pasties, and sweet beer. Our neathanded Phyllis was a nun of the red habit, whom, the luncheon finished, we thanked in the limited vocabulary of French that we enjoyed in common. But we were not to leave Marianhill without a little theatrical incident. A priest who had come out with us from Durban had mounted into the vehicle with the precedence commonly accorded to the cloth. He had scarcely seated himself when a shrill pathetic voice cried out: "Hélas! mon père, mon père, vous ne m'avez pas bénie," and like a flash a red habit brushed past us and prostrated itself in the dust alongside the trap. It was Phyllis; and the priest had to dismount to confer the omitted benediction-I thought in a rather perfunctory manner-receiving in return a grateful "Merci, bien merci, mon père."

CARLYLE SMYTHE.

From The Spectator. BORDER ESSAYS.1

Lovers of Scotch and English poetry alike will find much to interest them in these gathered-up essays of the late Professor Veitch. We say lovers of poetry advisedly, for though the notes on "The Vale of Manor and the Black Dwarf" range over another field of literature, and other papers refer more particularly to historical events, still the main inter

worth. Even the poem written when Yarrow was yet unvisited adds to the sheaf. Many of us have to be satisfied with the thought:

Enough if in our hearts we know There's such a place as Yarrow. The poet has transferred his own vision to us. We defer completer knowledge until we, too, stand in Wordsworth's company, as it were, eleven years later, when he first saw the Yarrow. The little company, including, according to Professor Veitch, Hogg, William Laidlaw, and Dr. Anderson, found their way to the stream through "one of the greenest, purest, most pathetic glens in the Borderland." We can imagine that the charm of the lonely scenery, the fulfillment of more youthful suggestions and anticipations, the flood of memories, historical and traditional, filled the poet at first with that emotion, that "pensive recollection" which is akin to sadness:

But thou, that didst appear so fair
To fond imagination,
Dost rival in the light of day
Her delicate creation;

Meek loveliness is round thee spread.
A softness still and holy;
The grace of forest charms decayed,
And pastoral melancholy.

It is

row of Wordsworth and Scott," and the discussion on the old ballad named "The

Dowie Dens of Yarrow." Speaking of "Yarrow stream," Professor Veitch says: "Around this stream-this valley with its hills, it ruined towers, its storied names-there has grown, through the last three centuries at least, a fulness of stirring associations and of imaginative feeling, a wealth of romantic ballad and pathetic song, such as is not paralleled in Scotland." It seems as if all the old associations, the memories linked with that quiet valley and the Border stream, had been gathered up, a rich harvest of poetic fancy, by Words

1 "Border Essays." By John Veitch, M. A. London: W, Blackwood and Sons.

He

"Braes of Yarrow" were obviously has woven the essence of the old balequally familiar to Wordsworth. lads into the substance of his poems. The "genuine image" that he has seen will dwell with him in after days, the memory will not be wholly melancholy, the sunshine that played on the "everyouthful waters" will cast its rays on his fancy. Professor Veitch tells us that

There are few valleys . . . whose scenery is capable of greater contrasts at different times, and under different atmospheric conditions. It can smile and cheer in sunshine; it can softly soothe in its green pastoral calm; or when the stream steals through the misty haughs, it can

sadden, even depress, by suggestions of awe, gloom, and indefiniteness. On the same day even, the stream is in the sunny noon clear and sparkling; in the gloaming it wears a wan, pathetic look. A sudden mountain shower will shroud it in gloom; to be followed by a sudden outburst of sunshine, which renders its green sloping braes at once golden and glad.

For the last time Wordsworth and Scott visited the stream they have both immortalized seventeen years later, when Wordsworth and his daughter Dora were staying at Abbotsford. was late in September, and autumnal days were gathering round the two, outwardly and inwardly:

It

Grave thoughts ruled wide on that sweet day,

Their dignity installing

In gentle bosoms, while sere leaves
Were on the bough, or falling.

The landscape and the stream were still the same, still lighted by gleams of sunshine, the visitors alone were "changed and changing." Natural shadows were spreading over the head of the Minstrel of the Border; it was Scott's last sight of his beloved Yarrow. The old traditions preserved in ballad and story, the raids and combats and feuds, so intimately connected with "the Forest," the district of the Yarrow and the Ettrick, had filled his fancy and fired his imagination. Professor Veitch thinks that a deep undercurrent of sadness "tinges his descriptions of scenery, -especially of the Border district." He thinks this "background of pathos" is partly due to the brooding over a stirring but irrevocable past, and partly to the colorless monotony of the moors and glens, the long winter, the dead bracken, the dark stretches of heather. A vivid imagination must always feel emotion in gazing on any scene rich in memories of past days, and such emotion will be felt in the deeper side of man's nature; he will recall with pas

sionate sadness that

There hath past away a glory from the earth.

Heroism, loyalty, endurance, when we

hear their echoes, even dimly, stir some chord that thrills in response; the poetic nature must be doubly impressionable, even more keenly alive and responsive to such thrilling. It exclaims with Shelley:

We look before and after,

And pine for what is not: Our sincerest laughter

With some pain is fraught;

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

To quote once more from Professor

Veitch: "The introduction to the second canto of "Marmion" lays bare the whole inner heart of Scott. It is devoted almost wholly to the Yarrow. It is the lifelong feeling of the man,— deep, loving, passionate. Regret for the past, vivid imagining of it, old memories strong as if they were present perceptions, the softening and subduing power of old story,-all this we find."

The ballad mentioned above, "The Dowie Dens of Yarrow," is the wellknown one compiled by Sir Walter Scott from several versions, and included in his "Minstrelsy." Professor Veitch claims to have discovered an earlier ballad of the Yarrow than either

"Willy's Drowned in Yarrow" or the "Dowie Dens." He traces its genealogy back to the early part of the last century, a copy having been preserved Welsh, Peebleshire cottar and poet," in the family of the late "William and handed down through several generations. William Welsh recited the ballad when he was an old man to Professor Veitch, and wrote it out for him, "stating very explicitly that it was

from the recitation of his mother and

grandmother." The professor is an authority on Scotch border poetry, and he concludes that this version of "The Dowie Dens" is older than the earliest ably as early as "Rare Willy's drowned printed fragment by Herd, and probin Yarrow," first printed by Allan Ramsay in 1724. He thinks that this early version clears up the incongruities that have puzzled various ballad editors, and that it is probably the fountainhead of both these Yarrow ballads, and

branch of art, and all three were anxious to show that though they wrote poetry they were none the less proficient in the usual womanly crafts.

Miss Greenwell had challenged Miss Rossetti to produce a creditable sample of skilled needlework. Dora Greenwell's own Meisterstück was a wellmade workbag. This is Miss Rossetti's letter acknowledging the gift:

5, Upper Albany St., London, N. W. 31 December, 1863. My Dear Miss Greenwell,-Your very kind gift reproaches me for so late an acknowledgement, but indeed I have been so busy as to feel excused for not having till now thanked you for it. Even now I have not made myself acquainted with its contents, but I must soon do so, having just succeeded in clearing off a small batch of work for the S. P. C. K.

The last day of the year suggests more good wishes than I venture to express to you. Thank you for the friendly welcome acorded to my carte. I should be truly pleased to possess yours; but will not bore you with too urgent a request, as probably so many persons are in my case.

What think you of Jean Ingelow, the wonderful poet? I have not yet read the volume, but reviews with copious extracts have made me aware of a new eminent name having arisen among us. I want to know who she is, what she is like, where

she lives. All I have heard is an uncertain rumor that she is aged twenty-one, and is one of three sisters resident with

their mother. A proud mother, I should

think. If our dear Scotts move away altogether from the North, I fear my prospect of making your personal acquaintance must dwindle to the altogether vague. Your kindness, however, has made us no strangers, even should we never meetor, rather, never meet here; for on the last day of the year the separations and meetings of time should not alone be thought of. Yours cordially,

CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.

Miss Ingelow must have been drawn into this competition very soon after the date of this letter, for on the 9th of February she wrote:

6, Denmark Place, Hastings. My Dear Miss Greenwell,-I have for some time been anxious to write to you, both to thank you for your kind note and for the poems you sent me. I like them

much, and really think they are likely to reach the class for which they were written. The poor men here are all of the seafaring class, or I should have given those verses away. Do you know that I have finished a bag for you? I shall send it, I think, by railway, for my brother is coming to-morrow as usual, and he will convey it as far as London. The pattern is of my own invention! Is the kettleholder worked yet? I shall be so proud of it. When I next see Miss Rossetti I shall ask for proof that she can do hemming and sewing. It is a pleasure to me that you like those little stories. They have not much in them, but it was an amusement to me to write them; writing for children is so completely its own reward; it obliges one to be simple and straightforward, and clears away some of the mystical fancies in which one is apt to indulge, and which are a mere luxury. They never do us any good, and I am often humilated by meeting with sensible fellow creatures who ask me what some of them mean. There has been so much leisure ished. It is, however, not to be printed here that my new volume is all but fin

yet.

I

am, believe me,

Very affectionately yours, JEAN INGELOW.

Miss Ingelow's workbag was a beautiful piece of craftsmanship. Garlands of flowers, done from those to be found in almost any pretty and well-cared-for garden, were wrought with narrow china ribbon of all colors and shades and

blendings on a ground of black cloth

no work of the kind could have been better executed. Here my knowledge of this great sewing competition comes to an end. I have even forgotten whether Miss Rossetti's piece of work was ever sent, but my impression is that it was not.

M.

From The London Standard. THE EARLY RISING FALLACY. and well that early rising is one of the Of late years it has been argued wisely chief causes of lunacy. Liers in bed in all ages have contended that it is one of the many effects of lunacy; there was not the smallest doubt about the mental condition of a man who rose at daybreak from choice, but modern science

has discovered that it is not only an effect but a cause of insanity. Liers abed will be overjoyed to hear that those who rise at four all suffer the same fate as those who

Use fusees:

All grow by slow degrees
Brainless as chimpanzees,
Meagre as lizards;

Go mad and beat their wives,
Plunge, after shocking lives,
Razors and carving knives
Into their gizzards.

Such is the terrible fate of the rash individual who would dare to rise before the sun. The overweening conceit of the man who rises at daybreak has long been a source of wonder among observant psychologists, but now it is no longer a mystery; it is explained by the new early rising and insanity theory. Surely the conceited Pharisee, who struts like the cock he helps to the garden wall, is more deserving of pity than contempt, for are not his symptoms premonitory of the madness, incipient as yet in him, but freely promised in its fullness by the medical faculty to all those who waste the best hours of the day drinking the intoxicating morning air on an empty stomach? The picture

of the early riser in this interesting stage of incipient madness is highly edifying. It is of him and his ilk that the psalmist speaks when he says, "Behold, as wild asses of the desert go they forth to their work, rising betimes for their prey." Having risen with the sun, the Morning Pharisee has reached by breakfast time a sublime altitude from which he gazes down at the saner beings around him with a lofty contempt. He imagines that because he has secured the dewdrop before the lark has had a chance to plan the larceny, he is necessarily a poet of the first water-an exalted being above the littleness of expostulating with the man who appears when the coffee is cold. After all, what has he achieved? A dewdrop, wet feet, and a morbid craving for the picturesque and sensational in nature. In these days of cranks and crazes, there are thousands of crack-brained people who would barter away three hours of healthy sleep for a dewdrop and its undesirable train of evils. No one wonders at this, it is so common; the wonder is that these people have never found their way, until quite recently, into the treatises on the morbid pathological conditions of the brain.

The Tsetse-Fly.-It used to be believed that the tsetse-fly disease, that plague of African travel, was due to a poison natural to the tsetse-fly, as the acrid secretions of ants or hornets are natural to those insects. A group of English bacteriologists have been investigating the disease, and it is now known that the tsetse-fly is the mere bearer of the disease. The fly itself is the prey of a minute animal organism, and when it sucks the blood of an ox, some of these parasites enter the wound and multiply incredibly in the blood-vessels. Specimens of the blood of affected animals have been shown under high magnification, and the tiny, eel-like parasites, not larger than blood-corpuscles, are seen

in countless numbers. Under another microscope a drop of fresh blood was shown with the parasites actually alive and wriggling in disgusting activity. For comparison there were shown, alive and dead, similar parasites found infesting the blood of sewer rats in this country. Unfortunately, these parasites appear not to affect the health of the rats. The exhibition was a striking demonstration of the modern knowledge of diseases; most of these are now seen to be phases of the struggle for existence between small organisms like microbes and large organisms like man and the other vertebrates. And the victory is not always with the strong.-Saturday Review.