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LIKE some old friend from far who visits us Still garrulous Of long forgotten ways and things of yore Some babbler of old times, old jests, and song, Of younger careless strangers who disdain So from the shadows of the bygone years From an unsealed corner of the brain The memory of a day as clear and gay And at its bidding adumbrations rise, Dim splendors of a wide untraversed world Thin, far-off mirth, vague sorrow, vanished sights, Long-dead delights, Wonder and hope and joy, the exultant thrill Ineffable; The fainting echo and the afterglow Of long ago. Then as a lonely outcast who hath come Changed with changed fortunes, chambers Whose wild white face to panes uncurtained pressed A space might rest Upon a fireside group, all warmth and glee, Rest and then flee! The novelties of God he could not brook, The love that is of love the essential bright ness. II. Wherefore his picture evermore was hued But mix'd not for a Heav'n-conceived design. A creed that like the sacred mountain stood Sunlighted depth or moonkt amplitude, Majestic, measureless, with trim tape-line Did he attempt, and scorn'd, being undivine, The excess divine, the tropic rain of God. Faith's flowers must die where heart-air is so chilly; Fair must seem false when love's so little kind, The virgin's fingers fold a tarnish'd lily For those who scorn virginity. The blind Are proof against sweet proof that Heav'n is blue. III. Yet with what art, thro' what enormous space, With what innumerous threads how deftly plann'd, Silvery separate in the subtle hand, But colors here deliberately wann'd, The last hymn dies, and the earth's large regret Divinely wails thro' many a dusk-gold lawn. Then a stern symbol rises from the rock, The cross of Roman Syria grimly set Leafless, dim-lit in leaden-colored dawn. WILLIAM DERRY AND RAPHOE. Spectator. SONNETS IN MY LIBRARY. GIBBON'S "MEMOIRS." I. He lived to learn; to watch his knowledge grow; Nightly to question what advance precise Marvel not then that to love's creed his no All large heart-poetry for lack of prose. OUT of the night that covers me, In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud, Beyond this place of wrath and tears Finds, and shall find, me unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, W. E. HENLEY. From Blackwood's Magazine. laborer and the farmhouse drudge on the farthest corner of the moor, would have scorned not to "know their books." It is, therefore, a matter of surprise that the daughter of a distinguished naval officer- afterwards an admiral, and knighted - and of a lady well-born and related by blood to families not only respectable but noble, should have been neglected in a EXACTLY a hundred years ago, and at a period of England's history which it would seem was rife with the production of women destined to fame, there raced about the stormy sands of what was then a small and isolated seaport on the Firth of Forth, a wild little creature of eight years old, who knew nothing of school-matter so important. But Captain Fairrooms and school-hours, who could only fax was poor, and his wife easy-goingjust read, "with a strong Scotch accent," voilà tout. but who could not write at all, yet whose name was to become in due season a household word to the farthest ends of the earth, where the learned assemble and science is esteemed. Mary Somerville, to whom in 1870 astronomers from north, south, east, and west came to pay court, and moot abstruse and mysterious propositions, in 1780 was an insignificant babe, of such slight social importance that, until ten years subsequently, it was not thought worth while either to send her to be taught at school or to provide her with a teacher at home; and she who is now - or at any rate was for many years, if fashions have somewhat changed of late-the idol or torment of youth, as the case might be, was herself only accorded a desultory and spasmodic education, beginning with a twelvemonth's stay at a boarding-school between the ages of ten and eleven, where all that was expected of her was, that she should learn to "write a good hand, and be able to keep accounts.” No doubt they told each other that it would never do for a child of theirs to be trotting backwards and forwards to the "schule" in company with all the little barefooted lads and lassies of the country. side, and that Mary could not possibly be allowed to demean herself by sitting shoulder to shoulder, and hand in hand, with the shock-headed crew clustered together on the time-worn bench; whilst, that put aside, what remained? A governess at home was out of the question. Now, had good Mistress Fairfax been an energetic, intelligent parent, had she been a Wesley's mother or a Jane Taylor's mother, for instance, no difficulty need have been felt. We have a delightful picture of the little girl herself in after years, diligently instructing her Own daughters for three hours regularly every morning "even," says her biographer, "while busily engaged in writing for the press, carefully managing her house, and reading all the new books of the day." But Mary Somerville's mother was of an Even that modest ambition was disap- other stuff than this. pointed for the nonce. We must, however, cast an eye over the home and early surroundings of the little untutored maid, in order to comprehend how such a thing could be. The Bible, sermons, and the newspaper sufficed her; what did any one want with more? Strange to say, Mary, for her part, would have been satisfied with even less. The sermons, at any rate, she could well have spared; and all that she wanted, and all that any little light-hearted lassie of her age would have wanted, was freedom to bound over the gorse and heather which covered the low hills surrounding her home, and leave to frolic away the happy hours among the sandy creeks and rocky headlands which edged the bonnie Burntisland blue Firth below. Scotland's parochial schools have long been her national glory and pride; and a good, plain, solid, and trustworthy worka-day education is to be had by the poorest and humblest who covets it, more, it was to be had in days when ignorance prevailed elsewhere. When even the middle class, or at all events the lower middle class in England was altogether illiterate, and was for the most part stupidly content to remain so, the Scottish nounced Brunt Island - pro-now a flourish ing and favorite watering-place, but a hundred years ago a quaintly remote and inaccessible fishing-town of no particular repute, lies opposite Edinburgh, on the Fifeshire coast. In former years the harbor on the west ern side bounded the town in that direc- | tion, while on the other it terminated in a plain of short grass, yclept the "Links," in request for the good old-fashioned game of golf, long popular in the north before it found its way to English hearts. On these Links, and on the hills around, the flora were particularly beautiful; and the little Mary, let loose to teach herself at Nature's feet, soon contrived to pick up the trivial names of the most she met, though not, it would appear, of any of the seaweeds and grasses amongst which she was wont to pry and peer, when wading in the pools which were left at low tide, just below her father's garden. She did not know their names ah, but she knew themselves! All she saw there was food for the mind of the lonely child, and every object was invested with its own charm. One streamlet in particular, which joined the ocean not far from this haunt, must have been a witching spot; for in addition to every ordinary attraction, its little bed was, she tells us, thickly covered with the fresh-water mussel, often known to contain pearls of considerable value. Here was indeed a quest worth pursuing. Pearls? And pearls of value? What follows is curious, as shadowing forth the humane and tender-hearted Mary Somerville of after years the little girl could not bring herself to break open the shells in which the coveted treasures might be found, "for fear of killing the creatures." - one ter where little Mary, all aflame with excitement and exultation, presently followed with the rest of the crowd, to feast their eyes upon the muckle fish. The good folks of Burntisland believed in "muckle fish" of all sorts ; and why not? or“ What for no'?" as they would themselves have said. Did not their own fathers and brothers and husbands and sons bring home the tales that thrilled and delighted their simple bosoms? One, in particular, records Mrs. Somerville, in her musings over this period of childhood, rific creature, of dimensions so enormous that seamen had been known to land and prepare to dwell upon its ample surface, mistaking it for an island of the ocean, was the especial favorite of the fishermen raconteurs. Almost every one who has sailed to the northern seas was at length bound to have seen a kraken," and the numbers that had landed upon its broad back grew in proportion. It had a glorious reign, and at length gave place to the sea-serpent. Again the sea-serpent must in turn yield to newer heroes; and so on. Little Mary drank it all in; spent hours among the wet and shining sands, with the wind blowing her hair into her eyes, and the shingle clinging to her fingers and toes, while she added daily to her store of shells, some so small that they appeared like white specks in patches of black sand," and watched from afarfor she might not join themthe village bairnies digging for sand-eels, cockles, and the spouting razor-fish. 66 66 or Has the reader ever tried the latter amusement? This is the way to pursue it. The razor-fish, or spout-fish, as it is commonly called, lies hidden beneath the smooth sand, at peace with himself and. all the world. In a sudden he hears feels - a footfall overhead. Instinct bids him flee; but before fleeing, he ejects goodness knows why! - a jet of salt water, sometimes a couple of feet high, into the air. The next instant he dives with great velocity, his sharp, razor-like shell cleaving the sand for his descent, and would almost immediately be out of reach, safe in the depths below. But that one moment of delay, that meaningless, foolish ebullition, has undone him. The pursuer It has seen the "spout," and ere it has fallen | lessly dull, interminably long "Spectator to the ground again, his knife or other article, hammered out and spelt through implement has been thrust into the spot by an unwilling and indignant child! -alack, poor fish!- the sand upturned, must indeed have been an ordeal for and the extreme end of the shell exposed hearer as well as reader. We can almost to view. The rest is easy; the knife has hear the little rueful voice, and see the merely to press this shell hard on one little rueful face, as one blue eye despair. side, while the sand is being shovelled out | ingly searches down the page, while the by the keen fingers ready to grip hold the moment there is enough shell to take hold of, and that accomplished, all is over for the razor-fish. He can be drawn out without his making the slightest further resistance. The whole depends upon alacrity in the first instance. Mary Fairfax, running wild about the gorsy Links and teeming shore, was at any rate laying in a store of health and strength, and fine joyous animal spirits, which was to do her good service to the end of her long life. Hannah More, Elizabeth Fry, and other distinguished women have attained to a great age, but have "shuffled off this mortal coil" with feebleness and weariness, though under ninety years old; Mary Somerville at ninety-one was brimming over with vivacity and vigor; had none of the infirmities of age excepting a slight difficulty in hearing, which scarcely amounted to deafness; could read small print with ease and without glasses; and "her occupations were continued," says her biographer, "up to the actual day of her death." Bravo, Scotland, and the roaring surges of the Firth of Forth! other is cast sideways towards where the gleaming waves toss below, as the inflowing tide bears in its freight of shells and seaweeds, her own treasures of the deep. No wonder that never from that time thenceforth did Mary Somerville open the book. Perhaps even the gallant captain himself felt his brilliant inspiration to be hardly as successful as it should have been, for it was again owing to him that at ten years old the youthful ignoramus was at last accorded some sort of real instruction. "This will never do," quoth Fairfax stoutly, one day, ― Mary had perhaps been restless and unmanageable, as idlers of all ages are apt to be on occasion. "It will never do," said the father, putting down his foot a second time; and he carried out idea No. 2. This was to send the child to a boarding-school; and accordingly, for twelve months-only for twelve months, however - the wild little sea-mew was caught and caged by a certain Miss Primrose, at Musselburgh (a small town not far from Edinburgh), who was doubtless much at a loss what to make of her, and as unforMary's father was, however, subject to tunate in the pupil as the pupil was in the occasional shocks upon the subject. He mistress. "She had," records Mrs. Somwas absent from home, pursuing his pro- erville, "an habitual frown which even the fession during the greater part of his elder girls dreaded." Then there must daughter's youth, but would from time to have been set rules and set hours, and time return for a brief period, and it was restrictions and prohibitions, bitter to the on the occasion of one of these visits that palate of the freedom-loving Fifeshire it would appear to have struck him all of lassie. By nature timid and shy of stran a sudden that she was "growing up a per-gers, an almost inevitable consequence of fect little savage; " whereupon the worthy the life she led at home, she had now gentleman, seeking to mend matters, hit another agony to undergo; she had to find upon an idea which, for originality and herself all at once stranded among a set humor, may rival any of Sir Roger de Cov- of talkative, self-assured young ladies, erley's. "He made me," says poor Mary equal to anything, and to be put down by dolefully, "read a paper of 'The Spec- nobody (except Miss Primrose), all older tator' aloud every morning after break- than herself, and with impertinent quesfast." A paper of "The Spectator" every tions and unsparing comments, swarmmorning! A faultlessly elegant, hope-ing around her like a hive of bees." 66 |