formation, and much anxiety in their fulfilment, have glided, like the clouds of yesterday, from our remembrance. Many a sharer of our early friendships, and of our boyish sports, we think of no more; they are as if they had never been, till perhaps some accidental occurrence, some words in conversation, some object by the wayside, or some passenger in the street, attract our notice and then, as if awaking from a perplexing trance, a light darts in upon our darkness; and we discover that thus some one long ago spoke; that there something long ago happened; or that the person, who just passed us like a vision, shared smiles with us long, long years ago, and added a double zest to the enjoyments of our childhood.

a

Of our old class-fellows, of those whose days were of " mingled yarn" with ours, whose hearts blended in the warmest reciprocities of friendship, whose joys, whose cares, almost whose wishes were in common, how little do we know? how little will even the severest scrutiny enable us to discover? Yet, at one time, we were inseparable "like Juno's swans; we were as brothers, nor dreamt we of ought else, in the susceptibility of our youthful imagination, than that we were to pass through all the future scenes of life, side by side; and, mutually supporting and supported, lengthen out the endearments, the ties, and the feelings of boyhood unto the extremities of existence. What a fine but a fond dream-alas, how wide of the cruel reality! The casual relation of a traveller may discover to us where one of them resided or resides. The page of an obituary may accidentally inform us how long one of them lingered on the bed of sickness, and by what death he died. Some we may perhaps discover in elevated situations, from which worldly pride might probably prevent their stooping down to recognise us. Others, immersed in the labyrinths of business, have forgot all, in the selfish pursuits of earthly accumulation. While the rest, the children of misfortune and disappointment, we may occasionally find out amid the great multitude of the streets, to whom life is but a desert of sorrow, and against whom prosperity seems to have shut for ever her golden gates.

Such are the diversities of condition, the varieties of fortune to which man is exposed, while climbing the hill of probationary

difficulty. And how sublimely applicable are the words of Job, expatiating on the uncertainty of human existence: "Man dieth and wasteth away; yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up; so man lieth down and riseth not till the heavens be no more."

While standing on the same spot, where of yore the boyish multitude congregated in pursuit of their eager sports, a silent awe steals over the bosom, and the heart desponds at the thought, that all these once smiling faces are scattered now! Some, mayhap, tossing on the waste and perilous seas; some the merchants of distant lands; some fighting the battles of their country; others dead-inhabitants of the dark and narrow house, and hearing no more the billows of life, that thunder and break above their low and lonely dwelling-place!

Nanse, who was sitting by the table, knitting a pair of lightblue worsted stockings for Benjie, and myself, who was sewing on the buttons of a velveteen jacket for a country lad, were, 1 must say, not a little delighted, not only with the way in which the Welshman's late master had spoken of his school-fellows, but with the manner in which James Batter, with his specs on, had read it over to us. Upon my word—and that of an elderI do not believe that even Mr Wiggie himself could have done the thing greater justice. It was just as if he had been a playactor man, spouting Douglas's tragedy.

Having folded up that paper, and turned over not a few others, the docketings of which he read out to us, James at last says, "Ou ay, here it is. I think I can now prove to ye, that the gentleman's sweetheart died abroad; and that, likely from her name -for it is here mentioned-she must have been a Portugée o Spaniard."

"Ay, let us hear it," cried Nanse. "Do, like a man, let us hear it, James; for I delight above a' things to hear about lovestories. Do ye mind, Maister," she said, "when ye was so deep in love aince yoursell?"

"Foolish woman," I said, giving her a kind of severe look; "is that all your manners to interrupt Mr Batter? If ye'll just

keep a calm sough, ye'll hear the long and the short o't, in good time."

By this, James, who did not relish interruption, and was a thought fidgety in his natural temper, had laid down the paper on the table, snuffed the candle, and raised his spectacles on his brow. But I said to him, "Excuse freedoms, James, and be so good as resume your discourse." Then wishing to smooth him down, I added, by way of compliment-"Do go on; for you really are a prime reader. Nature surely intended ye for a minister." "Dinna flatter me," said James; looking, however, rather proudishly at what I had said, and replacing his glasses on the brig of his nose, he then read us a screed of metre to the following effect; part of which, I am free to confess, is rather above my comprehension. But, never mind.

ELEGIAC STANZAS.

I.

'Tis midnight deep; the full round moon,

As 'twere a spectre, walks the sky;

The balmy breath of gentlest June
Just stirs the stream that murmurs by;
Above me frowns the solemn wood;
Nature, methinks, seems Solitude
Embodied to the eye.

II.

Yes, 'tis a season and a scene,

Inez, to think on thee; the day,

With stir and strife, may come between

Affection and thy beauty's ray,

But feeling here assumes control,

And mourns my desolated soul

That thou are rapt away!

III.

Thou wert a rainbow to my sight,
The storms of life before thee fled;
The glory and the guiding light,
That onward cheer'd and upward led,

From boyhood to this very hour,
For me, and only me, thy flower

Its fragrance seem'd to shed.

A present thought; thy form shall dwell
In love's most holy sanctuary;

Thy voice shall mingle with my dreams,
And haunt me, when the shot-star gleams
Above the rippling sea.

x.

Never revives the past again;

But still thou art, in lonely hours,

To me earth's heaven,-the azure main,—
Soft music,-and the breath of flowers;
My heart shall gain from thee its hues :
And Memory give, though Truth refuse,
The bliss that once was ours!

After this, Mr Batter read over to us a great many other curiosities. about foreign things wonderful to hear, and foreign places wonderful to behold. Moreover, also, of divers adventures by sea and land. But the time wearing late, and Tammie Bodkin having brought ben the shop-key, after putting on the window-shutters, Nanse and I, out of goodfellowship, thought we could not do less than ask the honest man, whose cleverality had diverted us so much, to sit still and take a chack of supper;-James being up in the air, from having been allowed to ride on his hobby so briskly, made only a show of objection; so, after a rizzard haddo, we had a jug of toddy, and sat round the fire with our feet on the fenderBenjie having fallen asleep with his clothes on, and been carried away to his bed. Poor bit mannikin!

I never remember to have heard James so prime either on Boston or Josephus; but as his heart warmed with the liquor and the good fire, for it was a cold rawish night, he returned to Taffy with the pigtail's master; and insisted, that as we had heard about his foreign sweetheart's death, which he appeared to have taken so much to heart, we should just bear with him once more, as he read over what he called her dirgie, which was written on a half-sheet of grey mouldy paper-as if handed down from the days of the Covenanters. It jingles well; and both Nanse and me thought it gey and pretty; but eh! if ye only had heard how James Batter read it. It beat cock-fighting.