high intellectual excitement. In the very strength and ardour of his passions, there is safety. He contemplates the glowing pictures of love and beauty, which teem in his imagination; and he is guarded as with a sevenfold shield from the assaults gross and vulgar pollution.

of

In Glasgow, therefore, young and inexperienced as I was, my intimacy with Conyers had no tendency to produce an injurious effect on my character. To him, perhaps, it was of some benefit; for my principles, if not strong, were unshaken; and though I loved him, I was not blind to his

errors.

Conyers was destined for the army, and spoke with enthusiasm of his prospects. In the passion for a military life, our hearts beat in unison. The sleeping embers within me were once more fanned into a flame, which burned even more fiercely than before. I was again agitated by doubts and apprehensions lest the wish nearest to my heart might meet the opposition of my father. It is true, he had formerly given his consent that I should be come a soldier; but a sad change of circumstances had since taken place, and I was now an only son It was possible-nay probable I thought that my

father's sentiments might have altered with regard to my future destination; and most fervently did I deprecate this the only contingent misfortune, which appeared in my imagination to cast a shadow on my prospects.

The father of Conyers was an officer of rank, who had served with distinction in the American war; and I listened with intense interest to the narratives of broil and battle with which he had been wont to amuse the childhood of his son. He told me tales of Washington, of Burgoyne, and of Cornwallis,-of ambuscades in the passes of the deep, eternal forests, and of the destruction of gallant armies by enemies whom they could not see, and consequently could not resist. And then Wolfe and the siege of Quebec! What would I not have given to have stood but for a brief space, sword-girt by his side, on the red heights of Abraham! He spoke, too, of Minden and its field of glory, where the pride of France was humbled, and her banners trodden in the dust; till the battle rose before me, and I saw the dragoons charge on raibeda with harquebuss and gleaming sabre over the dying and the dead.

"Down with the Fleurs de Lis, and wave the

banner of St. George! Bravo the Green Horse! The Enniskillings are charging on through the morass on the right-God prosper them!-There go the gallant Evelyn's brigade!-The enemy wavers! -Charge home, in the name of Old England!Now the Guards take them on the left flank! Hurrah! the field is our own, and a sun of glory that shall never set, is gleaming on the arms of my country!"

It is with a smile on my lips, yet with something of melancholy in my heart, that I recall these sallies of strong though boyish enthusiasm. The glow of feeling which produced them soon faded, and is long since gone. It comes but in the spring of life, and never lingers long.

In this manner was it, that the communion of our hopes and wishes added mutually to their intensity. Towards one point did all the aspirations of my spirit converge. In one absorbing desire were garnered all my powers and energies; and, opposed to this, I felt that even filial duty and obedience would be but as dust in the balance. God might change my purpose-man could not shake it.

CHAPTER X.

Braken. Why looks your grace so heavily to-day?
Clarence. Oh, I have spent a miserable night,
So full of ugly sights, and ghastly dreams,
So full of dismal terror, was the time.

Richard III.

NEITHER my studies nor amusements, in whatever degree I was engrossed by them, had the effect of rendering me less attentive to my uncle. As our intercourse became more intimate and frequent, I was enabled to penetrate the rough husk of his character, and discover many estimable and even amiable qualities, for which the world had never given him credit. It was owing to the circumstances in which he had been placed, that the better feelings of his nature had remained dormant, while its lower and baser principles had been called into habitual exercise.

David Spreull had entered life penniless and

friendless. He had been left to jostle his way through a crowd of scheming and designing men, ever prompt to betray the unwary, and turn their neighbour's weakness to advantage. Trade, when combined with poverty, narrows the heart, while it sharpens the understanding. It had this effect upon my uncle. To contend with such rivals as I have described, it was perhaps necessary to adopt their weapons; but the deeper energies of his character had led him further. In all the arts of money-making, he had overtopped his instructors; and, though rigid in his adherence to the established code of mercantile morality, had left no means of acquisition unemployed, in advancing the one great object of his life. Among those around him, he had the character of being sharp in trade; that is, one who considers all advantages fair in a bargain, and who is known to be as incapable of defrauding a creditor, as of forgiving a debtor. All his successes had been the produce of cold, dispassionate calculation, of deeper forecast than was possessed by those around him, and of a steady and undeviating adherence to the course prescribed by his own interest, wherever it might lead. Cut off, too, from his family and relations, by dis