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Magazine); Noctes Ambrosianæ (from Blackwood's Magazine), Phila., 1843, 4 vols. 12mo: new edition, with Memoirs and Notes by R. Shelton Mackenzie, D.C.L., New York, 1854, 5 vols. 12mo, 4th edit., 1857, 4 vols. 12mo, revised edit., 1863, 5 vols. sm. 8vo and 4to: edition by Professor Ferrier, Edin., 1855-56, 4 vols. cr. 8vo: being vols. i.-iv. of The Works of Professor Wilson, edited by his son-in-law, Professor Ferrier, Edin., 1855-58, 12 vols. cr. 8vo; Specimens of British Critics, Phila., 1846, 12mo (from Blackwood's Magazine); Dies Boreales, or, Christopher under Canvas, Phila., 1850, 12mo (from Blackwood's Magazine-incomplete). See Christopher North": A Memoir of John Wilson, etc., by his Daughter, Mrs. Gordon, Edin., 1862, 2 vols. cr. 8vo, new edit., 1863, 2 vols. cr. 8vo, with Preface by R. S. Mackenzie, D.C.L., New York, 1863, cr. 8vo, large paper, 100 copies, 4to."

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"His poetical powers are very varied, that is, he can handle any subject in its own peculiar spirit. Indeed, throughout all his smaller poems there is a deep feeling for nature; an intimate knowledge of the workings of the heart; and a liquid fluency of language almost lyrical."-ALLAN CUNNINGHAM: Biog, and Crit. Hist. of the Lit. of the Past Fifty Years, 1833.

"As to his poetry, I cannot say that it has been underrated,-I only say that it has been eclipsed by his splendid prose. But in The Isle of Palms and The City of the Plague, to say nothing of his smaller poems, there is much which the world will not willingly let die.' Scott, Southey,

and Wilson are men who, had they never written prose, would have stood higher among Poets than they do."-R. S. MACKENZIE, D.C.L.: Life of Professor Wilson, in his edition of the Noctes, ii., xxiv.

THE SNOW-STORM.

Where is Flora? Her lover has forgotten her, and he is alone-nor knows it-he and the red deer-an enormous animal, fast stiffening in the frost of death.

Some large flakes of snow are in the air, and they seem to waver and whirl, though an hour ago there was not a breath. Faster they fall and faster,-the flakes are almost as large as leaves; and overhead whence so suddenly has come that huge yellow cloud? "Flora, where are you? where are you, Flora?" and from the huge hide the boy leaps up, and sees that no Flora is at hand. But yonder is a moving speck, far off upon the snow. 'Tis she,-'tis she; and again Ronald turns his eyes upon the quarry, and the heart of the hunter burns within him like a newstirred fire. Shrill as the eagle's cry, disturbed in his eyry, he sends a shout down the glen, and Flora, with cheeks pale and bright by fits, is at last by his side. Panting and speechless she stands, and then dizzily sinks on his breast. Her hair is ruffled by

the wind that revives her, and her face all moistened by the snow-flakes, now not falling, but driven,-for the day has undergone a dismal change, and all over the sky are now lowering savage symptoms of a fastcoming night-storm.

Bare is poor Flora's head, and sorely drenched her hair, that an hour or two ago glittered in the sunshine. Her shivering frame misses now the warmth of the plaid, which almost no cold can penetrate, and which had kept the vital current flowing freely in many a bitter blast. What would the miserable boy give now for the coverings lying far away, which, in his foolish passion, he flung down to chase that fatal deer! "Oh, Flora! if you would not fear to stay here by yourself, under the protection of God, who surely will not forsake you, soon will I go and come from the place where our plaids are lying; and under the shelter of the deer we may be able to outlive the hurricane-you wrapped up in them—and folded, O my dearest sister, in my arms." "I will go with you down the glen, Ronald;" and she left his breast; but weak as a dayold lamb, tottered, and sank down on the snow. The cold-intense as if the air was ice-had chilled her very heart, after the heat of that long race; and it was manifest that here she must be for the night-to live or to die. And the night seemed already come, so full was the lift of snow; while the glimmer every moment became gloomier, as if the day were expiring long before its time. Howling at a distance down the glen was heard a sea-born tempest from the Linnhe Loch, where now they both knew the tide was tumbling in, bringing with it sleet and snow-blasts from afar; and from the opposite quarter of the sky an inland tempest was raging to meet it, while every lesser glen had its own uproar, so that on all hands they were environed with death.

"I will go, and, till I return, leave you with God." "Go, Ronald!" and he went and came, as if he had been endowed with the raven's wings.

Miles away and miles away had he flown, and an hour had not been with his going and his coming; but what a dreary wretchedness meanwhile had been hers! She feared that she was dying, that the cold snow-storm was killing her, and that she would never more see Ronald, to say to him Farewell. Soon as he was gone all her courage had died. Alone, she feared death, and wept to think how hard it was for one so young thus miserably to die. He came, and her whole being was changed. Folded up in both the plaids, she felt resigned.

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Oh! kiss me, kiss me, Ronald; for your love-great as it is-is not as my love. You

must never forget me, Ronald, when your poor Flora is dead."

Religion with these two young creatures was as clear as the light of the Sabbath-day,and their belief in heaven just the same as in earth. The will of God they thought of just as they thought of their parent's will, -and the same was their living obedience to its decrees. If she was to die, supported now by the presence of her brother, Flora was utterly resigned; if she was to live, her heart imagined to itself the very forms of her grateful worship. But all at once she closed her eyes, she ceased breathing, and, as the tempest howled and rumbled in the gloom that fell around them like blindness, Ronald almost sunk down, thinking that she was dead.

"Wretched sinner that I am! my wicked madness brought her here to die of cold!" And he smote his breast, and tore his hair, and feared to look up, lest the angry eye of God were looking on him through the storm. All at once, without speaking a word, Ronald lifted Flora in his arms, and walked away up the glen, here almost narrowed into a pass. Distraction gave him supernatural strength, and her weight seemed that of a child. Some walls of what had once been a house, he had suddenly remembered, were but a short way off; whether or not they had any roof he had forgotten, but the thought even of such a shelter seemed a thought of salvation. There it was,-a snow-drift at the opening that had once been a door,-snow up the holes once windows, the wood of the roof had been carried off for fuel, and the snow-flakes were falling in, as if they would soon fill up the inside of the ruin. The snow in front was all trampled, as by sheep; and carrying in his burden under the low lintel, he saw the place was filled with a flock that had foreknown the hurricane, and that, all huddled together, looked on him as on the shepherd, come to see how they were faring in the

storm.

And a young shepherd he was, with a lamb apparently dying in his arms. All colour, all motion, all breath seemed to be gone; and yet something convinced his heart that she was yet alive. The ruined hut was roofless, but across an angle of the walls some pine-branches had been flung, as a sort of shelter for the sheep or cattle that might repair thither in cruel weather, -some pine-branches left by the wood-cutters who had felled the yew-trees that once stood at the very head of the glen. Into that corner the snow-drift had not yet forced its way, and he sat down there, with Flora in the cherishing of his embrace, hoping that the warmth of his distracted heart might be

felt by her, who was as cold as a corpse. The chill air was somewhat softened by the breath of the huddled flock, and the edge of the cutting wind blunted by the stones. It was a place in which it seemed possible that she might revive, miserable as it was with the mire-mixed snow, and almost as cold as one supposes the grave. And she did revive, and under the half-open lids the dim blue appeared to be not yet life-deserted. It was yet but the afternoon,-night-like though it was, -and he thought, as he breathed upon her lips, that a faint red returned, and that they felt the kisses he dropt on them to drive death away.

"Oh! father, go seek for Ronald, for I dreamt to-night that he was perishing in the

snow.

"Flora, fear not,-God is with us." "Wild swans, they say, are come to Loch Phoil. Let us go, Ronald, and see them; but no rifle,--for why kill creatures said to be so beautiful?" Over them where they lay bended down the pine-branch roof, as if it would give way beneath the increasing weight: but there it still hung, though the drift came over their feet, and up to their knees, and seemed stealing upwards to be their shroud. "Oh! I am overcome with drowsiness, and fain would be allowed to sleep. Who is disturbing me-and what noise is this in our house?" "Fear not. fear not, Flora,-God is with us." "Mother! am I lying in your arms? My father surely is not in the storm. Oh, I have had a most dreadful dream!" and with such mutterings as these Flora again relapsed into that perilous sleep which soon becomes that of death.

Night itself came, but Flora and Ronald knew it not; and both lay motionless in one snow-shroud. Many passions, though earth-born, heavenly all,-pity, and grief, and love, and hope, and at last despair, had prostrated the strength they had so long supported; and the brave boy-who had been for some time feeble as a very child after a fever, with a mind confused and wandering, and in its perplexities sore afraid of some nameless ill-had submitted to lay down his head beside his Flora's, and had soon become, like her, insensible to the night and all its storms.

Bright was the peat fire in the hut of Flora's parents in Glencoe, and they were among the happiest of the humble, happy, blessing this the birthday of their blameless child. They thought of her, singing her sweet songs by the fireside of the hut in Glencreran, and tender thoughts of her cousin Ronald were with them in their prayers. No warning came to their ears in the sigh or the howl; for fear it is that creates its own ghosts, and all its own ghost-like visitings; and they had seen their Flora, in

the meekness of the morning, setting forth on her way over the quiet mountains, like a fawn to play. Sometimes too, Love, who starts at shadows as if they were of the grave, is strangely insensible to realities that might well inspire dismay. So it was now with the dwellers in the hut at the head of Glencreran. Their Ronald had left them in the morning,-night had come, and he and Flora were not there, but the day had been almost like a summer day, and in their infatuation they never doubted that the happy creatures had changed their minds, and that Flora had returned with him to Glencoe. Ronald had laughingly said, that haply he might surprise the people in that glen by bringing back to them Flora on her Birthday, and strange though it afterwards seemed to her to be-that belief prevented one single fear from touching his mother's heart, and she and her husband that night lay down in untroubled sleep.

And what could have been done for them, had they been told by some good or evil spirit that their children were in the clutches of such a night? As well seek for a single bark in the middle of the misty main! But the inland storm had been seen brewing among the mountains round King's-House, and hut had communicated with hut, though far apart in regions where the traveller sees no symptoms of human life. Down through the long cliff-pass of Mealanumy, between Buchael-Etive and the Black Mount, towards the lone house of Dalness, that lies in the everlasting shadows, went a band of shep. herds, trampling their way across a hundred frozen streams. Dalness joined its strength, and then away over the drift-bridged chasms toiled that gathering, with their sheep-dogs scouring the loose snows in the van, Fingal, the Red Reaver, with his head aloft on the look-out for deer, grimly eying the corrie where last he tasted blood. All "plaided in their tartan array," these shepherds laughed at the storm,-and hark, you hear the bagpipe play,-the music the Highlands love both in war and in peace.

"They think then of the owrie cattle,
And silly sheep."

And though they ken 'twill be a moonless night, for the snow-storm will sweep her out of heaven,-up the mountain and down the glen they go, marking where flock and herd have betaken themselves, and now, at midfall, unafraid of that blind hollow, they descend into the depth where once stood the old grove of pines. Following their dogs, who know their duties in their instinct, the band, without seeing it, are now close to that ruined hut. Why bark the sheep-dogs so, and why howls Fingal, as

if some spirit passed athwart the night? He scents the dead body of the boy who so often had shouted him on in the forest when the antlers went by! Not dead-nor dead she who is on his bosom. Yet life in both frozen,—and will the red blood in their veins ever again be thawed? Almost pitch dark is the roofless ruin; and the frightened sheep know not what is that terrible shape that is howling there. But a man enters, and lifts up one of the bodies, giving it into the arms of those at the doorway, and then lifts up the other; and by the flash of a rifle they see that it is Ronald Cameron and Flora Macdonald, seemingly both frozen to death. Some of those reeds that the shepherds burn in their huts are kindled, and in that small light they are assured that such are the corpses. But that noble dog knows that death is not there, and licks the face of Ronald, as if he would restore life to his eyes. Two of the shepherds know well how to fold the dying in their plaids,-how gentlest to carry them along; for they had learnt it on the field of victorious battle, when, without stumbling over the dead and wounded, they bore away the shattered body, yet living, of the youthful warrior, who had shown that of such a clan he was worthy to be the chief.

The storm was with them all the way down the glen; nor could they have heard each other's voices had they spoke; but mutely they shifted the burden from strong hand to hand, thinking of the hut in Glencoe, and of what would be felt there on their arrival with the dying or the dead. Blind people walk through what to them is the night of crowded day-streets, unpausing turn round corners, unhesitating plunge down steep stairs, wind their way fearlessly through whirlwinds of fire, and reach in their serenity, each one unharmed, his own obscure house. For God is with the blind. So He is with all who walk on ways of mercy. This saving band had no fear, therefore there was no danger, on the edge of the pitfall or the cliff. They knew the countenances of the mountains, shown momentarily by ghastly gleamings through the fitful night, and the hollow sound of each particular stream beneath the snow, at places where in other weather there was a pool or a water-fall. The dip of the hills, in spite of the drifts, familiar to their feet, did not deceive them now; and then the dogs, in their instinct, were guides that erred not: and as well as the shepherds knew it themselves, did Fingal know that they were anxious to reach Glencoe. Ie led the way as if he were in moonlight; and often stood still when they were shifting their burden, and whined as if in grief. He knew where the bridges were, stones or logs;

and he rounded the marshes where at springs the wild fowl feed. And thus instinct, and reason, and faith conducted the saving band along, and now they are at Glencoe, and at the door of the hut.

To life were brought the dead; and there, at midnight, sat they up like ghosts. Strange seemed they for a while to each other's eyes, and at each other they looked as if they had forgotten how dearly once they loved. Then, as if in holy fear, they gazed in each other's faces, thinking that they had awoke together in heaven. "Flora!" said Ronald; and that sweet word, the first he had been able to speak, reminded him of all that had passed, and he knew that the God in whom they had put their trust had sent them deliverance. Flora, too, knew her parents, who were on their knees; and she strove to rise up and kneel down beside them, but she was powerless as a broken reed; and when she thought to join with them in thanksgiving, her voice was gone. Still as death sat all the people in the hut, and one or two who were fathers were not ashamed to weep. Recreations of Christopher North.

HENRY KIRKE WHITE, the son of a butcher in Nottingham, England, and born in that town 1785, after some experience as a butcher's boy, stocking-loom labourer, and attorney's apprentice, became late in 1804 a sizar of St. John's College, Cambridge, where he studied (chiefly with a view to the ministry) with such injudicious zeal that he died in 1806. He published Clifton Grove: a Sketch in Verse, with other Poems, London, 1803, crown 8vo; after his death Robert Southey gave to the world The Remains of Henry Kirke White, etc., with an Account of his Life, London, 1807, 2 vols. 8vo; and many editions of the Remains, and his Poetical Works and Letters, have been issued in England and America. "Chatterton is the only youthful poet whom he

does not leave far behind him. . . . I have inspected all the existing manuscripts of Chatterton, and they excited less wonder than these."-ROBERT SOUTHEY: Account of White.

received; and "all about it," as we say in these parts. I hope to see it when I see its author and pronouncer. Themistocles, no doubt, received due praise from you for his valour and subtlety, but I trust you poured down a torrent of eloquent indignation upon the ruling principles of his actions, and the motive of his conduct; while you exalted the mild and unassuming virtues of his more amiable rival. The object of Themistocles was the aggrandizement of himself; that of Aristides the welfare and prosperity of the state. The one endeavoured to swell the glory of his country; the other to promote its security, external and internal, foreign and domestic. While you estimated the services which Themistocles rendered to the state, in opposition to those of Aristides, you of course remembered that the former had the largest scope for action, and that he influenced his countrymen to fall into all his plans, while they banished his competitor, not by his superior wisdom or goodness, but by those in trigues and factious artifices which Aristides would have disdained. Themistocles certainly did use bad means to a desirable end, and if we may assume it as an axiom that Providence will forward the designs of a good, sooner than those of a bad man, whatever inequality of abilities there may be between the two characters, it will follow that had Athens remained under the guidance of Aristides, it would have been better for her. The difference between Themistocles and Aristides seems to me to be this: That the former was a wise and a fortunate man; and that the latter, though he had equal wisdom, had not equal good fortune. We may admire the heroic qualities and the crafty policy of the one, but to the temperate and disinterested patriotism, the good and virtuous dispositions of the other, we can alone give the meed of heart-felt praise.

I mean only by this, that we must not infer Themistocles to have been the better or the greater man, because he rendered more essential services to the state than Aristides, nor even that his system was the most judicious, but only that, by decision of character, and by good fortune, his measures suc

ceeded best.

"What an amazing reach of genius appears in The rules of composition are, in my opin the Remains of Kirke White'! How unfortunate 6 that he should have been lost to the world almost ion, very few. If we have a mature acas soon as known! I greatly lament the circum-quaintance with our subject, there is little

stances that forced him to studies so contrary to his natural talent."-SIR S. E. BRYDGES: Censuria Literaria, ix. 393.

fear of our expressing it as we ought, provided we have had some little experience in writing. The first thing to be aimed at is

ON THEMISTOCLES, ARISTIDES, AND COMPO- perspicuity. That is the great point, which,

SITION.

NOTTINGHAM, May 6, 1804. DEAR ROBERT, ... You don't know how I long to hear how your declamation was

once attained, will make all other obstacles smooth to us. In order to write perspicuously, we should have a perfect knowledge of the topic on which we are about to treat, in all its bearings and dependencies. We

should think well, beforehand, what will be the clearest method of conveying the drift of our design. This is similar to what painters call the massing, or getting the effect of the more prominent lights and shades by broad dashes of the pencil. When our thesis is well arranged in our mind, and we have predisposed our arguments, reasonings, and illustrations, so as they shall all conduce to the object in view, in regular sequence and gradation, we may sit down and express our ideas in as clear a manner as we can, always using such words as are most suited to our purpose, and when two modes of expression, equally luminous, present themselves, selecting that which is the most harmonious and elegant.

It sometimes happens that writers, in aiming at perspicuity, over-reach themselves, by employing too many words, and perplex the mind by a multiplicity of illustrations. This is a very fatal error. Circumlocution seldom conduces to plainness; and you may take it as a maxim, that, when once an idea is clearly expressed, every additional stroke will only confuse the mind and diminish the effect.

When you have once learned to express yourself with clearness and propriety, you will soon arrive at elegance. Every thing else, in fact, will follow as of course. But I warn you not to invert the order of things, and be paying your addresses to the graces, when you ought to be studying perspicuity. Young writers, in general, are too solicitous to round off their periods, and regulate the cadences of their style. Hence the feeble pleonasms and idle repetitions which deform their pages. If you would have your compositions vigorous and masculine in their tone, let every word TELL; and when you detect yourself polishing off a sentence with expletives, regard yourself in exactly the same predicament with a poet who should eke out the measure of his verses with "titum, titum, tee, sir."

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on biography, metaphysics, philosophy, etc., in The London, Blackwood, and Tait's Magazines, and other periodicals, and The Lives of Shakspeare and Pope in The Encyclopædia Britannica. After a life of great literary activity and much suffering from the longcontinued and excessive use of opium, he died December 8, 1859, of "senile decay" (funeral circular), in his 75th year.

An edition of his Writings, edited by Mr. James T. Field, was published by Messrs. Ticknor & Fields, Boston, 1853-59, in 23 vols. 12mo: contents, vol. i., ii., Narrative and Miscellaneous Papers; iii., iv., Literary Reminiscences; v., vi., Historical and Critical Essays: vii., Life and Manners; viii., Miscellaneous Essays; ix., Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, and Suspiria de Profundis; x.; Biographical Essays; xi., Cæsars; xii., Essays on the Poets and other English Writers; xiii., xiv., Essays on Philosophical Writers and other Men of Letters ; xv., xvi., Memorials, and other Papers; xvii., Note-Book of an English Opium-Eater; xviii., Logic of Political Economy; xix., xx., Theological Essays, and other Papers; xxi., Letters to a Young Man, and other Papers; xxii., Autobiographic Sketches; xxiii., Avenger, and other Papers. There is also a Boston edition (Riverside edition, Houghton, Osgood & Co.) of his Works in 12 vols. cr. 8vo, and a series of his Writings under the title of Selections, Grave and Gay, from Writings, Published and Unpublished, of Thomas De Quincey, Revised and Arranged by Himself, Lond., 1853–60, 14 vols. p. 8vo, to which add vols. xv., xvi. Works, new edit., Lond., 1862, 16 vols. p. 8vo.

"They [the Confessions] have an air of reality and life; and they exhibit such strong graphic powers as to throw an interest and even dignity have been rendered a tissue of trifles and absurdround a subject which in less able hands might ities. They are, indeed, very picturesque and vivid sketches of individual character and feelings, drawn with a boldness yet an exactness of pencil that is to be found only in one or two prominent geniuses of our day. . . . They combine strong sense with wild and somewhat fantastic inventions, accuracy of detail with poetic illustration, and analytical reasoning and metaphysical research with uncommon pathos and refinement of ideas. Much truth and fine colouring are displayed in the descriptions and details of the work; its qualities are all of a rich and elevated kind,-such as high pathos, profound views, and dulged at the writer's own expense."-London deep reasoning, with a happy vein of ridicule inMonthly Review, 100: 288. See also London Quarterly Review, July, 1861.

We add an interesting sketch of De Quincey communicated to the author of this. volume by his daughter a few months after her father's death:

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