jest.

Art-fire is in his spirit,
For Nature lit the flame;
The first step he has taken
Upon the road to fame.

In childhood's early morning,
Ere opened yet the flower,
Within his soul is dawning
The future artist's power!

ASTLEY H. BALDWIN.

SOME FAMOUS RAILWAY TRAINS AND THEIR STORY.

_By_ Henry Frith.

III.--THE "FLYING SCOTCHMAN."

"One minute, sir; just let my mate brush up the dust a bit, and sprinkle
a drop o' water on the foot-plate, and we'll be all right and
comfortable."

So said an engine-driver on one occasion to the writer, and we are
reminded of it when we step up to the "eight-foot" engine which is to
carry us from King's Cross Station to York. To pull the fastest train in
Great Britain, or indeed in the world, for one hundred and eighty-eight
miles, at more than forty-eight miles an hour, is first-rate running.
"Scotchmen" run also from the Midland Station at St. Pancras, and from
Euston, but the quickest one is that on the Great Northern, and it is
also the most punctual.

Now, what do you say to a journey of one hundred and five miles, to
Grantham? We will leave King's Cross, if you please, at ten in the
morning--a nice comfortable time. We have had our breakfast, and the
engine has had its meal of coal and plenty of water. It will want
something, for it will travel fast.

Here we are puffing up the incline, between the walls, and through the
little tunnels which abound near London, on our way to Barnet. We could
tell tales of Barnet, had we time. We could give you a long--perhaps
much too long--description of the place near which the Yorkists and
Lancastrians contended on that fatal fifth of April, when the Great
Warwick was slain and Edward made king.

But our engine-driver does not care for history much. He would rather
tell us of his terrible winter journey a few years ago (in 1880), when
he had to keep time, and _did_ keep time, through snow and wind, the
bitter blast making icicles on the engine out of steam, and hanging
inches long from the carriage roofs.

Now our "Flying Scotchman" runs through Peterborough--the Proud, as it
was once called, when its monastery flourished, and where is now the
splendid cathedral on which the Ironsides of Cromwell laid such hard
hands. Shame upon them who destroyed the beautiful chapter-house and
cloisters! Perhaps you do not associate your history at your school with
the actual places you see, young readers