An' bureght roun' the carlie,
Ah' wonnert at the carlie,
An' cried "Fa are ye carlie,
A' fat a can ye dee?"

He took my auntie by the thumb,
An' grippit, aye, my auntie's thumb,
An' aye he squeezed my auntie's thumb,
An' glower'd intill her e'e.

Out, fie, the fusome carlie!
The ill-contriving carlie!

He fumm'lt, aye, ahint her lug,

An' ca'ed her "Miss Meree."

He faun'd ayont the tailor's tap,
An' cam, guid life, on sic a knap!

His Meggy's heart, it flew and lap,
For weel, I wot, kent she.

But aye the rabbin carlie,

He blew an' blastit sairly,

Till legs and armies fairly

Stood stark, like ony tree!

Ye Debtors daft-ye cravers keen,
Ye Lovers, too, who roam alane,
Ne'er look ower lang in ither's een,
In case o' what might be!

For gin ye meet a carlie,
A keekin', cunnin' carlie,

Ye yet may rue richt sairly

The glamour o' his e'e.

The language of Thom is simple, he loves best to speak his own beautiful Scottish words. No Scottish writer, in favour with English readers, or the English public, has so little of the English language; the writings he has given to us are few, he was fortunate in meeting with friends who cared for him, and through whom his poems are presented to the world, in a most pleasant and attractive exterior. Still, honestly, it must be said, that Thom, judging from his printed works, is inferior to Nichol, and Allan Cunningham, and others of the poets of his own land. We are charmed with the man, and we cannot but love his writings, his character attracts us; and there is over the whole of his verses such a genuine good humour, such an exalted vein of cheerfulness, so much affecting allusion to the sad passages of his own sorrowful life, his bereavements, and his woes, but in so unaffected a manner, that we cannot but appreciate, highly, the developements of his genius which he has given to us, while every one, indeed, seems to conceal a power, of which the dark distresses of life had prevented the entire cultivation.

CHAPTER V.

THE FORESTERS.

THE POETS OF THE FOREST. Few of them have been heard of, but we have reason to believe that they are a brave and magnificent band. Was not Charles Reece Pemberton, a Forester, and Robert Millhouse, and January Searle, our dear good friend, a Poet, if England has one, or ever had one, and Thomas Miller, and Spencer Hall, the Forester! The Forest! there is a poem in the very name-soon as it is pronounced, how swift and fast come trooping upon their way the fairies from the deep glades, and the outlawed bands of old England, and the antlered monarch, bounding in majesty by.

"Than a Tree, a nobler child, Earth bears not."

But myriads of trees, all growing together, all forming the deep embowering shade, the vast and magnificent temple, how the sunbeams glide down those forest pathways; how terribly the lightnings glare through those glades and alcoves, and deep embowered recesses; and that crash, that bolt, splintering the old giant oak of centuries. To live in a forest, where the breath of Nature comes fresh and beautiful from her own rosy

mouth, ha ha! Hark to the twitter of leaves, the rustle of the boughs in the brake, and the songs of birds; the organs of proud old Gothic Minsters might well hush themselves here, and the choristers forget to play their parts. Nature has written three great poems. The Sea, The Mountains, and the Forests; but of the three, the Forests come nearest to man; the others are two near the Infinite, for any but the most daring genius fairly to meditate among, the heart aches with the burden of the mystery; the spirit is oppressed with the pomp-the mind is as if cut off from its mates-deserted, desolate; the scream of the wild sea birds, or the wail of the waters; these sounds seem neither of earth nor earthly; for the time we have cut ourselves off from human communion, and all around us bears the impress of a terror and a majesty, breathing forebodings of danger. But it is not so in the forest. The vast is around us, but it does not seem infinite; the spirit is not oppressed with the weight of its conceptions; the magnitude is too near us, we can measure it; sublimity is the perpetual mood of the Mountains and the Sea, but only occasionally of the Forest. The Forest is the Home of Beauty. From its leafy dells, from its oaken shades, the canticles of the winged inhabitants are perpetually poured, and the morning and the evening orisons rise in graceful harmony with the music of the leaves and the boughs; not, as we have said, that the sterner mood of Nature is wanting in terror; in the summer storm, throwing into dark relief the little cottage, standing like a lodge amidst the trees a ready prey, alas, for the wierd fingers of the lightning! and, then, in winter, the skeleton trees, with their strange whisperings, breaking the vista of the leaden-coloured and snowladen sky, lying beyond! How their long arms stretch out giant arms, shadowy, and in the twi

light-ghostlike. But Winter or Summer, Spring or Autumn, the Forest is always a suggestive Poem; a forest yielding up its rights, ancient landship, and lordship, to hamlets and towns rising upon the yet buried roots of innumerable trees-a forest, with its fine verdant platforms, and theatres of green glory in the depths of its interior recesses- -the home of a thousand living things vanished from every other spot of England. Now, is not such a place fitted to be the Home of the worshipper of Beauty? a place where Man and Nature are brought into near neighbourhood? where the tender, yet austere earnestness of ancient things combines with the bold energy of modern doings? where Science has not quite obscured the light of the heavens. And a few miles may be walked without beholding the glaring light of the furnace, or the smoke of the tall chimney-such is Sherwood Forest-the classic ground of Old England; the haunt of our English Theseus; the camp of the vanguard of British freedom; the last retreat of the old Saxon, brave Robin Hood, and his merry men. The ground has every thing about it to make it lovely and sacred -everything to endear it to the naturalist, the poet, and patriot; and Spencer Hall, with whom we have now to do, merits our regards; from all these characters, he is an enthusiastic Forester; he loves all the glades and the groves of the old spot, and no writer living knows better how to describe them. He is not transcended in this particular by William Howitt, in prose; or by Ebenezer Elliott, in verse. The soul of Nature is strong within him; he has looked upon her, and loved her, and love is the source of all inspiration, and of all truly inspired and graphic writing. His spirit as well as his cheek have been so fanned by the cool breathings of the boughs of the shady trees, and the memory of old walks and trysting spots where he met with