Hall of the college. Entering these, he seemed to cry, 'Off, off ye lendings, come unbutton here.' He ceased on the instant to be a mere drill-serjeant to awkward boys, and finisher to the labours of bungling schoolmasters. He quitted the hedge-school for the grove. He entered on a nobler atmosphere and seemed to become a new man. He found here ample room for original research, for elaborate investigation, for that high-wrought declamation in which he delighted to indulge. He was no longer a teacher instructing boys, but a young and rapt scholar speaking to young, eager, and enthusiastic listeners. He sometimes laid about him like a man inspired.' The living flame of his ardour pierced and kindled the green fuel of his affectation and mannerism. He threw especially his whole soul into his readings of Greek-of Homer and the great tragedians. We think we hear him still reading the Edipus or the Medea, with the glances of that dull but speaking eye, the motions, though somewhat theatrical, of those arms, with that yearning quivering voice, and with that face, from which broke now and then a certain pallid spiritual radiance, resembling that which we have seen on the countenance of Samuel Brown, when he had risen to the height of his great argument,' and had sent forth pure spirit instead of blood to report progress on his 'dim and perilous way.'

The effect, as might have been expected, of such exertions and such eloquence, was a great revival of Greek literature in Glasgow and throughout Scotland, for the impetus he gave was felt in other universities; nay, was reflected upon the schools and seminaries of the country. Even his most ordinary students carried home with them a certain taste for learning, to which they had before been strangers. And some of his favourite pupils, repairing from his feet to the English universities, bedimmed the lustre, and snatched away the laurels of their scholarship, and forced their ripest and their best, formerly contemptuous, to respect at once Scottish learning and the Glasgow Professor of Greek.

Thus passed away in quiet and honour the first ten years of Sandford's history in Glasgow. The calm current of his life was variegated only by his marriage, by the birth of several sons and daughters, and by the cotemporaneous production of a small but elegant intellectual progeny. We allude to some lectures in Greek literature some articles in the Edinburgh Review, in Blackwood, in the Popular Encyclopædia, &c., principally on the same topic; besides some elementary works, and an edition of Thiersch's Grammar. As a writer, he was lively, sparkling, rhetorical always, sometimes eloquent, but often flippant, sketchy, shallow, and affected. There was about all his works too much froth, though it was a brilliant and a fiery froth. They possessed little of that concinnitas, that chastened calm, which so thorough a Grecian might have derived from the study of the severe models of antiquity, where ragged edges and meretricious ornaments are alike avoided; and the thunderbolts of their Jove are as polished as the cestus of their Venus. Blended with their real eloquence and animation, there was a certain French grimace and impertinence altogether unsuited to a scholar and a man of genius, tracing the tremendous buskins of an Eschylus, as they passed in thunder across the Grecian stage.

At length, in the year 1832, a new dream of ambition shot over Professor Sandford's mind. The times had become troublous, the political atmosphere electric, great civic prizes were on the wheel. In Parliament, the name of his ancient rival, 'Stanley, was the cry;' and toward this as a new arena for display, the finger shall we say of his evil genius pointed our learned aspirant. He had previously gained laurels, and put forth, he deemed, the feelers of future triumphant efforts, in one or two remarkably popular speeches on the Reform Bill, the Irish Education measure, and some other topics then exciting public interest; and it was thought by many besides himself, that he had in him the elements of a great parliamentary leader, and that the chair of Greek might eventually be exchanged for the woolsack, or the

top of the treasury bench. He stood accordingly for Glasgow, in the election for 1832. We happened to have various opportunities of hearing him during his canvass, and were not singular in suspecting both his motives and his capabilities. There was in his manner an elaborate condescension-a testiness and pettishness of feeling-an illdisguised contempt for his constituents, mingling with the soft tones of conciliation, which were but too prophetic of the fate that awaited him. He wanted, too, the readiness and resources of a really popular speaker. Every one knows that, failing in his first attempt to get into Parliament, he was successful in his second, and (having been in the mean time knighted by his Majesty) he entered the House of Commons as member for Paisley in 1834. His failure was instantaneous and conspicuous. It is said that O'Connell had taken up his pencil to prepare for reply, but after hearing a few sentences threw it down with a contemptuous pshaw, which rang the knell to Sir Daniel's hopes. The house taking its cue from its leaders, laughed, talked, coughed, did any thing but listen till the close of his speech; when, to crown the discomfiture, Stanley rose, and half in compassion, half in contempt, threw over the crest-fallen knight the shield of his eulogium. It were curious to trace the causes of the failure in Parliament, which has so frequently taken place in the case of those who have entered it in the glare of great expectations. Flood was too coarse for the atmosphere of the British senate. Grattan was not much more refined, but then his power was vast, and he cut his way into reputation by the sheer dint of natural energy. Horne Tooke's failure has been ascribed to his having been a clergyman; it is attributed by Hazlitt, more correctly, to the coldness and pettishness of his manner. The gimlet of his impalpable acuteness seemed small amid the terrible play of the axes and hammers, which were then resounding within the walls of the British senate, and mean and monkey-like his wit beside the eloquence of the great orators of England-Burke, Fox, Pitt, Windham, and Sheridan. Jeffrey again, as he said himself, was too old to transplant. The scholastic and laboured air of his oratory, his awkward position as halfprofessor and half-member, and other causes we do not stop to mention, conduced to Sir Daniel's failure.

It were an ungracious task to follow any farther the progress of his ill success, or to depict one or two humiliating scenes, in which injured vanity made him figure during his brief career in Parliament. Suffice it to say that he returned intensely chagrined-broken in health and spirits he retired, like Lord Grenville, who said (we well remember Sir Daniel himself quoting the words) on leaving public life, I return to Plato and the Iliad.' ' He resumed, with all his characteristic diligence, the duties of the chair; he resumed too his pen; and to his retreat from Parliament we owe some of his most beautiful droppings of criticism in Blackwood and the Edinburgh Review, inclusive of an exquisite picture of the ancient Admirable Crichton, the Brougham of Athens, the ubiquitous, ambidextrous, all-sided Alcibiades.

His health, we have said, had suffered from his parliamentary exertions, and still more from his parliamentary failure. Proud though he was, he could not at all times avoid betraying how deeply the iron had entered into his soul, and perhaps the reticence he did observe contributed to his untimely end.

'The grief that does not speak, Whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break." Be it as it may, in the beginning of 1838, the scourge of Glasgow-typhus fever-numbered among its victims Sir D. K. Sandford. He became speedily delirious; and during his delirium and a little before his death, was overheard, it is said, repeating the great hexameters of Homer. Thus strong and thus late with him was his ruling passion! His shattered system soon yielded to the violence of the disease; and our brilliant professor was gathered to his fathers. The writer of this article, in a distant part of Scotland, heard of his old teacher's death, with

greater grief and deeper interest, inasmuch as he was himself recovering from a violent attack of the same disease-so that preceptor and pupil had been swimming for life at the same hour and in the same fiery sea! Full at once of gratitude and of grief, he now pays this feeble tribute to his memory, as sincerely as he then dropped a tear at the tidings of his death!

Such, so endowed, so misled, and so early removed, was Sir Daniel Sandford. His is not, indeed, a great or monumental name. He has not given the world assurance, full-heaped and running over, of the man he was. But a better teacher never sat in a professor's chair. A more ardent classical enthusiast never breathed. More eloquent lips never sounded out the wondrous soliloquy which opens the Agamemnon, or the melting and terrible speech which shuts the Medea. He was no Bentley, no Clarke, no Parr, no Porson-but he gave an impulse to the diffusion of Grecian knowledge, such as never came even from these redoubted scholars. The highest truth about him is to come. He was, we understand, and particularly before his death, a sincere believer in the faith of Christ; often lauded its character and justified its claims to his students; and while Homer was the idol of his intellect, Jesus of Nazareth, we hope, was the God of his heart!

GEOLOG Y.

TERTIARY FORMATIONS.

In many parts of Europe the chalk is followed by a newer series of deposits which have been named Tertiary. In these, recent species of animals begin to appear in more or less abundance, whereas, during the former periods, there is no decisive evidence that any species still living had been called into being. These formations are far more partial and local, in their occurrence and characters, than those we have till now been considering. In many districts and even countries they are wholly unknown, and those found in one place differ widely from those peculiar to another. So much is this the case, that for a long time they were not noticed in the systems of geologists, and it was principally the brilliant discoveries of Cuvier and Brongniart in these formations round Paris, followed by similar discoveries in other localities, that rescued them from this state of neglect. Varying as they do in mineral character and fossils in almost every place, no general account of them can be given. Mr Lyell divides them into three groups, according to the proportion of recent species of shells that they contain; and his classification, though liable to several objections, has been commonly adopted in this country. His first or eldest division is the Eocene, so named from two Greek words meaning the dawn of the modern species, of which only from three to five in a hundred occur in these beds. In the Meiocene, as the name imports, recent shells are more common, being in the proportion of seven to twenty-eight per cent. on the whole number. The third division, the Pleiocene, contains a still larger proportion of recent species, which now attain the proportion of from forty to ninety-five per cent. The great imperfection of this classification arises from these numerical relations being constantly liable to change with every increase in our knowledge, either of recent or fossil conchology. It is, therefore, better for our purpose to select a few of the most interesting local formations of this class, and to notice the more important facts regarding them separately, following, however, as far as possible, the chronological order.

Singularly enough, most of the great European capitals stand on formations belonging to this long neglected class of rocks. London, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna, with many other large cities, are all built in tertiary basins. In the vicinity of London, the tertiary strata cover a considerable area, filling the whole valley of the Thames from Hungerford and Reading to the sea, and stretching along the coast as far north as Cromer in Norfolk. They thus

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appear as if filling an ancient gulf, enclosed on three sides by the chalk hills of the neighbouring counties. Immediately above the chalk, thick beds of sand and clay, containing fresh-water shells, with plants and drifted wood, have been found in some places; but in others layers of green sand, with oyster shells, occupy this position. Above these, especially round the metropolis, immense masses of bluish-black clay, abounding in marine remains, occur, and are covered in turn by the gravel and chalk flints that generally form the subsoil. These beds of clay are remarkable for the immense variety of petrifactions they contain, which have been brought to light in vast abundance during the formation of the numerous railways which cross this formation in every direction. Among these fossils are shells of various species, mostly extinct, only twelve in more than two hundred being identified by M. Deshayes with recent species. Along with the shells, remains of tortoises, both fresh-water and marine, of crocodiles, crabs, lobsters, and other crustacea occur. teeth and scales of fishes are likewise found, and recently the remains of a serpent, resembling the boa, eleven feet long. Indications of the existence of higher animals are not wanting; the clay at Sheppey, near the mouth of the Thames, having presented bones of a bird allied to the vulture; and near Woodbridge, in Suffolk, portions of the jaw of a monkey and of an opossum, with the tooth of a bat. Not less remarkable are the vast accumulations of vegetable species with a tropical character. At Sheppey, seed-vessels have been found referable to many hundred species of plants; some related to the cardamon, date, cocoa, and areca palms, and one much resembling the coffee berry. Dr Mantell, to whom we have so often referred, states that the wood probably drifted into the bay by currents, and imbedded in the clay, is generally of a dark colour, intersected by veins of brilliant pyrites, but with the ligneous fibres and circles of growth well developed. It has generally suffered from the ravages of a species of teredo or borer, like that of the West Indies, the shells sometimes remaining in the cavities, which are filled with clay, calcareous spar, or pyrites. All the fossils seem strongly impregnated with the last mineral, and in consequence the collector often finds the choicest fossil fruits in his cabinet, like the fabled apples of the Dead Sea, one moment perfect and brilliant, and the next decomposed and changed to dust.'

·

The tertiary formations round the French capital are even more interesting, from the variety of phenomena they present. They too rest in a basin of chalk, above which is a bed of plastic clay, like mud deposited from water. This bed is by no means regular either in thickness or occurrence, being wholly wanting in some places. In the north of the basin it is followed by a coarse compact limestone, the calcaire grossier of the French geologists, abounding in marine shells. In the east, gypsum and marls, with bones of land animals and fresh-water shells appear, whilst in the south-east the rock is a siliceous limestone, also with terrestrial and fresh-water shells and plants. Above these is another marine formation of sand, sandstone, and marl, whilst beds of fresh-water marls, attributed to lakes, form the highest deposits. Even this short sketch shows the number of successive changes this tract of land must have undergone. Constant Prevost, a French geologist, gives the following explanation of these phenomena. The chalk basin formed a gulf or bay opening on the north to the sea, and shut in by the continent on the south, where a considerable stream ran into it near the same place as at present the Seine or Marne. A small bank separated this gulf from the ocean, so that in general it was filled with salt-water, except where the river flowed in, where it would be fresh. In this way deposits of very distinct characters might be produced in the same basin and at the same time; the coarse limestone, with marine remains, on the north; the fresh-water gypsum, with siliceous limestone, on the south, where mineral springs probably existed. In the centre of the basin, near where Paris now stands, the two formations, the marine and fresh-water, alternately prevailed-the river at one time

swollen and forcing its deposits further into the basin, at another retiring even within its natural limits. This explains, in a simple manner, the numerous alternations of strata found immediately below that city. The last change seems to have been the destruction of the bank, when the sea water flowed strongly into the gulf, and marine formations of sand and sandstone alone prevail. Between the formation of the chalk and the first of these newer strata a long period of repose must have intervened, as these deposits are separated from each other by a distinct and well marked line.

The celebrated catacombs at Paris were produced by quarries in the coarse limestone. These subterranean excavations extend under a great part of the city, most of the materials of which the houses above are erected having been extracted from the rocks below. These works had been carried on from time immemorial, but in a very careless manner, and no accurate knowledge existed either of their extent, or of the danger they were occasioning to the city. In 1774, however, several places on the road to Orleans fell in, and on inquiry the government found a large part of the southern city exposed to the same catastrophe. The excavations were surveyed, and means taken to support the roof in the more dangerous parts. So far as known, these excavations extend over more than a hundred and fifty acres of ground, whilst the stone extracted has been estimated at nearly fifteen million cubic yards. These vast caves were subsequently converted into catacombs, where the bones that had been accumulating for ten centuries in the various churchyards of Paris were deposited, and formed one of the wonders of the French metropolis. For some years, however, on account of the danger incurred in the descent, they have been closed to the public.

But this rock contains the remains of still older and more numerous generations. Fourteen hundred species of fossil mollusca have been discovered in the tertiary strata around Paris, almost the whole of which are extinct, M. Deshayes regarding only eight per cent. of more than a thousand examined by him as analogous to living species, most of which are tropical. These numerous tribes of animals have not, however, all lived here at one time, as those found in one stratum are distinct from those characterising the beds above or below it. The rock seems to have been deposited regularly and slowly, whole races of marine animals living, passing away, and being succeeded by others in the interval. These remains are not properly petrified, the original shell being mostly preserved, even in its most delicate portions, so that the genus and species are readily distinguished. Of these shells one of the most remarkable is the nummulite or penny-stone, both names being given to it from its similarity to money. It is of a flat lenticular form, and the specimens vary from a line to an inch and a half in diameter. This shell is widely diffused, being found not only in the Paris basin and in England, but in the rock forming the base of the great Pyramid in Egypt, where Strabo thought they had been lentils dropped by the workmen and converted into stone, and in North America, where one species composes a range of limestone hills three hundred feet high. The milliolite is another very characteristic genus in the coarse limestone, some beds of which consist almost entirely of its shells closely crowded together. These are of a round oval form, and are mostly microscopic, few of them being a line in diameter. Many species still live on the coasts of Europe and the Antilles, associated together in great numbers as in these ancient strata.

The gypsum rock quarried at Montmartre contains the remains of several animals belonging to higher classes complete skeletons, single bones, or fragments of the skulls and teeth of quadrupeds, birds, and fishes, being not uncommon. The true nature of these fo-sils was first discovered by Cuvier, whose extensive knowledge of recent comparative anatomy served as a torch to guide him through the obscure regions of the past. An antiquary of a new kind, to use his own words, he had at once to restore these monuments of past revolutions and to de

cipher them. This was only possible when he had discovered those great laws of analogy which connect the present and the past, and had demonstrated that each individual portion of the body, each limb, bone, or muscle, has a natural dependence on all the rest, and on the mode of life and habits of the animal. Guided by this law, scarcely imagined before, he was able, even from minute fragments, to reconstruct as it were the species and genera of extinct animals, and to describe their habits and instincts. Passing over the remains of fishes, tortoises, and crocodiles, we can only mention the birds and mammalia disenterred from these gypsum rocks. Birds are rarely found fossil, their powers of flight having enabled them to escape those causes of destruction which proved fatal to many other races. Yet in Montmartre, Cuvier observed the remains of extinct species of the genera pelican, curlew, woodcock, quail, buzzard, and owl. Indications of the feathers sometimes appeared, and in a fresh-water limestone in Auvergne, even the eggs have been preserved. The mammalia are more interesting. Most of the teeth and bones belong to extinct genera of pachydermata, or thick-skinned animals like the hippopotamus, rhinoceros, or tapir. One was named the palæotherium or ancient wild beast, one species of which was as large as a horse, being from four to five feet high, but more clumsy, with a large head, short limbs, and a short proboscis or trunk. Seven or eight other species are known, i mostly smaller, and of slenderer proportions, but all resembling the tapir of the Eastern Archipelago. The anoplotherium, or unarmed wild beast, so named from the absence of canine teeth, is another of these extinct genera. One species had the size of the gazelle, which | it must have resembled in habits; another is compared in height to the wild boar, but of a more elongated form, with a long thick tail, and two large toes on each foot. This animal is supposed to have been able to swim with facility, and to have frequented the lakes in whose beds its remains are deposited. Another genus, the choropotamus, though belonging to the same class, seems to have had more similarity to our swine, but its remains are fewer and more imperfect. Besides these, Cuvier described about fifty extinct mammalia, including several carnivora, a squirrel, dormouse, and opossum.

Our limits will only allow us to allude to a few of the other tertiary formations now known to exist in Europe, Asia, and America. At Aix, in Provence, they consist of finely laminated marls, containing many insects, appearing fresh as if enveloped but yesterday. On the Rhine, near Oeningen, is another deposit supposed to have been formed in an ancient lake; and lower down that river, round Mainz, a second basin, probably of greater antiquity. The most remarkable fossil from the former is the skeleton of a fox, differing in no respect from that which now exists. In the latter there have been found, along with very many invertebrated animals, about seventy mammalia, thirteen birds, thirty reptiles, and eight species of frogs, mostly new to science. At Eppelsheim, near Worms, one of the most remarkable of extinct quadrupeds has been discovered in the same formation. This is the dinotherium, distinguished by two large teeth in the under jaw, which are curved round so as to project downwards. One skull, nearly entire, has been found, and measures six feet long by three and a half broad. The great weight of the head, and the large tusks, induces Buckland to believe that this animal must have lived mostly in the water, in lakes or rivers. There its teeth would lose great part of their weight, and would serve as instruments for rooting up the large water plants on which they fed. He also supposes that the dinotherium might as it were anchor itself to the bank by these teeth, so as to sleep securely with its huge body, fifteen feet or more long, floating in the water. The walrus is known to use the tusks in its upper jaw, both for rooting up the seaweeds on which it lives and for pulling its huge body on shore, as the dinotherium is supposed to have done. It had, however, more analogy to the tapir, and like it had probably a trunk or proboscis for collecting the torn up plants and conveying them

to its mouth. It seems to have been more widely dispersed than the recent discovery of its remains might lead one to believe, these occurring in France, near the foot of the Pyrenees, near Vienna, in Podolia, and the Crimea.

In Italy, Sicily, and on the shores of the Mediterranean, tertiary rocks occur in great abundance. They form a low range of hills along the base of the Apennines, and have on this account been named Sub-Apennine. They consist of various alternations of marls, sand, conglomerates, and limestone, with which, in Sicily, masses of salt, sulphur, and gypsum are associated. This formation contains very many shells, and, in the lower beds, bones of the palæotherium, mastodon, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, and beaver. In the upper or newer beds the remains of elephants, hyenas, and other more recent animals occur. Monte Bolca, in the Veronese territory, is remarkable for the numerous fishes found in its beds. The rock is a creamcoloured limestone, dividing into thin layers, on the surface of which are seen numerous fishes, beautifully preserved, the scales, bones, and fins, being distinctly marked. Thousands of specimens, belonging to some hundred species, all, according to Agassiz, extinct, have been procured from these quarries. The number of fishes entombed here has led geologists to suppose that the limestone was ejected from a sub-marine volcano, and the fish suddenly destroyed and enveloped in the calcareous mud. This theory is confirmed by the numerous fishes seen floating dead in the Mediterranean round the volcanic island that lately appeared there, and by the igneous character of some rocks both in this and the surrounding hills.

THE SAILOR'S RETURN.

A TALE OF REAL LIFE.

In our analysis of human nature, it is painful to observe so remarkable a difference between the apparent and the real state of things. Friendship, about which the world in its cold indifference prates so much, is not so widely distributed as that world would lead us to imagine. Corrupted by evil passions, and ensnared by devices of an attractive character, the youthful mind can with difficulty grapple with the intrigues of the designing, and is often called upon to dignify with friendship's sacred name the meanness of self-interest or the schemes of wickedness.

If the physiological writer has found it difficult to give an accurate definition of the vital principle, the moral anatomist is in no better condition with regard to friendship; it is to be judged of only by its effects, and these in prosperity and adversity, in affluence and penury. It is indeed the life of human existence; and if genuine and properly directed, not only the source of internal felicity, but the abundant spring of happiness to others. And it is probably one of its most pleasing offices, to enable us to love and admire what our friends loved and admired, when death has removed them from our society on earth, and to transmit that inheritance (which of all others causes least annoyance) to those who were related to them by the ties of blood or the bonds of affection.

On a beautiful evening in the month of June, William Martin entered the village of his nativity after an absence of nearly fifteen years. During that time he had served in several vessels abroad, and had the painful satisfaction to see the immortal Nelson expire in the arms of victory. By nature he was endued with a graceful and well-proportioned form, rendered not less interesting by the simple but endearing uniform of the ocean; his manners were plain and unaffected, his temper equable, his disposition mild and engaging, his mind stored with knowledge beyond the generality of his messmates; in short, his general deportment and behaviour betokened the polished and educated gentleman, with the kindness of the British seaman.

The scene on which he now gazed was well calculated to produce feelings of melancholy. The little world of his

The

infancy lay before him in all the grandeur of a summer evening; the school-house, where he had spent many happy days with those who were either slumbering in the dust or mingling in the pursuits of active life, stood roofless and untenanted; every field and rivulet, the scene of some boyish exploit, was recognised with a fond and vivid remembrance. But these feelings were soon succeeded by sentiments of a higher and more ennobling character. The cottage of his birth, with its ivied wall, presented itself as he turned down its well known avenue: his heart beat high with delight; he opened the little wicket which guarded the plot of flowers in front of the house, and was hurrying forward in all the warmth of youthful hilarity, when his attention was arrested by the sounds of devotional music within. Time had not obliterated the remembrance of the heavenly solemnity: he pictured his father, and mother, and servants; each character was truly delineated in the vivid sketch of memory. strain ceased, and the voice of his mother was heard in the exercise of prayer. The thought of his father instantly flashed across his mind; he listened with all the attention of the prisoner whose sentence is about to be pronounced; the words may the loss of my beloved partner be sanctified to those thou hast left behind!' were uttered in a loud tone of voice, and were distinctly heard by the astonished William. He could no longer be deceived: his father, his affectionate parent, had gone to the narrow house, where the voice of envy and jealousy is unheard, where the pious rest in hope, where the weary toil no more: he wept, and stood unconscious of what was passing around him. What a sudden transition of thought and feeling-the happy seaman now the sorrowing son! But the bell within roused him from his reverie, and the voice of the unseen God told him he had a sacred duty to perform-to console his only parent; he knocked gently at the door, which was opened by a faithful domestic.

There are few scenes of a more interesting nature than the meeting of an affectionate mother with a long-absent son. It is free from all the pomp and ceremony which an artificial state of society has imposed; nature alone is present-and nature in the performance of a most pleasing office. That affection which time may weaken but cannot destroy is then taught to beam in its pristine beauty, and though memory may tell of some frailties or negligences, these are either swallowed up in the ecstasy of the moment or may even be the means of increasing the happiness. Mrs Martin received her son as one whom she had been taught to consider as dead, and who was restored as a substitute for her departed husband; William looked on his mother in the inexpressible language of silence, and gradually introduced the subject of his father's death.

'Yes, my dear William, you shall hear of your father, that from the fortitude with which he bore his sufferings, and the calmness and serenity with which he met his death, you may be enabled to comprehend the force of that blessed religion by which he was actuated, and which, when all worldly aid failed, stood as his friend and counsellor. The detail is short but affecting: when you left us, my dear William, we were in affluence-prosperity shone unclouded upon our hearth; and although we could not fail to see others in adversity, we never dreamed it could affect ourselves. About eight years ago, the junior and active partner of your father's firm died, and from the suddenness of the event we were forced to leave our cottage and go to London. Your father, who had placed implicit confidence in Mr Talbert's honesty, was astonished at the fearful disclosure consequent on his death; the company, in short, was bankrupt, and thus our bright prospects vanished, and the veil of adversity began to settle over us. We remained in the metropolis nearly two years, your father expecting, through the influence of his friends, some situation under government; but we waited in vain, and, reduced to poverty, we were forced to leave the capital and once more return to our cottage. But why relate these circumstances, when doubtless you are acquainted with them from my letters?'

'These, dear mother, I received but seldom, and very

irregularly pray proceed. Well, you returned to this cottage P'

'Yes, and it was my chief delight to attend to your father, and try to alleviate the sorrow of his mind; but he was an altered man-his heart was broken, and a fixed melancholy took hold of him; yet from religion he drew refreshing consolation, and after lingering for a year under a slow but irresistible attack of dropsy, he died, leaving me to mourn his loss and to cherish his memory.' The widow's eyes were moist with tears as she concluded the simple narrative.

After the lapse of several weeks, William was enabled to think of his father as one who had been snatched from an evil world to enjoy that bliss which is the promised inheritance of the good; he had leisure to consider his father's character, and to pray to God that he might be enabled to imitate it. In his mother's society he enjoyed great pleasure; for hours they would sit together, while he related the changes and vicissitudes of his fortune, and she listened with intense interest to the recital of his battles, the instances of his bravery, and the examples of his virtue for some time they sought no other society, they courted no other amusement.

Time (of which our lease is but short) had produced many a sad and many a happy change on the inhabitants of the village. Whole families had sprung into being and others ceased to exist; the youthful rustic had become the sedate father, and the cheerful maid the disconsolate widow. These changes affect us in a more forcible manner when presented suddenly before us; what otherwise we consider natural and customary, appears in such a case awful and alarming, and we can scarcely reconcile ourselves to them until viewed through the mediatory influence of the uncertain tenor of human existence.

The arrival of the 'Sea-officer,' as William was emphatically called, was an event too replete with importance long to remain a secret; the old were anxious to ha'e a crack wi' him for auld lang syne,' the younger to hear of his hair-breadth 'scapes' and dire adventures, and the youngest to handle his braw sword and cocked hat.' One evening as he was returning home from a 'round of calls,' as the drawing-room coquette of the present day would render it, he was thus accosted by a middle-aged woman, who stood knitting a stocking at her cottage door :

There's a bonnie evening, sir' (a low curtsey). 'I beg pardon, sir; but do you no mind on Nancy Grainger ?' What! my old nurse?'

The same, your honour. There has been many a sad change here sin' we saw each other last.'

'That is true indeed, Nancy; that is true. Death is a universal visitant, and withers the youngest as well as the aged.'

You had better stap ben, Maister William. I beg pardon again, sir: you're maybe captain now ?'

was eyeing the receding porridge with considerable in

terest.

'Rise up, Jamie,' said Mrs Wilson to her son, and let the gentleman sit down there; but stay, sir, till I wipe it wi' a clout a wee bit, and now, sir; hout, had awa' Frisky (to the dog), you're aye in folk's way when you're no wanted; weel, sir, as we were just saying, a hantle o changes ha'e ta'en place sin' ye were here afore. There's ane M'Donald, Donald M'Donald I'm thinking they ca' him, frae the north country, stopping down at the Ha'; you'll mind the auld Ha', I'se warrant ye! and what wi' dogs, an' horses, an' races, an' ae thing an' anither, its positively eneugh to drive folk clean daft.'

'But what became of the old family, the Alisons?' 'That's a sair story, sir, but nae doubt you're interested in a' the auld cracks, forby Miss Lucy was a bonnie lassie, an' ye aye had a liking for her after a'. Aweel, ye see, the auld gentleman died deep deep in debt, and his creditors rouped the furniture out an' out, and the puir Mistress and Miss Lucy were turned on the wide warld, an' had it no been for Jamie Carnegy, the captain body doun at the Knowes, they might ha'e wandered on to this blessed day; they may say he's no vera wise as they like, but my certy he had lots o' money, which was mair needfu' then; an' weel-a-wat he didna spare't, I assure ye; weel, ye see, he married Miss Lucy-hout, dinna blush, Maister William-weel, as I was saying, he married Miss Lucy; but puir Mistress Alison didna live lang after, for she was aye a pridefu' woman, an' couldna bide dependence; an' though the captain (kind-hearted fellow) never hinted on the subject, yet ye see she couldna but feel her want o' money, so she pined away an' died last simmer.'

These are sad changes indeed, Nancy; but there is a fair side of the picture too,' said William, taking little Jamie on his knee, whose mouth still retained a portion of his evening meal.

That's very true, sir, an' my gudeman an' me ha'e little to complain o', for we ha'e made a blessed exchange o' landlord, instead o' the auld cankered carle Joseph Williams, for that nice kind and genteel man Mr Thornhill.'

And so you have lost old Williams ?'

'Lang syne, sir, rest an' bless him! He was a perfect pest as lang as he lived; but we mauna speak ill o' the dead.'

And who is this Mr Thornhill ?'

'He's frae England I hear; an' if a' Englishers are like him, I wadna care to crave kindred wi' them mysel, which is saying a hantle, I'm sure.'

'And what family has he?'

Not yet, Nancy-not yet; but captain or no, I never refuse to enter the cottage of peace and honesty.'

And was she the only child, Nancy?'

fare.'

A bowl of milk and some oatmeal cakes were soon produced by the active Jamie, who took great pleasure in serving the sea officer wi' the cocked hat.' While thus engaged, the door of the cottage was very unceremoniously,