"Inland I wander slow,

Mute with the power the earth and heaven wield:
A black spot sails across the golden field,

And through the air a crow.

Before me wavers spring's first butterfly;

From out the sunny noon there starts the cuckoo's cry;
The daisied meads are musical with lambs;

Some play, some feed, some, white as snow-flakes, lie
In the deep sunshine, by their silent dams.

The road grows wide and level to the feet;

The wandering woodbine through the hedge is drawn,
Unblown its streaky bugles dim and sweet;
Knee-deep in fern stand startled doe and fawn,
And lo! there gleams upon a spacious lawn
An Earl's marine retreat.

A little foot-path quivers up the height,
And what a vision for a townsman's sight!
A village, peeping from its orchard bloom,
With lowly roofs of thatch, blue threads of smoke,
O'erlooking all, a parsonage of white.

I hear the smithy's hammer, stroke on stroke;
A steed is at the door; the rustics talk,
Proud of the notice of the gaitered groom;
A shallow river breaks o'er shallow falls.
Beside the ancient sluice that turns the mill
The lusty miller bawls."

The next is a thunderstorm in Arran :

"At height of noon a gloomy fleece of rain
Was hanging o'er the zenith. On it crept,
Drinking the sunlight from a hundred glens;
Blackening hill by hill; smiting the sea's
Bright face to deadly pallor; till at last

It drowned the world from verge to verge in gloom.
A sky-wide blinding glare-the thunder burst-
Again heaven opened in a gape of flame;

Heavy as lead came down the loosened rain

I heard it hissing in the smoking sea;

It slackened soon, the sun blazed through, and then
The fragment of a rainbow in the gloom
Burned on the rainy sea-a full-sail'd ship
Apparent stood within the glorious light
From hull to highest spar. The tempest trailed
His shadowy length across the distant hills:
The birds from hiding-places came and sang,
And ocean laughed for miles beneath the sun."

As to the faults of the present book, we have already said that they are much fewer than those which are to be discovered in the "Life Drama." There are, however, a few blemishes. In addition to the great defect which we already pointed to, arising from the sameness of character which he portrays, we have to take exception to several commonplace expressions which we find here and there, such as―

"There laughing stood

A new-born morning from the Infinite,
Before my very face."

Or,

Or again,

"Yet worth he had,

And strove, as far as in him lay, to turn
This smoke of life to clear poetic flame."

"Think, dearest, think

That I am flying to you through the night
At sixty miles an hour."

We meet, too, once or twice, with some such absurdity as the following—

"As silent as a ghost,

A whale arose and sunned his glistening sides,
Then sank as still. We hung above the bow,
And through the pale green water clear as air,
The mighty army of the herrings passed."

In Mr Smith's former book he wrote largely about the stars, and got strongly rated for the contradictory offices which he assigned to them. In the present work he has avoided this by leaving the stars almost entirely out of view; but we regret we cannot congratulate him on the substitute he has found. He has now taken to candles. He says in one place:

And again,

"Joy stood like candles in his mother's eyes."

แ "By Passion's gaudy candle lights

I sat and watched the world's brave play."

And the same simile is used in various other places. We confess our liking to the stars in preference to the candles.

In concluding our remarks on Mr Smith's book we have only to reiterate the belief which we expressed at the outset, that he has not yet written the work by which his fame will hang, that on the contrary his efforts hitherto have been more in the way of practising for that more ambitious effort which he has yet to make. Should he be content with writing, every two or three years, a book such as that which now lies before us, we shall be sadly disappointed, but we trust that he has a higher aim-an ambition to see his name associated with a work which will live, a work which will not only call forth our admiration of its beauties, but will make us feel grateful for the wisdom which it confers, and the good that it teaches.

"Oran, and other Poems," is a volume written by Mr Alexander T. M'Lean, a gentleman who, though known as a contributor to several local journals, has now published, for the first time, on his own account. While there is sufficient cause to congratulate Mr M'Lean on his debut, we would not be warranted in offering him unqualified praise. This, however, we presume he will not look for at this time; we hope he will be satisfied with our hearty welcome. We are glad to see another name added to the list of poets of the West of Scotland; and it is perhaps a fact worthy of remark that the authors of both the books in our present notice belong to the West. In Mr M'Lean's book we have ample evi

dence that he possesses a poetic mind, very well stored, and cultivated with some care. He has given evidence of a lively imagination, and considerable power of expression. His language, though it cannot be called musical, is forcible and pleasing. The style resembles much that of Alexander Smith, and the characters also resemble, in a too striking manner, those who form the subject of Smith's first volume. It is a pity to see these young poets take so much pleasure in delineating the spasms of men whose disappointments in love have made them halffrenzied. Oran is a young man to whom Emma has plighted her troth; but a better match having been presented, she preferred being mistress "o'er a proud patrician hall" to loving Oran in a cottage in the "lone hamlet." Emma's conduct so affected Oran that he became a sceptic.

He thus apostrophises :

"What sorrows spring,

Even from one bitter memory, to mar
The soul's serenity and whelm in gloom
The deeper, as we'd struggle into light!
Emma, thou wert the rock on which I split,

And when thou fled, all hope, all peace, all faith
Fled from me-leaving but a shattered mind,
And withered heart, that proudly donned the garb
Of sceptic, laughing at the ways of Heaven."

Oran is represented as a student, but the cause of his scepticism was Emma's conduct, and not the results of study. It would seem that he was a member of a wild scoffing club of young men, who spoke in strong language under the excitement of the bowl. He is before his death, however, wooed back to religious feeling by his friend, Walter, who reminds him of the teachings of his mother. Both the cause of his scepticism and the grounds on which he afterwards repudiates it, give evidence of a mind more influenced by feeling than reason, which is quite contradictory of the intellectual character assigned to him throughout the book, and destroys the consistency which the reader expects to find in the character. Inconsistencies even much more obvious than this one are to be found. Walter, for example, in describing his sister, who was seduced by "young Stanhope," speaks thus of her at page 18:

"I love to gaze upon thine imaged form,
And back recall those happy, happy hours,
When thou would'st climb and fondly clasp
Thine arms around my neck, with such a grace,
That even now methinks I feel them still."

And just two pages farther on, instead of being the young sister who used to climb his knee, he calls her

"My sister,

And such a sister, Oran, oh my heart!

My eldest sister-she who watched my steps,
And taught me all of goodness I have known."

There are other features of a similar kind which we might point out, all tending to show that the author has not formed a true conception of

the characters which he has endeavoured to portray, but that the distinctiveness and individuality which he ought to have clearly comprehended in his own mind have been much awanting. This is a fault, however, which, with due care, may be avoided; and we trust Mr M'Lean will endeavour to correct it in his next effort. We cannot omit noticing, too, that much of his poetry is the expression of the merest platitudes, which is not only tiresome, but tends to obscure the passages which betoken a more attractive originality. While we have thus freely canvassed the faults of the book, we do not by any means shut our eyes to the beauties which it undoubtedly possesses. The style is marked by great ease and freedom. The illustrations and figures are often very apt and choice, and the descriptive passages show considerable power of expression. A description of morning we have pleasure in quoting:"The Morn I love,

And on the breezy hills to watch the East
Throw back her gates and let the sun emerge
In dazzling glory, like a conquering king
With prostrate nations at his chariot-wheels.
He comes, great sovrain of the blythesome day,
And Night recedes at his august approach,
As yields a regent to the rightful heir

The vacant throne of kings. Hark! hymns of praise
Swell rapturous from the woodland choristers,
And all Creation's voice harmonious joins

In loud acclaim to welcome Morn's return.

How my soul flutters as I climb these crags

With buoyant step, and bathe my throbbing brow

In the cool breeze of heaven, that fills with joy

And quickens the weak pulsings of the heart!

Cribbed in that cheerless room through the long night,
My soul grew faint and vainly strove to reach
The purposed end of an ambitious aim."

There are, too, some very pretty thoughts scattered throughout,

such as

"Faith is but a flower

That has its bud on earth-its bloom in heaven."

"Be ours, Oran, the nobler aim to live,

So that, when we may quit this scene, our names,
As household words, sacred to those we love,
Shall be embalmed in Memory's holy urn,

O'er which shall drop Affection's pious tears."

We take leave of Mr M'Lean, trusting that we may again hear of him, and that no consideration will induce him to dispense with that amount of care and anxious labour which are essential to all success.

THE TENT; OR, DESERT WANDERING.*

men run

How much of romance hangs round the Desert of Arabia! It has been a scene of wandering since the time when the descendants of Ishmael received it as their inheritance, until the present day, when " to and fro upon the earth, and knowledge is multiplied." The roving, warlike Ishmaelite still ranges its wastes, unfettered by any law, save a purely nominal fealty to the Egyptian monarch; desolation still reigns in its vast solitudes; civilisation has not pierced its sterile recesses; the time seems yet distant when it "shall rejoice and blossom as the rose." But even amid this dreariness there is much natural beauty. Its valleys and mountains, if they do not please by their softness, must astonish by their singular grandeur; and when the wildness of custom, and the peculiarity of races-observable during a journey through its seemingly illimitable extent-are considered, there will be very few indeed who would not desire to mount "the ship of the desert," and cruize awhile in the ocean of sand.

But there are more powerful attractions than those presented by Nature. Fancy here holds an undisputed reign. We can in the desert commune by her agency with ancient patriarchs, and recognise in Bedouin usage a shadow of the past; we can follow Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in their sojournings; trace the devious path of their descendants after they had left the land of bondage, and entered upon "the waste and howling wilderness;" visit the sacred spot whence was thundered the law, and the scene of Israel's marvellous punishment; and feel that, since these remote ages, little change has passed over the face of the desert, that its hills and sandy plains are still the same. The Desert is no longer the unimportant district which it was once considered. Across a portion of it are ever being conveyed many of our expatriated countrymen, who seek to grow rich or famous in the Indian clime; travellers from all parts of the civilised world, impelled by romantic enthusiasm, or allured by the recital of unhackneyed adventure within its bounds, become debtors to its hospitable children; while politicians regard it as a sort of neutral outpost, which, though now unrecognised as valuable in diplomacy, may ultimately occupy no despicable place on the state-map of the world.

To one duly impressed with the great events recalled to memory by these localities, in whom religious feeling is united with keen observation, lively imagination, and a high sense of the beautiful, a visit to the Desert must be peculiarly fascinating, and its subsequent narrative must be deeply interesting. Such a traveller is Dr Stewart; such the volume under review. We have experienced much pleasure in taking the reverend author as our guide through the Arabian peninsula, and heartily recommend all who value such reading to make the acquaintance which we have so much enjoyed.

There has of late been too much mere book-making in reciting travels. "The humblest individual in the empire," when pocketing his passport, feels himself under a deep responsibility to the world at large, and the pains of authorship he constantly anticipates. He fritters away time,

"The Tent and the Khan: a Journey to Sinai and Palestine." By Robert Walter Stewart, D.D., Leghorn. Edinburgh: W. Oliphant & Sons.

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