those glorious sunsets, and imbued our young spirit with the love and worship of nature. He it was that taught us to feel that our evening prayer was no idle cere mony to be hastily gone through-that we might lay down our head on the pillow, then soon smoothed in sleep-but a command of God, which a response from nature summoned the humble heart to obey. He it was who for ever had at command, wit for the sportive, wisdom for the serious hour. Fun and frolic flowed in the merry music of his lips-they lightened from the gay glancing of his eyes-and then, all at once, when the one changed its measures, and the other gathered, as it were, a mist or a cloud, an answering sympathy chained our own tongue, and darkened our own countenance, in intercommunion of spirit felt to be, indeed, divine! It seemed as if we knew but the words of language-that he was a scholar who saw into their very essence. The books we read together were, every page, and every sentence of every page, all covered over with light. Where his eye fell not as we read, all was dim or dark, unintelligible, or with imperfect meanings. Whether we perused with him a volume writ by a nature like our own, or the volume of the earth and the sky, or the volume revealed from Heaven, next day we always knew and felt that something had been added to our being. Thus imperceptibly we grew up in our intellectual stature, breathing a purer moral and religious air; with all our finer affections towards other human beings, all our kindred and our kind, touched with a dearer domestic tenderness, or with a sweet benevolence that seemed to our ardent fancy to embrace the dwellers in the uttermost regions of the earth. No secret of pleasure or pain-of joy or grief-of fear or hope had our heart to withhold or conceal from Emilius Godfrey. He saw it as it beat within our bosom, with all its imperfections-may we venture to say, with all its virtues. A repented folly-a confessed fault-a sin for which we were truly contrite-a vice flung from us with loathing and with shame-in such moods as these, happier were we to see his serious and his solemn smile than when in mirth and merriment we sat by his side, in the social hour, on a knoll in the open sunshine. And the whole school were in ecstasies to hear tales and stories from his genius; even like a flock of birds, chirping in their joy, all newly alighted in a vernal land. In spite of that difference in our age-or oh! say rather because that very difference did touch the one heart with tenderness, and the other with reverence! how often did we two wander, like elder and younger brother, in the sunlight and the moonlight solitudes ! Woods into whose inmost recesses we should have quaked alone to penetrate, in his company were glad as gardens, through their most awful umbrage; and there was beauty in the shadows of the old oaks. Cataracts-in whose lonesome thunder, as it pealed into those pitchy pools, we durst not, by ourselves, have faced the spray-in his presence, dinned with a merry music in the desert, and cheerful was the thin mist they cast sparkling up into the air. Too severe for our uncompanied spirit, then easily overcome with awe, was the solitude of those remote inland lochs. But as we walked with him along the winding shores, how passing sweet the calm of both blue depths-how magnificent the white-crested waves, tumbling beneath the black thunder cloud! More beautiful, because our eyes gazed on it along with his, at the beginning or the ending of some sudden storm, the Apparition of the Rainbow. Grander in its wildness, that seemed to sweep at once all the swinging and stooping woods to our ear, because his too listened, the concerto by winds and waves played at midnight when not one star was in the sky. With him we first followed the Falcon in her flight-he showed us on the Echo-cliff the Eagle's eyry. To the thicket he led us, where lay couched the lovely-spotted Doe, or showed us the mild-eyed creature browsing on the glade with her two fawns at her side. But for him we should not then have seen the antlers of the red-deer, for the forest was indeed a most savage

place, and haunted-such was the superstition at which those who scorned it trembled haunted by the ghost of a huntsman whom a jealous rival had murdered as he stooped, after the chase, at a little mountain well that ever since oozed out blood. What converse passed between us two in all those still shadowy solitudes! Into what depths of human nature did he teach our wondering eyes to look down! Oh! what was to become of us, we sometimes thought in sadness that all at once made our spirits sink-like a lark falling suddenly to earth, struck by the fear of some unwonted shadow from above-what was to become of us when

the mandate should arrive for him to leave the Manse for ever, and sail away in a ship to India never more to return! Ever as that dreaded day drew nearer, more frequent was the haze in our eyes; and in our blindness we knew not that such tears ought to have been far more rueful still, for that he then lay under orders for a longer and more lamentable voyage-a voyage over a narrow strait to the eternal shore. All-all at once he drooped: on one fatal morning the dread decay began -with no forewarning, the springs on which his being had so lightly, so proudly, so grandly moved-gave way. Between one sabbath and another his bright eyes darkened and while all the people were assembled at the sacrament, the soul of Emilius Godfrey soared up to heaven. It was indeed a dreadful death; serene and sainted though it were-and not a hall--not a house-not a hut-not a shieling within all the circle of those wide mountains, that did not on that night mourn as if it had lost a son. All the vast parish attended his funeral-Lowlanders and Highanders, in their own garb of grief. And have time and tempest now blackened the white marble of that monument is that inscription now hard to be read-the name of Emilius Godfrey in green obliteration-nor haply one surviving who ever saw the light of the countenance of him there interred! Forgotten as if he had never been! for few were that glorious orphan's kindred-and they lived in a foreign land-forgotten but by one heart; faithful through all the chances and changes of this restless world! And therein enshrined, amongst all its holiest remembrances, shall be the image of Emilius Godfrey, till it too, like his, shall be but dust and ashes!

Oh! blame not boys for so soon forgetting one another in absence or in death. Yet forgetting is not just the very word; call it rather a reconcilement to doom and destiny-in thus obeying a benign law of nature that soon streams sunshine over the shadows of the grave. Not otherwise could all the ongoings of this world be continued. The nascent spirit outgrows much in which it once found all delight; and thoughts delightful still, thoughts of the faces and the voices of the dead, perish not, lying sometimes in slumber-sometimes in sleep. It belongs not to the blessed season and genius of youth to hug to its heart useless and unavailing griefs. Images of the well-beloved, when they themselves are in the mould, come and go, no unfrequent visitants, through the meditative hush of solitude. But our main business-our prime joys and our prime sorrows-ought to bemust be with the living. Duty demands it; and love, who would pine to death over the bones of the dead, soon fastens upon other objects with eyes and voices to smile and whisper an answer to all his vows. So was it with us. Ere the midsummer sun had withered the flowers that spring had sprinkled over our Godfrey's grave, youth vindicated its own right to happiness; and we felt that we did wrong to visit, too often, that corner of the kirkyard. No fears had we of any too oblivious tendencies; in our dreams we saw him-most often all alive as ever-sometimes a phantom away from that grave! If the morning light was frequently hard to be endured, bursting suddenly upon us along with the feeling that he was dead, it more frequently cheered and gladdened us with resignation, and sent us forth a fit playmate to the dawn that rang with all sounds of joy. Again we found ourselves

angling down the river, or along the loch-once more following the flight of the Falcon along the woods-eyeing the Eagle on the Echo-cliff. Days passed by, without so much as one thought of Emilius Godfrey-pursuing our pastime with all our passion, reading our books intently-just as if he had never been! But often and often, too, we thought we saw his figure coming down the hill straight towards us-his very figure-we could not be deceived-but the love-raised ghost disappeared on a sudden the grief-worn spectre melted into the mist. The strength that formerly had come from his counsels, now began to grow up of itself within our own unassisted being. The world of nature became more our own, moulded and modified by all our own feelings and fancies; and with a bolder and more original eye we saw the smoke from the sprinkled cottages, and saw the faces of the mountaineers on their way to their work, or coming and going to the house of God.

[COWLEY was called by Dr. Johnson the last and the best of the metaphysical poets. He enumerates Donne amongst them, and quotes some of his "quaint conceits." There is no writer in our language who is such a master of the subtleties of thought as he whose "Holy Sonnets we now extract. But at the same time there are few authors who excel him in strength and fervour. The life of John Donne has been written by Izaak Walton. He entered the church late in life, and died Dean of Saint Paul's, in his fifty fourth year, being born in 1573.]

I.-Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?
Repair me now, for now mine end doth haste;
I run to death, and death meets me as fast,
And all my pleasures are like yesterday.
I dare not move my dim eyes any way;
Despair behind, and death before doth cast
Such terror, and my feeble flesh doth waste
By sin in it, which it t'wards hell doth weigh,
Only thou art above, and when t'wards thee
By thy leave I can look, I rise again;
But our old subtle foe so tempteth me,
That not one hour myself I can sustain;
Thy grace may wing me to prevent his art,
And thou, like adamant draw mine iron heart.

II. As due, by many titles, I resign

Myself to thee, O God. First I was made

By thee and for thee; and, when I was decay'd,

Thy blood bought that, the which before was thire;

I am thy son, made with thyself to shine,

Thy servant, whose pains thou hast still repay'd,
Thy sheep, thine image, and, till I betray'd
Myself, a temple of thy Spirit divine.
Why doth the devil then usurp on me?

Why doth he steal, nay ravish, that's thy right?
Except thou rise, and for thine own work fight,

Oh! I shall soon despair, when 1 shall see

That thou lov'st mankind well, yet wilt nct choose me
And Satan hates me, yet is loth to lose me.

III.-Oh! might these sighs and tears return again
Into my breast and eyes, which I have spent,
That I might in this holy discontent

Mourn with some fruit, as I have mourn'd in vain;
In mine idolatry what show'rs of rain

Mine eyes did waste? what griefs my heart did rent?
That sufferance was my sin I now repent;

'Cause I did suffer, I must suffer pain.

Th' hydroptic drunkard, and night-scouting thief,
The itchy lecher, and self-tickling proud,

Have th' remembrance of past joys, for relief

Of coming ills. So poor me is allowed

No ease; for long, yet vehement, grief hath been
Th' effect and cause-t
e—the punishment and sin.

IV.-Oh! my black soul, now thou art summoned
By sickness, Death's herald and champion;
Thou'rt like a pilgrim, which abroad hath done
Treason, and durst not turn to whence he is fled;
Or like a thief, which, till death's doom be read,
Wisheth himself delivered from prison;
But, damn'd and hawl'd to execution,
Wisheth that still he might b' imprisoned:
Yet grace, if thou repent, thou canst not lack;
But who shall give thee that grace to begin?
Oh! make thyself with holy mourning black,
And red with blushing, as thou art with sin:

Or wash thee in Christ's blood, which hath this might,
That, being red, it dies red souls to white.

V.-I am a little world made cunningly

Of elements and an angelic spright;

But black sin hath betrayed to endless night

My world's both parts, and, oh! both parts must die.
You, which beyond that heav'n, which was most high,
Have found new spheres, and of new land can write,
Pour new seas in mine eyes, that so I might
Drown my world with my weeping earnestly;
Or wash it, if it must be drown'd no more:
But, oh! it must be burnt; alas! the fire
Of lust and envy burnt it heretofore,
And made it fouler: let their flames retire,

And burn me, O Lord, with a fiery zeal

Of thee and thy house, which doth in eating heal.

VI-This is my play's last scene, here heavens appoint
My pilgrimage's last mile; and my race,
Idly yet quickly run, hath this last pace,
My span's last inch, my minute's latest point;
And gluttonous Death will instantly unjoint
My body and soul, and I shall sleep a space;
But my ever-waking part shall see that face
Whose fear already shakes my every joint:

Then as my soul to heav'n, her first seat, takes flight,
And earth-born body in the earth shall dwell,

So fall my sins, that all may have their right,
To where they're bred, and would press me to hell.
Impute me righteous, thus purg'd of evil;

For thus I leave the world, the flesh, the devil.

VII.--At the round earth's imagined corners blow
Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise
From death, you numberless infinities

Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go,
All whom th' flood did, and fire shall, o'erthrow;
All, whom war, death, age, ague's tyrannies,

Despair, law, chance, hath slain; and you, whose eyes
Shall behold God, and never taste death's woe.

But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space;
For, if above all these my sins abound,

"Tis late to ask abundance of thy grace,

When we are there. Here on this holy ground
Teach me how to repent: for that's as good

As if thou had'st seal'd my pardon with thy blood.

VIII.—If faithful souls be alike glorified

As angels, then my father's soul doth see,

And adds this ev'n to full felicity,

That valiantly I hell's wide mouth o'erstride :

But if our minds to these souls be descry'd

By circumstances and by sighs, that be

Apparent in us not immediately,

How shall my mind's white truth by them be tried?

They see idolatrous lovers weep and mourn,

And style blasphemous conjurers to call

On Jesus' name, and pharisaical

Dissemblers feign devotion. Then turn,
O pensive soul, to God; for he knows best
Thy grief, for he put it into my breast.

IX. If poisonous minerals, and if that tree,
Whose fruit threw death on (else immortal) us,
If lecherous goats, if serpents envious,
Cannot be damned, alas! why should I be?
Why should intent or reason, born in me,
Make sins, else equal, in me more heinous ?
And mercy being easy and glorious

To God, in his stern wrath, why threatens he?
But who am I, that dare dispute with thee!

O God, oh! of thine only worthy blood,

And my tears, make a heav'nly Lethean flood,
And drown in it my sin's black memory:

That thou remember them, some claim as debt;
I think it mercy, if thou wilt forget.

X-Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;