im to his cage, it could not ward off
the usual effects of old age, particularly in a climate where the sun
rarely penetrated within the bars of his prison. When I first saw him,
his memory had greatly failed him; while his bright green plumage was
vast verging into a silvery gray He had but little left of that
triumphant chuckle which used to provoke such laughter among the
younkers; and day after day he would sit mute and moping on his perch,
seldom answering the numerous questions that were put to him regarding
the cause of his malady. Had any child of the family been sick, it could
hardly have been treated with greater tenderness than Poll.

"At last, one fine morning, just as the vernal equinox had blown a few
ships into harbor, a stranger was announced, and immediately recognized
by the master of the house as a 'Don' something--a Spanish merchant,
whose kindness to a young member of the family had been often mentioned
in his letters from Mexico. One of his own ships, a brig, in which he
had made the voyage, was then in the bay, driven in by stress of
weather, for Mull was no market for Spanish goods. But that was not my
business; he would most likely pay a visit to Greenock, where, in the
present day at least, Spanish cargoes are rife enough.

"No sooner had their visitor exchanged salutations with the master of
the house and his family, than the parrot caught his eye; and, going up
to the cage, he addressed the aged bird in familiar Spanish. The effect
was electric: the poor blind captive seemed as if suddenly awakened to a
new existence; he fluttered his wings in ecstasy--opened his eyes, fixed
them, dim and sightless as they were, intently on the stranger; then
answered him in the same speech--not an accent of which he had ever
heard for twenty years. His joy was excessive--but it was very short;
for in the midst of his screams and antics, poor Poll dropped dead from
his perch."

Such was the incident upon which Campbell composed the little ballad
entitled "The Parrot." It had taken strong hold of his memory, and,
after the lapse of forty years,[19] found its way into the pages of the
"New Monthly," and is now incorporated with his acknowledged poems.

FOOTNOTES:

[19] See "Life and Letters of Campbell." Vol. I. Residence in Mull.

[From Sharpe's London Magazine.]

GALILEO AND HIS DAUGHTER.

BY J. B.

I had been walking in a grove of lime-trees, arched above me, like the
stately roofing of a