"THIS ENGLAND, LOUD WITH BROOKS AND BIRDS, SHINING WITH HARVESTS, COOL WITH DEWY TREES,

AND BLOOMED FROM HILL TO HILL, BUT WHOSE BEST FLOWERS ARE DAUGHTERS."-SYDNEY DOBELL.

"WHAT TIMES ARE LITTLE TO THE SENTINEL!-(GEORGE ELIOT)

EVEN-TIME

Step out these steps where Andrew stood-
Why blanch thy cheek for fear?
The ancient stile is not alone,

'Tis not the burn I hear!

She makes her immemorial moan,
She keeps her shadowy kine;—
O Keith of Ravelston,

The sorrows of thy line!

[From Sydney Dobell's "Poems."]

165

"FRESH'NING LIFE'S DUSTY ROAD WITH BABBLING RILLS OF WIT AND SONG."-George Eliot.

George Eliot.

[THIS well-known name is understood to be the nom de plume of Mrs. G. Henry Lewes (Miss Evans), the daughter (it is said) of a clergyman, who was born about 1820. It was not until 1868 she appeared as a poetess, but at one stride she ascended the heights of poetic fame--her "Spanish Gypsy" being not less remarkable for its lofty sentiments and profound analysis of character, than for the energy, condensation, and pictorial vividness of its style. As a novelist, the author of "Scenes of Clerical Life," "Adam Bede," "The Mill on the Floss," "Silas Marner," "Romola," and "Felix Holt, the Radical," may rightly lay claim to a foremost place.]

"GENTLEMEN CHOOSE NOT THEIR TASK-THEY CHOOSE TO DO IT WELL."-george eLIOT.

EVEN-TIME.

AY is dying! Float, O song,
Down the westward river,
Requiem chanting to the day-

Day, the mighty Giver.

Pierced by shafts of Time, he bleeds,
Melted rubies sending

Through the river and the sky,

Earth and heaven blending;

THAT HOUR IS REGAL WHEN HE MOUNTS ON GUAFD."-G. Eliot.

"HE SPELLS THE RECORD OF HIS LONG DESCENT, MORE LARGELY CONSCIOUS OF THE LIFE THAT WAS."-ELIOT.

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166

"THE SOUL OF MAN IS WIDENING TOWARDS THE PAST."-ELIOT.

GEORGE ELIOT.

"HOW THE OLD EPIC VOICES RING AGAIN, STIRRED BY THE WARMTH OF OLD IONIAN DAYS!"-GEORGE ELIOT.

["All the long-drawn earthly banks up the cloud-land lifting."]

All the long-drawn earthly banks
Up the cloud-land lifting:

Slow between them drifts the swan,
'Twixt two heavens drifting.

Wings half open, like a flower
Inly deeper flushing,

Neck and breast as virgin's pure-
Virgin proudly blushing.

THE SUBTLER SENSE OF SYLVAN EARS AND EYES."-G. ELIOT.

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WHY ARE ALL FAIR THINGS AT THEIR DEATH THE FAIREST,

[From "The Spanish Gypsy" (published in 1868), of which a critic in Blackwood's Magazine observes, that "it is emphatically a great poemgreat in conception, great in execution. It has all the sculpturesque finish and nicety of epithet of Tennyson,....in her transparent style thoughts the most vivid and varied, imagery the most profuse yet the most exactly illustrative, appear with the precision and beauty of leaves in the air, or shells in the clear pools of the shore."]

"O FRIENDSHIP, PRELIBATION OF DIVINE ENJOYMENT, UNION EXQUISITE OF SOULS,

David Gray.

[DAVID GRAY will henceforth be ranked with Chatterton, and Henry Kirke White, among the "inheritors of unfulfilled renown," who died before they could make good the promise of their early career.

Gray lived long enough to exhibit many flaws of character-among which not the least was an exaggerated confidence in his own powers-and many intellectual deficiencies; but he also lived long enough to give evidence of a warm heart and a sensitive nature, of a keen sympathy with all that is true, tender, and beautiful, of poetic insight and considerable power of expression. He made the best, as his generous friend, Lord Houghton, observes, of all his scanty opportunities, and, unquestionably, the lyrical faculty was in him. He was born a poet, as surely as the skylark is born to mount and sing. His strains, imperfect and irregular as they were, flowed from his soul as spontaneously as the living waters from the secret spring.

David Gray, the son of a poor handloom-weaver, was born at Duntiblae, about eight miles from Glasgow, on the 29th of January 1838. He received his education at the parish school of Kirkintilloch, and giving signs of more than average intellectual strength, was early destined to the office of the Christian ministry in connection with the Free Church of Scotland. When about fourteen years of age he was accordingly sent to Glasgow, where, supporting himself to a considerable extent by laborious tuition, he contrived to attend the university during four successive sessions. But it soon became evident, says his biographer, Mr. Hedderwick, that the bent of his mind was poetical rather than theological. Fired with an overmastering yearning for fame, and an unnatural confidence in his own powers, he suddenly removed to London in May 1860, where he was fortunate enough to secure the friendship of Mr. Sydney Dobell and Lord Houghton,

BEAUTY THE BEAUTIFULLEST IN DECAY?"-DAVID GRAY.

WHY ARE THE SWEETEST MELODIES ALL BORN OF PAIN AND SORROW?"-DAVID GRAY.

THIS IS THE LAW OF NATURE,-THAT THE DEED

Dr. Mackay and Mr. Lawrence Oliphant. Here, however, he was seized
with a pulmonary illness, which struck him down in the flush of his hopes.
He returned to his father's house; but his disease increasing, his physicians
advised his removal to a warm southern climate. Through the agency of
generous friends he was then sent to Torquay, where a nervous frenzy of
restlessness and excitement seized him, and he suddenly started for the
North in January 1861.

Henceforth there was no hope of saving him. He grew gradually
weaker, but continued writing poetry to the last—very touching and tender
poetry, when one considers that it was written in the Valley of the Shadow.
He lived long enough to gaze with wistful eyes on a proof page of his
poems, whose publication had been undertaken by Mr. Macmillan, the
publisher. Then he turned his face to the wall, and died, on the 3rd of
December 1861, in his 24th year. He wrote for himself the following
epitaph:-

"Below lies one whose name was traced in sand-
He died, not knowing what it was to live:
Died while the first sweet consciousness of manhood
And maiden thought electrified his soul:
Faint beatings in the calyx of the rose.
Bewildered reader, pass without a sigh
In a proud sorrow! There is life with God,
In other kingdom of a sweeter air:

In Eden every flower is blown.-Amen."]

"YOUTH ALONE IS TRUE, FULL OF A GLORIOUS SELF-FORGETFULNESS."-GRAY.

"THE SANCTITY OF INSPIRATION WHICH O'ERFLOWS THE WORLD."-DAVID GRAY.

SONNET.

BEAUTIFUL moon! O beautiful moon! again
Thou persecutest me until I bend

My brow, and soothe the aching of my brain.
I cannot see what handmaidens attend
Thy silver passage as the heaven clears;

For, like a slender mist, a sweet vexation
Works in my heart, till the impulsive tears
Confess the bitter pain of adoration.

O too, too beautiful moon! lift the white shell
Of thy soft splendour through the shining air!
I own the magic power, the witching spell,
And, blinded by thy beauty, call thee fair!

SHOULD DEDICATE ITS EXCELLENCE TO GOD."-GRAY.