be Truth? found at last where we have been so often told to seek for it. How busy, how nimble, how funny! Now twisting, now un-twisting, now sinking on its bed as if fainting with ecstasy, then starting bolt upright and spinning round like a top; again it would curl up like a smooth pillow, and anon pause for a moment as if hovering with out-stretched wings, and then fold itself once more on its bed. I have often seen it since, and it was always at its work, and is so doubtless still, morn, noon, and night incessantly, and its out-flow all the year round was the same. Such is our well, at all times the same, full, clear, deep, composed; its only motion a gentle equable heaving, its only sound the liquid gurgle of its overflowings among the roots of the flowers, its open face reflecting the heavens, calm or in storm, and though disquieted by every wandering wind, or dipping fly, or scampering 'well-washer,' soon recovering its placid face, while its depths rest for ever untroubled. Pray you have a heart like this well, full, deep, clear, unchangeable, with Truth at the bottom; and a merry dancing elf there too, dancing to himself, ever wealthy with the treasure of his own exceeding pleasure.' 6 In the time of hot raging passion, a fountain of coolness. In shivering grief and bleak misery, a refuge from the storm, a covert from the tempest, and at all times a 'balm that tames all anguish, that steeps in rich reward all suffering, a saint that evil thoughts and aims taketh away.' Fearless alike of fire and frost, cool, not cold, warm, not hot. How many such hearts are at this moment beating in the bosoms of our mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, as little known, it may be, as this wilderness well, as full of goodness and love that never fails, passing away in silence, and telling no tale of all the good they do, and known only by the verdure that conceals their course. Long may thy springs, Quietly as a sleeping infant's breath, And long may our wells of living water find duty and affection, and making the wilderness and the solitary place to rejoice, their exceeding great reward, and elsewhere spring up into everlasting life. 12th April 1836. J. B. ANTESCRIPT To the Sixtieth Thousand of Rab and his Friends.' My dear Publisher-and Friend, for I don't agree with Tom Campbell's grim joke about Napoleon and the bookseller,1—what business has this inquisitive simpleton with his tongue out, this cordial little ruffian,-what has he to do on the cover of Rab and his Friends'? Rightly he is one of Our Dogs,' and wasn't born for many a year after Rab was dead(ed). Nevertheless I like to see him looking out of the carriage-window at the general world of dogs and men. He was a queer fellow, a thoroughbred 'mustard' Dandie Dinmont of the old breed, big enough to tackle with an otter. His great-grandsire was the famous 'Crib,' whom Sir Walter got from Davidson of Hyndlee (the original Dandie Dinmont), and gave to his Constable, as his son, my Constable (tam carum caput !) told me. 'Bob' was like King James 1st and V1th, and Oliver Goldsmith—an inspired idiot' -he could do little that other dogs did, and much that no other dog ever did,- -a sort of bornnatural. If Bob had known Rab, he would have respected him, but, being irritable and plucky, he might have run the risk of being throttled by that unceremonious old warrior-whose temper, like his tail, was of the shortest ; and so I allow you your frontispiece under protest-denying the railevancy, as Dr. Chalmers would say. 1 At a booksellers' dinner Campbell proposed Napoleon's health, for he hanged a bookseller. 23 RUTLAND Street, MORE OF OUR DOGS.' THE 'HE printer's devil-a very small and black and gentle one, whose name is Snowdon, whom I like to tease before he is off by giving him a small coin and then taking it and seeing how he looks, ending with making him haul it out of my fingers with his teeth, a great joke to us two-was asleep in the lobby, and I was trying to be pleased with the last sheet of Our Dogs, when the door opens and in trots a hairy little fellow, with all the gaiety and assurance proper to puppies, responsible and not. He, at one bound, for he is as springy as Jock, was on the table, and staring at me and then at the proof, with his head on one side, as much as to say, 'Oh! do put me in,-Cur non?' whisking off my spectacles with an ingenious jerk of his tail, which same tail I have no doubt he will soon be able to crack like a whip, so long, so plentiful, so handy it is already. Who could resist him? Recovering my spectacles and my understanding, for if not identical they are |