end in cold and prudent selfishness. Milton delight to contemplate him in his retreat and last years. To the passing spectator, he seemed fallen and forsaken, and his blindness was reproached as a judgment from God. But though sightless, he lived in light. His inward eye ranged through universal nature, and his imagination shed on it brighter beams than the sun. Heaven, and hell, and paradise were open to him. He visited past ages, and gathered round him ancient sages and heroes, prophets and apostles, brave knights and gifted bards. As he looked forward, ages of liberty dawned and rose to his view, and he felt that he was about to bequeath to them an inheritance of genius "which would not fade away," and was to live in the memory, reverence, and love of remotest generations. We have enlarged on Milton's character, not only from the pleasure of paying that sacred Idebt which the mind owes to him who has Cyriac, this three-years-day, these eyes, though clear quickened and delighted it, but from an appre To outward view, of blemish or of spot, Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot Of which all Europe rings from side to side. This thought might lead me through the world's vain mask, Content, though blind, had I no better guide. Sonnet xxii. We see Milton's magnanimity in the circumstances under which Paradise Lost was written. It was not in prosperity, in honour, and amidst triumphs, but in disappointment, desertion, and in what the world calls disgrace, that he composed that work. The cause with which be had identified himself had failed. His friends were scattered; liberty was trodden under foot; and her devoted champion was a by-word among the triumphant royalists. But it is the prerogative of true greatness, to glorify itself in adversity, and to meditate and execute vast enterprises in defeat. Milton, fallen in outward condition, afflicted with blindness, disappointed in his best hopes, applied himself with characteristic energy to the sublimest achievement of intellect, solacing himself with great thoughts, with splendid creations, and with a prophetic confidence, that however neglected in his own age, he was framing in his works a bond of union and fellowship with the illustrious spirits of a brighter day. We hension that Milton has not yet reaped his due harvest of esteem and veneration. The envious mists, which the prejudices and bigotry of Johnson spread over his bright name, are not yet wholly scattered, though fast passing away. We wish not to disparage Johnson. We could find no pleasure in sacrificing one great man to the manes of another. But we owe it to Milton and to other illustrious names, to say, that Johnson has failed of the highest end of biography, which is to give immortality to virtue, and to call forth fervent admiration towards those who have shed splendour on past ages. We acquit Johnson, however, of intentional misrepresentation. He did not and could not appreciate Milton. We doubt whether two other minds, having so little in common as those of which we are now speaking, can be found in the higher walks of literature. Johnson was great in his own sphere, but that sphere was comparatively "of the earth;" whilst Milton's was only inferior to that of angels. It was customary in the day of Johnson's glory to call him a giant, to class him with a mighty but still an earth-born race. Milton we should rank among seraphs. Johnson's mind acted chiefly on man's actual condition, on the realities of life, on the springs of human action, on the passions which now agitate society, and he seems hardly to have dreamed of a higher state of the human mind than was then exhibited. Milton, on the other hand, burned with a deep yet calm love of moral grandeur and celestial purity. He thought not so much of what man is, as of what he might become. His own mind was a revelation to him of a higher condition of humanity, ing respect; for they were results, to a degree which man cannot estimate, of a diseased, irritable, nervous, unhappy physical temperament, and belonged to the body more than to the mind. We only ask the friends of genius not to put their faith in Johnson's delineations of it. His biographical works are tinged with his notoriously strong prejudices, and of all his Lives, we hold that of Milton to be the most apocryphal. SONG. DR. CHANNING, FROM GOETHE'S FAUST. [Lord Francis Leveson Gower, afterwards Lord Francis Egerton, born 1800, died October, 1857. He was the second son of the first Duke of Sutherland. Possessed of much literary ability, he obtained consider My peace is vanish'd, and to promote this he thirsted and toiled for | variety of mind. We blame him only that his freedom, as the element for the growth and passions, prejudices, and bigotry engaged him improvement of his nature. In religion, John- in the unworthy task of obscuring the brighter son was gloomy and inclined to superstition, glory of one of the most gifted and virtuous and on the subject of government leaned towards | men. We would even treat what we deem the absolute power; and the idea of reforming | faults of Johnson with a tenderness approacheither, never entered his mind but to disturb and provoke it. The church and the civil polity under which he lived seemed to him perfect, unless he may have thought that the former would be improved by a larger infusion of Romish rites and doctrines, and the latter by an enlargement of the royal prerogative. Hence, a tame acquiescence in the present forms of religion and government marks his works. Hence we find so little in his writings which is electric and soul-kindling, and which gives the reader a consciousness of being made for a state of loftier thought and feeling than the present. Milton's whole soul, on the contrary, revolted against the maxims of legitimacy, hereditary faith, and servile reverence for established power. He could not brook the bondage to which men had bowed for ages. "Reformation" was the first word of public warning which broke from his youthful lips, and the hope of it was a fire in his aged breast.able reputation by his translation of "Faust."] The difference between Milton and Johnson may be traced not only in these great features of mind, but in their whole characters. Milton was refined and spiritual in his habits, temperate almost to abstemiousness, and refreshed himself after intellectual effort by music. Johnson inclined to more sensual delights. Milton was exquisitely alive to the outward creation, to sounds, motions, and forms, to natural beauty and grandeur. Johnson, through de- ! fect of physical organization, if not through deeper deficiency, had little susceptibility of these pure and delicate pleasures, and would not have exchanged the Strand for the vale of Tempe or the gardens of the Hesperides. How could Johnson be just to Milton! The comparison, which we have instituted, has compelled us to notice Johnson's defects. But we trust we are not blind to his merits. His stately march, his pomp and power of language, his strength of thought, his reverence for virtue and religion, his vigorous logic, his practical wisdom, his insight into the springs of human action, and the solemn pathos which occasionally pervades his descriptions of life and his references to his own history, command our willing admiration. That he wanted enthusiasm, and creative imagination, and lofty sentiment, was not his fault. We do not blame him for not being Milton. We love intellectual power in all its forms, and delight in the ca- ! My heart is sore; I shall find it never, Where he is not Is like a tomb; My aching head Will burst with pain- I look through the glass His lofty step, And his forehead high, His fond caress, So rich in bliss! My peace is vanish'd, My heart is sore; ON IMPUDENCE AND MODESTY. I have always been of opinion, that the complaints against Providence have been illgrounded, and that the good or bad qualities of men are the causes of their good or bad fortune, more than what is generally imagined. There are, no doubt, instances to the contrary, and pretty numerous ones too; but few in comparison of the instances we have of a right distribution of prosperity and adversity; nor, indeed, could it be otherwise, from the common course of human affairs. To be endowed with a benevolent disposition, and to love others, will almost infallibly procure love and esteem; which is the chief circumstance in life, and facilitates every enterprise and undertaking; besides the satisfaction that immediately results from it. The case is much the same with the other virtues. Prosperity is naturally, though not necessarily, attached to virtue and merit; and adversity, in like manner, to vice and folly. I must, however, confess that this rule admits of an exemption with regard to one moral quality, and that modesty has a natural tendency to conceal a man's talents, as impudence displays them to the utmost, and has been the only cause why many have risen in the world, under all the disadvantages of low birth and little merit. Such indolence and incapacity is there in the bulk of mankind, that they are apt to receive a man for whatever he has a mind to put himself off for; and admit his overbearing airs as a proof of that merit which he assumes to himself. A decent assurance seems to be the natural attendant of virtue; and few men can distinguish impudence from it; as, on the other hand, diffidence being the natural result of vice and folly, has drawn disgrace upon modesty, which, in outward appearance, so nearly resembles it. As impudence, though really a vice, has the same effects upon a man's fortune as if it were a virtue; so we may observe, that it is almost as difficult to be attained, and is, in that respect, distinguished from all the other vices, which are acquired with little pains, and continually increase upon indulgence. Many a man, being sensible that modesty is extremely prejudicial to him in making his fortune, has resolved to be impudent, and to put a bold face upon the matter; but it is observable that such people have seldom succeeded in the attempt, but have been obliged to relapse into their primitive modesty. Nothing carries a man through the world like a true, genuine, natural impudence. Its counterfeit is good for nothing, nor can ever support itself. In any other attempt, whatever faults a man commits, and is sensible of, he is so much nearer his end, but, when he endeavours at impudence, if he ever failed in the attempt, the remembrance of it will make him blush, and will infallibly disconcert him; after which, every blush is a cause for new blushes, till he be found out to be an arrant cheat, and a vain pretender to impudence. If anything can give a modest man more assurance, it must be some advantages of fortune, which chance procures to him. Riches naturally gain a man a favourable reception in the world, and give merit a double lustre, when a person is endowed with it; and supply its place, in a great measure, when it is absent. 'Tis wonderful to observe what airs of superiority fools and knaves with large possessions give themselves above men of the greatest merit in poverty. Nor do the men of merit make any strong opposition to these usurpations; or rather seem to favour them by the modesty of their behaviour. Their good sense and experience make them diffident of their judgment, and cause them to examine everything with the greatest accuracy; as, on the other hand, the delicacy of their sentiments makes them timorous lest they commit faults, and lose, in the practice of the world, that integrity of virtue, so to speak, of which they are so jealous. То make wisdom agree with confidence is as difficult as to reconcile vice to modesty. A few short years-and then these sounds shall hail The day again, and gladness fill the vale; So soon the child a youth, the youth a man, Eager to run the race his fathers ran. Then the huge ox shall yield the broad sirloin, The ale, now brewed, in floods of amber shine. And, basking in the chimney's ample blaze, 'Mid many a tale told of his boyish days, The nurse shall cry, of all her ills beguiled, "Twas on these knees he sate so oft and smiled." And soon again shall music swell the breeze; Soon, issuing forth, shall glitter through the trees Vestures of nuptial white; and hymns be sung, And violets scattered round; and old and young, In every cottage porch with garlands green, Stand still to gaze, and, gazing, bless the scene; While, her dark eyes declining, by his side Moves in her virgin veil the gentle bride. And once, alas! nor in a distant hour, Another voice shall come from yonder tower: When in dim chambers long black weeds are seen, And weeping's heard where only joy has been; When by his children borne, and from his door Slowly departing to return no more, He rests in holy earth with them that went before. And such is Human Life;-so gliding on, It glimmers like a meteor, and is gone! Yet is the tale, brief though it be, as strange, As full methinks of wild and wondrous change, As any that the wandering tribes require, Stretched in the desert round their evening fire; As any sung of old in hall or bower To minstrel-harps at midnight's witching hour! ROGERS. THE GRAY HAIR. [Alaric Alexander Watts, born in London, 1795; died 5th April, 1864. As the poet of domestic life he is widely known and appreciated. His first collection of poems appeared in 1822, and from that date be became busily occupied in journalism, first as editor of the Leeds Intelligencer, next of the Manchester Courier, and subsequently as the projector of the United Service Gazette, which he edited for ten years. In 1851 a complete collection of his poetical works was issued under the title of Lyrics of the Heart. In 1853 government provided him with a pension of £100 a year.] Come, let me pluck that silver hair Hath nothing, sure, to do with thee! Years have not yet impair'd the grace One wrinkle on thy placid brow! Thy features have not lost the bloom Thy unambitious beauty yet! And if the passing clouds of care Have cast their shadows o'er thy face, They have but left, triumphant, there A holier charm-more witching grace. And if thy voice hath sunk a tone, And sounds more sadly than of yore, It hath a sweetness all its own, Methinks I never mark'd before! Thus, young and fair, and happy too— . In spite of all that Time hath done; Is yon white hair a boon of love, To thee in mildest mercy given? A sign, a token from above, To lead thy thoughts from earth to heaven? To speak to thee of life's decay; Of beauty hastening to the tomb; Or springs the line of timeless snow With those dark glossy locks entwined, 'Mid Youth's and Beauty's morning glow To emblem thy maturer mind! It does it does:-then let it stay; When thus they beam from beauty's brow? The tide, before we left the shore, had risen high on the beach, and was now beginning to OUT WITH THE HERRING FISHERS. recede. Aware of this, we lowered sail several BY HUGH MILLER. [Hugh Miller, born in Cromarty, 12th October, 1802; died in Edinburgh, 24th December, 1856. He was for some time a stone-mason, and it was whilst working in this capacity that he obtained the impressions and experiences of the science of geology, which afterwards yielded such great results. Next he became clerk in the bank of his native town, and about this time he published a small volume of poems. He became a frequent contributor to the Inverness Courier, and in that journal his important "Letters on the Herring Fishery" were first published. From these letters we quote the following sketch of a night's adventures with the herring fishers. At the period of the Disruption, when the Free Church party established the Witness, a semiweekly newspaper, Mr. Miller was appointed its editor, and continued to hold that post until the date of his melancholy death. Whilst performing all the duties of his editorial post he wrote numerous essays, sketches, and tales; and also produced the works by which his name will be best known to posterity-The Old Red Sandstone, Footprints of the Creator, and The Testimony of the Rocks. Sir David Brewster says of him, "With the exception of Burns, the uneducated genius which has done honour to Scotland during the last century has never displayed that mental refinement and classical taste and intellectual energy which mark all the writings of our author." An exhaustive biography of Mr. Miller, by Peter Bayne, has been recently published; and an excellent complete edition of his works has been issued by W. P. Nimmo, Edinburgh.] In the latter end of August, 1819, I went out to the fishing then prosecuted on Guilliam in a Cromarty boat. The evening was remarkably pleasant. A low breeze from the west scarcely ruffled the surface of the frith, which was varied in every direction by unequal stripes and patches of a dead calmness. The bay of Cromarty, burnished by the rays of the declining sun until it glowed like a sheet of molten fire, lay behind, winding in all its beauty beneath purple hills and jutting headlands; while before stretched the wide extent of the Moray Frith, speckled with fleets of boats which had lately left their several ports, and were now all sailing in one direction. The point to which they were bound was the bank of Guilliam, which, seen from betwixt the Sutors, seemed to verge on the faint blue line of the horizon; and the fleets which had already arrived on it had, to the naked eye, the appearance of a little rough-edged cloud resting on the water. As we advanced, this cloud of boats grew larger and darker; and soon after sunset, when the bank was scarcely a mile distant, it assumed the appearance of a thick leafless wood covering a low brown island. hundred yards to the south of the fishing ground; and after determining the point from whence the course of the current would drift us direct over the bank, we took down the mast, cleared the hinder part of the boat, and began to cast out the nets. Before the Inlaw appeared in the line of the Gaelic chapel (the landmark by which the southernmost extremity of Guilliam is ascertained), the whole drift was thrown overboard and made fast to the swing. Night came on. The sky assumed a dead and leaden hue. A low dull mist roughened the outline of the distant hills, and in some places blotted them out from the landscape. The faint breeze that had hitherto scarcely been felt now roughened the water, which was of a dark blue colour, approaching to black. The sounds which predominated were in unison with the scene. The almost measured dash of the waves against the sides of the boat and the faint rustle of the breeze were incessant; while the low dull moan of the surf breaking on the distant beach, and the short sudden cry of an aquatic fowl of the diving species, occasionally mingled with the sweet though rather monotonous notes of a Gaelic song. "It's ane o' the Gairloch fishermen," said our skipper; "puir folk, they're aye singin' an' thinkin' o' the Hielands." Our boat, as the tides were not powerful, drifted slowly over the bank. The buoys stretched out from the bows in an unbroken line. There was no sign of fish, and the boatmen, after spreading the sail over the beams, laid themselves down on it. The scene was at the time so new to me, and, though of a somewhat melancholy cast, so pleasing, that I stayed up. A singular appearance attracted my notice. "How," said I to one of the boatmen, who a moment before had made me an offer of his greatcoat,-"how do you account for that calm silvery spot on the water, which moves at such a rate in the line of our drift?" He started up. A moment after he called on the others to rise, and then replied: "That moving speck of calm water covers a shoal of herrings. If it advances a hundred yards farther in that direction, we shall have some employment for you." This piece of information made me regard the little patch, which, from the light it caught, and the blackness of the surrounding water, seemed a bright opening in a dark sky, with considerable interest. moved onward with increased velocity. It came in contact with the line of the drift, and It |