devotion as wife and mother appears deserving of every praise. It was thought the death of his child, a lovely girl of tender years, 'hastened his own. Almost his last effort was the letter he wrote his brother. He said: “I am dangerously ill, and not likely to get better. God keep my wife and children." His premonitions were correct. Fever, delirium and debility finished a life which had rapidly decayed beneath the delicate peculiarities that belong to the temperament of genius, and accordingly, at the early age of thirty-eight, Scotland mourned her brilliant and gifted son. A few lines expressive of his affection for his wife also shows his devotional tendency : O all ye powers who rule above, Thou know'st my words sincere; Is not more fondly dear. Deprive my soul of rest, Thou Being all-seeing, Thy most peculiar care. Another evidence that he still in his better moods remembered the religious training of his youth, and wearied with the disappointments and false promises of friends, his spirit longed for rest, is given in the annexed beautiful poem: THE LAND O'THE LEAL. To the Land of the Leal. There's nae sorrow there, Jean, I' the Land o' the Leal. Odry your gistening e'e, Jean, To the Land o' the Leal. Ye have been gude an? true, Jean, To the Land of the Leal. Our bonny bairn's there, Jean, To the Land othe Leal. MOTHERWELL. If William Motherwell had never written but the poem of Jeanie Morrison, it would have gained for him an immortality. He has been compared to Burns in his exquisite tenderness and pathos. Like him, he was at one time a violent partizan and an uncompromising politician; but when years have passed away the petty interests of a local sphere are lost, with all their elements of bitterness and hatred. The beautiful sentiments of Jeanie Morrison will weave an imperishable chaplet for the brow of him who lives in this touching and pure a record of a faithful heart. Of this Of this poem it has been said “that while the charming song appears like an irrepressible gush of feeling that would find vent, yet its finish was the result not of a curious felicity, but of the nicest elaboration.” By touching and retouching during many years, did Jeanie Morrison attain her perfection. If the reader will but have patience with the peculiar dialect, he will find himself amply repaid in its perusal: I've wandered east, I've wandered west, Through mony a weary way; The luve o' life's young day; May weel be black gin Yule, Where first fond luve grows cule. |