Exposure to disease;-yes, let the rich

Be often seen beneath the sick man's roof;
Or cheering, with inquiries from the heart,
And hopes of health, the melancholy range
Of couches in the public wards of woe:
There let them often bless the sick man's bed,
With kind assurances that all is well

At home, that plenty smiles upon the board,-
The while the hand that earn'd the frugal meal
Can hardly raise itself in sign of thanks.
Above all duties, let the rich man search
Into the cause he knoweth not, nor spurn

The suppliant wretch as guilty of a crime.

Ye, bless'd with wealth! (another name for power Of doing good,) O would ye but devote A little portion of each seventh day To acts of justice to your fellow-men! The house of mourning silently invites: Shun not the crowded alley; prompt descend Into the half-sunk cell, darksome and damp; Nor seem impatient to be gone: inquire, Console, instruct, encourage, soothe, assist; Read, pray, and sing a new song to the Lord; Make tears of joy down grief-worn furrows flow.

O Health! the sun of life, without whose beam The fairest scenes of nature seem involved In darkness, shine upon my dreary path Once more; or, with thy faintest dawn, give hope,

That I may yet enjoy thy vital ray!

Though transient be the hope, 'twill be most sweet,
Like midnight music, stealing on the ear,

Then gliding past, and dying slow away.

Music! thou soothing power, thy charm is proved
Most vividly when clouds o'ercast the soul;
So light its loveliest effect displays

In lowering skies, when through the murky rack
A slanting sunbeam shoots, and instant limns
The ethereal curve of seven harmonious dyes,
Eliciting a splendor from the gloom:

O Music! still vouchsafe to tranquillize

This breast perturb'd; thy voice, though mournful, soothes;
And mournful, aye, are thy most beauteous lays,
Like fall of blossoms from the orchard boughs,-
The autumn of the spring. Enchanting power!
Who, by thy airy spell, canst whirl the mind
Far from the busy haunts of men, to vales
Where Tweed or Yarrow flows; or, spurning time
Recall red Flodden field; or suddenly
Transport, with alter'd strain, the deafen'd ear
To Linden's plain!-But what the pastoral lay,
The melting dirge, the battle's trumpet-peal,
Compared to notes with sacred numbers link'd
In union, solemn, grand! O then the spirit,
Upborne on pinions of celestial sound,
Soars to the throne of God, and ravish'd hears

Ten thousand times ten thousand voices rise

In halleluiahs;-voices, that erewhile

Were feebly tuned perhaps to low-breath'd hymns
Of solace in the chambers of the poor,-

The Sabbath worship of the friendless sick.
Bless'd be the female votaries, whose days
No Sabbath of their pious labors prove,
Whose lives are consecrated to the toil
Of ministering around the uncurtain'd couch
Of pain and poverty! Bless'd be the hands,
The lovely hands, (for beauty, youth, and grace,
Are oft conceal'd by Pity's closest veil,)

That mix the cup medicinal, that bind

The wounds which ruthless warfare and disease
Have to the loathsome lazar-house consign'd.
Fierce Superstition of the mitred king!
Almost I could forget thy torch and stake,
When I this blessed sisterhood survey,-
Compassion's priestesses, disciples true

Of him whose touch was health, whose single word
Electrified with life the palsied arm,-

Of him who said, Take up thy bed and walk,

Of him who cried to Lazarus, Come forth

And he who cried to Lazarus, Come forth,
Will, when the Sabbath of the tomb is past,
Call forth the dead, and re-unite the dust
(Transform'd and purified) to angel souls.
Ecstatic hope! belief! conviction firm!
How grateful 'tis to recollect the time

When hope arose to faith! Faintly at first
The heavenly voice is heard; then, by degrees,
Its music sounds perpetual in the heart.
Thus he, who all the gloomy winter long
Has dwelt in city crowds, wandering a-field
Betimes on Sabbath morn, ere yet the spring
Unfold the daisy's bud, delighted hears

The first lark's note, faint yet, and short the song,
Check'd by the chill ungenial northern breeze;
But, as the sun ascends, another springs,
And still another soars on loftier wing,
Till all o'erhead, the joyous choir unseen,
Poised welkin high, harmonious fills the air,
As if it were a link 'tween earth and heaven.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

1771-1832.

WALTER SCOTT, a younger son of a writer to the signet, was born in Edinburgh. Some of the poet's earliest years were passed with his paternal grandfather at the farm of Sandy Knowe, near the village of Smailholm in Roxburghshire. Here he acquired that taste for border lore and chivalric tradition which was so strongly developed in after life. In 1802-3 appeared his "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," with his own imitations of the old ballads, and in 1804 his edition of the romance of "Sir Tristrem," ascribed to Thomas the Rhymer of Ercildoune; these works procured for him high reputation as a literary antiquary. He threw his genius more boldly into the sphere of original poetry, in the composition of "The Lay of the Last Minstrel," a tale of Border warfare, illustrating the habits and superstitions of former centuries, and glorifying the ancestry of the Duke of Buccleuch, the chief of the clan Scott. Its publication in 1805 attracted universal and enthusiastic admiration. The theme and the style were so new and so original; the colors of forgotten phases of society were painted with such graphic splendor, that this metrical romance placed the author at once in the front rank of genius. The time was favorable for the experiment; the great poets of the nineteenth century had merely begun to sing, and, as Scott himself remarks, "The realms of Parnassus seemed to lie open to the first bold invader." "Marmion" appeared in 1808; in 1810, the "Lady of the Lake," illustrating the scenery and chivalry of the Highlands in the reign of James V.; these were followed by the "Vision of Don Roderic," "Rokeby," and, in 1814, "The Lord of the Isles." But Scott had reached his culmin-" ating point in his Highland poem. Byron's reputation was now paling