happiness; while children and grandchildren, christened by his hand, and made Christian by his precept and example, came with them to add their grateful acknowledgments. Widows, whose hearts had been bound up by one acquainted with grief, brought all they had a prayer and a blessing to swell the general tribute: while the Sabbath school children tottered under the load of a Pulpit Bible, purchased out of the hoarded halfpence of the good man's own overflowing liberality.

With this juvenile offering he was fairly upset; and always easily overcome by aught associated with his own childless hearth and early-removed olive plants, he thanked them with tears alone, and deputed the glad Lilly to invite them all to tea on the green. This she could do with an easy mind, for Tibbie had at length arrived, -the enormous weight of the cake balanced, though imperfectly, in her panniers, by two of the hugest ewe-milk cheeses that ever owed their existence to mountain gratitude!

Our party, swelled by a few guests of the better order, at length sat down to dinner; and never did feast (for a feast it was, fit for the court of aldermen!) yield more unmingled satisfaction. The old man, exhilarated by the spontaneous burst of affection with which his Anniversary had been hailed, felt a buoyancy of spirit to which he had for years been a stranger. G- and I were excited to the utmost by so unwonted a celebration. The Dominie himself, through the week the "observed of all observers," looked up in delighted admiration to his own exemplary Teacher; while the rough diamond of a Doctor eyed him with the exact counterpart of the expression with which his dog, of the true shepherd breed, fixed his eyes in mute devotion on his master's well-known countenance. All felt, that like the good Centurion in Scripture, he had but to say to any of them, "Do this, and he doeth it; come, and he cometh." Their hearts, under Providence, were in his hand, and they felt it was well it should be so !

But there was in young Norman's reverential gaze, something deeper and more filial than any, and strange to say! on this day alone, when all seemed elated and emboldened, it was tempered for the first time with fear. For Norman had a suit to prefer, before that evening should close, on which hung his own and another's happiness; and not all the softened feelings of the day of jubilee would, he feared, reconcile the old pastor to the thought of parting with his Lilly! How this was to be brought about or even hinted at, was more than even a lover could devise,-so to Providence he left it, as he had been taught by his pastor to leave all besides.

And strangely was the knot cut, and the difficulty removed ere the thought had well passed from the young man's troubled mind:

-Among the healths of that eventful evening,-"absent friends,” the one ever dearest to the hearts of Scotsmen, was not forgotten; and then for the first time, did the pious father allow himself to whisper a regret that his daughter, the only stay of his old age, should dwell divided from him by duty, in the new world. True, she was solacing by her kindness, and cheering by her society, the labours in Christian usefulness of a worthy countryman whom the spiritual necessities of his exiled Scottish brethren had induced to forego home and kindred for their sakes. But they had been long, long absent on this labour of love, and a father's heart would yearn, on the proudest day of his life, for a glimpse of his long banished only child!

The vain wish had crossed like a passing cloud, the rarely dimmed serenity of his mind, and left but a halo behind,-when, as Lilly, loaded with the huge remnants of her cake, and assisted by Norman, who was leaving the house to prepare for her juvenile fete —two plainly dressed, but respectable looking people, opened with something of strange familiarity the garden gate, and asked if Mr Maxwell was at home.

"He is," replied Norman, answering for the bashful and surprised girl," but very particularly engaged with friends, who would be loath to part with him to-night, even on business."—

“ Lilly, my own Lilly!" sobbed out the female traveller, clasping her daughter to her heart-and then finding breath to say,-how is my dear father?”—“ Oh, well! well!" cried the delighted girl, hanging round her father's neck in frantic joy,—“come and see him directly!"

"

"Not just directly, my own Lilly!" said he, composedly;— 'seventy-four is no age for surprises, even joyful ones-Sir," (turning to Norman, who stood studying, all lovers will guess how earnestly, the parents on whose fiat hung his life), "my wife had set her heart on reaching home on her father's day of jubilee. We had a quick passage and a safe one, God be praised! to Liverpool, and travelling day and night, were set down by coach this morning at B. How to get on in time was the difficulty—but the back woods have made us good walkers, and here we are, not too late for a grace-cup of thanksgiving to Him who has brought us safe to our father's door, and to friends, who will make us welcome for his sake!-Please, sir, to pave the way for our meeting.”

Norman hailed the omen, and came as deliberately as joy would let him, into the room. "There are strangers without, sir, who wish to speak with you; and as they have tidings from New Brunswick, perhaps your friends will consent to spare you, though unwillingly."

"From New Brunswick !" exclaimed the old man, hastily rising, then sinking down again from the painful agitation,-"you have seen and spoken to them,-is all well? Norman, my son, tell me truly."-"All well even as your heart could wish-but there are those without, who could tell you better, far better than any words, about those you love !"-" Are they still without, oh, bring them in, pray-our friends will excuse." "But will you promise?"— The old man cast a bewildered gaze around-caught a glimpse of Lilly's beaming face, as it peeped eagerly in at the half-open door, and exclaiming, "My bairn! my bairn!" sank back insensible on his chair!

We bore him gently out to the open air, whose reviving freshness, and still more, the voice and aspect of his darling daughter, soon restored him to himself. Who could describe their meeting, half as well as one throb of long-severed hearts will bring it home to every bosom? Suffice it to say, it was a meet consummation for such an Anniversary!

ODE TO A DEAD BEAUTY.

FROM THE ITALIAN OF ANDREA DE BASSO.

RISE from the loathsome and devouring tomb,
Give up thy body, woman, without heart,
Now that its worldly part

Is over; and deaf, blind, and dumb,

Thou servest worms for food;

And from thine altitude

Fierce Death has shaken thee down, and thou dost fit
Thy bed within a pit.

Night, endless night, hath got thee

To clutch and to englut thee;

And rottenness confounds

Thy limbs and their sleek rounds;

And thou art stuck there, stuck there, in despite,

Like a foul animal in a trap at night.

Come in the public path, and see how all

Shall fly thee, as a child goes shrieking back

From something long and black,

That nocks along the wall.

See if the kind will stay

To hear what thou wouldst say;
See if thine arms can win
One soul to think of sin;

See if the tribe of wooers

Will now become pursuers;

And if, where they make way,

Thou'lt carry now the day;

Or whether thou wilt spread not such foul night,
That thou thyself shalt feel the shudder and the fright.

Yes, till thou turn into the loathy hole,

As the least pain to thy bold-facedness.
There let thy foul distress

Turn round upon thy soul,

And cry, O wretch in a shroud,
That wast so headstrong proud,
This, this is the reward,

For hearts that are so hard,
That flaunt so, and adorn,
And pamper them, and scorn

To cast a thought down hither,
Where all things come to wither;

And where no resting is, and no repentance,
Even to the day of the last awful sentence.

Where is that alabaster bosom now,

That undulated once, like sea on shore?

"Tis clay unto the core.

Where are those sparkling eyes,

That were like twins o' the skies?

Alas, two caves are they,

Fill'd only with dismay.

Where is the lip, that shone

Like painting newly done?

Where the round cheek? and where

The sunny locks of hair?

And where the symmetry that bore them all?

Gone, like the broken clouds when the winds fall.

Did I not tell thee this, over and over?

The time will come, when thou wilt not be fair

Nor have that conquering air?

Nor be supplied with lover?

Lo! now behold the fruit

Of all that scorn of shame :
Is there one spot the same
In all that fondled flesh?
One limb that's not a mesh
Of worms, and sore offence,
And horrible succulence?

Tell me, is there one jot, one jot remaining,

To show thy lovers now the shapes which thou wast vain in?

Love?-Heaven should be implored for something else?
For power to weep, and to bow down one's soul.

Love? 'Tis a fiery dole;

A punishment like hell's.

Yet thou, puff'd with thy power,

Who wert but as the flower

That warns us in the psalm,
Didst think thy veins ran balm
From an immortal fount:
Didst take on thee to mount
Upon an angel's wings,

When thou wert but as things

Clapp'd on a day, in Egypt's catalogue,
Under the worshipp'd nature of a dog.

Ill would it help thee now, were I to say,
Go, weep at thy confessor's feet, and cry,
"Help, father, or I die :
See-see-he knows his prey,
Even he, the dragon old;
Oh, be thou a strong hold
Betwixt my foe and me!
For I would fain be free,
But am so bound in ill,
That, struggle as I will,
It strains me to the last,

And I am losing fast

My breath and my poor soul, and thou art he
Alone canst save me in thy piety."

But thou didst smile, perhaps, thou thing besotted,
Because, with some, death is a sleep, a word?
Hast thou, then, ever heard

Of one that slept and rotted ?

Rare is the sleeping face,

That wakes not as it was.

Thou shouldst have earn'd high heaven,

And then thou mightst have given

Glad looks below, and seen

Thy buried bones serene,

As odorous and as fair

As evening lilies are ;

And in the day of the great trump of doom,

Happy thy soul had been to join them at the tomb.

Ode, go thou down, and enter

The horrors of the centre.

Then fly amain, with news of terrible fate

To those who think they may repent them late.

LEIGH HUNT.