worse, for it teaches him that he ought not to be sorry, which is all the pleasure of the thing.

FROM THE MONODY.

Ar length escap'd from every human eye,
From every duty, every care,

That in my mournful thoughts might claim a share,
Or force my tears their flowing stream to dry;
Beneath the gloom of this embowering shade,
This lone retreat, for tender sorrow made,
I now may give my burden'd heart relief,
And pour forth all my stores of grief;
Of grief surpassing every other woe,
Far as the purest bliss, the happiest love
Can on th' ennobled mind bestow,
Exceeds the vulgar joys that move
Our gross desires, inelegant and low.

In vain I look around

O'er all the well-known ground,
My Lucy's wonted footsteps to descry;
Where oft we us'd to walk,
Where oft in tender talk

We saw the summer sun go down the sky;

Nor by yon fountain's side,

Nor where its waters glide

Along the valley, can she now be found:
In all the wide-stretch'd prospects' ample bound

No more my mournful eye

Can aught of her espy,

But the sad sacred earth where her dear relics lie.

Sweet babes, who, like the little playful fawns,
Were wont to trip along these verdant lawns
By your delighted mother's side,

Who now your infant steps shall guide ?
Ah! where is now the hand whose tender care
To every virtue would have form'd your youth,
And strew'd with flowers the thorny ways of truth?

O loss beyond repair!

O wretched father! left alone,

To weep their dire misfortune, and thy own!
How shall thy weaken'd mind, oppress'd with woe,

And drooping o'er thy Lucy's grave,

Perform the duties that you doubly owe!

Now she, alas! is gone,

From folly and from vice their helpless age to save?

O best of wives! O dearer far to me

Than when thy virgin charms

Were yielded to my arms,

How can my soul endure the loss of thee ?

How in the world, to me a desert grown,

Abandon'd and alone,

1

Without my sweet companion can I live? Without thy lovely smile, The dear reward of every virtuous toil, What pleasures now can pall'd ambition give? Ev'n the delightful sense of well-earn'd praise, Unshar'd by thee, no more my lifeless thoughts could raise.

For my distracted mind
What succour can I find?

On whom for consolation shall I call?

Support me, every friend;
Your kind assistance lend,

To bear the weight of this oppressive woe.
Alas! each friend of mine,

My dear departed love, so much was thine,
That none has any comfort to bestow.

My books, the best relief

In every other grief,

Are now with your idea sadden'd all :
Each favourite author we together read

My tortur'd memory wounds, and speaks of Lucy

dead.

We were the happiest pair of human kind;
The rolling year its varying course perform'd,
And back return'd again;

Another and another smiling came,

And saw our happiness unchang'd remain:
Still in her golden chain

Harmonious concord did our wishes bind:

Our studies, pleasures, taste, the same.
O fatal, fatal stroke,

That all this pleasing fabric love had rais'd
Of rare felicity,

On which ev'n wanton vice with envy gaz'd,
And every scheme of bliss our hearts had form'd,
With soothing hope, for many a future day,
In one sad moment broke!-

Yet, O my soul, thy rising murmurs stay;
Nor dare the all-wise Disposer to arraign,
Or against his supreme decree
With impious grief complain,

That all thy full-blown joys at once should fade; Was his most righteous will and be that will obey'd.

THIS unfortunate young man, who died in a madhouse at the age of twenty-four, left some pieces of considerable humour and originality in the Scottish dialect. Burns, who took the hint of his Cotter's Saturday Night from Fergusson's Farmer's Ingle, seems to have esteemed him with an exaggerated partiality, which can only be accounted for by his having perused him in his youth. On his first visit to Edinburgh, Burns traced out the grave of Fergusson,

VOL. V.

R

and placed a monument over it at his own expense, inscribed with verses of appropriate feeling.

Fergusson was born at Edinburgh, where his father held the office of accountant to the British Linenhall. He was educated partly at the high-school of Edinburgh, and partly at the grammar-school of Dundee, after which a bursary, or exhibition, was obtained for him at the university of St. Andrew's, where he soon distinguished himself as a youth of promising genius. His eccentricity was, unfortunately, of equal growth with his talents; and on one occasion, having taken part in an affray among the students, that broke out at the distribution of the prizes, he was selected as one of the leaders, and expelled from college; but was received back again upon promises of future good behaviour. On leaving college he found himself destitute, by the death of his father, and after a fruitless attempt to obtain support from an uncle at Aberdeen, he returned on foot to his mother's house at Edinburgh, half dead with the fatigue of the journey, which brought on an illness that had nearly proved fatal to his delicate frame. On his recovery he was received as a clerk in the commissary clerk's office, where he did not con tinue long, but exchanged it for the same situation in the office of the sheriff clerk, and there he re mained as long as his health and habits admitted of any application to business. Had he possessed ordi nary prudence he might have lived by the drudgery of copying papers; but the appearance of some of his