already quoted, but decided on the latter, a remarkable choice for a child. The repeating these lines seemed to stir up the depths of feeling in her soul. She asked to be allowed to write a poem; there was a doubt whether it would be right to allow her, in case of hurting her eyes. She pleaded earnestly, "Just this once;" the point was yielded, her slate was given her, and with great rapidity she wrote an address of fourteen lines, "To her loved Cousin on the Author's recovery," her last work on earth :

"Oh! Isa, pain did visit me,
I was at the last extremity;
How often did I think of you,

I wished your graceful form to view,
To clasp you in my weak embrace,
Indeed I thought I'd run my race :
Good care, I'm sure, was of me taken,
But still indeed I was much shaken,
At last I daily strength did gain,
And oh ! at last, away went pain;
At length the doctor thought I might
Stay in the parlor all the night;

I now continue so to do,

Farewell to Nancy and to you."

:

'She went to bed apparently well, awoke in the middle of the night with the old cry of woe to a mother's heart, "My head, my head!" Three days of the dire malady, "water in the head," followed, and the end came.'

'Soft, silken primrose, fading timelessly.'

It is needless, it is impossible, to add anything to

this the fervour, the sweetness, the flush of poetic ecstasy, the lovely and glowing eye, the perfect nature of that bright and warm intelligence, that darling child,-Lady Nairne's words, and the old tune, stealing up from the depths of the human heart, deep calling unto deep, gentle and strong like the waves of the great sea hushing themselves to sleep in the dark;—the words of Burns, touching the kindred chord, her last numbers wildly sweet' traced, with thin and eager fingers, already touched by the last enemy and friend,—moriens canit,—and that love which is so soon to be her everlasting light, is her song's burden to the end.

6

'She set as sets the morning star, which goes
Not down behind the darkened west, nor hides
Obscured among the tempests of the sky,
But melts away into the light of heaven.'

On looking over some old letters of Thackeray's the other day, I found this by Marjorie in her seventh year; it is copied by her sister; it is worthy of the rest. The turtles who 'coo for everlasting and fight' are not unknown to us in domestic life :

'MY DEAR MUD,—I hope you are well; give my love to Isa, and I will send her something. I've been often at Ravelstone. I've been acquainted with many very genteel girls, and Janetta is a very fine one. Help is been confined another time. My sleeves is tucked up, and it was

very disagreeable, my collar, and I abhor it amoniable (abominable!) I saw the most prettyist two tame pidgeons and two very wee small kittens like our cat. I am very much acquainted with a young gentleman called Mordecai, that I'm quite in love with, and another called Capt. Bell, and Jamie Keith, and Willie's my great tormentor. A good-natured girl gave me a song-book, and I'm very happy. I'll go down and be thinking when I'm eating my dinner more to tell you, Mud. Aunt has got two of the most beautifullest turtle doves you ever saw, they coo for everlasting and fight; the hawk is in good spirits, it is a nice beast, the gentlest animal that ever was seen; six canaries, two green linnets, and a thrush. I play in the back green, and bring in worms for the thrush. I get very long tasks, and when I behave I get them short. Orme Keir is the greatest enemy that ever was, and his thinking about business. My aunt lets out the birds to get the air in her room;—the young gentleman I was speaking of, Mordecai, he's very funny; -James Keith hardly ever spoke to me, he said, "Girl, make less noise;" and, when there was a storm of thunder, "take away all your iron;" and once before he said, "Maidgie, go and dance," which I was very proud of. I've forgot to say, but I've four lovers, the other one is Harry Watson, a very delightful boy. Help is very like a tiger when he bites his fleas, a fine, gentle, wise creetyer. Willie was at the moors, but he soon came back again, for the moors was like a fish pond. The whole house plagues me about "Come haste to the Wedding," for there is no sense in it; they think, because it is an Merican, Eliza Purves taught me, they plague me about it exceeding much. I'm affronted to say it, it is so awkward. Remember your dear Madgy. Amen. Finis.

1 This 'very delightful boy' was the venerable founder of the Fine Arts Chair in our University.

MINCHMOOR.

• Sweet smells the birk, green grows, green grows the grass, Yellow on Yarrow's banks the gowan,

Fair hangs the apple frae the rock,

Sweet the wave of Yarrow flowan.

Flows Yarrow sweet? as sweet, as sweet flows Tweed,
As green its grass, its gowan yellow,

As sweet smells on its braes the birk,
The apple frae the rock as mellow.'

HAMILTON OF BANGOUR.

There is moral as well as bodily wholesomeness in a mountain walk, if the walker has the understanding heart, and eschews picnics. It is good for any man to be alone with nature and himself, or with a friend who knows when silence is more sociable than talk

'In the wilderness alone,

There where nature worships God.'

It is well to be in places where man is little and God is greatwhere what he sees all around him has the same look as it had a thousand years ago, and will have the same, in all likelihood, when he has been a thousand years in his grave. It abates and rectifies a man, if he is worth the process.

It is not favourable to religious feeling to hear only of the actions and interference of man, and to behold nothing but what human ingenuity has completed. There is an image of God's greatness impressed upon the outward face of nature fitted to make us all pious, and to breathe into our hearts a purifying and salutary fear.

'In cities everything is man, and man alone. He seems to move and govern all, and be the Providence of cities; and there we do not render unto Cæsar the things which are Cesar's, and unto God the things which are God's; but God is forgotten, and Cæsar is supreme -all is human policy, human foresight, human power; nothing reminds us of invisible dominion, and concealed omnipotence-it is all earth, and no heaven. One cure of this is prayer and the solitary place. As the body, harassed with the noxious air of cities, seeks relief in the freedom and the purity of the fields and hills, so the mind, wearied by commerce with men, resumes its vigour in solitude, and repairs its dignity.'—From Sydney Smith's Sermon On the effects which the tumultuous life passed in great cities produces upon the moral and religious character.'-1809.