wealth and commerce, with villas, temples, and theatres. In this way the Romans became leaders of civilization among the people. The Britons still held to their own Celtic tongue, while their governors used the more polished Latin language.

You must also remember that the period we are now considering comprises the early days of our Christian faith. While Claudius was making a footing here, St. Paul was preaching the "glad tidings of salvation" at Rome, and the other apostles were planting Christianity in Roman Europe, as well as in parts of Asia and Africa.

It was by Roman Christians that the gospel was first brought to our shores, and not only were there many who held to the faith, but some who endured martyrdom for it. For instance, in 304, we find that the Christian saint Alban was put to death for his religion at the Roman town of Verulam, since called St. Alban's.

But soon brighter days came; for two years after, Constantine, son of Helen, a British princess, and himself born on British soil, became emperor, and the Christian religion became the acknowledged faith of the empire. Before the Romans left our country in 410, Christianity had spread over nearly the whole land, under archbishops stationed severally at London, York and Caerleon.

EXERCISES.-1. Define,-Adjoining, resistance, convenient, sway, civilization, and severally. 2. Say how Caractacus conducted himself in Rome? 3. Name the Roman leaders who did most toward making South Britain a Roman province ?

On the seat by your father's door,
And the thoughts of your youthful heart,

My son,

Like a stream of gladness pour;

For, afar 'mong the lonely hills,

My son,

Since the morning thou hast been;

Now tell me thy bright day-dreams,

My son,

Yea, all thou hast thought and seen!"

"When morn aboon yon eastern hill
Had raised its glimmering e'e,

I hied me to the heather hills,
Where gorcocks crawing flee;
And ere the laverock sought the lift,
Frae out the dewy dens.

I wandering was by mountain streams
In iane and hoary glens.

"Auld frowning rocks on either hand,
Upreared their heads to Heaven,
Like temple-pillars which the foot
Of Time hath crushed and riven;

And voices frae ilk mossy stane
Upon my ear did flow,-

They spake o' Nature's secrets a'-
The tales o' long ago.

"The daisy, frae the burnie's side,
Was looking up to God-

The crag that crowned the towering peak
Seemed kneeling on the sod:
A sound was in ilk dowie glen,

And on ilk naked rock

On mountain-peak-in valley lone-
And holy words it spoke.

'The nameless flowers that budded up,
Each beauteous desert child,
The heather's scarlet blossoms, spread
O'er many a lanely wild,-

The lambkins, sporting in the glens-
The mountains old and bare-
Seemed worshipping; and there with them
I breathed my morning prayer.

"Alang, o'er monie a mountain-tap-
Alang, through monie a glen—
Wi' Nature haudin' fellowship,
I journeyed far frae men.
Now suddenly a lonely tarn

Would burst upon my eye,
An' whiles frae out the solitudes
Would come the breezes' cry.

"At noon, I made my grassy couch
Beside a haunted stream,—

A bonnie bloomin' brush o' broom
Waved o'er me in my dream.

I laid me there in slumberous joy
Upon the giant knee

Of yonder peak, that seemed to bend
In watching over me.

"I dream'd a bonnie bonnie dream,
As sleepin' there I lay :-

I thought I brightly round me saw
The fairy people stray.

I dreamt they back again had come
To live in glen and wold-

To sport in dells 'neath harvest moons
As in the days of old.

"I saw them dance upo' the breeze,
An' hide within the flower-
Sing bonnie and unearthly sangs,
An' skim the lakelets o'er !
That hour the beings o' the past,

66

Of ages lost an' gone,

Came back to earth, an' grot an' glen Were peopled every one!

The vision fled, and I awoke :

The sun was sinkin' down; The mountain-birds frae hazels brown Had sung their gloamin' tune; The dew was sleepin' on the leaf, The breezes on the flower;

And nature's heart was beating calm,It was the evening hour.

66 And, father, when the moon arose, Upon a mountain-height

I stood and saw the brow of earth

Bound wi' its silver light.

Nae sound came on the watching ear
Upon that silent hill;

My een were filled with tears, the hour
Sae holy was and still!

"There was a lowly mound o' green
Beside me rising there,-

A pillow where a bairn might kneel,
And say its twilight prayer.

The moonlight kissed the gladsome flowers
That o'er that mound did wave;

Then I remembered that I stood
Beside the Martyrs' grave!

"I knelt upon that hallow'd earth,
While Memory pictured o'er

The changing scenes-the changing thoughts
That day had held in store;

And then my breast wi' gladness swell'd,
And God in love did bless,-

He gave me, 'mong auld Scotland's bills
A day of happiness!"

NOTES.-ROBERT NICOLL, called by some the "Second Burns," is a choice example of what earnest and loving work can do in a very short time and under adverse circumstances. He was born at the farm-house of Little Tulliebeltane, Perthshire, in 1814, and died in 1837, in the 24th year of his age. Speaking of himself, he says, “I have written my heart in my poems; and rude, unfinished, and hasty as they are, it can be read there."

The piece contains a few terms and phrases peculiar to the Lowland Scotch, but the simple force and easy musical flow of the lines are such as to carry the reader's mind and heart with the poet, and hence few explanations are necessary.

=

Auld old; riven broken in two; frae ilk mossy stane from each mossy stone; a' all; o'=of; burnie's side the side of the burn or stream; ilk dowie glen=each gloomy glen, or hollow; heather -heath; alang-along; monie-many; hauding-holding; bonnie handsome; wi'-with; een-eyes; sae=so; bairn=child.