ay
that good Being who has brought me in safety out of the heart of a
thousand storms preserve thee from the deadlier tempests of the world
of vice!"

William returned to college, with a heart softened both by grief and
love. Strange, that out of this wholesome state of mind should have
sprung the elements of wretchedness and vice! Yet so it was. He had
written a poem on the subject of his late affliction, and had breathed
into it the very soul of sorrow. The wild and beautiful scenery amid
which he dwelt, and which he loved and knew so well, had also given
its hues to the language and the thoughts of his muse: his rich and
now cultivated taste imparted elegance and harmony to his numbers; the
poem was at once original, chaste, and imaginative; it gained him the
esteem of the highest literary circles in Edinburgh, and he became a
cherished guest in the houses of many distinguished men for whom he
had never hoped to indulge any feelings save those of distant and
respectful admiration. He emerged into a new world, too beautiful and
dazzling for him at first to see his way clearly through its mazes.
His undoubted genius commanded the respect of the men--his manly
feeling, and the ingenious eloquence of his address, presently made
him a distinguished favourite with the female portion of his
acquaintance. The tone of his thoughts and feelings underwent a
perfect revolution. Once introduced into the society of the polite and
the learned, the bashfulness and awkwardness of the shepherd-lad
seemed to fall off from him, without effort of his own, but naturally,
like the crustaceous envelope in the metamorphosis of insects. He felt
as if he were a denizen of the clime in which he now luxuriated, and
as if, till now, he had been living in a foreign land. He discovered,
to his amazement, that those great men, whose very names he had been
wont to utter with reverence, and before whose glance his eye had been
accustomed to fall abashed, were the most easy, familiar, and
communicative companions possible--that scarcely one of them was so
severe in their morality as his old father--that they listened to his
opinions with attention, and replied to them with respect. Then,
again, among the satellites of these literary luminaries--those whom,
till now, in the reflected light of their primaries, he had been wont
to behold with respect, and almost with envy--he presently perceived
weakness, dimness, and aberration; and he perceived, also,