self have revived, or rather deepened, his interest in this important department of Ichthyology; but his attention was specially recalled to it, on the one hand, by the great interest awakened both here and in France in the artificial breeding of salmon; and, on the other, by the proposal on the part of the Lords of the Treasury to suppress the Scottish Fisheries Board. From his paper on the Fisheries, we select three passages as examples of that earnest and pleasant style as conspicuous in his later as in his earlier essays in which he wrote even on the most contested topics.

"The fisherman's vocation is at the best one not only of perpetual toil, but of frequent peril; and truly, while engaged in it, no man knows what even an hour may bring forth. The brightest day, with its calmly glittering sea, and sky as clear in its cerulean depth as ever fondly brooded over the cloudless Parthenope,' may be followed by the thick darkness of a night of storm and terror; and instead of another gladsome sunrise, with hopeful mothers and happy children scattered in expectant groups along some sheltered semicircular shore, the wild waves are coursing tumultuously over the lifeless forms of many whose places will henceforward know them no more for ever. Let any kindly and considerate person pass even an hour or two in one of our fishing villages, and converse with the inhabitants, whether old or young. Strong stalwart men of iron mould, enduring and unbending as the gnarled oak, and in no way given to that sickly sentimentalism which we sometimes meet with elsewhere, become softened and subdued when the dark remembrance of some great bereavement comes back in bitterness upon them,-in earlier life the loss of fathers and elder brothers,-in later years that of sons and helpmates, fellow-workmen in the world of waters. How many hearths are cold or cheerless, how many homes desolate, or the forlorn dwellings of the widow and the fatherless! Women may be seen seemingly intent upon the preparation of hooks and lines; but there is not one among them that cannot tell some heart-rending tale of sudden and unlookedfor death; and as they cast their melancholy eyes over the then gently heaving sea, they never cease to feel, because

they too sadly know, how wrathful and ruthless is the power of that great destroyer."—(Blackwood's Magazine, March, p. 328.)

"The weary ploughman plods his homeward way,"

but seldom fails to find it. The

'Swinked hedger at his supper sits,'

and soft is the mossy bank beneath him, and sweet the air around, redolent with the balmy breath of flowers, and filled with the melody of birds singing their evening hymn. How rarely does the extinction of life from other than natural causes overtake these dwellers on the land, compared with the frequent fate of those who do business in the great waters! How astounded would be the natives of our inland vales, and the shepherds on a thousand hills, if ever and anon their hitherto steadfast and enduring boundaries were rent by earthquakes, and, literally "adding field to field," one fine piece of pasture was lifted up and laid upon another, entombing for ever alike the corn and its cultivators, the shepherds and their sheep. No very pleasant greetings in the marketplace would ensue among the grain-merchants, wool-growers, and cattle-dealers, when the morning's news might chance to be that the Lammermoors had subsided 1500 feet, and were entirely under water; that "Eildon's triple height” had been turned over, peaks downmost; that the debris of Penicuik was scattered over the vestiges of Peebles; and that the good town of Dalkeith was lying (its fine body of militiamen fast fossilizing) at the bottom of a coal-pit. Yet equally disastrous, though not quite similar, calamities not unfrequently befall those whose precarious lot it is to cultivate the sea."(Ibid., p. 329.)

And here is the concluding eminently characteristic passage of the paper in which the anonymous author of the article "Scottish Fisheries" in Blackwood deals with the anonymous author, Alter et idem, of the article "Fisheries" in the Ency

clopædia Britannica, and with mirthful gravity admonishes and patronizes himself.

"The author of the treatise on Fisheries' in the current edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica has presented us with an ample and accurate exposition of his subject, with which he is no doubt well acquainted. He appears to us to be rather long-winded on the history and habits of the salmon. and its smolts, whether one year old or two; but this is probably one of his hobbies, and as it may be also a favourite topic with a numerous class of curious and inquiring readers, and has recently assumed additional importance in connection with the artificial breeding of the finest of our freshwater fishes, our ingenious author's time and labour have probably been by no means misbestowed in its elucidation."(Ibid., p. 349.)

The poems referred to by Mr Lockhart as published in early life by Mr Wilson, he also mentions appeared anonymously. They have long been lost sight of by his friends, and in his later years he always disavowed the title of poet, although acknowledging great love for poetry. His mind was, however, essentially a poetical one; and he strongly sympathized with that comparatively small class of scientific men who find food for the imagination as well as for the intellect in their studies, and employ both in prosecuting them. He was not more poetical than devout. Brought up in the Church of Scotland, and latterly an office-bearer in it, he cast in his lot with those who left it in 1843; and, as one of the elders of Free Greyfriars, under the pastoral charge of his relative, the Rev. John Sym, he took an active part in all the Christian schemes of the Free Church, of which he was an attached adherent.

The death in January 1855 of Mr Sym, to whom he bore the sincerest affection, greatly distressed him, and from a severe pulmonary attack which followed this bereavement he slowly recovered, never to regain his former health. In the succeeding September a sharp attack of rheumatic gout brought him down still farther, and his health continued very delicate throughout the winter, but no apprehensions of imme

diate danger were entertained till within a fortnight of his death. He was then seized with great difficulty of breathing, which rapidly increased, so as to render him unable to lie down, or to use the slightest exertion. His sufferings

were great, but his patience was greater. Neither murmur nor complaint ever crossed his lips. When able to articulate, which was only occasionally, his expressions were of thankfulness for his mercies, and of thoughtful consideration for those around him. He knew that recovery was hopeless, and shortly before his death calmly arranged all his affairs, leaving messages for his friends, and mingling with them announcements of his faith in Christ crucified as the only ground of hope. Nearly the last words he uttered were- Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." And not long after this utterance, at early dawn on Sunday, May 18, 1856, he fell asleep in Jesus, so calmly that those around him knew not when he departed to be for ever with the Lord. So passed away one of the most gentle and excellent of men, to join the ever-increasing cloud of witnesses, and add another to the list of students of science who "count all things but loss compared with the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord."

REVIEWS AND NOTICES OF BOOKS.

1. The Science of Beauty as developed in Nature and applied to Art. By D. R. HAY, Esq., F.R.S.E. Wm. Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London.

2. Neue Lehre von den Proportionen des Menschlichen Körpers. Von Professor Dr A. ZEISING. Leipzig. 1854.

We trust we shall not be regarded as wandering out of our province when we direct our attention to such works as those announced by our present heading. To any attempts to regulate the ever fluctuating taste of the people, in regard to the decorative in ornament, or the becoming in dress, we should prefer not to turn our eyes; but when we find authors presenting us with general principles of beauty, based not on association, not on historical induction, but on pure geometrical laws, we are bound to stop and inquire what is the evidence on which the existence of such laws is supposed to be founded, and whether it will bear the investigation which we always give to evidence that professes to establish mathematical or physical truths. Before we enter on this inquiry we wish to make one little confession, which is, that we should probably never have known of the second work named above but for the first. In truth, the authors mutually advertise each other. Dr Zeising has a long and complete analysis of the system of Mr Hay, as developed by him in his Treatises on the Human Figure; and Mr Hay, on his part, has a tolerable account of the work of Dr Zeising. The systems are, it must be admitted, very different, but on turning up Dr Zeising's work, we half suspected, from the care which was evidently bestowed on Mr Hay, and the favourable appearance which he makes on the pages of his opponent, that Zeising is the German for Hay, or Hay the English for Zeising. We remember two hatters' shops in former days in Holborn which frowned on each other from opposite sides of the street, named (if we recollect rightly), "the Old Red House,' and "the Old Original Red House." The windows of each were filled with placards cautioning you against the other, as the embodiment of everything that was bad, and assuring you that within its own walls alone could you be supplied with a hat which a gentleman ought to wear without blushing. The two shops were in fact a joint-stock concern, having an underground connection like the