is a great distance between them. Although Grahame, like Hume, excludes love from his theme, he does not, like him, omit to call up other strong emotions of the heart in its stead; although he looks on woman with no impassioned feeling, he does not banish her from his view entirely. We have, in the Sabbath Day, no such meetings of lovers as are, with the utmost truth of painting, described in the ballad of Logan Water.

Nae mair at Logan Kirk, will he

Atween the preachings, meet wi' me;
Meet wi' me, or when its mirk,

Convoy me hame frae Logan Kirk.

But we have," at the close of evening prayer, "the affecting spectacle of youth and loveliness consigned to the grave:

Again that knell! The slow procession stops,
The pall withdrawn, Death's altar, thick emboss'd
With melancholy ornaments (the name,

The record of her blossoming age), appears
Unveil'd; and on it, dust to dust is thrown-
The final rite. Oh! hark, that sullen sound!
Upon the lower'd bier the shovell'd clay
Falls fast and fills the void.-

Nor, though averse to introduce scenes of love into the day consecrated to Heaven, does Grahame appear to have wanted any thing of a lover's feeling. Take, for example, his description in the Georgics, of two lovers, on an excessively cold thirty-first of December night:

To meeting lovers now no hill is steep,
No river fordless, and no forest dark;

And when they meet, unheeded sweeps the blast ; Unfelt the snow, as erst from summer's thorn, Around them fell a shower of fading flowers, Shook by the sighing of the evening breeze.

Hume is simply pleasing; Grahame is impressive, often pathetic. The one dwells on external objects alone; the other penetrates into the inmost recesses of our heart. Still, considering either of them merely as writers anxious to arrive at popularity by the shortest road, it must be acknowledged, that, on account of the peculiarly religious character of their writings, they equally mistook their way.

The next point to be noticed is, the manner in which Grahame has executed the design which he had conceived, and this will be better illustrated by a few quotations taken at random, than by a thousand remarks. If the following passages are not capable of affording some of the highest pleasures in the perusal, no pomp of commentary can raise them to that distinction; if, on the other hand, they are capable of delighting without such interference, it is, after all, the undertaking of more ingenious than useful labour, to pry into the components of that enthusiasm, which by one sweep of its wing has done the business already.

The dawn of the Sabbath-its difference from the dawn of every other morn-is thus strikingly introduced.

How still the morning of the hallow'd day!
Mute is the voice of rural labour; hush'd

The ploughboy's whistle, and the milkmaid's song.
The scythe lies glittering in the dewy wreath
Of tedded grass mingled with fading flowers,

That yester-morn bloom'd waving in the breeze.
Sounds the most faint attract the ear,-the hum
Of early bee, the trickling of the dew,
The distant bleeting midway up the hill.
Calmness sits thron'd on yon unmoving cloud.
To him who wanders o'er the upland leas

The blackbird's note comes mellower from the dale;
And sweeter from the sky the gladsome lark
Warbles his heaven-tun'd song; the lulling brook
Murmurs more gently down the deep worn glen ;
While from yon lowly roof, whose curling smoke
O'ermounts the mist, is heard at intervals

The voice of Psalms, the simple song of Praise.

The burial of beauty has been already incidentally noticed, and the conclusion quoted; the preceding part of this episode is still more remarkable for the spirit and pathos of genuine poetry.

But wood and wild, the mountain and the dale,
The house of prayer itself,-no place inspires
Emotions more accordant with the day,

Than does the field of graves, the land of rest :-
Oft at the close of evening prayer, the toll,
The solemn funeral-toll, pausing, proclaims
The service of the tomb; the homeward crowds
Divide on either hand; the pomp draws near,
The choir to meet the dead go forth, and sing
I am the Resurrection and the Life.

Ah me! these youthful bearers robed in white,
They tell a mournful tale; some blooming friend
Is gone; dead in her prime of years :-'twas she,-
The poor man's friend, who, when she could not give,
With angel tongue, pleaded to those who could;
With angel tongue, and mild beseeching eye,

That ne'er besought in vain, save when she pray'd
For longer life, with heart resign'd to die. -
Rejoic'd to die, for happy visions bless'd
Her voyage's last days, and hovering round,
Alighted on her soul, giving presage,
That Heaven was nigh. O! what a burst
Of rapture from her eyes! what tears of joy
Her Heavenward eyes suffus'd!-Those eyes are clos'd,
But all her loveliness is not yet flown.

She smil❜d in death, and still her cold pale face
Retains that smile, as when a waveless lake,
In which the win'try stars all bright appear,
Is sheeted, by a nightly frost, with ice,
Still it reflects the face of Heaven, unchang'd,
Unruffled by the breeze, or sweeping blast.

The simile, with which these lines close, is as happily descriptive as it is original.

But not to confine ourselves to "the Sabbath," let us open "the Georgics," the least happy, as the other is the most fortunate, effort of his Muse. Has the Battle of Bannockburn, the "Sabbath" of Scottish freedom, ever received a more grateful or more Scotch inspiring tribute, than in the words of Grahame?

To thee, who on a lovely morn in June,
At break of day, knelt on the dewy sward,
While full in view, Inchaffray's abbot rear'd
The sacred host! To them! who 'ere the sheet
Of blood besprinkled flowers, fell in the cause
Of freedom and their country! To the men,
Who that day's fight survived, and saw, once more,
Their homes, their children; and, when silvery hairs
Their temples thin bespread, liv'd to recount,

On winter nights, the achievements of that day!
To thee, be ever raised the Muse's voice
In grateful song triumphant ;-

The extracts which have been made, are sufficient to give a general idea of the character of Grahame's genius and expression. His thoughts, though seldom sublime, are never mean, and his language, though mostly simple and unaffected, is not always free from the charge of redundance. Grahame's great power is in tenderness, and his chief failing is want of energy; yet, sometimes he hits off a warmth and compression of phrase which well deserves the name of energy the most poetic. On the whole, the author of "the Sabbath" may be regarded as a poet of considerable genius, whose reputation is likely to advance with the moral improvements of mankind; and who, if he does not class among the first of the great fraternity to which he belongs, stands too preeminent to be disregarded.