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STORIES OF
wall of his dungeon the night before his execu-tion. This Colonel P. I. Pestal was one of the leading Dekabrists, so called from the historical episodes of 14th (26th) December, 1825, when Pestal and a number of confederates conspired against Nicholas I. An insurrection of the troops followed in Moscow, but this was soon suppressed. Pestal, with five others, paid the last penalty of the law at daybreak on 13th (25th) July, 1826, having been sentenced to death for high treason. One of the five executed was Ryleyeff, a Russian minor poet of some ability, whose poems are still extant and in print. Soon after the accession of Alexander II., in 1855, the surviving Dekabrists, who had been cast in prison, where pardoned and liberated.
Mrs. Crawford prefaces the song with a short piece of ordinary verse. The lyric itself I give. It must be confessed that it does not possess that literary merit which usually marks Mrs. Craw-ford's performances, but we must not forget that she lived in an age of much artificiality:
" Rest thou troubled heart! within this captive bosom swelling, Rest thou troubled heart 1 no more of love or glory telling:
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