biographer most truly says, those who once saw his face never forgot it. Charles Ravenshoe had that faculty also, though, alas, his value, both in worth and utility, was far inferior to that of the man to whom I have alluded above. But he had the same infinite kindliness towards everything created; which is part

of the secret.

The first hint that William had, as to how deeply important person a Charles was among the present company, was given him at dinner. Various subjects had been talked of indifferently, and William had listened, till Lord Hainault said to William,

"What a strange price people are giving for cobs! I saw one sold today at Tattersall's for ninety guineas."

William answered, "Good cobs are very hard to get, my lord. I could get you ten good horses over fifteen, for one good cob."

Lord Saltire said, "My cob is the best I ever had; and a sweet-tempered creature. Our dear boy broke it for me at Ravenshoe."

"Dear Charles," said Lady Ascot. "What a splendid rider he was! Dear boy! He got Ascot to write him a certificate about that sort of thing before he went away. Ah, dear!"

"I never thought," said Lord Saltire, quietly, "that I ever should have cared half as much for anybody as I do for that lad. Do you remember, Mainwaring," he continued, speaking still lower, while they all sat hushed, "the first night I ever saw him, when he marked for

you and me at billiards, at Ranford? I don't know why, but I loved the boy from the first moment I saw him. Both there and ever afterwards, he reminded me so strongly of Barkham. He had just the same gentle, winning way with him that Barkham had. Barkham was a little taller, though, I fancy," he went on, looking straight at Lady Ascot, and taking snuff. "Don't you think so, Maria?"

No one spoke for a moment.

Lord Barkham had been Lord Saltire's only son. He had been killed in a duel

Lord Saltire very rarely spoke of him, and, when he did, generally in a cynical manner. But General Mainwaring and Lady Ascot knew that that poor boy's memory was as fresh in the true old heart after forty years, as it was on the morning when he came out from his dressing-room and met them carrying the corpse upstairs.

"He was a good fellow," said Lord Hainault, alluding to Charles. "He was a very good fellow."

"This great disappointment which I have had about him," said Lord Saltire, in his old dry tone, "is a just judgment on me for doing a goodnatured and virtuous action many years ago. When his poor father Densil was in prison, I went to see him, and reconciled him with his family. Poor Densil was so grateful for this act of folly on my part that I grew personally attached to him; and hence all this misery. interested actions are great mistakes, Maria, depend upon it."

Dis

When the ladies were gone upstairs, William found Lord Saltire beside him. He talked to him a little time, and then finished by saying

"You are modest and gentlemanly, and the love you bear for your fosterbrother is very pleasing to me indeed. I am going to put it to the test. must come and see me to-morrow morning. I have a great deal to say to you."

You

"About him, my lord? Have you heard of him?"

"Not a word. I fear he has gone to America or Australia. He told Lord Ascot he should do so."

"I'll hunt him to the world's end, my lord," said true William. “And Cuthbert shall pray for me the while. I fear you are right. But we shall find him soon."

When they went up into the drawingroom, Mary was sitting on a sofa by herself. She looked up at William, and he went and sat down by her. They were quite away from the rest, together.

"Dear William," said Mary, looking frankly at him, and laying her hand on his.

Ah, how he loved him! May I call you 'Mary?'"

"You must not dare to call me anything else. No tidings of him yet?" "None. I feel sure he is gone to America. We will get him back, Mary. Never fear."

They talked till she was cheerful, and at last she said

"William, you were always so wellmannered; but how-how-have you got to be so gentlemanly in so short a time?"

"By playing at it," said William, laughing. "The stud-groom at Ravenshoe used always to say I was too much of a gentleman for him. In twenty years' time I shall pass muster in a crowd. Good night."

And Charles was playing at being something other than a gentleman all the time. We shall see who did best in the To be continued.

end.

DURING the spring of 1860, there appeared in several of the Scottish newspapers, accompanied with some brief paragraphs of sorrow, an intimation of the death of Mr. Hugh Macdonald, in Glasgow, at the early age of forty-seven. Eighteen months and more have now passed, and it has seemed fit that here some little cairn should be

erected to his memory. The event recorded in the newspaper paragraphs was certainly not a matter of national importance; but a loss, nevertheless, felt by many in the Scottish shires, and by many who heard of it some weeks or months later, in New Brunswick, Australia, and the North and South Americas. For the deceased had the rare knack of making friends of those with whom he came in contact. Nor was the depth of personal friendship long untested. Cut off in middle life, and when he was making way, his

family was believed to be but slenderly provided for. Subscription sheets immediately issued, and with such success that his widow is now beyond the fear of want, and his children are certain of a sound education, and a start in life thereafter. Those of his friends who were at the time resident in Glasgow, and privileged to walk behind his coffin to the grave, describe the scene as possessing elements of strangeness. A most inclement day of rain, yet the longextended procession remained unbroken; and while on the slippery grave-brink friend and relative held each a cord, and the coffin was being lowered, an old woman, unknown to any, took her place there, and gazed wistfully down, till the clay covered all, and then went her way. Doubtless her appearance represented some word spoken, or service rendered, by the kind heart then cold, which probably had faded long ago from its re

membrance, but which lingered gratefully in hers.

But why should she so remember word or service of his ? Why did his fellowcitizens manifest so deep an interest in those he left behind? Apart from his gifts of leal-heartedness, tenderness, and humour, Mr. Macdonald was a man of genius-a poet, an antiquarian, the devoutest lover of beast and bird, of snowdrop and lucken-gowan, sun setting on Bothwell bank, broad placid harvestmoon, shining down on Clydesdale barley-fields. He was in his own degree one of the poets who have, since Burns's time, made nearly every district of Scotland vocal. Just as Tannahill has made Gleniffer hills greener by his songs, as Thom of Inverury has lent a new interest to the banks of the Dee, as Scott Riddell has added a note to the Border Minstrelsy, Mr. Macdonald has taken poetic possession of the country around Glasgow. Neither for him nor for any of his compeers can the title of great poet be claimed, but they are not the less delightful on that account. These men are local poets; and, if you know and love the localities, you accept thankfully the songs with which they have associated them. If the scenery of a shire is gentle and tame, it seems fitting that the poet of the shire should possess a genius in keeping with it. And in its degree, a mountain-daisy is quite as beautiful as a garden-rose or a flaming rod of hollyhock; a green lane, fragrant with hawthorn hedges, charming as any Alpine valley. Great scenes demand great poems-simple scenes, simple poems. Coleridge's Hymn in the Vale of Chamouni is a noble performance, but it would never do to be uttered in a green Lanarkshire glen where sheep are feeding, and where you may search the horizon in vain for an elevation of five hundred feet. It is not a very bold assertion, that Mr. Macdonald could not have approached Coleridge's Hymn, even had he been placed in Chamouni; but he has really done poetic justice to the scenery that surrounded him-made the ivies on Crooks

and yet more splendid the westward-running Clyde in which the sun is setting.

He was one of those too of whom we Scotchmen are peculiarly proud, conceiting ourselves, as we are accustomed, that they do more abound among us than elsewhere-who, born in humble circumstances, and with no aid from college, and but little from school, do actually achieve some positive literary result, and a certain recognition of the same. He was born in one of the eastern districts of Glasgow, lived for some time in the Island of Mull, in the house of a relative there; for, as his name imports, he was a true Celt, and drew from his sires song, melancholy, and superstition. The superstition he never could completely shake off. He could laugh at a ghost story, he could deck it out with grotesque or humorous exaggerations; but the central terror glared upon him through all disguises, and, hearing or relating, his blood was running chill the while. Returning to his native city, he was entered an apprentice in a public manufactory, and here it was -fresh from ruined castle, mist-folding on the Morven hills, tales told by mountain shepherd or scaly fisherman of corpse lights glimmering on the sea; and with English literature before him, wherein to range and take delight in precious shreds of leisure; and with everything, past highland experience, and present dim environment, beginning to be overspread by the "purple light of love"-that Mr. Macdonald became a poet. And, considering the whole matter now, it may be said, that his circumstances were more favourable for the development of the poetic spirit, than if he had been born in a Cumberland vale, with no harsher task than image-hunting urged upon him by pecuniary considerations. Glasgow, at the period we speak of, could boast of her poets. Dugald Moore was writing, publishing, and being quizzed by his companions. Motherwell, the author of "Jeanie Morrison," was the editor of the Courier, and fighting manfully in its columns against Reform. Alexander

the publication of a wicked and witty welcome-singular in its likeness and contrasts to the Magician's own-on the occasion of the visit of his Gracious Majesty George IV. to Edinburgh, was filling the newspapers of the West with satirical verses, and getting himself into grief thereby. Nay, more, this last "Makar" either then, or at a later period, held a post in the manufactory in which Mr. Macdonald was apprenticed. Nor was the eye without education, or memory without associations to feed upon. Before the door of this manufactory lay Glasgow Green, with the tree. yet green under which Prince Charles stood when he reviewed his shoeless highland host before marching to Falkirk. Near the window, and to be seen by the boy every time he lifted his head, flowed the Clyde, bringing recollections of the red ruins of Bothwell Castle, where the Douglasses dwelt, and the ivy-muffled walls of Blantyre Priory, where the monks prayed, and carrying imagination with it as it flowed seaward to Dunbarton Castle, with its legends old as Ossian, and recalling as it sank into ocean the night when Bruce, from his lair in Arran, watched the beacon broadening on the Carrick shore. And from the same windows, looking across the stream, he could see the long straggling burgh of Rutherglen, with the church-tower, where the bargain was struck with Monteith for the betrayal of Wallace, standing eminent above the trees. And, when we know that the girl who was afterwards to become his wife was growing up there, known and loved at the time, we can fancy how often his eyes dwelt on the little town, with church-tower and chimney fretting the sky-line. And when Macdonald rambled and he always did rambleinevitably deeper impulses would come to him. Northward from Glasgow some few miles, at Rob Royston, where Wallace was betrayed, lived Walter Watson, whose songs have been sung by many who never heard his name. Seven miles southward of the city lay Paisley in its smoke, and beyond that, Gleniffer Braes, "laverocks fanning the snaw-white

clouds" above them, the torrent flashing in the rocky gorge on the hillside, the ruins of Stanley Tower standing on the plain below-scarce a change since Tannahill walked there on summer evenings. South-east stretched the sterile district of the Mearns, where Christopher North lived when a boy, and where Pollock herded COWS. And beyond, in a green crescent embracing the sea, a whole Ayrshire fiery and full of Burns; into which, dying, the poet's whole nature sank, making passionate soil and stone; with his daisy blooming in every furrow, every stream as it ran seaward mourning for Highland Mary, and, when night fell, in every tavern in the county, the blithest lads in Christendie sitting over their cups and flouting the horned moon hanging in the window-pane. And then, to complete a poetic education, there was Glasgow herself-noble river and dark groves of masts, begirt by miles of stony streets; grand cathedral, filled once with popish shrines and rolling incense, on one side of the ravine, and on the other, the statue of John Knox, impeaching it with outstretched arm, that clasps a Bible.

And ever as the darkness came, the district north-east and south of the city was filled with shifting glare and gloom of furnace fires; instead of night and its privacy, the keen splendour of towering flame brought to the inhabitants of the eastern streets a fluctuating scarlet day, piercing nook and cranny more searchingly than any sunlight. Mr. Macdonald set himself sedulously to poetic work; and, whatever may be the value of his wares, it may be said that excellent material lay on every side.

To him all these things had their uses. We picture him a young fellow of excellent literary digestion, capable of extracting nutriment from the toughest materials; assiduously making acquaintance with English literature in his evenings; gradually taking possession of the British essayists, poets, and historians. As this time, too, he cherished republican feelings, and had his own speculations concerning the regeneration of the whole human race; and these feelings he re

tained till his own personal hurt made him forget the pained world. In his later days, however, he was willing to let the world wag, certified that the needful thing for him was to take regard to his own private footsteps. He had now fairly embarked on the poetic tide. His name, appended to copies of verses, frequently appeared in the local prints, and gained for him no small amount of local notice. And at inter'vals some song-bird of his brain, of stronger pinion or gayer plumage than usual, would flit from newspaper to newspaper across the country; nay, one or two actually appeared beyond the Atlantic, and, not unnoticed by admiring eyes, perching on a broadsheet here and there as it made its way from the great eities towards the western clearings. All this time, too, he was an enthusiastic botanist in book and field, a lover of the open country and the blowing wind, a scorner of fatigue, ready any Saturday afternoon when work was over for a walk of twenty miles, if so be he might look on a rare flower or an ivied ruin. And the girl over in Rutherglen was growing up to womanhood, each charm of mind and face celebrated for many a year in glowing verse; and her he, poet-like, married-the household plenishing of the pair being abundance of hope and a simple disregard of the inconveniences arising from straitened means. The happiest man in the world—but a widower before the year was out! With his wife died many things, all buried in one grave. Republican dreamings and schemes for the regeneration of the world faded after that. Here is a short poem, full of the rain-cloud and the yellow leaf, which has reference to his feelings at the time.

Gorgeous are thy woods, October! Clad in glowing mantles sere; Brightest tints of beauty blending, Like the west when day's descending,' Thou'rt the sunset of the year.

Fading flowers are thine, October!

Droopeth sad the sweet blue-bell:

Violet, lily, rose, all perished

Fragrance fled from field and dell. Songless are thy woods, October!

Save when red breast's mournful lay
Through the calm grey morn is swelling,
To the list ning echoes telling
Tales of darkness and decay.

Saddest sounds are thine, October!
Music of the falling leaf;
O'er the pensive spirit stealing,
To its inmost depths revealing,
"Thus all gladness sinks in grief."

I do love thee, drear October,

More than budding, blooming spring. Hers is hope, delusive, smiling, Trusting hearts to grief beguiling;

Memory loves thy dusky wing.

'Twas in thee, thou sad October!

Death laid low my bosom flower.
Life hath been a wintry river,
O'er whose ripple gladness never

Gleameth brightly since that hour.

Hearts would fain be with their treasure;
Mine is slumbering in the clay;
Wandering here alone, uncheery,
Deem't not strange this heart should weary
For its own October day.

His own October day did come; too early, unseasonably, when the fields were but whitening to the harvest.

All Mr. Macdonald's friends have heard of his interview with Professor

It

Wilson, at Edinburgh, in 1846. This celebrated event flourished perennially in his writings and conversation. stood out in his history like the Battle of Trafalgar in the History of England. For him nothing could stale its infinite delightfulness. He had come up from Paisley to "Scotia's darling seat," as he chooses to call it, for a day or two, and, while there, wandered down the Canongate to visit Ferguson's grave, and to look on Holyrood with romantic remembrances of Mary, and the profoundest belief in the authenticity of Rizzio's blood-stains; spent an autumn day roaming about Roslin and Hawthornden; and in the afternoon, seated in the inn at Lasswade, he indited an epistle to Wilson, expressing the great pleasure he had derived from his "Noctes" and other writings, inclosing at the same time a