en trace the simple manners and rigid at have grown, for ages, from that noble hich was restored to Scotland at the ReHis forefathers appear for centuries bere been tenants of the soil in this district; teresting to notice that his ancestors, on al side, were honoured to suffer in those as which desolated this part of Scotland beJand 1688-one having suffered banishment; aving not only been driven into exile, but slavery; and a third apprehended by a agoons, and shot. This was a noble pedigree, it a manifest influence on Pollok's dispositastes.

dhood, spent amid the simplicity and soliese rural scenes, gave frequent indications domitable resoluteness and energy which, period, formed so prominent a feature of eter. But two circumstances in his early serve especial notice, as exerting a permanent ary influence in training the intellect and 3 of the future poet.

these was the instructions of a mother who, cares of a numerous household, and the osed by circumstances which called for in3 well as frugality, found time to imbue the f her children with heavenly truth. "By as taught to read the Bible, and made to to memory the Shorter Catechism, with part 'salms of David." The testimony of many of ellent of the earth, from the days of Timothy rst century, to those of Richard Cecil in the ath, might well vindicate us from any suspiattaching too much importance to the home on which Pollok enjoyed from this woman of gned piety;" but we have his own grateful ny recorded long afterwards, when his "Course e" had been given to the world, and his ear had to drink in the voice of fame. Speaking of ology of his poem, he remarked to his brother, 8 my mother's divinity-the divinity that she me when I was a boy. I may have amplified 1 what I learned afterwards, but in writing em I always found that hers formed the groundthe point from which I set out. I always drew s first, and I was never at a loss. This shows," ded with devout gratitude, "what kind of a

she was."

, in tracing the development of a mind of high al susceptibility like Pollok's, should we attach importance to the scenery around Mid-Moorto which he removed with his parents in his h year. The daily communion which he there with Nature formed a large part of his education hinker and a poet; and few spots could have better fitted for a poet's sanctuary.

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ile the elements of poetry were thus gathering him, a little incident occurred, which, however portant it might seem in the lives of most men, be regarded as marking an important era in the al history of Robert Pollok, which it is the chief n of these remarks to trace. While residing in ouse of an intelligent relative, two books fell is hands, which introduced him to his first actance with British poets. One of these was e's Essay on Man," which charmed him with xquisite harmony of its versification, and led him ake some attempts in rhyme. It could not be of him, however, as of Pope, that he "lisped in Ders, for the numbers came; " and it soon became nt that rhyme was not destined to be the vehicle thoughts. Soon after, another book fell into ands, which exerted a far mightier influence over haracter, not merely informing him in regard to

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the structure of poetry, but unveiling to him its essence, and haunting him with thoughts which at length stirred within him, if not an equal, at least a kindred flame. This was Milton's "Paradise Lost."

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"He found a copy of it one day," says his brother, among some old books on the upper shelf of a wallpress in the kitchen, where it had lain neglected for" years. Though he had never seen "Paradise Lost" before, he had often heard of it, and he began to read it immediately. He was captivated with it at the very first: and after that, as long as he stayed at Horsehill, he took it up whenever he had the least opportunity, and read with great eagerness. When he was leaving the place, his uncle, seeing him so fond of the book, gave it to him in a present, and from that time Milton became his favourite author, and, I may say, next to the Bible, his chief companion. Henceforward, he read more or less of him almost every day, and used often to repeat aloud, in bed, immediately before rising in the morning, what was his favourite passage in "Paradise Lost" the apostrophe to Light in the beginning of the Third Book.-From this hour, Pollok became the subject of a new impulse.

At the close of the session of 1822, Pollok finished his course of study at the University of Glasgow, and left behind him that venerable seminary, bearing with him a degree in Master of Arts, and other more decided marks of distinction.

In the autumn of the same year, we find him entering on the study of theology, in the Hall of the Secession Church, under the tuition of Dr. Dick; a professor whose finely balanced powers fitted him not merely to occupy, but to adorn this office; combining, as he did, in most rare conjunction, independence of judgment, without the silly affectation of originality or novelty; solid learning, without pedantic display; dignity, without reserve; and in whose academic instructions theology was beheld, not in the ungainly dress of the schools, but in the beautiful and seemly garments of an elegant literature—

"Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose;
But musical as is Apollo's lute."

It was in the earlier part of Pollok's career as a student of theology that the "Tales of the Covenanters" were produced. The immediate circumstance that prompted their publication must not be unnoticed in a sketch of his character. He was in

straitened circumstances; and yet, at the age he had now reached, he could no longer brook the thought of being dependent on a parent, who had laboured up to his ability, yea and beyond his ability, to secure for him and his brother the privileges of a college life. What was to be done? He would write a tale -a series of tales. And where could a fitter theme than the days of the Covenant be found for one whose earliest associations were interwoven with

stories of martyr and moss-trooper; whose enthusiasm had led him, in his earlier days, to institute an annual pilgrimage of all the youth of the district to Lochgoin, where John Howie penned the "Scots Worthies," and where a flag, a drum, and a pair of drumsticks, with Captain Paton's sword and Biblestrange associates, but all the fitter emblems of the times are still preserved as venerable relics of the days when the Church registered her second martyrology, and a second time won her birthright? The Tales were published, and realized a sum sufficient to relieve the immediate wants of Pollok.

faith of the truth, and no stranger to the hard lessons of adversity, he set himself to that work which was to enrich the English literature, to give at once expression and impulse to the deep-toned piety of his native country, and to earn for himself an early immortality. There are not wanting indications that he had, more than once, been in some danger of being seduced to those frivolous themes which were the fashion of the hour, and of wandering from that holy mount on which Milton and the ancient prophets sat. But these temptations, like the ill-omened birds that crossed the path of the seer, rather passed before his mind than rested on it, and, when at length he did consecrate his genius to a worthy theme, it was with no lingering look to those more crowded regions where poetry submits to be shorn of its strength, and to make sport before the Philistines, when it might have roused slumbering nations to life, and sounded a note that would have been heard through all time.

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It was in this spirit of devout self-consecration that Pollok entered on the composition of "The Course of Time," in the beginning of December 1824, and at the age of twenty-seven. The first hint of his poem, we learn from some interesting reminiscences by his brother, was suggested by Byron's lines to darkness, which he took up one evening in a moment of great mental desolation. While perusing those lines, he was led to think of the resurrection as a theme on which something new might be written. He proceeded, and on the same night finished a thousand verses, intending that the subject of the poem should be the Resurrection. Meanwhile, thoughts and images crowded upon his mind, which it would have been unnatural to introduce, under such a theme; when all at once the whole plan of his work rose before him, with the completeness and the vividness of a prophet's vision. "One night," says his brother, "when he was sitting alone in Moorhouse" old room, letting his mind wander back and forward over things at large, in a moment, as if by an immediate inspiration, the idea of the poem struck him, and the plan of it, as it now stands, stretched out before him; so that at one glance he saw through it from end to end, like an avenue, with the resurrection as only part of the scene. He never felt, he said, as he did then; and he shook from head to foot, overpowered with feeling; knowing that to pursue the subject was to have no middle way between great success and great failure. From this time, in selecting and arranging materials, he saw through the plan so well, that he knew to what book, as he expressed it, the thoughts belonged whenever they set up their heads."

From this time till the finishing of his poem, his whole soul was on fire with his subject. In the old room at Moorhouse, on the sublime path between Moorhouse and Eaglesham, when hastening to join the worshippers on the "hallowed morn,' on the lofty summits of Balagich, and, oftenest of all, when he communed with his own heart upon his bed and was silent, he was struggling with his great argument, and seeking to give to the images of truth that moved before his spirit "immortal shape and form." Thoughts rushed upon his mind as if, like the widow's cruse, it had been supplied by miracle, and only the weariness and faintings of his body seemed to clog the movements of a spirit that, at this period, spurned repose.

coming forth fused and molten, in a moment took their appropriate and permanent form.

There is one fact connected with this composition which we have peculiar pleasure in recording. His brother informs us that "he kept the Bible constantly beside him, and read in different places of it, according to the nature of what he was compos ing; so that his mind, it may be said, was all along regulated by the Bible. Finally, he prayed to God daily, morning and evening, for direction and assist ance in the work." "The Course of Time" is thus literally the fruit of prayer; the inspiration that dictated it was implored on bended knees; and those beautiful lines of his invocation are not a mere cou pliance with the fashion of poets, but the genuine cardiphonia-the deep utterance of the heart."

In the beginning of July 1826, Pollok brought the writing of his great poem to a close. Nineteen months had thus elapsed from the time of his com mencing the composition; but enfeebled health and other influences had created considerable pauses; and we have his own authority for believing that the time in which he was actually engaged in versification, did not exceed eight months.

The intense and protracted mental exertion imposed by the composition of such a work, in so short a space of time--an exertion, compared with which he found the study of the most difficult Greek and Roman classics to be an amusement, and which, night after night, brought him to the borders of fever-may well be imagined to have told unfavourably on a cotstitution which had already been shaken by disease. The chariot-wheels had indeed caught fire through the rapidity of their own motion, the consequence 1 which was, that by the time that the poem was con cluded, he appeared emaciated and pale, and di tressing fears were awakened, that in writing "The Course of Time" he had been entwining a splendid wreath, to be laid upon an early grave. The labours and anxieties connected with obtaining a publisher and carrying his poem through the press, served to give the disease a deeper seat in his constitution, and to bring out more unfavourable symptoms.

The consequence was, that when, in the spring of 1827, having been admitted a licentiate of the Se cession Church, he delivered his first public dis course in one of the chapels of his own denomination in Edinburgh, the practised eye of Dr. Belfrage of Slateford, a minister and physician of the same re ligious body, detected in his feeble appearance, and countenance alternately flushed and wan, the inroads of pulmonary disease. This was followed on the part of the kind physician, by an invitation to Slateford Manse, a lovely retreat, situated a few miles from Edinburgh, at the base of the Pentland Hills, where Pollok, in addition to the luxury of retirement, coul enjoy the double advantage of Dr. Belfrage's Christia friendship and medical skill. The invitation was gratefully accepted, and from this sweet spot we find Pollok soon after writing to his venerable father at Moorhouse, in terms of high satisfaction both with his host and with the scene. "I am still at Slateford," says he; "my health is improving; but Dr. Belfrage insists that two or three weeks more of medical treatment are necessary, and he refuses to let me leave him. I am therefore a prisoner, but it is in a paradise; for everything here looks as if our world

had never fallen.'

out the young poet in his retreat to cheer him in his onward course. Among these attentions, none gratified him so much as the visits of the venerable Henry Mackenzie, author of the "Man of Feeling," then in his eighty-fourth year: "I felt his attention," says he in his letter to his father, "to be as if some literary patriarch had risen from the grave, to bless me and do me honour."

Still the insidious malady was secretly advancing, and its progress was at once increased and betrayed by an alarming illness, which seized him in the month of June, and greatly diminished his strength. It now became evident to Dr. Belfrage, and other medical advisers of first eminence, that removal to a foreign climate was indispensable, and even this was tremblingly recommended, as affording but faint hope that his sun would not go down at noon-day.

Italy was proposed, and especially the salubrious air of Pisa in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. In this proposal Pollok cheerfully acquiesced; and it is with a kind of sad interest that we behold the dying poet under the influence of that false hope with which Consumption dazzles her victims, indulging daydreams of returning health, to be devoted to yet higher achievements in literature, when he returned laden with the classic stores, and refreshed by the bright remembrances of Italy.

Generous friends now hastened to provide a fund sufficient for the respectable maintenance of the poet in a foreign clime. Among these, honourable mention must be made of Sir John Sinclair, Dr. John Brown, Dr. Belfrage, and Sir John Pirie, afterwards Lord Mayor of London, whose prompt and thoughtful regard, not exhausted in a few distant and splendid acts, displayed all the tender earnestness of parental solicitude.

A short experimental voyage to Aberdeen and a sad farewell to Moorhouse, in which, under the influence of dark forebodings, scarcely owned and yet impossible to be repressed, every eye but his own was suffused with tears, and every voice but his own faltered with emotion, was followed by a speedy departure for London, whence it was intended that he should now sail, with all despatch, for Italy. Arrived in London, places were taken, in a ship bound for Leghorn, for himself and a kind sister, who was chosen to be the companion of his voyage.

But it was destined that he should never see the Italian shores. The ship not sailing on the appointed day, he was visited by a distinguished physician in the interval, who, perceiving that all hope of recovery was now gone, soothingly but firmly discouraged his leaving his native country. A residence in the southwest of England was recommended, and the neighbourhood of Southampton ultimately fixed upon. There, after a journey of two days, most fatiguing to his fevered and emaciated frame, we find him arriving on Saturday, 1st September; in a few weeks more to "shake hands with Death, and smile that he

was free."

He took up his abode in a neat cottage at Shirely Common, about a mile from Southampton. The mild air of that rich and lovely region helped to soothe his chafed spirit. In a spacious garden adjoining the cottage, where the air was so calm that "you could hear the apples falling from the trees one after another," he delighted to walk with his sister and feel at times the gentle breezes borne to him from the neighbouring sea, and laden with autumnal incense; and then sitting down, at intervals, on a cushion which he had brought with him from London, he would hear his sister read to him from the Bible, which had now become his only book.

But his weakness rapidly increasing, he was soon compelled to abandon this congenial exercise and to

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confine himself entirely to bed. His faithful sister, whose deep affection had so long made her "hope against hope," now found it necessary to apprize him of the solemn prospect that "the earthly house of his tabernacle was soon to be dissolved." This was done with all the tender skill of a woman and a sister, and was received by him in a manner worthy of the author of "The Course of Time." His mind was solemnized, but not saddened; and if, in the thought of soon entering on eternity, he knew no raptures, neither did he know any fears. Once, and only for a moment, did a shade of doubt obscure his hopes, but it passed away, leaving him gazing upon the unclouded truth. There have been men of genius who have rushed into the arms of Death mortified by the world's ingratitude or neglect; but Pollok, with the voice of the world's praise swelling and deepening around him, willingly heard the summons which called him up to a nobler immortality.

Writing to his father, of whom he had frequently spoken during his illness with great veneration, he thus expressed himself: "My sister is often much distressed, but we pray for one another, and take comfort in the gracious promises of God. I hope I am prepared for the issue of this trouble-whether life, or death."

His growing weakness brought on frequent seasons of drowsiness, the intervals between which were employed by his sister, at his own request, in reading to him from the Scriptures, especially from the Book of Psalms and the Gospel of John, which he greatly relished. In this manner several of his last days and nights were spent, when at length, on the morning of Tuesday, September 18, 1827, he gently breathed his last, and entered into the joy of his Lord.

His mortal remains were interred on the following Friday in the church-yard of Millbrook, a quiet spot, remote from the din of cities and near to the sea. He was buried according to the forms of the Church of England, the Rev. Mr Molesworth reading the burial-service by the side of his grave. An elegant obelisk of granite, reared by those admirers of his genius who had sought to prolong his life, marks the last earthly resting-place of this highly gifted man, and bears, with the dates of his birth and death, the following simple inscription:

Thus ended, at the early age of twenty-nine, the earthly course of Robert Poliok-a course too short for hope, but not too short for immortality. There sought, with captious arrogance, to depreciate his have been small critics, who, since his death, have poem by petty and nibbling fault-finding; and, even one great man, in an hour of conversational ease, let fall a remark which, when taken at its real value, was more fitted to injure his own fame than Pollok's." But that poem is not to be lightly estimated which, in the rapidity and extent of its circulation, has found no equal in modern times; parts of which, such men as John Wilson declared, would compare to advantage with any thing in British literature, and which the venerable James Montgomery, with the generous admiration of a kindred spirit, has pronounced to be one of the most extraordinary productions of the age.

[Mr. Thomson concludes with an extremely welldrawn, and, to our mind, judicious estimate of