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upon the dark mould, or scorching dust-pastures beside the pacing brooks-soft banks and knolls of lowly hills— thymy slopes of down overlooked by the blue line of lifted sea-crisp lawns all dim with early dew, or smooth in evening warmth of barred sunshine, dinted by happy feet, and softening in their fall the sound of loving voices: all these are summed in those simple words; and these are not all. We may not measure to the full the depth of this heavenly gift in our own land; though still, as we think of it longer, the infinite of that meadow sweetness, Shakspeare's peculiar joy, would open on us more and more, yet we have it but in part. Go out, in the spring time, among the meadows that slope from the shores of the Swiss lakes to the roots of their lower mountains. There, mingled with the taller gentians and the white narcissus, the grass grows deep and free; and as you follow the winding mountain paths, beneath arching boughs all veiled and dim with blossom-paths that for ever droop and rise over the green banks and mounds sweeping down in scented undulation, steep to the blue water, studded here and there with new-mown heaps, filling all the air with fainter sweetness-look up towards the higher hills, where the waves of everlasting green roll silently into their long inlets among the shadows of the pines; and we may, perhaps, at last know the meaning of those quiet words of the 147th Psalm, "He maketh grass to grow upon the mountains."

There are also several lessons symbolically connected with this subject, which we must not allow to escape us. Observe, the peculiar characters of the grass, which adapt it especially for the service of man, are its apparent humility and cheerfulness. Its humility, in that it seems created only for lowest service-appointed to be trodden on, and fed upon. Its cheerfulness, in that it seems to exult under all kinds of violence and suffering. You roll it, and it is stronger the next day; you mow it, and it multiplies its shoots, as if it were grateful; you tread upon it, and it only sends up richer perfume. Spring comes, and it rejoices with all the earth-glowing with variegated flame of flowers

-waving in soft depth of fruitful strength. Winter comes, and though it will not mock its fellow plants by growing then, it will not pine and mourn, and turn colourless or leafless as they. It is always green; and is only the brighter and gayer for the hoar-frost.

RUSKIN.

JOHN KITTO.

[HUGH MILLER, one of the most remarkable men that Scotland has produced, was born at Cromarty in 1802. On leaving the parish school he became a stonemason. In 1828 he published a volume of "Poems by a Stone-Mason," which eventually led to his being appointed accountant in a branch-bank in his native town. He remained, however, comparatively obscure till 1839, when his letter to Lord Brougham on the Free Church question brought him under the notice of the leaders of the Non-intrusion party, who established the "Witness" newspaper as the organ of their views, and appointed Mr. Miller the editor. His contributions to that journal have been published as "The Old Red Sandstone," and "My Schools and Schoolmasters." He also wrote the "Foot Prints of the Creator," and had just completed for the press his "Testimony of the Rocks," when, in a paroxysm of insanity, he put an end to his life in 1856. He holds the first rank as an English author for the beauty, vigour, and purity of his style.]

It is now nearly forty years since an operative mason, somewhat dissipated in his habits, and a little boy, his son, who had completed his twelfth year only a few weeks previous, were engaged in repairing a tall, ancient domicile, in one of the humbler streets of Plymouth. The mason was employed in relaying some of the roofing; the little boy, who acted as his labourer, was busied in carrying up slates and lime along a long ladder; the afternoon was slowly wearing through, and the sun hastening to its setting; in little more than half-an-hour both father and son would have been set free from their labours for the evening; when the boy, in what promised to be one of his concluding journeys roofwards for the day, missed footing just as he was stepping on the eaves, and was precipitated on a stone pavement thirty-five feet below. Light and slim, he fared better than an adult would have done in the circumstances; but he was deprived of all sense and recollection by the fearful shock, and save that he saw for a moment the gathering crowd, and found himself carried homewards in the arms of his father, a fortnight

elapsed ere he awoke to consciousness. When he came to himself in his father's house, it was his first impression that he had outslept his proper time for rising-it was broad daylight, and there were familiar forms round his bed. He next, however, found himself grown so weak, that he could scarce move his head on the pillow; and was then struck by the profound silence that prevailed around him-a silence which seemed all the more extraordinary from the circumstance that he could see the lips of his friends in motion, and ascertain from their gestures, that they were addressing him. But the riddle was soon read. The boy, in his terrible fall, had broken no bone, nor had any of the vital organs received serious injury; but his sense of hearing was gone for ever; and for the remainder of the half-century which was to be his allotted term on earth, he was never to hear more. Knowledge at one entrance was shut out for ever. As is common, too, in such circumstances, the organs of speech became affected. His voice assumed a hollow, sepulchral tone, and his enunciation became less and less distinct, until at length he could scarce be understood by even his most familiar friends. For almost all practical purposes he became dumb as well as deaf.

Unable, too, any longer to assist in the labours of his dissipated father, he had a sore struggle for his existence, which terminated in his admission into the poor-house of the place as a pauper. And in the workhouse he was set to make list-shoes, under the superintendence of the beadle. He was a well-conditioned, docile, diligent little mute, and made on the average about a pair and a half of shoes per week, for which he received from the manager, in recognition of his well-doing, a premium of a weekly penny-a very important sum to the poor little deaf pauper. Darker days were, however, yet in store for him; he was not a little teased and persecuted by the idle children in the workhouse, who made sport of his infirmity; his grandmother, to whom he was devotedly attached, and with whom he had lived previous to his accident, was taken from him by death; and to sum up his unhappiness at this time, he was apprenticed

by the workhouse to a Plymouth shoemaker-a brutal and barbarous wretch, who treated him with the most ruthless indignity and cruelty, threw shoes at his head, boxed him on the ears, slapped him on the face, and even struck him with the broad-faced hammer used in the trade.

Suddenly, however, this dire tyranny came to a close. A few excellent men connected with the management of the workhouse had been struck by the docility and intelligence of the young mute. One of them, Mr. Burnard, a gentleman who still survives, struck by his powers of thought and expression, had furnished him with themes on which to write. He had shown him attention and kindness, and the lad naturally turned to him as a friend and protector. And, stating his case to him by letter, the good man not only got him relieved from the dire thraldom of his tyrannical master, but, by interesting a few friends in his behalf, secured for him the leisure necessary to prosecute his studies. For even when his circumstances were most deplorable, the little deaf and dumb boy had been dreaming of making himself a name in letters, by producing books which even the learned would not despise. And by means of a liberal subscription, he was now enabled to go on reading and writing withwonderful change for him whose premium pence used to be all spent in the purchase of little volumes-the whole volumes of a subscription library at his command.

Depressed as his circumstances had hitherto been, and little favourable apparently to the development of mind, they were yet not without their peculiar balance of advantage. Lads born deaf and dumb rarely master in after life the grammar of the language; for though they acquire a knowledge of the words which express qualities and sentiments, or which represent things, they seem unable to attain to the right use of those important particles-adverbs, conjunctions, and prepositions-which, as the smaller stones in a wall serve to keep the larger ones in their places, give in speech or writing order and coherency to the others. But the deaf lad had not been born deaf-he had read and conversed, and even attempted composition, previous to his

accident; so that his grandmother could boast of the selftaught boy, not without some shadow of truth, that her "Johnnie was the best scholar in all Plymouth." And now, writing having become his easiest and most ready mode of communication-the speech by which he communicated his ideas-he had attained to a facility in the use of the pen, and a command of English, far from common among even university bred youths, his seniors by several years. He had acquired, too, the ability of looking at things very intently. It has been well said by the poct,

"That oft, when one sense is suppressed,

It but retires into the rest."

And it would seem as if the hearing of this deaf lad had retreated into his eyes-which were ever after to exercise a double portion of the seeing function. All this, however, could not be at once understood by his friends; there seemed to be but few openings through which the poor deaf and dumb lad could be expected to make his way to independence, and what is termed respectability; and it was suggested that he should set himself to acquire the art of the common printer, and attach himself to a mission of the English church still, we believe, stationed in Malta, that sends forth from its press many useful little books, chiefly for distribution in the East.

Accordingly, in a comparatively short time, the deaf lad did acquire the art of the common printer-nay, more, he became skilful in setting the Arabic character; and, having a decided turn for acquiring languages, though unable to speak them, he promised, judging from his mechanical and linguistic abilities, to be a useful operative to the Missionary. Unfortunately, however, for such was the estimate of the Mission's conductors, he was not content to be a mere operative; his instincts drew him strongly towards literature; and ere quitting England for Malta, he had such a quarrel on this score with some very excellent men, that he threw up his situation, which however, through the mediation of kind friends, he was again induced and enabled to resume.

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