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Milton and Pope now became to him the companions of Virgil, and he began to study the language of Homer. In Nov., 1817, when he was nineteen years of age, he entered the University of Glasgow as a student of Latin, under Prof. Josiah Walker, the friend and biographer of Burns, author of a poem against the Revolutionists of France, entitled "A Defence of Order;" and of Greek under Dr. John Young, who had composed an elaborate critique on Gray's Elegy," one of the best Hellenists of his day. Next year he studied Greek again, and took lessons in elocution from James Sheridan Knowles, then teaching in Glasgow, with the fame of the authorship of "Caius Gracchus" and "Virginius" fresh upon him, and working at his "William Tell." Most of the professors were patrons of the drama, and urged the study of elocution upon their students. In 1819, Pollock joined the class of that veteran logician of whose style of teaching we have had an account given us but lately, George Jardine, who exerted an influence almost amounting to fascination over the young, ambitious country lad, whose mind was ripening amongst his compeers; but was yet yearning with a desire far ahead of that which the daily needs of daily life excited. By the unanimous suffrages of his class-fellows he attained one of the prizes awarded to successful students in Jardine's class.

But the scanty diet of the poor student, and the close, pent lodgings in which he had toiled over Demosthenes, plodded through Euclid, and strained himself to acquire familiarity with syllogism and style, had woefully worked upon his health. He was warned that his bodily powers could not sustain the tension to which he was subjecting them. With the design of taking a relaxing rest, he and a fellow-student visited Dublin, and made a few excursions into the adjacent country. After his return he composed an "Essay on the External Senses, and the Means of improving them," a subject which had been prescribed to the students as a summer exercise by Professor Jardine. This essay, which occupied 104 quarto pages, was adjudged to be not only praiseworthy, but prize-worthy.

In 1820, Pollock entered the class of Professor James Mylne, who prelected on morals and economics, a gentleman noted for an acute, inquiring originality of intellect. Here he learned to think as he had beforehand been taught by Jardine to investigate; and here again he gained a prize by the votes of the class. After another session's study, devoted to natural philosophy, under Dr. W. Meikleham, pursued simultaneously with that of the higher mathematics, under Professor Millar, he graduated M.A., and won his cap with credit.

Robert Pollock, though nursing in his soul a great ambition, subordinated his mighty passion to his duty. The labours of his classes were honestly and earnestly engaged in. In his lowly lodging in the great swart city he studiously consumed the hours sacred to study, and when the day was closed, the humble household where he had his residence had the kitchen hearth swept, and

the student conducted the family devotions of the working man's home. Though tremulously shy at all times else, he was bold, and fervent, and earnest, in the solemn hour given to God amidst the hum and stir of trade and commerce. So shy was he, indeed, and so reservedly studious, that though he attended public worship after the manner of his fathers, in the Secession Church of which he intended to become a clergyman, yet he had not the nerve to introduce himself to the preacher under whose ministrations he sought edification. He did not hold himself aloof from all society, however. This was a time of great bustle and political fervour. Francis Jeffrey had been chosen Lord Rector of Glasgow University, and his great speech had thrilled the heart's core of the students. The Radicals, too, were "up," and the west of Scotland was in a ferment. In the university debating societies there was intense strife of tongues, and Robert Pollock took his part in these assemblies with ready earnestness. It may interest our readers to possess a scrap or two of one of Pollock's association themes. The debate is on "Were the old times better than the new?" And it has been said that "our lot is cast in such a remote period of the world's history, that the fields of literature have been so thoroughly exhausted, the mines of knowledge so ransacked, and the fruits of thought so carefully gathered and gleaned, that nothing remains for us to get, or gain, or do, but imitate and reproduce.' In Pollock's reply the following paragraphs occur:

"The early poets, it is said, have taken possession of the most striking objects of nature, and their works are therefore more vigorous and sublime than those of later bards. Whether this long-received opinion may not be rather imaginary than real there is room for doubt. Poets were posting themselves in the strong places of nature during thousands of years anterior to Milton; and yet, without copying the images or thoughts of his predecessors, he confounds us with a vastness and sublimity of idea and comparison, before which almost every former poet veils his head, as the stars at the approach of the sun. Homer's heroes fling from their hands stones which two men in the late ages of degeneracy could not lift. Milton's heroes take the mountain by its piny tops, and toss it against the enemy. At the name of Shakspere the bards of other years fall down in deep prostration, and abjure the name of poet. In strength of expression these two archangels in poetry stand aloft like the star-neighbouring Teneriffe among the little islands that float on the Atlantic surge. I think the very nature

of poetry excludes the possibility of its subjects ever being exhausted. To please, to excite interest in existence, is the aim of poetry in general. By his success in this we ascertain the poet's merit, or the life of life which is in him. If he warms the affections, delights the imagination, and awes the understanding, and if the general tendency of his work be moral, it matters not whence he chooses his subject, or by what means he attains his purpose. Other writers are confined by the boundaries of truth, but the poet has the boundless region of fancy before him. Nearly three thousand years ago Homer reached forth his careless hand, and pulled from the party-coloured fields many a fair flower. Since his time many have made excursions into the wild territories of Imagination, and brought forth with them abundant spoils. But her fields are as rich as ever. The flowers which bloom there, though plucked to-night, will grow up ere to-morrow."

The influence of Dr. Chalmers on all young minds was very great at this time, and his exertions in regard to church extension and missionary enterprise excited many ardent emotions amongst the thoughtful. So did the anti-slavery movement, which was in Pollock's youth agitating the whole compass of the land. Pollock took a leading part in the management of the business of the Missionary Association of his native parish; the Bible Society's agitation; and in all the public questions of the day he began to take an intelligent interest-becoming, divinity student though he was, an enthusiastic member of the yeomanry cavalry volunteers of his time. In August, 1822, he entered the Divinity Hall of the Secession Church, which was then held in Glasgow under the superintendence of the Rev. John_Dick, D.D., minister of Greyfriars Congregation, author of an "Essay on Inspiration," ," "Lectures on Theology," &c., &c.-a man of clear and vigorous thought and benign temper. During the winter of that year Pollock planned and pursued a course of reading designed not merely to improve his mind, but to prepare himself for occupying the place he had determined to fill amongst men. In following out this course he perused the chief poets of Britain in chronological order, from Chaucer and Gower to Thomas Campbell, who was looked upon by the alumni of the university as worthy to attain the honours of the Lord Rectorship, which had been conferred on Sir James Mackintosh in 1822; Lord Brougham, 1824; and with which the author of "The Pleasures of Hope" was invested in 1826. Besides these studies, Pollock, recalling some of the vivid pictures of his mother's traditionary lore, composed a prose tale, entitled "Helen of the Glen," for the copyright of which he received £15. In the course of the succeeding year he wrote Ralph Gemmell," and "The Persecuted Family," for both of which he received £21. They are now issued in one volume as "Tales of the Covenanters." After this he took an excursion into Edinburgh, and traversed many of the scenes hallowed by records of martyrs' heroism. A fit of illness overtook him shortly after his resumption of professional studies in Glasgow,-his whole system was revolutionized by rheumatic fever. On his recovery, he, in company with a few other student friends, visited the scenes of the "Land of Burns" in Ayrshire. Having returned to Glasgow, and having settled again to his tasks for the winter, he was engaged in perusing Byron's works. He was much struck with the poem on "Darkness," commencing, "I had a dream which was not all a dream." A train of thought was suggested, and it struck him that "The Resurrection" was a subject on which a great poem yet remained to be written. Poetry had been the darling of his soul, and poetic fame appeared to him as the choice essence of human renown; and here had arisen "the vision," if he had but "the faculty divine." The book was laid aside, his own pen was taken up, and he began a poem. His mother's illness and ultimate death in 1825 interrupted the composition of the work, but heightened the emotions of his soul much nearer to a level with his

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ambition. During this year, while sitting a grief-stricken watcher by his mother's death-bed, the whole plan of his poem, as if by instant inspiration, was changed, and the entire scheme mapped itself out before him like a landscape seen in the morning sunlight. In little more than a year the half of his poem was ready in rough draught the earliest portions written being those which now form Books 7, 8, and 9. This effort, his studies and his griefs, weakened his health, and much of his time was broken in upon by disease. His studies, we may note, were not pursued remissly; on the contrary, besides attending the classes necessary for acquiring the status of a clergyman in the United Secession Church, he of his own accord attended the Divinity Hall of Glasgow University, and added the information to be derived from Dr. Stevenson Mac Gill and Dr. Gavin Gibb to that which Dr. Dick was able to supply. During eight months of the year he was required to keep up to the mark in his divinity studies, and hold himself abreast of his fellows; and yet while labouring faithfully in performing the duties of the day, he was filled with an energy which led him to anticipate a future of fame, of usefulness, and influence, as a poet who had dipped his pen in

"Siloa's brook,

That flows fast by the oracles of God."

He also preached before the presbytery of his own church, and produced such exercises as its members prescribed.

In July, 1826, the poem was written, but it was yet unnamed. For the last two months a perfect frenzy of poetic ardour burned within his heart and brain. He had reached that point where the subject becomes " overwhelmingly great," and here he "seemed to himself to write from immediate inspiration," though he “felt the body beginning to give way." Some of the latter portions of the work were written on the summit itself of Balagich, the highest hill in the upper part of Renfrewshire, which rises 1,000 feet above the level of the sea. The view from this eminence is like the sea in sunset after a day of storms. The bold, bleak exposure of the hard, lowlying glebe is rich in streams and rivulets and rills, but beyond are undulations of most picturesque appearance and most poetic associations,-Tinto and Culter Fell; Wardlaw and Cairntable, Carsphairn and the Buchan Hills; the green grassy hills of Ayrshire, the blue far-spread waters of the Firth of Clyde, out of which rise Ailsa Craig, Arran, and Jura; the slope of the Clyde coursing down a fertile valley; and the smoke-clad haunts of life, Paisley and Glasgow ; while farther off were seen "the lofty Ben Lomond, the splendid peaks of the Perthshire Highlands, and the nearer ranges of the Ochils. Is it of this scene he speaks in the following lines P

"Pleasant were many scenes, but most to me
The solitude of vast extent, untouched
By hand of art, where Nature sowed, herself,

And reaped her crops; whose garments were the clouds :
Whose minstrels brooks; whose lamps the moon and stars;
Whose organ-choir the voice of many waters;

Whose banquets morning dews; whose heroes storms;
Whose warriors mighty winds; whose lovers flowers;
Whose orators the thunderbolts of God;

Whose palaces the everlasting hills;

Whose ceiling heaven's unfathomable blue;
And from whose rocky turrets battled high,

Prospect immense spread out on all sides round,
Lost now beneath the welkin and the main,

Now walled with hills that slept above the storms."

He retired to Dunfermline to revise and re-write his poem, now named "The Course of Time," but he had become so enfeebled, that he was unable to copy it out fairly for the printers, and for the perusal of the persons to whom Mr. Blackwood desired to refer it. These were Professor Wilson, himself a native of Paisley, in Renfrewshire, who had been brought up in the Mearns, and who was intimate with the scenery of Eaglesham; and Dr. Moir, of Musselburgh, the "Delta" of English literature-a gentleman of singular attainments as a novelist, physician, poet, and critic. They reported favourably of the work, and Mr. Blackwood agreed to issue a small edition for the author on the half-profit system. We may perhaps best fulfil the joint duty of being biographers and critics by quoting from the poem a very splendid passage, which has the additional recommendation of being autobiographical. We shall thus at once supplement our own notice, and supply the reader with the means of judging of the actual merits of this poem, written amidst the straitening cares of poverty, the sorrow of bereavement, the sadness of sickness, and the toiling duties of a Scottish student's life-alone and unencouraged, sustained only by the big-hearted desire to do a great work beneficial to man, and glorifying to the great Ordainer of life, talent, and duty. If we mistake not, our readers will thank us for the length of our extract rather than think us careless of their time and of the space of this serial. The passage throbs with the poet's own life :—

"One of this mood I do remember well,

We name him not-what now are earthly names ?—
In humble dwelling born, retired, remote ;