"Oh! no, no, no! I am all too young, Sing heigh-ho! sing heigh-ho! I dare not list to a young man's tongue, On a summer morning so early." But the shepherd to gain her heart was bent; Oft she strove to go, but she never went; And at length she fondly blush'd consent-- Heaven blesses true lovers so fairly. REPUBLICAN PARIS. [MARCH, APRIL 1848.] Is there any former lover of Paris who imagines that, when the barricades of the last insurrection have been removed, the devastations repaired, and the street lanterns mended, Paris will wear, with its republican face, the same aspect as it did of old? If there be such a man, let him still cherish the fond delusion, and not come and see. Or, would he learn the truth, let him try the experiment of taking from the fairest face he knows and loves, the gay, coquettish cap of gauze and ribbon, the light, butterfly-like _chef-d'œuvre_ of the most tasty fancy of a French _marchande des modes_, and let him put on that head the Phrygian cap of liberty, the _bonnet rouge_, in all its startling coarseness of red cloth. He thinks, perhaps, that the face will be the same, or at least wear the same expression as before! Fatal mistake! Animated, gay with colour, flushed with the red reflected tints, picture-like even, may be the pretty face--but it will have utterly lost its former charm; it will look staring, vulgar, swaggering, disordered, at best Bacchante-like. Or, to take a more psychological comparison:--Let him think back upon the time when he was in love, and wandered in the company of the beloved, and try to remember how he looked upon the objects that surrounded him. Of a surety, whatever their natural want of beauty they wore a peculiar look of brightness; there was a magical veil of rose-coloured charm upon all. Let him then reflect upon the aspect of the same spot when _she_ was gone. The objects remained the same, but certainly they wore not the same air to his eyes; they were the identical objects he had looked upon before, and yet he could have sworn that they were changed--that the whole landscape was discoloured. And so it is with Paris. Streets, squares, and houses are the same, but its moral appearance is totally altered: there is a changed look in the very air; the impression on the mind is as different as rose-colour is from gray upon the sense; the psychological tint has been washed out, blurred away, and replaced by a troubled, confused, indescribably unharmonious and uncongenial colour.