withstanding the author's modesty, we are disposed to think the writing something more than plain. It is clear, terse, and vigorous, sometimes elegant and always neat. Many Scottish customs, old and new, are incidentally adverted to, which are comparatively unknown, at all events to urban readers. Upon the whole, the aim of the book, which, we are told, has been to give a true picture of a life which might afford some instruction, combined with innocent amusement, has, in our opinion, been realised.

RANALD'S PRAYER.

Slowly, sadly fell the night,
Dim and dimmer grew the light,
The wintry sun had almost set
And only one ray glimmered yet
Where old Kylo's* dusky pile
Crowns its lonely sea-girt isle,
And the sea-mews cry, as it died-away,
Sung a meet dirge for the dying day.

Death-like the darkness settled round,
The sea gave forth a wailing sound,
Not as when tossed in sunny day,
A wavelet's dance, and billow's play,
As if they rejoiced in noisy mirth,
Chasing each other to kiss the earth,
But a sound as of woe to the mariner tossed
Swelled and then died on that rock-bound coast.

Another hour-the light has fled,

The last sea-bird to roost has sped-
The storm is up, and rising high,
Dashes black clouds athwart the sky,
While the ocean, black as night,
Seems rejoicing in its might,

And the storm fiend's shriek is heard the while,
Circling about the lone sea-girt isle.

Not half a league from off the cliff
Drifted old Ranald's fishing skiff,
Who laboured hard with weary oar
To make that little distance more,
For well he knew the danger nigh
Though hid beneath a murky sky,
Yet was his stout heart never afraid,
And earnestly thus to Heaven he prayed:
"O! Thou who rulest earth and sky,
Who measurest the billows high,
Who once thyself was tempest-tossed,
And who when earthly hope was lost,
Calmed the storm on Galilee,

And stilled at once its raging sea,

Kylo was the ancient name for one of the promontaries of Holy Island, off

the coast of Northumberland.

If it be thy holy will,
Keep me from this coming ill!
May this howling tempest cease,
May these waters rest in peace,
May the light of moon and star,
Shining down from Heaven afar,
Give me light to guide my skiff
Past the beetling Kylo cliff;
Hear me, thou whose mighty hand
Keeps the Ocean at command,
Hear me, Jesus, grant my prayer,
Help me, keep me from despair!"

Scarce was Ranald's prayer said
When the tempest's force was stayed;
Then to heaven he raised his eye
And saw a bright light in the sky,
Again-again-a glistening ray
Shot its beam on the sparkling spray,
These were the stars of Orion's belt,
And now new hope the old man felt,
For he knew that the storm would soon be past,
As from Heaven he saw there three rays cast.

Soon the howling wind was still,

Save his dusky sail to fill,

And the billows ceased their strife,
Save to give the ocean life,

And the virgin moon abroad
Travelled on her silver road,

And the stars from heaven shining,
Seemed below in peace reclining.

On the heaving breast of the murmering sea,
Singing to Nature its lullaby.

Thus my soul trust thou the best,
When by trouble sorely pressed,
On life's ocean thou art tossed,
And thy Hope is well nigh lost,

And the drifting clouds above

Seem to shut thee out from love,

Pray to thy God, and from that cloud

Unfolding as a sable shroud,

These bright-glad stars He will show to thee,

Η πίστις-ἐλπίς-αγαπη.

VIVAX.

ECCLESIASTICAL INTELLIGENCE.

The Rev. Dr Gillan of St John's, Glasgow, has accepted the appointment of Inchinnan parish, vacant by the retirement of Dr Lockhart.

Died, at the Manse, Fraserburgh, on the 14th inst., the Rev. John Storie. The Rev. James Law, incumbent of the parish church of Inverbrothock, died at the age of 64.

The Rev. James Russell, D.D., minister of the parish of Dunning, died at the advanced age of 97.

Died, at Greenock, the Rev. Dr Brown.

THE second act of the struggle of Italy for liberty has come to a close, with much attained, and still much remaining to be done. Let us before the third act commences, examine what we have been able to gather of the real history of the proceedings of the year. In order to do so satisfactorily, we must glance at previous history, even as far back as the '48-49, the period when our attention was first seriously drawn to foreign politics; as from that moment we have been struck with a deep conviction that the oppressed peoples of Europe, with but a few exceptions, have at last discovered despotism to be a yoke no longer endurable, and that the established governments would be ruling at best over smouldering volcanoes, that must some day break forth and overwhelm them, unless, like our government at home, they should wisely learn, to grant gradually and surely, real and extensive reforms and liberties. We must repeat much that is not new, but which bears on what follows.

In 1848-49, Italy did work for herself, but unfortunately for her, not one of her princes was true to her cause.

Charles Albert of Sardinia, who was betrayed by some of his own people, was himself the betrayer both of the Venetians and of the city of Milan, whose people trusted him ;-the King of Naples promised reform, and afterwards threw into dungeons the ministers through whom he had promised it ;-and the Pope, besides reform promised and unfulfilled, sent troops full of high spirits and hopes, to whom he gave his blessing, ostensibly to assist the Milanese and Venetians against their Austrian oppressors, according to the gene

VOL. XXX.

ral wish of the Roman people; but Durando, the general-in-chief, had his secret orders not to cross the Po, or act against Austria. Then came the period when the Pope fled from Rome, and when, after other governments had failed, Mazzini, Saffi, and Armellini, ruled as a triumvirate; and our own consul, Mr Freeborn, admitted in a letter to Lord Palmerston, that under them remarkable order and good government prevailed, which Lord Palmerston also acknowledged in Parliament. Meanwhile Charles Albert fell, as much from treachery among his own people, as from the success of the Austrian arms. He went to die in a foreign land. The Austrians advanced towards Tuscany and the Roman States, restored the Grand Duke to the former,-and Austrian, Spanish, and Neapolitan forces all proceeded to act against Rome. On the 24th of April 1849, the French army landed at Civita Vecchia. It had been sent by the French Republic while Cavaignac was in power, and it seems a fact recently established, that the original intentions were friendly to the sister republic, but before the French troops reached Civita Vecchia, Louis Napoleon was President, and Oudinot, who commanded them, kept it a profound secret for a while, for what object they were there. The gallant defence of Rome, and Garibaldi's noble part in it, till defence was obliged to be given up as hopeless, is too well known to require more than alluding to. We may mention, however, how French treachery showed itself at the time of a truce, by breaking down some of the defences. Once in Rome, and having brought back the Pope, we all know how they have remained ever since, under pretence of protecting him there. Between the '49 and '59 many attempts to liberate Italy were made by her patriots in vain. The most recent and remarkable was that of Duke Carlo Pisacane and Baron Giovanni Nicotera in 1857.

When the treaty of Paris took place after the Crimean War, Cavour brought the wrongs of Italy before the assembled plenipotentiaries. But it appears now, (we state this on the authority of Italian liberal newspapers,) that his doing so was the suggestion of Louis Napoleon, and that he was so little prepared with information on the subject, that he was obliged to write to Turin to collect what was necessary to enable him to make his speech.

The next event of note was the meeting of Louis Napoleon and Cavour at Plombières in 1858. It is singular that Mazzini was able to tell exactly what they had planned there, in his Italian newspaper published in London, Pensiero ed Azione, 15th December 1858, and 1st January, and 1st and 15th February 1859, all before the war had commenced. In January 1st 1859, he says, "you," (meaning the patriots of Italy,) "will be encamped in some corner of Lombardy, probably between the French and Savoyard armies, when the peace which betrays Venice shall be signed unknown to you," and 15th Dec. 1858, "for Italy a peace sudden, ruinous, fatal to those who have risen, concluded in the midst of the war, á Campo Formio. Louis Napoleon will scarcely have conquered what he intended-when he will accept the first proposal of Austria, constrain the Sardinian monarch to desist, conceding

to him a zone of territory, and will abandon betrayed, the Venetian provinces and part of Lombardy." At the time these articles were written, they were noticed by the Times in the most insulting manner, and it was pleased to turn them into derision!

We believe it was soon after Plombières that the thrice repeated overtures were made by Bonaparte to Kossuth, to the last of which he perhaps too readily listened. persecution of the Italia del Popolo, the Mazzinian paper at Genoa, It was also that same year that the was systematically carried on. Beginning from February, there were 50 sequestrations of the paper, four of its editors successively sent to prison, and as the Morning Advertiser observed, it was like having a ticket for prison to become its editor, and the director of the paper, B. F. Savi was sent to the galleys. The paper was obliged to be given up at last, and on the 1st Sept. a new one was brought out in London by the same party called Pensiero ed Azione. It is very evident how important to the French and Sardinian Governments it was, that before the war began, they should silence a paper so dangerously free of speech.

Then came the famous word of Louis Napoleon to Baron Hubner at the Tuileries on New Year's Day 1859, followed soon after by the marriage, or rather the sacrifice of the poor young Sardinian princess to the cousin of the French Emperor, Prince Napoleon Bonaparte. The war followed. Garibaldi with his Bersaglieri delle Alpi was actually in a remote corner at the time of the peace of Villa Franca. He was engaged in watching the Stelvio Pass from the Tyrol, to prevent more Austrian troops finding their way into Italy. We have none of us forgotten that treaty, nor how humiliated all true friends of Italy and of liberty felt, when Louis Napoleon proposed a meeting with the Emperor of Austria, from which he excluded the King of Sardinia,-how he received from the Austrian the three quarters of Lombardy the Piedmontese had had their full share in conquering, and afterwards flung it as a gift to Victor Emmanuel, who had not the spirit to object to the whole proceeding. For this gift Sardinia had afterwards to pay some millions to the French Government, to repay their expenses in the war, besides ceding to them Savoy and Nice. After the treaty of Villa Franca, Cavour resigned, and this farce probably deceived almost every one, till on his return to power, he was so evidently afraid to act in any way independently of the Napoleonic policy. We may remember how the Tuscans, the Modenese, and the people of Parma rose, how their Grand Dukes and Grand Duchess fled,—and their subjects desired annexation to Piedmont, to which Piedmont would evidently have agreed readily, even indicating willingness, but was obliged to retract on a message from the Tuileries; how Prince Napoleon, during the war, went with troops, not to the seat of war, but to Tuscany, evidently with the expectation of being chosen as its ruler; how, after the peace, we were informed by our own papers, that Louis Napoleon's emissaries were intriguing in the three duchies against the annexation to Piedmont; how Louis Napoleon denied to our Government having any designs about