Instead of vocal ditties, and the social flowing cup,-
But they'll be the House's ruin, or the shutting of it up,-
With their riots and their hubbubs, like a garden full of bears,
While they've damaged many Articles and broken lots of squares,
And kept their noble Club Room in a perfect dust and smother,
By throwing Morning Heralds, Times, and Standards at each other;
Not to name the ugly language Gemmen oughtn't to repeat,
And the names they call each other-for I've heard 'em in the street-
Such as Traitors, Guys, and Judases, and vipers, and what not,
For Pasley and his divers an't so blowing-up a lot.

And then such awful swearing!-for there's one of them that cusses
Enough to shock the cads that hang on opposition 'busses;
For he cusses every member that's agin him at the poll,
As I wouldn't cuss a donkey, tho' it hasn't got a soul;
And he cusses all their families, Jack, Harry, Bob, or Jim,
To the babby in the cradle, if they don't agree with him!
Whereby, altho' as yet they have not took to use their fives,
Or, according as the fashion is, to sticking with their knives,
I'm bound ther'll be some milling yet, and shakings by the collars,
Afore they choose a Chairman for the Glorious Apollers!

To be sure it is a pity to be blowing such a squall,

Instead of clouds, and every man his song, and then his call-
And as if there wasn't Whigs enough and Tories to fall out,
Besides politics in plenty for our splits to be about,-
Why a cornfield is sufficient, sir, as anybody knows,

For to furnish them in plenty who are fond of picking crows-
Not to name the Maynooth Catholics, and other Irish stews,
To agitate society and loosen all its screws ;

And which all may be agreeable and proper to their spheres,-
But it's not the thing for musicals to set us by the ears.
And as to College larning, my opinion for to broach,
And I've had it from my cousin, and he driv a college-coach,
And so knows the University, and all as there belongs,
And he says that Oxford's famouser for sausages than songs,
And seldom turns a Poet out like Hudson that can chant,
As well as make such ditties as the Free and Easies want,
Or other Tavern Melodists I can't just call to mind-
But it's not the classic system for to propogate the kind,
Whereby it so may happen as that neither of them Scholars
May be the proper Chairman for the Glorious Apollers!
For my part in the matter, if so be I had a voice,

It's the best among the vocalists I'd honour with the choice;
Or a Poet as could furnish a new Ballad to the bunch;

Or at any rate the surest hand at mixing of the punch;
'Cause why, the members meet for that and other tuneful frolics-
And not to say, like Muffincaps, their Catichiz and Collec's.
But you see them there Itinerants that preach so long and loude,
And always takes advantage like the prigs of any crowd
Have brought their jangling voices, and as far as they can compass,
Have twin'd a tavern shindy to a seriouser rumpus,

And him as knows most hymns-altho I can't see how it follers-
They want to be the chairman of the Glorious Apollers.

Well, that's the Row-and who can guess the upshot after all?
Whether Harmony will ever make the " Arms" her House of call,
Or whether this here mobbing,-as some longish heads foretel it
Will grow to such a riot that the Oxford Blues must quell it.
Howsomever, for the present, there's no sign of any peace,
For the hubbub keeps a growing, and defies the New Police ;—
But if I was in the Vestry, and a leading sort of man,
Jan.-VOL. LXIV. NO. CCLIII.

L

Or a Member of the Vocals, to get backers for my plan,
Why, I'd settle all the squabble in the twinkle of a needle,
For I'd have another candidate-and that's the Parish Beadle,
Who makes such lots of Poetry, himself, or else by proxy;
And no one never has no doubts about his orthodoxy;
Whereby-if folks was wise-instead of either of them Scholars,
And straining their own lungs along of contradictions hollers,
They'd lend their ears to reason, and take my advice as follers,
Namely-Bumble for the Chairman of the Glorious Apollers!

THE EXECUTION OF THE CONTROJANNI.

FROM THE PAPERS OF A BAVARIAN OFFICER.

AFTER having commanded for several months a detachment in Laconia, I was returning, on the 20th of January, 1836, to my garrison town, Nauplia. It was evening when I approached the gate, through the suburb of Pronia, and turned my weary steed towards the fortress. My attention was strongly excited by an infantry piquet, which I perceived at the lower end of the glacis. A lofty object, at which various groups of persons were gazing with silent curiosity, seemed to be the cause of this military precaution. To see vedettes posted there, on the usual promenade of the Nauplians, denoted something extraordinary. I rode on, and found that the object in question was a guillotine. The sentries paced sullenly to and fro, and when I inquired the meaning of these preparations, I received this answer: "To-morrow morning the Controjanni are to be beheaded, and we are obliged to do duty here with loaded arms, lest the people should carry off yonder thing in the night." At this time the name of Controjanni was but too well known in Greece. The seven brothers to whom it belonged were at the head of a formidable band of robbers, who, more especially in the years 1834

and 1835, were the terror of the Morea, rendering the roads unsafe, plundering whole hamlets, and murdering the inhabitants. Cruelties and atrocities, horrible as any that attended the persecutions of the early Christians, were perpetrated by the Controjanni upon their compatriots and the professors of the same religion with themselves. Women and aged persons were slaughtered with circumstances of infernal brutality, children impaled, men tortured, and the bodies of the victims often mutilated in the most revolting manner. Long did these banditti contrive to escape the hands of justice; but they were at last surprised by the gendarmes while plundering a house at Vostiza; and, after a desperate resistance, the seven brothers were secured alive by the conquerors. They were confined for some time in Fort Palamides, and brought to trial: two were sentenced to imprisonment for life in chains, and five condemned to die.

This sentence should have been executed several months previously; but Greek obstinacy and a Palikar point of honour had found means to defer the catastrophe, and even resorted to murder for the purpose of preventing it: for, great as had been the joy of the whole country at the capture of the Controjanni, and loudly and universally as their execution had at first been demanded, still, according to the notions of the Greeks, it was an affront to the national honour to doom these heroes to suffer by the guillotine. The Controjanni were all at once Palikari; they had fought for the liberation of the country; they had lived as free men; as such, as Greeks, they ought to die: they ought to be shot, not executed, like the contemptible malefactors of other countries, by the carmagnola-the name given by the Greeks to the guillotine. These and similar expressions were current, more particularly at Nauplia, where the execution was to take place. Remonstrances were made; the authorities were solicited to change the mode of death: but, all being found of no avail, on the day previous to that fixed for carrying into effect the sentence of the law, the executioner brought for the purpose from Athens was assassinated by a Greek in his lodging. Owing to the fraternal sympathy of the Greeks, the murderer escaped detection.

In consequence of this Palikar feat, and for want of another executioner, the criminals gained a reprieve, but no alteration was made in their sentence. In spite of remonstrances, the government seemed now to persevere the more stedfastly in the fulfilment of its intentions. An executioner, however, was not easily to be found. Under the circumstances of the case, this will not appear surprising, especially to those who know the detestation of every Greek for this office. The want was at length supplied. A black living at Athens undertook to perform the task, if an adequate remuneration were offered, and he were allowed two assistants. He was promised one thousand drachmas (about three hundred and fifty florins); two criminals confined in the fortress, and Mahometans like himself, were willing to serve as assistants, on condition that, after they had done the duty, they should be set at liberty and allowed to go to Turkey. These terms were granted. At Athens the master made some experiments with the guillotine kept there, and soon afterwards arrived in a king's ship in the harbour of Nauplia, with his men, under a strong escort, to execute the Controjanni. Such was the purpose for which the fatal machine was erected before the gate of the town.

It was scarcely light on the morning of the 21st of January, before

I was outside the walls of the fortress, to be a spectator of the bloody drama. At the place of execution, as well as in the town itself, imposing arrangements were made for the maintenance of order and security. Two battalions of infantry formed a close square about the guillotine; a squadron of Hulans was stationed close by; and the mouths of the cannon protruded from the batteries of Fort Palamides. A prodigious concourse of people thronged the Place, but exhibited rather an anxious expectation of the event, than any feeling calculated to excite alarm. The executioner and his men, upon the platform of the guillotine, let down and drew up the axe, and examined the pit formed immediately behind the scaffold, and covered with linen, which was destined for the reception of the bodies.

The eyes of the multitude were intently fixed on the closed door of the fortress, at which the delinquents were to be brought forth one after another. At length there appeared a division of gendarmes, and in their midst a Controjanni heavily ironed. The troops opened their ranks to make way for the youngest of the five brothers, a lad of sixteen or eighteen, and of mild aspect, who entered and ascended the scaffold. An awful silence ensued. His irons were taken off, and he was delivered, with his hands bound behind him, to the executioner, who led him to the guillotine. The culprit walked to the fatal machine without hesitation, then turned his face towards the multitude, and broke the awful silence by the tremulous appeal: "Forgive me, brothers!" Thousands of tongues replied, as with one voice, "We do forgive thee !" Forgive me, brothers! I have not been the worst.

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do what I did. Forgive me, so will God forgive you !"

I was forced to

"We do forgive thee !" was again the thundering reply of the multitude, in which the Greek troops themselves joined, and were reprimanded for so doing. Meanwhile the plank to which the criminal had been bound was brought into an horizontal position; a slight movement of the black was followed by the rattling of the axe, and the dull sound of a falling substance; a stream of blood spirted between the posts of the guillotine-the wretched youth was no more. The body was loosed from the plank, and tumbled into the pit, into which the head had already fallen. The executioners jocosely made their remarks, wiped the blood from the fore-part of the machine, and carelessly awaited the second victim.

Again the space encompassed by the troops opened, and the next youngest of the brothers ascended with gloomy look the blood-stained scaffold. He too cried, Forgive me, brothers!"

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The black, with perfect indifference, let fall the fatal knife, and the second criminal had ceased to live.

The third, a mean-looking little man of about thirty, mounted the scaffold with a boldness which somewhat daunted the executioner himself. When, however, he was fastened to the plank, wet with the blood of his brothers, his audacity forsook him: he begged for a delay of a few moments, as he had important disclosures to make. An officer of justice and the commandant of the troops went up to him. "The band of the Controjanni," began the criminal, " has hid prodigious treasures; I am ready to show you where to find them, if you will spare my life."

This exordium he repeated in the most verbose manner; but of course no attention could be paid to it. Amidst the most abject en

treaties to spare his life were made preparations which brought his neck under the axe: he then begged leave to speak to a clergyman. A priest approached; the sufferer delivered to him a small purse, and whispered a few words which Father Dimitri thought fit to keep to himself. The black now grew impatient: to no purpose the culprit implored, to no purpose he repeated over and over again the word "treasures;" the executioner had no mercy, and away rolled his head to the corpses of his brothers.

Next came the fourth of this worthy fraternity, a hardened sinner, who would not hear of a clergyman. Without uttering a word, he stepped with a scornful smile upon the scaffold, spat in the face of the black, and was just about to place himself in the necessary position, when the sun majestically rose above the horizon into the serene sky. So overpowered was the criminal by this sight, that he sank, as if thunderstruck, to the ground, and with his face turned towards the luminary, he addressed his last prayer to Heaven.

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So," whispered an eparch from Arcadia to me, "have many of his fellow-creatures knelt before him; so has many a mother begged the lives of her children, and many a maiden besought him to spare her honour-but in vain. Perhaps he may find the Almighty more merciful than he has been here.'

In this manner did the people express their thoughts, and there was need of such recollections in order not to be moved to a pity which, in this instance, would have been thrown away. Presently, without having uttered a single word, the fourth of the brothers lay a corpse among corpses.

Once more the door of the fortress opened for the last of the Controjanni. This, the eldest of the family, a short, wild-looking man, from thirty-six to forty years old, was the real chief of the band, and, according to the accounts of the Greeks, in every respect a monster. The moment he appeared in sight, bitter execrations against him were heard among the crowd; but the profoundest silence soon ensued. The ranks opened for the fifth time, and, with light step, as though going to a dance, Controjanni entered the enclosure. The fetters were removed from his legs, and the executioner and his men stood ready to receive their victim from the hands of the gendarmes.

"What dost thou want?" said Controjanni, with an audacious look to the black who approached him.-The latter pointed mutely to the guillotine.—“ I understand; I am to lay my head down there."

"If you please," replied the Moor, almost disconcerted, and offering to take him by the arm.

"Touch me not; when one has come thus far alone, one can surely get up there without help. Or thinkest thou that I am afraid of death? I tell thee, Controjanni has faced death oftener than any of these Bavarian blue-coats here."

The black, however, seemed to care but little about this contempt of death; he drew the hero towards the guillotine. During this dialogue, the words "Palikari," and "good," "very good," were frequently heard among the crowd.

Before Controjanni ascended the steps, he solicited permission to look at the carmagnola, as he had not seen such a thing before, and probably never should again. The request was granted, and the cri