to relieve him were attended with expenses which ran them considerably into debt. As the weaving business was then prosperous, higher wages could be earned at it than by ordinary labor on a farm; so it was determined that John, now twelve years old, should be bound apprentice to a weaver for two years, on condition of receiving half his wages during that period, and boarding himself. When he had learned the craft, the expectation was that he could teach his older brother, who, in the meanwhile, by desperate economy, might save enough to buy a loom. Then they could each earn 2s. 6d. a day, instead of less than half that sum, which was the rate of agricultural wages. The spirits of both were high, and before John's apprenticeship had half expired, he made the discovery that, by allowing his master to take the whole, instead of half, of his earnings, his term might be abridged full six months. The sequel of the attempt may be told in Alexander's words, which he wrote as the biographer of his brother.

"From the estate having changed masters, his father had lost his situation as forester; and being now, from the infirmities of approaching age, unable to endure the privations and hardships incident to the life of a common laborer, to provide for his comfort in the evening of his days was another motive for making the most of every thing. With these objects in view, a house adjoining the one in which his father lived was taken as a workshop; by the most desperate economy, about £ 10 had been previously saved to purchase looms, and other articles appropriate to weaving; and at Martinmas, 1825, he commenced that business on his own account, with the writer of this sketch as an apprentice. The £10 was fairly expended in procuring a proper supply of utensils. The future, however, was still bright, and his hopes of independence were high; but a sad disappointment was before him.

"The effect of the almost universal failures which occurred in the end of 1825 and beginning of 1826 was severely felt by him and his apprentice almost at the very commencement of their career. While thousands, who had formerly been engaged in the same business, were in a state of idleness and starvation, they were glad to find employment as laborers, the one at 1s. 2d. and the other at 1s. a day. Before the trade had recovered, the house which he had occupied as a workshop was required for the accommodation of a family; for a number of years afterwards it did not appear that it would have been advisable to make

any great sacrifice to obtain another, and thus the whole of the weaving utensils, which but a short time before had cost what would have been a little fortune to him, were no better than so much useless lumber. His hopes from this quarter were now completely at an end, and this may be regarded as the first of that series of disappointments of which his future history in a great measure consists."-Life of J. Bethune, pp. 29, 30.

Illness was soon added to the other misfortunes of the brothers. When John was but fifteen years old, he was employed, with two other laborers, in clearing out a watercourse, taking marl from a pit in a marshy situation, and draining a swamp, and was thus often obliged to stand in water up to the knees for hours together; this was during the months of November and December, 1827. He took a severe cold, which probably did permanent injury to his lungs, and confined him to the house for the rest of the winter. "The cough, which was uncommonly hard and dry, was so distressing, that he could not lie down in a bed, and for a number of nights he sat by the fire." He had recovered far enough, however, in March, to resume his work; but " ever after, when he caught cold, he was subject to a hard, dry cough, which lasted for weeks, and sometimes even months."

In November of the following year, while Alexander was employed in blasting rock, a charge exploded prematurely, which threw him into the air, and he fell head foremost upon a pile of stones. His face was severely mangled, the skull was laid bare for several inches, and his limbs were badly bruised. The physician at first thought there was no chance of his recovery; but after a confinement of four months, during which he was affectionately attended by his brother, he was able to resume work. Speaking of John, he says, "Patiently did he watch by my bedside till it was supposed I was out of danger; and then, to provide for the exigencies of the family, which now depended upon him alone for support, he wrought at his former occupation by day, and took his turn to watch by night, till I could be left with safety. The result of this accident was a heavy expenditure, and four months of inability to labor; at the end of which period, from his exertions in behalf of his unfortunate brother, he again found himself in debt." Just three years afterwards, Alexander was exposed to a precisely similar acci

dent, that killed a laborer by his side, and by which his face was again so scorched and cut that he was disfigured for life, and the sight of one eye was permanently injured.

When John was but eighteen years old, the brothers conceived the plan of adding something to their slender earnings by writing for the magazines, and even publishing a book. It was first necessary to make some improvement in their penmanship and orthography. "For this purpose," says the elder brother, speaking of John, though the account applies also to himself, "he carried a little work of which he was fond always in his pocket."

"From the short poems, of which nearly one half of the book is composed, he selected one, and when going to and returning from his work, as well as in his journeys at dinner-time, he was in the habit of conning it over till he had fixed the spelling of every word in his memory; after which he took another, and thus proceeded to the end of the work. He also bought a copy of 'Mavor's Johnson's Dictionary,' and this, whenever he had occasion to write, he laid down beside him, determining not to pass a single word, as to the proper spelling of which he was in the slightest hesitation. When at any time he had a few minutes to spare, which could not be turned to a more profitable account, he used also to pore over its pages for the proper pronunciation and accentuation of words, marking as he went along, and trying to fix in his memory, such as appeared to be any way poetical or striking. By persevering in these means, he at last acquired the ability of spelling accurately any common word which he had occasion to use; and by imitating whatever he considered worthy of imitation in those specimens of the writing of others which fell in his way, a marked improvement in his penmanship soon began to be observable." - pp. 39, 40.

They wrote mostly upon scraps of paper which they picked up after they had been used as envelopes and for other purposes, and they economized even this material by writing in a very fine hand. Their house had but one room, and the hours of daylight being given to labor out of doors, they wrote in the evening and morning by the light of the fire, holding an old copy-book to support the paper upon their knees; John had no other writing-desk than this through life. As he did not wish it to be known that he was thus engaged, an old newspaper was always kept at hand, and if steps were heard approaching the door, his writing materials were instantly concealed under it. He fre

quently suffered from a severe cough, and successive attacks of the measles and the small-pox still further injured his constitution. During all his early manhood, says his brother, "the state of his health was such, that lying longer in bed than five hours at a time produced such a degree of uneasiness as to render it painful rather than refreshing; and, as a necessary consequence, he rose in general about three in summer, and at a little past four in winter. These long and solitary mornings he spent for the most part over a fire which he had himself kindled; and when I rose, which was not till some hours later, I found him always employed either in writing or reading."

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"He was now in his nineteenth year; and by this time he had begun to carry a book, with a slip of paper and a pencil, constantly in his pocket; and if, in the course of his solitary labors by day, a good idea occurred, he sometimes took such notes of it as would enable him to recall it in the evening. About this time, The Happy Home,' The Shout of Victory,' 'Song to the Rising Sun,' and a number of other productions, the original MSS. of which are stitched up with these, were composed. The first of Hymns of the Churchyard,' of which there are three, owes its origin to the same period; and I shall never forget the time and the place at which I first heard him read it. The house which we inhabited was long and narrow, with a small vacant space at the farther end of it, lighted by a single pane of glass; and to it, on the summer evenings, when he had the advantage of daylight till it was almost ten o'clock, he sometimes retired with his papers. On one of these evenings, I had taken sanctuary in this quarter before he came home. The sun shone cheerfully in at the little window, giving an air of warmth to the place, and making visible a long, level streak of its dim, smoky atmosphere. When he arrived, with his writing materials in his hand, he leaned upon the chest where my papers were lying, and said, 'If you would only stop for a few minutes, man, I would let you hear my last production.' He then read, with a low, musical voice, the lines beginning, Ah me! this is a sad and silent city,' which will be found in the following pages. Of these, the first verse rose spontaneously while walking in the churchyard during the interval of public worship, and the others had been added on the Monday morning."— pp. 47, 48.

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The quantity of verse and prose which he produced, under the circumstances, was truly astonishing. If printed in full, they would occupy several volumes. As far as we can

judge from the specimens in the books which are before us, the language was always correct, the lines smooth and flowing, and the rhymes good; but of course he had little range of thought or copiousness of diction, and further cultivation of mind would probably have induced him to abandon poetry for prose. Neither of the brothers seems to have been ambitious of literary fame for its own sake, but to have written only as a means of eking out their scanty livelihood. are poor," said John to his brother; it must be long before we can save the veriest trifle from our miserable earnings; and if at any future period we could make only a few pounds by writing, it were worth looking after for our parents' sake, if for nothing else."

"We

"As another evidence of his industry, and a proof that the 'miserable earnings,' as he termed them, were not squandered upon idle indulgences, it may be mentioned, that from them, previous to November, 1832, about £ 14 had been again saved. In the spring of 1830, the reader will recollect that he was rather in debt; little more than two years had passed since then; and when it is known that his earnings seldom exceeded £ 19 in any year, that, besides himself, he had at least one of his parents to support, that he was in the habit of giving considerable sums in charity, and, perhaps, still more for books, some idea may be formed of his personal expenditure, which could not possibly exceed £7 per annum, food, clothing, and every thing included.

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Having thus mentioned his little savings, I hope the reader will pardon me for stating the manner in which they were expended. On the 8th of November, 1832, the writer of this sketch was once more subjected to the effects of gunpowder, by an accident in a quarry; and before he was able to resume his work, the last farthing of the £ 14 was gone, and the author of the following poems, and the narrator of his story, were left to begin the world again, with only the clothes on their backs; and these, having already seen severe service, promised soon to leave them."― pp. 46, 47.

After some unsuccessful offers of poems and prose stories to various magazines, Alexander Bethune applied, in May, 1835, to one of the Messrs. Chambers, the publishers of the celebrated "Journal" which bears their name, for advice as to the mode of publishing some of his writings. In his letter he showed with great freedom what were his situation

NO. 141.

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