John Campbell Shairp.

Born in Linlithgowshire, Scotland, in 1819, Shairp was educated at the Edinburgh Academy, Glasgow University, and Baliol College, Oxford. In 1868 he was appointed Principal of the University of St. Andrews. He has published "Kilmahoe, and other Poems" (1864); “Studies in Poetry and Philosophy" (1868); "Lectures on Culture and Religion" (1870); and "The Poetic Interpretation of Nature" (1877).

SONNET: RELIEF.

Who seeketh finds: what shall be his relief
Who hath no power to seek, no heart to pray,
No sense of God, but bears as best he may,
A lonely, incommunicable grief?

What shall he do? One only thing he knows,
That his life flits a frail uneasy spark
In the great vast of universal dark,
And that the grave may not be all repose.
Be still, sad soul! lift thou no passionate cry,
But spread the desert of thy being bare
To the full searching of the All-seeing eye:
Wait-and through dark misgiving, blank despair,
God will come down in pity, and fill the dry
Dead place with light and life and vernal air.

Thomas Dunn English.

AMERICAN.

Born in Philadelphia in 1819, English became a member of the medical profession. He has been a frequent contributor to periodical literature, and published in 1855 a volume of poems, and in 1880 one of spirited American ballads, issued by the Messrs. Harper.

THE OLD MILL.

Here from the brow of the hill I look,

Through a lattice of bonghs and leaves,

On the old gray mill with its gambrel roof,
And the moss on its rotting eaves.

I hear the clatter that jars its walls,
And the rushing water's sound,

And I see the black floats rise and fall
As the wheel goes slowly round.

I rode there often when I was young, With my grist on the horse before, And talked with Nelly, the miller's girl, As I waited my turn at the door.

And while she tossed her ringlets brown, And flirted and chatted so free,

The wheel might stop, or the wheel might go, It was all the same to me.

'Tis twenty years since last I stood

On the spot where I stand to-day,
And Nelly is wed, and the miller is dead,
And the mill and I are gray.

But both, till we fall into ruin and wreck,
To our fortune of toil are bound;
And the man goes and the stream flows,
And the wheel moves slowly round.

Alice and Phabe Cary.

AMERICANS.

The sisters, Alice Cary (1820-1871) and Phoebe Cary (1824-1871), were born on a farm, eight miles north of Cincinnati, O. Alice began writing for newspapers and magazines before she was sixteen. In 1850 a volume of poems by her and Phoebe appeared, edited by Griswold. In 1851 the sisters moved to the city of New York, and managed, with the strictest economy, to support themselves by their literary efforts. They wrote novels and poems, indicating rare poetic sensibility. Their creed was Universalism; and deep religious feeling characterizes the writings of both. There is a jubilant tone in Alice's last hymn.

ALICE'S LAST HYMN.

Earth, with its dark and dreadful ills, Recedes and fades away:

Lift up your heads, ye heavenly hills; Ye gates of death, give way!

My soul is full of whispered song;
My blindness is my sight;
The shadows that I feared so long
Are all alive with light.

The while my pulses faintly beat, My faith doth so abound,

I feel grow firm beneath my feet The green, immortal ground.

That faith to me a courage gives Low as the grave to go;

I know that my Redeemer livesThat I shall live, I know.

The palace walls I almost see

Where dwells my Lord and King. O grave! where is thy victory?

O death! where is thy sting?

Anna Mowatt-Ritchie.

AMERICAN.

Anna Cora Ogden (1820-1870) was born in Bordeaux, France, while her father, Samuel G. Ogden, a New York merchant, was residing there. In 1826 the family, a large one, returned to New York-two of the children having been swept overboard and lost on the voyage. Anna married James Mowatt in 1837. Owing to his financial misfortunes, she went on the stage, and had considerable success as an actress. She wrote plays, poems, and novels, showing great facility in composition. Mr. Mowatt having been dead some years, she married, in 1854, Mr. Ritchie, editor of the Richmond (Va.) Enquirer. They passed some time in Europe; but he returned home, and left her there. She died at Twickenham, on the Thames-having endeared herself to many distinguished persons by her intellectual gifts, and her activity in all good and charitable works. Mary Howitt wrote of her: "How excellent in character, how energetic, unselfish, devoted, is this interesting woman!" She wrote "The Autobiography of an Actress," which had a large sale; also "Pelayo, a Poem," published by the Messrs. Harper.

TO A BELOVED ONE.

A wish to my lips never sprung,

A hope in my eyes never shone,

But ere it was breathed by my tongue, To grant it thy footsteps have flown.

Thy joys they have ever been mine,

Thy sorrows too often thine own; The sun that on me still would shine, O'er thee threw its shadows alone.

Life's garland then let us divide,

Its roses I'd fain see thee wear

For once-but I know thou wilt chideAh! leave me its thorns, love, to bear.

Mrs. Anne (Lynch) Botta.

AMERICAN.

Miss Anne Charlotte Lynch was born about 1820, in Bennington, Vt. - the daughter of a gallant Irishman, who, having partaken in the rebellion of 1798, was banished from his native country. She was educated in Albany. A handsomely illustrated volume of her poems was published in 1848. She is the author of a valuable “Hand-book of Universal Literature," and has contributed largely to periodical literature. She was married in 1855 to Vincenzo Botta (born 1818), Professor of Italian Literature in the University of the City of New York, and a relative of Charles Botta, who wrote a history of the American Revolution.

LOVE WINS LOVE.

Go forth in life, O friend, not seeking love,
A mendicant that with imploring eye
And outstretched hand asks of the passer-by
The alms his strong necessities may move:—
For such poor love, to pity near allied,
Thy generous spirit may not stoop and wait,—
A suppliant whose prayer may be denied
Like a spurned beggar's at a palace gate;-
But thy heart's affluence lavish, uncontrolled;
The largess of thy love give full and free,
As monarchs in their progress scatter gold;
And be thy heart like the exhaustless sea,
That must its wealth of cloud and dew bestow,
Though tributary streams or ebb or flow.

IN THE ADIRONDACKS.

O clouds and winds and streams, that go your

way,

Obedient to fulfil a high behest,
Unquestioning, without or haste or rest,-
Your only law to be and to obey,—
O all ye beings of the earth and air
That people these primeval solitudes,
Where never doubt nor discontent intrudes,-
In your divine accordance let me share;
Lift from my soul this burden of unrest,
Take me to your companionship; teach me
The lesson of your rhythmic lives; to be
At one with the great All, and in my breast
Silence this voice, that asks forever "why,
And whence, and where ?"-unanswerable cry!

THE LESSON OF THE BEE.

The honey-bee that wanders all day long
The field, the woodland, and the garden o'er,
To gather in his fragrant winter store,
Humming in calm content his quiet song,
Seeks not alone the rose's glowing breast,
The lily's dainty cup, the violet's lips,
But from all rank and noxious weeds he sips
The single drop of sweetness closely pressed
Within the poison chalice. Thus, if we
Seek only to draw forth the hidden sweet
In all the varied human flowers we meet
In the wide garden of humanity,
And, like the bee, if home the spoil we bear,
Hived in our hearts it turns to nectar there.

fore, and has great philosophical, religious, and psycho

Mrs. Cross, whose maiden name was Marian C. Evans, was born in Warwickshire, England, in 1820. She united herself informally to George Henry Lewes, an eminent English philosophical writer (1817-1878), who was separated from his wife, but, on account of legal obstacles, not regularly divorced. About two years after the death of Lewes she married (1880) Mr. Cross, her financial agent, said to be about twenty years her junior. As Miss Evans she translated Feuerbach and Strauss, both atheistic writers. Under the pseudonyme of George Eliot, she published "Scenes of Clerical Life" (1858); "Adam Bede" (1859); "The Mill on the Floss" (1860); "Silas Marner" (1861); “Romola " (1863); “Felix Holt" (1866); "Middlemarch" (1871); "Daniel Deronda" (1876). Of poetry she has published "The Spanish Gypsy" (1868), a drama in blank verse, interspersed with short lyrical pieces; "The Legend of Jubal, and other Poems." Her reputation as a novelist far exceeds what she has won by her poetry. That lacks spontaneity, and she does not reach the art to conceal art. The following often-quoted passage, in which, with an artificial show of enthusiasm, she attempts to glorify the aspiration to an immortality of mortal influence, as if it were a desideratum superior to that of immortal life (belief in which she rejects), is a proof of the way in which she has made the intellect dominate the natural affections and emotions of the heart of humanity:

"Oh, may I join the choir invisible

Of those immortal dead who live again

In minds made better by their presence; live

In pulses stirred to generosity,

In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn

Of miserable aims that end with self,

In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,
And with their mild persistence urge men's minds
To vaster issues.-So to live is heaven;

To make undying music in the world,
Breathing a beauteous order that controls
With growing sway the growing life of man.

That better self shall live till human Time
Shall fold its eyelids, and the human sky
Be gathered like a scroll within the tomb,
Unread forever.-This is life to come,-
Which martyred men have made more glorious
For us, who strive to follow. May I reach
That purest heaven,-be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony,
Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty,
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,
And in diffusion evermore intense!

So shall I join the choir invisible,

Whose music is the gladness of the world."

The real sentiment of these lines is, that the good influences, which a man may posthumously shed on the human generations, form the true, the desirable, the unselfish, and the only real immortality. Were not the meaning subtly disguised in the gush of a forced enthusiasm, the passage would hardly have the effect of poetry upon the mind that craves reunion with loved ones gone be

in Harper's Magazine aptly remarks: "The philosophy is a pitiful and painful one. Were it truth, it still would not be poetry; there is in it nothing inspiring: no rhythmical attire, no poetic ornament, can redeem it from its essential coldness and lifelessness. In depicting the known and the present, George Eliot is almost without a peer. In attempting to soar into the unseen and unknown, she fails. To her there is, in truth, no unseen, no unknown."

DAY IS DYING.

FROM "THE SPANISH GYPSY."

Day is dying! Float, O song, Down the westward river, Requiems chanting to the DayDay, the mighty Giver.

Pierced by shafts of Time, he bleeds,
Melted rubies sending
Through the river and the sky,

Earth and heaven blending;

All the long-drawn earthy banks
Up to cloud-land lifting;
Slow between them drifts the swan,
"Twixt two heavens drifting.

Wings half open, like a flower

July deeper flushing,

Neck and breast as virgin's pure

Virgin proudly blushing.

Day is dying! Float, O swan,
Down the ruby river;
Follow, song, in requiem
To the mighty Giver.

Maturin M. Ballon.

AMERICAN.

Ballou, the son of Hosea Ballou, a distinguished Universalist clergyman, was born in Boston in 1820. He was fitted for Harvard College, and passed his examination, but did not enter. His tastes led him to an editorial career. He became connected with the Olive Branch, a flourishing weekly paper, in 1838. From that time to the present, excepting his visits to Europe, he has not lost his connection with the Press a single week. He is the author of "The Treasury of Thought," Biography of Hosea Ballou," "The History of Cuba," etc. He has also exhibited, in his short lyrical pieces, a marked taste for poetry.

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