His wastes of snow are lovelier in his eye
Than all the flowery vales beneath the sky;
And dearer far than Cæsar's palace-dome,
His cavern-shelter, and his cottage-home.
O'er China's garden-fields and peopled floods,
In California's pathless world of woods;

Round Andes' heights, where Winter, from his throne,
Looks down in scorn upon the summer zone;
By the gay borders of Bermuda's isles,
Where Spring with everlasting verdure smiles;
On pure Madeira's vine-robed hills of health;
In Java's swamps of pestilence and wealth;
Where Babel stood, where wolves and jackals drink,
'Midst weeping willows, on Euphra'es' brink;
On Carmel's crest; by Jordan's reverend stream,
Where Canaan's glories vanished like a dream;
Where Greece, a spectre, haunts her heroes' graves,
And Rome's vast ruins darken Tiber's waves;
Where broken-hearted Switzerland bewails
Her subject mountains and dishonored vales;
Where Albion's rocks exult amid the sea,
Around the beauteous isle of Liberty;--
Man, through all ages of revolving time,
Unchanging man, in every varying clime,
Deems his own land of every land the pride,
Beloved by Heaven o'er all the world beside;
His home the spot of earth supremely blest,
A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest.

JOHN WILSON.

PROFESSOR WILSON, so long the distinguished occupant of the chair of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, earned his first laurels by his poetry.

He was born in the year 1788, in the town of Paisley, where his father carried on business and attained to opulence as a manufacturer. At thirteen he entered Glasgow University, from which in due time he was transferred to Magdalene College, Oxford. A notable capacity for knowledge and remarkable literary powers were at the same time united to a singular taste for Gymnastic exercises and rural sports. After four years' residence at Oxford, the poet purchased a small but beautiful estate on the banks of Lake Windermere. He married-built a house and a yacht-enjoyed himself among the magnificent scenery of the lakes-wrote poetry-and cultivated the society of Wordsworth. These must have been happy days. With youth, robust health, fortune, and an exhaustless imagination, Wilson must, in such a spot, have been blest even up to the dreams of a poet. Some reverses, however, came, and, after entering himself of the Scottish bar, he sought and obtained his Moral Philosophy chair.

Ile connected himself with Blackwood's Magazine, and in this miscellany poured forth the riches of his fancy, learning, and taste. The poetical works of Wilson have been collected in two volumes. They consist of the "Isle of Palms," "City of the Plague," and several smaller pieces.

His prose works have been more popular than his poems. "The Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life," a collection of beautiful stories

illustrative of Scottish manners, scenery, and history, has had an immense sale, and an unbounded popularity.

Gilfillan, in his "Literary Portraits," says:—

"It is probable that the very variety and versatility of Wilson's powers have done him an injury in the estimation of many. They can hardly belive that an actor, who can play so many parts, is perfect in all. Because he is, confessedly, one of the most eloquent of men, it is doubted whether he can be profound: because he is a fine poet, he must be a shallow metaphysician;-because he is the Editor of Blackwood, he must be an inefficient professor. There is such a thing on this round earth, as diffusion along with depth, as the versatile and vigorous mind of a man of genius mastering a multitude of topics, while others are blunderingly acquiring one, or as a man multiplying himself among mankind, the Proteus of their talents,' and proving that the Voltairian activity of brain has been severed, in one splendid instance, at least, from the Voltairian sneer and the Voltairian shallowness. Such an instance as that of our illustrious Professor, who is ready for every tack,-who can, at one time, scorch a poetaster to a cinder, at another cast illumination into the 'dark deep holds' of a moral question by a glance of his genius; at one time dash off the picture of a Highland glen with the force of a Salvator, at another lay bare the anatomy of a passion with the precision and force of an Angelo,-write now the sweetest verse, and now the most energetic prose,-now let slip, from his spirit, a single star, like the 'evening cloud,' and now unfurl a Noctes upon the wondering world,—now paint Avarice till his audience are dying with laughter, and now Emulation and Sympathy till they are choked with tears,-write now 'the Elder's Deathbed,' and now the Address to a Wild Deer,'-be equally at home in describing the Sufferings of an Orphan girl, and the undressing of a dead Quaker, by a congregation of ravens, under the brow of Helvellyn."

It is upon the Sabbath-day, at rising of the sun,

That to Glenmore's black forest-side a Shepherdess hath

gone,

From eagle and from raven to guard her little flock,

And read her Bible as she sits on greensward or on

rock.

Her Widow-mother wept to hear her whispered prayer so

sweet,

Then through the silence bless'd the sound of her soft

parting feet;

And thought, "while thou art praising God amid the hills

so calm,

Far off this broken voice, my child! will join the morning psalm."

So down upon her rushy couch her moisten'd cheek she laid, And away into the morning hush is flown her Highland

Maid;

In heaven the stars are all bedim'd, but in its dewy mirth A star more beautiful than they is shining on the earth.

-In the deep mountain-hollow the dreamy day is done, For close the peace of Sabbath brings the rise and set of

sun;

The mother through her lowly door looks forth unto the green,

Yet the shadow of her Shepherdess is nowhere to be seen.

Within her loving bosom, stirs one faint throb of fear"Oh! why so late!" a footstep-and she knows her child

is near;

So out into the evening the gladden'd mother goes,

And between her and the crimson light her daughter's

beauty glows.

The heather-balm is fragrant-the heather-bloom is fair, But 'tis neither heather-balm nor bloom that wreathes round

Mhairi's hair;