some thought it might be so, indeed. Thus, coming to the grave in little knots, and glancing down, and giving place to others, and falling off in whispering groups of three or four, the church was cleared in time of all but the sexton and the mourning friends.

They saw the vault covered and the stone fixed down. Then, when the dusk of evening had come on, and not a sound disturbed the sacred stillness of the place,-when the bright moon poured in her light on tomb and monument, on pillar, wall, and arch, and, most of all (it seemed to them) upon her quiet grave,-in that calm time, when all outward things and inward thoughts teem with assurances of immortality, and worldly hopes and fears are humbled in the dust before them, then, with tranquil and submissive hearts they turned away, and left the child with God.

VIRTUES OF THE POOR.

Cant as we may, and as we shall to the end of all things, it is very much harder for the poor to be virtuous than it is for the rich; and the good that is in them shines the brighter for it. In many a noble mansion lives a man, the best of husbands and of fathers, whose private worth in both capacities is justly lauded to the skies. But bring him here, upon this crowded deck. Strip from his fair young wife her silken dress and jewels; unbind her braided hair; stamp early wrinkles on her brow; pinch her pale cheek with care and much privation; array her faded form in coarsely-patched attire; let there be nothing but his love to set her forth or deck her out; and you shall put him to the proof indeed. To change his station in the world, that he shall see in those young things that climb about his knee, not records of his wealth and name, but little wrestlers with him for his daily bread, so many poachers on his scanty meal, so many units to divide his every sum of comfort and farther to reduce its small amount. In lieu of the endearments of childhood in its sweetest aspect, heap upon him all its pains and wants, its sicknesses and ills, its fretfulness, caprice, and querulous endurance; let its prattle be not of engaging infant fancies, but of cold and thirst and hunger; and if his fatherly affection outlive all this, and he be patient, watchful, tender,-careful of his children's lives, and mindful always of their joys and sorrows, then send him back to parliament and pulpit and quarter-sessions, and when he hears fine talk of the depravity of those who live from hand to mouth, and labor hard to do it, let him speak up, as one who knows, and tell those holders-forth that they, by parallel with such a class, should be high angels in their daily lives, and lay but humble siege to heaven at last. Which of us shall say what he would be, if such realities, with small relief or change all through his

days, were his? Looking round upon these people, far fro home, houseless, indigent, wandering, weary with travel ar hard-living, and seeing how they tended their young children, how they consulted ever their wants first, then half supplie their own, what gentle ministers of hope and faith the wome were, how the men profited by their example, and how very very seldom even a moment's petulance or harsh complaint broke out among them,-I felt a stronger love and honor of my kin come glowing on my heart, and wished to God there had be many atheists in the better part of human nature there, to real with me the simple lesson in the book of life.

CHARLES MACKAY, 1814

CHARLES MACKAY, a very spirited and popular poet of his day, was born Perth, Scotland, in 1814. He fitted himself for the bar, and practised a shit time; but his love of literature predominated over "briefs" and "forms," and he became an author by profession. In 1834 he published a small volume d poems, which was the means of his being introduced to the editor of the Morning Chronicle, and he soon became connected with that paper, and continued in that position for nine years. In 1844 he became editor of the Glas gow Argus; and in 1846 the university of that city conferred upon him the title of Doctor of Laws.

Dr. Mackay's chief prose works are-Longbeard, Lord of London, a romance: The Thames and its Tributaries; Popular Delusions; and The Scenery and Poetry of the English Lakes. He wrote also many excellent articles in Chambers's Journal; and in 1847 succeeded to the political editorship of the Illustrated London News. His poetical works are-The Hope of the World; Egeria, the Spirit of Nature; Salamandrine, or Love and Immortality; Legends of the Isles. and other Poems; Voices from the Mountains; Town Lyrics; and Voices from the Crowd.

Dr. Mackay is emphatically the lyric poet of progress. He writes with great animation and deep feeling; and no one can fail to see that he has a true heart, a deeply philanthropic spirit, and a firm faith in the ultimate happiness of the race, in the reign of universal love.1

1 Thus I wrote in 1854, and, I think, with truth; for Dr. Mackay might be called, up to the year 1862, the lyric poet of progress. But, alas, that the bright fame of his former years should be so overclouded in the latter part of his life! In that year he was sent by the proprietors of the London Times, as its correspondent, to our country; and thenceforward he might be more justly styled the prosewriter of regress; for his letters to that influential journal not only showed his strong sympathies with the rebel slaveholders in their diabolical attempt to destroy our government, but he often wrote what he must have known to be false, to abet their cause. For this he was severely castigated by a few Eng

lish papers who were "faithful found among
the faithless;" such as the London Daty
News, the Morning Star, the Northern Whig,
&c. See also an article in the New York Ever
ing Post, October 3, 1862, headed “A Palpable
Forgery." In the Morning Star of October 21.
1862, appeared the following admirable parody
on his Good Time Coming;" severe, indeed,
but richly deserved.

A VOICE FROM THE CROWD.
Dedicated to Charles Mackay, LL.D., “Times"
Special Correspondent in America,
There's a good time coming, boys,
A good time coming:

THE GOOD TIME COMING.

THE WATCHER ON THE TOWER. "What dost thou see, lone watcher on the tower? Is the day breaking? comes the wish'd-for hour? Tell us the signs, and stretch abroad thy hand, If the bright morning dawns upon the land." "The stars are clear above me, scarcely one Has dimm'd its rays in reverence to the sun;

But yet I see on the horizon's verge

Some fair, faint streaks, as if the light would surge."

"And is that all, O watcher on the tower?
Look forth again; it must be near the hour.
Dost thou not see the snowy mountain copes,
And the green woods beneath them on the slopes ?"

"A mist envelops them; I cannot trace
Their outline; but the day comes on apace.
The clouds roll up in gold and amber flakes,

And all the stars grow dim. The morning breaks."
"We thank thee, lonely watcher on the tower;
But look again; and tell us, hour by hour,
All thou beholdest; many of us die

Ere the day comes; oh, give them a reply!"
"I hope, but cannot tell. I hear a song,
Vivid as day itself, and clear and strong,
As of a lark-young prophet of the noon-
Pouring in sunlight his seraphic tune."
"What doth he say, O watcher on the tower?
Is he a prophet? Doth the dawning hour
Inspire his music? Is his chant sublime
Fill'd with the glories of the Future time?"
"He prophesies; his heart is full;—his lay
Tells of the brightness of a peaceful day,-
A day not cloudless, nor devoid of storm,
But sunny for the most, and clear and warm."
"We thank thee, watcher on the lonely tower,
For all thou tellest. Sings he of an hour
When Error shall decay, and Truth grow strong,
And Right shall rule supreme and vanquish Wrong?"
"He sings of Brotherhood, and joy and peace,
Of days when jealousies and hate shall cease;
When war shall die, and man's progressive mind
Soar as unfetter'd as its God design'd."

"Well done! thou watcher on the lonely tower!
Is the day breaking? dawns the happy hour?
We pine to see it :-tell us, yet again,

If the broad daylight breaks upon the plain."

"It breaks,-it comes,-the misty shadows fly:

A rosy radiance gleams upon the sky;
The mountain-tops reflect it calm and clear;
The plain is yet in shade, but day is near.”

BACKWARD! ye presumptuous nations, | Onward! while a wrong remains

JOHN RUSKIN, 1814

JOHN RUSKIN, the eminent art-critic, was born in Edinburgh, in 1814. After completing his university education at Oxford, where he carried off the Newdigate prize for an English poem, he devoted himself to the cultivation of the pictorial art. Conceiving a high admiration for Turner, the artist, and deeming him entitled to a higher place in public estimation than was conceded to him, Ruskin published a pamphlet in his praise, which ultimately expanded into a treatise, entitled Modern Painters: their Superiority in the Art of Landscape Painting to all the Ancient Masters, 1848; which, though combated by bitter asperity, at once secured for its author a high position as a man of genius. This was followed in 1849 by The Seven Lamps of Architecture; and this by the Seven Stones of Venice, in three volumes, in 1851-53,1--both show

1 "The Stones of Venice probably satisfied few as a poetic rhapsody on the fallen city it was who took it up as an architectural work; but singularly interesting,-full of thought and