judge my cause."

These were her last words, at the close of them the scimetar descended upon her fair neck, and the courageous maiden was no more. The Jews had paid six Moors to deliver to them the corpse with the blood-stained earth on which it lay, immediately after the execution of the sentence. This was accordingly done, and the remains, wrapped in a fine linen cloth, were deposited in a deep sepulchre of the Jewish cemetery by the side of those of a learned and honoured sage of the law of Moses. Amidst tears and sighs was the Hebrew martyr buried. Even some of the Moors followed her, mourning to her grave, and still visit her tomb, and venerate her resting-place as that of a true and faithful martyr to the creed she held.

* The haïque, a sort of hooded cloak, is worn in Africa by the Jews as well as the Moors.

↑ All Moorish executions are performed with a sword.

HOW MR. ROBERT SMITHSON ASSISTED IN THE

LATE COUP D'ETAT.

If the child be indeed the father to the man (as some sage has somewhere remarked), what a very queer little papa to himself must Bob Smithson have been! To suppose that he ever cried and puled, fed on pap, and went through the various interesting periods of short-coating, weaning, and teething, demands an exercise of faith in the immutability of Nature's laws, almost larger than we can command. Bob Smithson in long-clothes!-Bob Smithson with a rattle!-Bob Smithson making frantic attempts to swallow his own fist !-bah! the idea is too absurd. We have known Bob these seven years, and he has never changed one whit. He says he is nine-and-twenty, but we should believe him just as well if he said nine hundred and twenty; it is impossible to conceive so stereotyped an animal ever having been younger, or ever growing older. But the reader does not know him, and so we will try to describe him.

Robert Smithson, Esq., may be described in three ways-morally, mentally, and physically, and in each of these phases of his individuality he may be said to be distinguished by "slowness." Thus he has a strong tendency to tea-meetings and the German flute played by ear; he reads Wordsworth and Akenside, Richardson and Mrs. Chapone, Dugald Stewart, and Locke "On the Human Understanding,"-a strong dose of the latter stupifying him as effectually as a sniff of chloroform; and he is fond of walking in Kensington Gardens, and up Primrose Hill in winter, fondly believing that sloppy gravel is more healthy than dry pavement.

In person he is long, lean, sandy-haired, and inclining to the cadaverous. You can't divest yourself of the impression that his eyes have been boiled, and the colour washed out of his straggling whiskers; while his mouth, instead of being chiselled (as fashionable novelists are so fond of saying), must have been cut with a carving-knife, when Dame Nature had nothing more appropriate at hand, wherewith to complete that necessary feature. His legs are decidedly odd; we don't mean "funny," but that they have no sort of natural similitude to one another, and don't seem to be on good terms-the right one invariably turns in its toes, but is on the whole, a quiet well-behaved leg; while the left, on the contrary, has a habit of swinging about, as if it were trying to get away from the body, and-in fact, our impression is that Bob Smithson's left leg gives him a great deal of trouble.

Bob is a surgeon, at least he says so; and we believe that the Apothecaries Hall did really grant him a licence to practise; but as nobody has ever asked him even for a black draught, the civility of the Apothecaries Company has been entirely wasted. It is recorded that he once purchased a practice, and a stock in trade in some extraordinary neighbourhood between Camden Town and the Highgate Archway (we can give no more accurate description of the locality, as, thank Providence, we never venture into those regions); but, after one week's strict attention to business, Bob found himself only the richer by two penny pieces, and a bad fourpenny ditto in exchange for a piece of sticking-plaster, some hair oil, and a blister. Bob pronounced the whole affair a "swindle," for which defamation of character he had to pay ten pounds damages; but

he has never ventured into the red bottle and lamp line since, contenting himself with a brass plate announcing that he is a surgeon, and a-ahem!

Bob had a weakness-who has not? Who can lay his hand on his heart, and say that he is exempt from some little taste or propensity not strictly sanctioned by reason or morality? My friend the Reverend Theodore Brick, of St. Apollodorus is a good and virtuous man; but his best friends admit that if the Reverend Theodore took an occasional bottle of port the less, his divinity would be as sound (and his liver also), while his complexion would be more improved in the nasal regions than by any half-dozen bottles of Gowland's Lotion, or Rowland's Kalydor. My friend Captain Jenkyns, of the 18th Light Dragoons, though as good-natured a fellow as ever backed a bill and a friend at the same time, and as gallant a soldier as ever stormed a breach, is a little too fond of the artistic productions of west-end tailors, bootmakers, &c.,-rather too great an admirer of his own elegances of person, as displayed under the combined inventions of those benevolent tradesmen. The character of John Bulliondust, Esq., of Angel Court and Hyde Park Gardens, is irreproachable on 'Change, untarnished in the west; but Mr. Bulliondust would be equally respected and honoured if Mrs. Bulliondust were seen rather oftener in his company, and his visits to that little bijou of a cottage on the Hammersmith Road (with the green blinds, and the conservatory, the Blenheim spaniel, and the neat Brougham) were rather fewer and farther between. And so it is with the whole world -each man has his hobby-horse, so Sterne told us long since, and each man has his weakness. Bob Smithson's weakness was an intense desire for an adventure.

A man who confines his peregrinations within the limits of Kensington Gardens and Primrose Hill, is not very likely to meet with many exciting adventures, unless he terms captivating a nurserymaid, or being bitten in the leg by an old maid's pet dog, "an adventure." Indeed it may be doubted whether poor Bob's great desire for an exciting event in his life would ever have been gratified, but for two accidents, he had an enemy -and he went to Paris.

His enemy was the man who had most injured him, as enemies generally are for it is astonishing how pertinaciously you hate the man you have injured. Of course, good reader, you and ourselves never injured any one. We can lay our hands on our waistcoats and say that with clear consciences, can we not? But all men are not so virtuous, alas! and with that sigh we remove our hands from our waistcoat, shake our head, and go on with our story. Bob Smithson's enemy was a certain Mr. Brown, who had sold Bob the impracticable practice aforesaid, and made him pay the ten pounds damages, for calling the transaction a "swindle." The vindictive Brown had been heard to utter dire threats of punching Bob's head on the earliest opportunity; and Bob really believed that Brown meant to do it, not bearing in mind, that gentlemen who threaten to do these valorous deeds "on the first opportunity," always take excellent care that the opportunity never shall arrive, thereby preserving their consistency, and their reputation for valour together. One thing is certain, two years had passed, during which time Bob had never been assaulted by Brown, though the two gentlemen had frequently met face to face. "Let me catch him alone, that's all," said Brown.

We have said that Bob Smithson delighted in the gardens of Kensing

ton and the hill of Primrose; and yet Bob actually went to Paris two months ago! It is true that he was sent there on a special message by his father, a country solicitor, and entreated by his mother to undertake the errand as a means of expanding his mind by foreign travel.

Early on the morning of the 1st of December, 1851, Bob Smithson started by special train from London Bridge, and late in the evening of the same day he was deposited, with bag and baggage, at the Paris terminus of the Chemin de Fer du Nord. He sent to Meurice's Hotel, ordered a beefsteak and some porter for his supper (as a light and easily digested one, no doubt), and turned into bed, where he dreamt all night of railways, steamers, seasickness, douaniers, Normandy fish-women, and passports. Next morning when he got up, he heard that a kind of revolution on a small scale, termed a coup d'état, had already taken place in Paris that very morning. Even Bob, however, was not much astonished, because he had been accustomed to consider such things one of the inevitable weekly or monthly Parisian entertainments; and as the waiter smiled as he told him, and asked him whether he would take his coffee au lait or noir in the same breath, Bob naturally thought little about the matter.

He sallied forth, and first executed his father's commands, which were soon complied with, and then he roamed about to see the lions. He was puzzled at seeing no cabs, omnibus, or other vehicles about the streets, and inquired the cause in the best French he could command, which was, perhaps, the worst ever heard out of an English boarding-school.

"V'là l'affiche," was the gruff reply of a moustached blouse, as he pointed to a "poster," which Bob scanned, and by help of his pocket-dictionary made out, that "the circulation of cabs, &c., is defended-" a piece of intelligence which added very little to his stock of knowledge.

He got through the day somehow, though he found Paris the dullest place in the world, as was natural to a man who fancied he could speak the language but could not, and who found himself in the brilliant capital when the circulation of cabs was forbidden.

Next day came!-Again Bob Smithson walked forth jauntily, his left leg exhibiting more than its usual symptoms of liveliness, and his lank sandy hair more carefully brushed and smoothed than on ordinary occasions; for Bob had discovered that the Parisians were smart fellows.

Decidedly there was an air of mischief about the place to-day-people hurrying to and fro; sergens de ville interrupting all street conversations, with their "move on ;" troops of cavalry passing at a trot; regiments of infantry marching by and looking so diabolically wicked, as French troops who have served in Algeria can alone look; shop-keepers standing at their doors with puzzled and doubtful looks; groups of heads at the café windows and no one with a perfect air of ease and satisfaction about him. Bob was not experienced in the physiology of Parisian life, or he would have read in all these symptoms, as easily as in print, the significant word "BARRICADES."

Which way Bob roamed it is impossible for us to tell, seeing that we have nothing to guide us in this little history but his own information, which is decidedly scanty as to locality. Suddenly, however, he came to a street, which, as he thought, was under repair, seeing that the stones were up at one end, and piled as he had seen them almost every month in Fleet Street, which is a street afflicted with a chronic complaint in the internal regions. A few heads were visible above the