tion, and "cleared the sulphur off the lungs;" and mine would
suffer for want of the medicine which kept theirs clean. I know not
whether there was virtue in their remedy: it seems just possible that
the shock given to the constitution by an overdose of strong drink may
in certain cases be medicinal in its effects; but they were certainly
not in error in their prediction. Among the hewers of the party I was
the first affected by the malady. I still remember the rather pensive
than sad feeling with which I used to contemplate, at this time, an
early death, and the intense love of nature that drew me, day after day,
to the beautiful scenery which surrounds my native town, and which I
loved all the more from the consciousness that my eyes might so soon
close upon it for ever. "It _is_ a pleasant thing to behold the sun."
Among my manuscripts--useless scraps of paper, to which, however, in
their character as fossils of the past epochs of my life, I cannot help
attaching an interest not at all in themselves--I find the mood
represented by only a few almost infantile verses, addressed to a docile
little girl of five years, my eldest sister by my mother's second
marriage, and my frequent companion, during my illness, in my short
walks.

TO JEANIE.

Sister Jeanie, haste, we'll go
To whare the white-starred gowans grow,
Wi' the puddock flower o' gowden hue.
The snaw-drap white and the bonny vi'let blue.

Sister Jeanie, haste, we'll go
To whare the blossomed lilacs grow--
To whare the pine-tree, dark an' high,
Is pointing its tap at the cloudless sky.

Jeanie, mony a merry lay
Is sung in the young-leaved woods to-day;
Flits on light wing the dragon-flee,
An' bums on the flowrie the big red-bee.

Down the burnie wirks its way
Aneath the bending birken spray,
An' wimples roun' the green moss-stane,
An' mourns. I kenna why, wi' a ceaseless mane.

Jeanie, come; thy days o' play
Wi' autumn-tide shall pass away;
Sune shall these scenes, in darkness cast,
Be ravaged wild by the wild winter blast.

Though to thee a spring shall rise,
An' scenes as fair salute thine eyes;
An' though, through many a cludless day,
My winsome Jean shall be heartsome and gay;

He wha grasps thy little hand
Nae langer a