THOMAS HOOD.

W

E watch'd her breathing thro' the night,

Her breathing soft and low,
As in her breast the wave of life

Kept heaving to and fro.

So silently we seem'd to speak,

So slowly moved about,
As we had lent her half our powers

To eke her living out.

Our very hopes belied our fears,

Our fears our hopes belied-
We thought her dying when she slept,

And sleeping when she died.

For when the morn came dim and sad,

And chill with early showers,
Her quiet eyelids closed-she had

Another morn than ours.

VEN puns - the lowest form of wit,

become in his hands instruments of genuine humour and of deepest pathos.

His highest praise is that he ever jokes for noble ends. His very levities are directed to some generous and kindly purpose. He tempts men to laugh, and then leads them to pity and relieve.

JOSEPI ANGUS.

Oh, love divine that claspest our tired earth,
And cradlest it upon thy heart,
Thou know'st how much a gentle soul is worth,
To teach men what thou art.
His was a spirit that to all thy poor
Was kind as slumber after pain;
Why ope so soon thy heaven-deep Quiet's door
To call him home again.

J. R. LOWELL.

While men held both their sides from laughter, he who shook them held both his sides from pain; while tears, kindly or comical, came at the touch of his genius into thousands of eyes, eyes were watching and weeping by his bedside in the lonely night and taking note that the instrument was fast decaying which gave forth the enchantment and the charm of all this mirthful and melancholy music.

ANON.

The upright and unaffected reformer; the enemy to the death of malice, hatred, and all uncharitableness.

SHIRLEY.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

HE summer dawn's reflected hue
To purple changed Loch Katrine

blue :

Mildly and soft the western breeze
Just kissed the lake, just stirred the trees;
And the pleased lake, like maiden coy,
Trembled, but dimpled not, for joy;
The mountain-shadows on her breast
Were neither broken nor at rest;
In bright uncertainty they lie,
Like future joys to Fancy's eye.
The water-lily to the light
Her chalice reared of silver bright;
The doe awoke, and to the lawn,
Begemmed with dew-drops, led her fawn;

mist left the mountain side;
The torrent showed its glistening pride;
Invisible in flecked sky,
The lark sent down her revelry;
The blackbird and the speckled thrush
Good-morrow gave from brake and bush:
In answer cooed the cushat dove
Her notes of peace, and rest, and love.

The grey

a

T can be said of him ; when he departed

he took a man's life along with him. No sounder piece of British manhood was

put together in that eighteenth century of time. Alas, his fine Scotch face, with its shaggy honesty, sagacity and goodness, when we saw it latterly in the Edinburgh streets, was all worn with care, the joy all fled from it:--ploughed deep with labour and sorrow. We shall never forget it; we shall never see it again. Adieu, Sir Walter, pride of all Scotchmen, take our proud and sad farewell.

T. CARLYLE.

Scott is truly the Homer of Scotland. He has an unfailing sweetness of heart, full charged with the morality of the future. J. H. NEWMAN.

He discovered want of moral greatness in his unconsciousness of the holy purpose to which genius may always be consecrated, in his childish admiration of hereditary honours, and his incapacity of conceiving of a higher state of human nature and of society than now exists. He was the ideal of a man of the world—the highest, most attractive manifestation of that character which I have ever known.

W. E. CHANNING.

Throughout all his work there is no evidence of any purpose but to while away the hour. His life had no other object than the pleasure of the instant and the establishing of a family name.

JOHN RUSKIN.

DANTE.

ye

LL that pass along Love's trodden way,

Pause ye awhile and say,
If there be any grief like unto mine.
I
pray you that you

harken a short space
Patiently, if my case
Be not a piteous marvel and a sign.
Love (never certes for my worthless part
But of his own great heart)
Vouchsafed to me a life so calm and sweet,
That oft I heard folk question as I went,
What such great gladness meant;-
They spoke of it behind me in the street,
But now, that fearless bearing is all gone
Which with Love's hoarded wealth was given me,
Till I am grown to be
So poor

that I have dread to think thereon,
And thus it is that I, being like as one
Who is ashamed and hides his poverty,
Without, seem full of glee,
And let my heart within travail and moan.