desired him to observe, that he was only the distributor of the bread that belonged to the poor, and that it was absolutely necessary that he should dispose of his dog. 'Ah, sir,' exclaimed the poor man, weeping, and if I lose my dog, who is there then to love me?' The good pastor, melting into tears, took his purse, and giving it to him, "take this, sir," said he; "this is mine—this I can give."

-Poor Edwin was no vulgar boy:

Song was his favorite and first pursuit;
The wild harp rang to his adventurous hand,
And languish'd to his breath the plaintive flute,
His infant muse, though artless, was not mute.
Beattie.

In the periodical paper entitled The Mirror is an elegant essay on the character and genius of Michael Bruce, a young poet of considerable ability, who was descended from parents remarkable for nothing but the innocence and simplicity of their lives, and who in the twenty-first year of his age perished under that scourge of our isle, pulmonary consumption.

In the year 1787 travelling through the western Highlands of Scotland, and returning to Edinburgh by Loch Leven and North Ferry, I rode by the house, situated about three miles from Kinross, where this ingenious

youth was born. "I never look on his dwelling," says the author of the Mirror, "a small thatched house distinguished from the cottages of the other inhabitants only by a sashed window at the end, instead of a lattice, fringed with a honey-suckle plant, which the poor youth had trained around it; I never find myself in that spot, but I stop my horse involuntarily; and looking on the window, which the honey suckle has now almost covered, in the dream of the moment, I picture out a figure for the gentle tenant of the mansion; I wish, and my heart swells while I do so, that he were alive, and that I were a great man to have the luxury of visiting him there, and bidding him be happy."

These natural and pleasing ideas possessed. my mind at the time I passed his door, which I did not do without checking my horse to indulge the tribute of a sigh. The concluding lines of his beautifully descriptive poem on Loch Leven, which was finished under the pressure of mortal disease, and at a distance. from his native cottage, instantly occurred to my memory.

Thus sang the youth, amid unfertile fields.
And nameless deserts, unpoetic ground!
Far from his friends he stray'd, recording thus
The dear remembrance of his native fields.
To cheer the tedious night; while slow disease
Prey'd on his pining vitals, and the blasts
Of dark December shook his humble cot.

Loch Leven, the subject of Mr. Bruce's Poem, is a beautiful fresh water Lake near twelve miles in circumference, on the side next Kinross bounded by a plain occupied by open groves, on the other side by mountains. About the centre of the lake are two islands, one of which, called St. Serf's isle, has not less than forty acres of excellent pasturage, and was formerly the seat of the ancient priory of Loch Leven dedicated to St. Servanus. On the other, which contains not above an acre of ground, stand the pictoresque ruins of the castle of the Douglasses. Here was confined the beautiful but unfortunate Mary, Queen of Scots, a circumstance which, from the association of idea, throws an air of interesting melancholy around, and adds much to the effect of the scene. From this place however, she at length escaped through the assistance of George

Douglas, a youth of eighteen, who had been deeply smitten with the charms of Mary, and who contrived, on sunday night the second of May 1568, as his brother sat down to supper, to secure the keys of the castle. Having liberated his beloved prisoner he locked the gate behind her, threw the keys into the lake, and having previously secured a boat, whilst the oars of all the other boats were thrown adrift, reached the shore in safety. Mr. Gilpin in his Scotch Tour has thus elegantly allegorized this remarkable event: "But neither the walls of Loch Leven castle, nor the lake which surrounded it, were barriers against love. Mary had those bewitching charms, which always raised her friends. She wore a cestus; and might be said to number amongst her constant attendants, the God of Love himself. His ready wit restored her liberty. Time and place were obedient to his will. His contrivance laid the plan. His address secured the keys; and his activity provided the bark, to which he led her; with his own hand carrying the torch, to guide her footsteps through the darkness of the night.-Confusion

ran through the castle. Hasty lights were seen passing and repassing at every window; and