out disturbing the arrangement; and then entering a clump of trees, they faded from the eyes of their friends, who saw them no more.

The time has now arrived when it is usual for the moral to be spoken, and the curtain dropped. We have no moral to speak. We have presented a succession of pictures of what we believe to be human nature; although human nature placed in strange and out-of-theway circumstances; in which the conduct, if truly set down, is commonly supposed to be unnatural. Our personages, although, for the most part, real characters, and painted, so far as we could do it, in their real colours, have as yet no place in history. A biography, therefore, would have been useless, and biographical accuracy, in a romance, is never well appreciated. Our sole purpose was--(and we fear there is some boldness in confessing it)-to amuse-to interest-to excite the sensibilities--and to fill up the heart during one of those so called idle moments in which, for want of better employment, it preys upon itself. If we have succeeded, we are happy; if not, we shall try to do better the next time.

It would give us pleasure to conform to the old rule of romance, and satisfy that curiosity, on the subject of the persons of the story, which the sanguine author always imagines he has excited. Our persons, however, as we have said, are not fictions but realities; and it rarely happens, except in fairy tales, that we can say of any body, "he then lived happy all the days of his life."

As for Carl Benzel and his faithful Ida, all we have further to tell is, that Madame Dallheimer consented very cheerfully to their union; and although she was not guilty of the folly of selling the property, yet she placed them in circumstances which enabled them to live genteelly, without having recourse to the boasted industry of her daughter.

Old Moritz of the mill lived to a good old age, enjoying at once the friendship of the banditti and the patronage of the government. He never ceased, so long

V

as his tongue could wag, to entertain his nightly guests with the tale of the forcing of his premises by the police; and he laughed to his dying hour at the quandary he was in when he thought that, in a moment of passion, he had slain the famous Schinderhannes-when, lo, and behold, the victims were a few gendarmes!

In the flight from the farm, Leah and Adonijah were either purposely omitted by Buckler, or accidentally forgotten; and when they heard of the departure of the rest, they borrowed horses, and set out alone to follow, being too closely connected with the band to remain behind with safety. On the way, however, the strength of old Adonijah broke down ; and his daughter-the murderess of Ishmael-who might easily have escaped alone, surrendered herself into the hands of the police, rather than leave her father. They were tried soon after at Mayence, and condemned to fourteen years of fetters, without having been guilty of the smallest treachery to their quondam comrades. Kunz Weiner travelled all the way from the Fig-tree to bid them good-by.

He

commiserated the case, more especially, of old Adonijah, who was leaving the neighbourhood of his sympathising friends, for no other purpose than to die; and he even whispered to the daughter, that, if she thought it would not be intruding, he would bring a little arsenic with him at his next visit, and administer it himself, in the most kind and comfortable manner.

The fate of Schinderhannes is detailed in the note; and from the circumstance of another Madame Buckler being mentioned, the reader may conclude, if he pleases, that Liese did not live to witness it.

END OF SCHINDERHANNES.

NOTE.

NOTE*.

THE ROBBERS OF THE RHINE.

AMONG the gay and fashionable who haunted Aix-la-Chapelle for the sake of relaxation, were many individuals who, in their working hours, followed a calling which in England we know nothing about. A wealthy Dutch merchant, or a German baron, with a pedigree as long as the great sea-serpent-or both together-would honour the city of Charlemagne with their presence, accompanied by their wives, and daughters, and sons, and nieces, and a whole tribe of servants. The shopkeepers rub their hands; the water-drinkers are thrown into a flutter; ladies' hearts begin to pal-pi-tate; and old bachelors hasten to drill their eyebrows, and count the crowfeet at the corners with nervous trepidation.

The anticipations of all are realized. The strangers buy freely, and pay in hard dollars: they keep open house, play a high game, win or lose, as luck orders it, with a good grace. Their womankind play on the guitar, and look unutterable things:

Sweet harmonists!-and beautiful as sweet-
And young as beautiful-and soft as young!

They make people delightfully unhappy, and form a hundred liaisons-all platonic of course.

This goes on for some time; perhaps a month passes by like a jour de fete-when suddenly an awkward whisper runs through the town. The Aix-la-Chapellians rub their eyes; resemblances are detected, and coincidences examined; then government couriers arrive; the authorities are thrown into confusion; all business is at a stand; and, as every body knows that the matter cannot go on so for another day, the whole population wait for the morrow in an agony of suspense.

The strangers in the meantime go, and the morrow comes. They have vanished like so many spirits, and

*From "Travelling Sketches on the Rhine, and in Belgium and Holland." (Picturesque Annual, 1833, by the author of Schinderhannes).

W