but fear having certain proverbs thrown in All these the courtier would have asked, our teeth about enough being as good as a feast. "The royal sage-the Master of the Ring, A man of awful presence, but with face The stranger seemed, to judge him by his One of mean sort, a dweller with distress, Bespoke an inward greatness, and his Opened a page in a tremendous book. That ventured thus to beard such privacy; Palsied his utterance as the man drew near. THE MEETING. BITTER was the tale I dreaded, Long it was since any tidings Reached me wandering o'er the wave, did crave Though the melancholy answer I had left three little children From the broken hopes below? I had left an angel woman And I sought the well-loved cottage, Then I entered, and she knew me, Midnight watchings, pain, alarms. P. S. WORSLEY. PROGRESS. THE broad advances of material power, Steady and chill, from some waste wilderness, Which forcibly found words within my breast : Still we suffer wrongs untold, Robbed of peace and joy and health, For the rich man's greed of wealth. Say it shall not be for ever! Vainly doth the poor man groan, Where to sleep at rest for ever! Shall there not deep vengeance fall In a people's heaviness? These iniquities for ever! O would that all men who have eyes to see, Where lies the one hope of the groaning earth! Who point the scope of elemental Right; Who make the rough ways smooth, the crooked straight; And on a secret anvil, hour by hour, STRENGTH. IN strength there ever dwells of right Carves out a crown by kingly work, To wrong, or questionable act, And Faith becomes the slave of Fact. Yet is it an effeminate thing, A woman-weakness, still to crave For works that make the world to ring, Or setting up some idol-king For violence pronounce him brave. Are they who through the stormy length Who, reddened to the brows with strife, P. S. WORSLEY. Who sheathed the sword when peace might be, Envy detects no fatal stain; Men of a perfect mould; and such, Who knew themselves and knew their time, We cannot honour over-much In story or in rhyme. Strong is the statesman who can wield Teach its blind passions how to yield, Yet greater oft is ill success- Sneering at all that makes us men, Cursed with contemnings of the Past; Who think the breath they breathe their own, This is the noblest strength to seek, And fadeless still the crown remains, Which once He wore who, strongly weak, On Calvary was wrung with pains. To suffer, and without complaint, Makes grandeur more divine than all ; To wither in a dark disgrace Which half a word might wipe away, Because the half-word that would change O wide and elevated range Of hearts to worthy interests wed! P. S. WORSLEY. NORMAN SINCLAIR. AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. PART IX. CHAPTER XXIX.-A MYSTERIOUS ADVERTISEMENT. "MY DEAR LAD"- thus wrote Mr Shearaway-" I was truly glad to receive tidings of you, and more especially from your own hand. For though you have been long away from us, you are by no means forgotten, at least by me; and I have often caught myself wondering, when I ought to have been doing something else (possibly attending to a sermon), what on earth had become of Norman Sinclair, the steadiest lad I ever had in hand, but also the queerest in so far as regarded his notions for the future. For a time I heard something about you from your old guardian, Ned Mather; but he became tired of Edinburgh, where his acquaintances were gradually dying out, and about three years ago settled down in some remote part of Galloway, where good fishing is to be had, since when he has given no token of existence. I always thought that you would make a spoon or spoil a horn (which, by the way, is but a stupid proverb, because if you don't make a spoon, the horn of course must be spoiled); but you know very well what I mean; and I really am delighted to hear that you have got on so well, and prophesy even better things for the time to come. "With regard to that poor demented creature, Jamie Littlewoo, it will be my duty to tell his father what you have communicated, and to concert measures for saving the idiot from absolute ruin. I am the more bound to do this, because it was partly through my advice that he was sent to London, for giving which I am now like to eat my fingers from vexation. But I did it all for the best. We could make nothing of him here. He could neither settle down in the office, nor study for the bar, but took up with idle officers and dissipated ne'erdoweels, of whom it can hardly be said that they were fruges consumere nati, seeing that, for the most part, they subsisted entirely upon drink. What could we do with a lad who would neither read nor work, and never came home to his bed until three o'clock in the morning? I thought the best thing was to send him away from such graceless company, and to get him a situation where, at all events, he would be compelled to attend for certain hours; but it would seem from your account that he has louped from the fryingpan into the fire, and got into the hands of the Jews, for whose conversion I would sincerely pray, and even cheerfully subscribe, if I thought that on becoming Christians they would cease to be discounters of bills. Mr Littlewoo must just make up his mind to advance whatever is necessary to clear his gowk of a son. His case is a hard one, for I don't think he has saved much, having an expensive family. What with dinners and balls and pic-nics (in spite of which none of the Misses have got married), they must have muddled away an awful deal of money. I know I should not like to have to pay the haberdasher's account for the last twelvemonth. "It will not be necessary that I should write to James Littlewoo immediately, as I expect to be in London in the course of a fortnight, when I shall ascertain the amount of his liabilities, and consider how they may be discharged. I should not have thought of coming to London at this season of the year, but, like every one else, I have got mixed up in railway matters, and have to look after the interests of some clients, in a bill which is now depending in Parliament. This railway mania is the most extraordinary movement that I can recollect. It has taken possession of well-nigh everybody in Edinburgh. Advocates, writers, doctors, citizens, |