Still rear the grassy blade of vivid green.
Beware, ye shepherds, of these treacherous haunts,
Nor linger there too long: the wintry day
Soon closes; and full oft a heavier fall,
Heaped by the blast, fills up the sheltered glen,
While, gurgling deep below, the buried rill
Mines for itself a snow-coved way! Oh, then,
Your helpless charge drive from the tempting spot,
And keep them on the bleak hill's stormy side,
Where night winds sweep the gathering drift away;
So the great Shepherd leads the heavenly flock
From faithless pleasures, full into the storms
Of life, where long they bear the bitter blast,
Until at length the vernal sun looks forth,
Bedimmed with showers; then to the pastures green
He brings them where the quiet waters glide,
The stream of life, the Siloah of the soul.

JAMES GRAINGER.

JAMES GRAINGER, a Scottish poet and physician, was born, probably at Dunse in Berwickshire, at a date variously given as 1721 to 1724; and died at Saint Christopher, West Indies, Dec. 16, 1766. Grainger's best poem is his "Ode on Solitude" (1755). He wrote also a didactic poem of no great merit, called "The Sugar Cane" (1764); a translation of the Elegies of Tibullus (1759), which was savagely reviewed by Smollet; the ballad of "Bryan and Pereene," published in "Percy's Reliques;" a medical treatise (1753); and an "Essay on the More Common West Indian Diseases" (1764).

ODE TO SOLITUDE.

O SOLITUDE, romantic maid!
Whether by nodding towers you tread,
Or haunt the desert's trackless gloom,
Or hover o'er the yawning tomb,
Or climb the Andes' clifted side,
Or by the Nile's coy source abide,
Or starting from your half-year's sleep,
From Hecla view the thawing deep,
Or, at the purple dawn of day
Tadmor's marble wastes survey,
You, recluse, again I woo,

And again your steps pursue.

Plumed Conceit himself surveying,
Folly with her shadow playing,
Purse-proud, elbowing Insolence,
Bloated Empiric, puffed Pretense,
Noise that through a trumpet speaks,
Laughter in loud peals that breaks,
Intrusion with a fopling's face -
Ignorant of the time and place-
Sparks of fire Dissension blowing,
Ductile, court-bred Flattery, bowing,
Restraint's stiff neck, Grimace's leer,
Squint-eyed Censure's artful sneer,
Ambition's buckskins, steeped in blood,

Fly thy presence, Solitude.

Sage Reflection, bent with years,
Conscious Virtue, void of fears,
Muffled Silence, wood-nymph shy,
Meditation's piercing eye,

Halcyon Peace on moss reclined,
Retrospect that scans the mind,
Rapt earth-gazing Reverie,
Blushing, artless Modesty,

Health that snuffs the morning air,
Full-eyed Truth with bosom bare,
Inspiration, Nature's child,
Seek the solitary wild..

You, with the tragic muse retired,
The wise Euripides inspired;
You taught the sadly pleasing air
That Athens saved from ruins bare;
You gave the Cean's tears to flow,
And unlocked the springs of woe;
You penned what exiled Naso thought,
And poured the melancholy note.
With Petrarch o'er Vaucluse you strayed,
When death snatched his long-loved maid;
You taught the rocks her loss to mourn,
You strewed with flowers her virgin urn.
And late in Hagley you were seen,
With bloodshot eyes, and somber mien;
Hymen his yellow vestment tore,
And Dirge a wreath of cypress wore.
But chief your own the solemn lay
That wept Narcissa young and gay;
Darkness clapped her sable wing,
While you touched the mournful string;
Anguish left the pathless wild,
Grim-faced Melancholy smiled,

Drowsy Midnight ceased to yawn,
The starry host put back the dawn:
Aside their harps even seraphs flung
To hear thy sweet Complaint, O Young!
When all Nature's hushed asleep,
Nor Love nor Guilt their vigils keep,
Soft you leave your caverned den,
And wander o'er the works of men ;
But when Phosphor brings the dawn,
By her dappled coursers drawn,

Again you to the wild retreat
And the early huntsman meet,
Where, as you pensive pace along,
You catch the distant shepherd's song,
Or brush from herbs the pearly dew,
Or the rising primrose view.

Devotion lends her heaven-plumed wings,
You mount, and nature with you sings.
But when mid-day fervors glow,
To upland airy shades you go,
Where never sunburnt woodman came,
Nor sportsman chased the timid game;
And there beneath an oak reclined,
With drowsy waterfall behind,
You sink to rest,

Till the tuneful bird of night,

From the neighboring poplar's height,
Wakes you with her solemn strain,
And teach pleased Echo to complain.

With you roses brighter bloom,
Sweeter every sweet perfume;
Purer every fountain flows,
Stronger every wildling grows.
Let those toil for gold who please,
Or for fame renounce their ease.
What is fame? an empty bauble.
Gold? a transient shining trouble.
Man's not worth a moment's pain,

Base, ungrateful, fickle, vain.
Then let me, sequestered fair,
To your sibyl grot repair;
On yon hanging cliff it stands,
Scooped by nature's salvage hands,
Bosomed in the gloomy shade
Of cypress not with age decayed.
Where the owl still hooting sits,
Where the bat incessant flits,
There in loftier strains I'll sing
Whence the changing seasons spring;
Tell how storms deform the skies,

Whence the waves subside and rise,
Trace the comet's blazing tail,

I

c

SARAH GRAND.

SARAH FRANCES ELIZABETH (Clare) Grand, a novelist, is a native of Ireland, but of English parents. She was educated at Twickenham and Kensington; was married at sixteen to an army officer; and accompanied her husband to Ceylon, Singapore, China, Japan, and Egypt. Her novel "Ideala" was published in 1888. "Singularly Deluded" was published by Mr. Blackwood in 1892. "The Heavenly Twins" was published in 1893. "Our Manifold Nature," a collection of short stories, appeared in 1894; and the "Beth Book" in 1897.

DIAVOLO AND ANGELICA.

(From "The Heavenly Twins." 1)

As Lord Dawne had hinted to Mrs. Orton Beg, it was now a question of how best to educate the twins. Their parents had made what they considered suitable arrangements for their instruction; but the children, unfortunately, were not satisfied with these. They had had a governess in common while they were still quite small; but Mr. Hamilton-Wells had old-fashioned ideas about the superior education of boys, and consequently, when the children had outgrown their nursery governess, he decided that Angelica should have another, more advanced; and had at the same time engaged a tutor for Diavolo, sending him to school being out of the question because of the fear of further trouble from the artery he had severed. When this arrangement became known, the children were seen to put their heads together.

"Do we like having different teachers?" Diavolo inquired tentatively.

"No, we don't," said Angelica.

Lady Adeline had tried to prepare the governess, but the latter brought no experience of anything like Angelica to help her to understand that young lady, and so the warning went for

1 By permission of Cassell Publishing Company