'Tis all to gain a little sum

To bear me o'er the sea ; And hither slowly I am come

To ask your charity.

My home is in the Valteline,

Far inland from the main ; And every day I wish and pine

To see it once again.

I cannot mend this little store ;

My wishing is in vain ;
And I shall ne'er behold it more,

Ah never, ne'er again !

If you have ever been abroad,

Bestow an alms on me! And think you speed me on my road

My native land to see.

My cot still rises to my view,

And will not let me stay ; But I am old, and alms are few,

And long is the delay!

And must I ever thus deplore

My labour spent in vain ?
And shall I ne'er behold it more?

Ah never, ne'er again!

Your country is a pleasant land,

But, oh, it is not mine!
I have not here a kindred band

As in the Valteline.

When on my native hills I play'd,

I breathed not English air ;

I did not love an English maid

When love was all my care.

· But I must die on England's strand,

A prisoner of the main !
And ne'er behold my native land,

Ah, never, ne'er again!

“I am also well pleased with another short poem, which, without being very lofty in the style, is very animated in the conception, and full of lyrical energy."

ODE TO PATRIOTISM.
O thou who didst thy vigils keep,
On lonely tower or heath-clad steep,
Watching the midnight beacon's blaze,
That, streaming to the warrior's gaze,
Told him the invading foe was near,
And bade him grasp the Scottish spear ;
O, welcome to this heart again !
Welcome ! with all thy radiant train,
Valour with Friendship by his side,
Domestic Love with pinions tied,
And Poesy, the wild and free,
Sweet child of Sympathy and thee !
Too long a stranger to thy shrine,
And heedless of thy songs divine,
I follow'd shadows, false though fair,
That beckoning through the misty air,
Drew me, unwilling and afraid,
To desert paths of deepest shade.
Yet not bereft of thee, sweet Power !
For still, from thine and Virtue's bower,
Thou follow’dst on the devious track,
Suppliant to win thy votary back ;

And oft, when slumber seal'd mine eyes,
Thou bad'st a pictured vision rise,
My country's image, fair exprest,
A blooming maid in antique vest;
Such as to Burns his Coila stood,
When smiling in the portal rude,
She caught her poet's startled eye,
Half-closed in musing ecstasy.
Roused by her danger, lo! I burn ;
Visions of childhood, ye return,
When wand'ring by the wonted stream,
Sacred to Fancy's wildest dream,
I conn'd your lays, ye bards of old,
Simple and rude, yet strong and bold.
What rushing tremors thrilld my frame,
When he, the chief of glorious name,
Who thrice the Scottish standard rear'd,
While sceptred tyrants saw and fear’d,
Rose to my view in awful might,
Trampling the proud oppressor's flight ;
Or, as with dust and wounds o'erspread,
When faithful ranks retreating bled,
Alone he check'd the foe's career,
And waved his wide-protecting spear !
O thou ! in Danger's bosom nurst,
Wallace ! of Scottish heroes first ;*
A warrior raised by Heaven's command :
Hail! guardian genius of the land;
For still thy martial spirit reigns,
Still hovers o'er these hills and plains,
Even in the rude unletter'd hynd,
Breathing the firm undaunted mind.
O, never shall thy glories die ;
But still thy name, emblazon'd high
On Scotia’s bright historic scroll,
Shall Kindle on the Patriot's soul.

First on the lisping infant's tongue ;
Still to the harp by minstrels sung ;
And still, O destiny sublime !
Lightning, to the remotest time,
Shall rouse thy country's sleeping fire,
The watch-word of her vengeful ire,
When hostile feet shall dare to tread
The ashes of her mighty dead.
Such meed is thine, immortal maid !
To whom my contrite vows are paid.

“ But here is a sweet and pleasing effusion. It becomes pathetic by the sorrow that we feel in remembering the author. All of his, we trust, shall not die.”

THE POET TO HIS WORKS.
FLOWERS born beneath a wintry sky,

When shall ye burst the envious shade?
Or, like the bard, fore-doom'd to die,

Unseen, unhonour'd, must ye fade?

Yet droop not hopeless round his urn,

Untimely though your blossoms fall,
Await with him the year's return,

For you nor he shall perish all.

Sprung through a crevice of the tomb,

A solitary stem may blow,
Gay orphan of the silent gloom,

And point the humble name below.

Some simple, unambitious strain,

Low breathed in beauty's pensive ear,
The soft complaint of tender pain,

Framed in the flowing of a tear ;

The poet's pure immortal part,

From all unhallow'd dross refined,
Shall live in many a gentle heart,

The heaven of a poetic mind.

CHAP. XI.

MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS.

" THE Russians," said Egeria one morning, as she was turning carefully over the leaves of several books which happened to be lying on the table, 6 seem to me to hold a place, in their habits, manners, and pursuits, between the Europeans and Asiatics. They have a great deal of the intelligence, the activity, and the shrewdness of the former, with no small degree of the cunning, the pride, and the selfishness of the latter. Their taste for slaves and magnificence is quite oriental ; but they have social and convivial dispositions which do not belong to the Asiatics. The custom among the Muscovite nobility of keeping dwarfs is peculiar, I fancy, to themselves. Porter's account of these unfortunate little creatures is about one of the best things in his Travels in Russia and Sweden."

“ They are here the pages and the playthings of the great ; and at almost all entertainments stand for hours by their lord's chair, holding his snuff-box, or awaiting his commands. There is scarcely a nobleman in this country who is not possessed of one or more of these