She wore a little angel's air,
Ere angels cam to seek her.

And when she couldna stray out by,
The wee wild-flowers to gather;
She oft her household plays wad try,
To hide her illness frae our eye,
Lest she should grieve us farther.

But ilka thing we said or did,
Aye pleased the sweet wee creature;
Indeed ye wad hae thought she had
A something in her made her glad
Ayont the course o' nature.

For though disease, beyont remeed,
Was in her frame indented,
Yet aye the mair as she grew ill,
She grew and grew the lovelier still,
And mair and mair contented.

But death's cauld hour cam' on at last,
As it to a' is comin';
And may it be, whene'er it fa's,
Nae waur to others than it was
To Mary, sweet wee woman!

FOOTNOTES:

[7] This exquisite lay forms a portion of "The Cottagers of Glendale,"
Mr Riddell's longest ballad poem.

MRS MARGARET M. INGLIS.

The writer of spirited and elegant poetry, Mrs Margaret Maxwell Inglis
was the youngest daughter of Alexander Murray, a medical practitioner,
who latterly accepted a small government situation in the town of
Sanquhar, Dumfriesshire. She was born at Sanquhar on the 27th October
1774, and at an early age became the wife of a Mr Finlay, who held a
subordinate post in the navy. On the death of her husband, which took
place in the West Indies, she resided with the other members of her
family in Dumfries; and in 1803, she married Mr John Inglis, only son of
John Inglis, D.D., minister of Kirkmabreck, in Galloway. By the death of
Mr Inglis in 1826, she became dependent, with three children by her
second marriage, on a small annuity arising from an appointment which
her late husband had held in the Excise. She relieved the sadness of her
widowhood by a course of extensive reading, and of composition both in
prose and verse. In 1838 she published, at the solicitation of friends,
a duodecimo volume, entitled "Miscellaneous Collection of Poems, chiefly
Scriptural Pieces." Of the compositions in this volume, there are
several of very superior merit, while the whole are marked by a vein of
elegant fancy.

Mrs Inglis died in Edinburgh on the 21st December 1843. Eminently gifted
as a musician, she could boast of having been complimented by the poet
Burns on the grace with which she had, in his presence, sung his own
songs. Of retiring and unobt