Thy mither's e'e has been dimmed with wae- Wee Annie o' Auchineden. There's an eerie blank at yon fireside, The primrose glints on the Spring's return, In these artless and simple lines, if we mistake not, along with the truest musical instinct, a spirit of deep-hearted, delicate pathos is likely to be recognised by all fathers of fine families. Other extracts might be given, perhaps exhibiting Mr. Macdonald to even greater advantage. We prefer to conclude, however, with a slice or two of his prose, from which readers will be able to infer for themselves the quality of the joint they are cut from. In passages of pure description, Mr. Macdonald, we think, excels. He has a true and fine eye for nature in her various aspects, and a delicate instinct of selection; at once sees objects clearly, and is able to transfer them to his page in lively and speaking pictures. Witness this "approach to Arran :"— But Arran, the grandest feature by far in the scene, and the bourne for which we are now rapidly steering, lies right before us, and claims our undivided attention. We arebearing right down upon Brodick, which is situated somewhere about midway between the extremes of the island. Right and left the land stretches away, with its glorious garniture of bays and headlands, rude swelling heights, and wide yawning glens. To the south is the Holy Isle, with Lamlash hiding in its rear; to the north, the Corrie and the towering walls of Glen Sannox. Goatfell, the giant of the isle, however, has wrapped his head and shoulders in a snowy cloud, and seems to be shorn of half his vast proportions. A stranger would never have fancied, indeed, that such a tall and grizzly monster was shrouded in that wreath of glittering vapour, which, like a glory, has dropped from the summer sky, and hangs upon the higher ranges of the mountain. What a fine play of light and shadow there is also around his huge sides, and about his feet, down even to the margin of the water, which appears to be quivering in a luminous ecstacy! In one vast glen there is an atmosphere of bronze; another sleeps in a quiet and sober gloaming; while a third seems actually to have anticipated night, and invested itself with kindred glooms. Still more masterly again, in another, a grander, and a sterner style, is the following, descriptive of our wilder class of mountain scenery. Nowhere do we remember to have seen the peculiar "weird seizure” and morbid movement of the imagination, which is apt to beset one, oppressed and overpowered by the sense of awful and savage solitude, exhibited with such truth, power, and vividly poetical effect, as in the passage which has struck us so much, that we are impelled to put it in italics. To consider it, as some may, merely a little fanciful and exaggerated, is simply to acknowledge that you have never in your own person been the subject of the peculiar impressions indicated: After spending about half an hour on the summit (of Goatfell), we descend upon the shoulder of Glen Rosa, and pass along its side to the head of Glen Sannox. These two magnificent glens run almost at right angles from each other, their respective heads coming quite close to each other at the foot of the Cir Vohr, or large comb, a mountain of peculiarly gruesome aspect, which forms a striking feature in the landscape of both. From the serrated appearance presented by the crest of this mountain, being supposed to resemble the comb of a cock, it has received its Celtic name. The Cir Vohr is undoubtedly the best point of view for obtaining an adequate idea of either Glen Rosa or Glen Sannox. We accordingly resolve to scale its rifted peak. The task is one of great difficulty, but the ascent well repays the labour. Anything more intensely wild, dreary, and desolate we have never seen than several passages of this mountain. Something akin to absolute terror takes possession of our mind as we pass up its abrupt watercourses and crooked sheep tracks, where one false step would be instant destruction. A strange sort of propensity to the discovery of horrid animate forms in the dead rocks and stones develops itself at the same time in our imagination. Saurians, lizards, adders, and other wild fantasies, are seen embodied tn the rude rocky masses by which we are environed, and seem to be crawling out upon us from their adamantine prisons. One long white stone, beside a lizard of frightful size and aspect, suggests with a hateful degree of vividness the figure of a woman in her shroud. Turn where we will, we find our eyes still turning back to the form which in that lonely place is sleeping in its shroud of stone. Still we persevere, and, after a tough struggle, at length reach the crest of the cock. A terrific peak it is, and surrounded by the most sublime of mountain scenery. On every side it is girt with the most fantastic mountain masses, heaved into every conceivable form of irregularity and eccentricity of outline. Then Glen Sannox, that most spacious and beautiful valley, extends at one glance before the eye, from its head pillowed among the crags to its very junction with the sea. Every turn and winding of its stream, indeed, is indicated as in a map. Glen Rosa, also, is seen throughout the greater portion of its length, with all its corries and dells, and watercourses; while in another direction we have a bleak expanse of moorland, dotted with sheep and kine, and containing in its bosom a dark mountain turn of the most melancholy aspect imaginable. It would take us too long, however, even to enumerate the landscape features overlooked by the mighty Cir Vohr. Any one who wishes to form a proper conception of savage Highland scenery, in its rudest and most picturesque aspects, could not do better, however, than to follow in our track, and place his foot upon the comb of the giant cock which keeps watch and ward over the two great glens of Arran. Decidedly on our next visiting Arran, not permitting ourselves to be too greatly scared by Mr. Macdonald's threat of "tracks, where one false step would be instant destruction," we shall endeavour to gird our loins up for an acquaintance with this wonderful peak of Cir Vohr. Returning to Mr. Macdonald's softer manner, we may conclude with two little extracts descriptive of the Gareloch and its immediate neighbourhood: Our mission this sweet summer day is an excursion to Helensburgh, Row, and Roseneath-three of the prettiest localities round the whole Frith Pleasant to our ear are their several names— -pleasant to our eyes their various aspects of beauty-and pleasant, indeed, to our memory are their respective associations with the days of other years. Once more we are bounding over the brown waters of the Frith, once more our heart leaps up as the steamer rounds the picturesque promontory of Ardmore-that bosky arm of beauty, which the Cardross shore thrusts out into the stream as if to stay its progress. Once again the green lawns, and the wooded glades, and the brown swelling heights of Roseneath swim into our ken, and once again the fair face of Helensburgh beams upon us from the sunny shore, and mirrors itself in the quiet waters. We can see as of yore the loungers sauntering lazily along the beach, or chatting in groups at the old-fashioned and incommodious pier-the little children gathering shells upon the sands, or wading in the foamy brine, with here and there a yacht or a fishingboat dancing over the waves. The picture, with its framework of gently-swelling slopes י. and dark brown ridges-lofty in parts, but somewhat monotonous in outline-is, on the whole, one of great beauty and cheerfulness. Into this beautiful basin-for such, in truth, it is—let the reader imagine himself-say on board the good steamer Alma-accompanying us on one of those calm and sunny days, which form the pride of summer, when summer is at its highest noon. Leaving the projecting point of Row, with Roseneath and its wooded slopes and clustering cottages behind, we have an expanse of water of nearly a mile in breadth before us, bounded on one side by the swelling and continuous ridge that flanks Glenfruin, and on the other by the range which intervenes between us and Lochlong. There is nothing particularly striking in the sky-line on either side. The hills are lofty, but neither mountainous in their height nor picturesque in their general features. Above, they are brown, barren, and bleak; but toward the shore, they relax into a fresher green, with a dense fringe of copsewood, extending close to the beach, and fretted at intervals by shallow ravines and water-courses, and dotted every here and there by snug and neatly-built cottageseither nestling in foliage and verdure apart, or clustered into sweet and inviting groups. Things to dream of are these same scattered edifices-alone or congregated-and centres of sweetest associations to many a summer migrant from the stir and the turmoil of the dinsome and bustling city. The water over which we plough our foamy way, at the same time, is smooth as a mirror. In its depths we can see the ever-changing blue and white of the summer sky, while the old brown hills, and the sylvan slopes, and the straggling cottages and villas, and the green lawns, are seen in a watery shimmer reflected in either margin. A halo of peace and comfort and softest beauty seems, indeed, ever to hang over this calm and secluded lake, and over its environment of sheltering hills. We do not in the least feel that we do justice to Mr. Macdonald in these extracts. Not only are they taken, for the most part, at random, but they suffer greatly in effect by being violently isolated, and ought to be read, to be appreciated, as they gracefully inhere in the flow and easy continuity of his narrative. As they stand, however, they may convey to the reader some notion of the facile and gracious charm of the book, and the felicity with which it is written. We are certain that our readers will thank us if, by anything we have said, they are induced to possess themselves of the work, and of another from the same hand, precisely similar in its merits, entitled "Rambles Round Glasgow." NOTES OF THE MONTH. LONDON, April 21, 1858. CHARLES DICKENS has been reading his "Christmas Carol" to a crowded house at St. Martin's Hall, for the benefit of the Children's Hospital. He is to read on three consecutive Thursday evenings, commencing April 27 his other Christmas stories for his own benefit. His readings always attract large audiences, and his power of educing the interest of the story he reads, and placing it before his hearers like a picture, is remarkable. To the lovers of science, Burlington House on successive Thursday evenings, and more especially on the alternate Thursdays, is the great point of attraction. The Royal Society, the Linnæan Society, and the Chemical Society, are now each accommodated with spacious suites of apartments there. The Royal meet every Thursday evening, holding its sessions in the large new hall, which is also the lecture room of the London University. The Linnæan meets each second Thursday in its own rooms, in the main body of the building, where also the libraries and collections of the Royal Society are. The Linnæan library is the old ball room of Burlington House, and is a very handsome room. Conserved in a glazed mahogany cabinet are the four tall black cases which contain the original herbarium of Linnæus, while his books and papers occupy other portions of the same cabinet. Over against them are the insects of Fabricius. The room is full of objects of interest to the lover of natural history, that being the subject which the Linnæan mainly affects. The Chemical Society also meets on the Thursday evening, and after the papers have been read, and the usual conversation promenade in the respective libraries is over, the members and visitors of the various societies meet together for tea and mere talk in the ante-room of the great hall. The Geographical Society, whose own apartments are in Whitehall Place, but whose increasing prosperity has overgrown its accommodations there, meets this season also at Burlington House, and there each alternate Monday a vast flock of geographers assemble to hear the "newest news" of the progress of discovery. The Geological Society maintains its old hold upon Somerset House; but it is not improbable that by and by it also will be accommodated in new buildings, which are proposed to be erected at the rear of the present buildings, in which were formerly the gardens of Burlington House. Among the variety of lectures during the month, there has been an interesting series at the Royal Institution, on the History of Italy during the middle ages, by Mr. J. P. Lacaita. Delivering his lectures without notes, and in a language not natural to him, Mr. Lacaita nevertheless manifests a facility in expression and an elegance of style not often attained even by those who use their own tongue. defined the term Middle Ages as embracing the period between A.D. 476, when the Empire of the West was extinguished by Odvacer, and A.D. 1492, when Charles VIII. invaded Italy. Of the period so He designated, he gave sketches of a highly interesting and elaborate character. A short series of four lectures has just been completed in connexion with the Union of Young Men's Societies of the Presbyterian Church. They were delivered in the Lower Room at Exeter Hall, and consisted of a lecture by the Rev. Murray Mitchell, missionary in Bombay, on India and Indian missions; one by the Rev. Wm. Ballantine, on Bible Revision; one by Mr. P. H. Gosse, on Marine Zoology; and one by the Rev. Dr. James Hamilton, on Books and Readers. The society before which these lectures were delivered is composed of delegates from the various Young Men's Societies, and one of its great aims is to be useful to young men coming to London for the first time, in the way of providing them with respectable places to live in, and introducing them to useful and proper society. For such purpose it corresponds with societies and persons throughout the country. At its quarterly meetings it brings together the members of the various societies, and it takes the initiative in various movements calculated to be useful to the class among which its labours chiefly lie. In the world of Books, the most prominent of the new issues have been the first of four volumes by M. Guizot, entitled "Memoirs of my Own Times;" and Cardinal Wiseman's "Recollections of the Last Four Popes." Bagard Jagler, an American traveller and voluminous writer of voyages, gives in, in a single volume, a collectanea of his Letters from Sweden, Lapland, and Norway, which have appeared from time to time during the winter in the columns of the New York Tribune. A posthumous work of the late Colonel Sleeman unveils the iniquities of the native rulers of Oude, and reveals the series of tyrannical oppressions which often-repeated warnings from the days of Lord William Bentinck downwards led at last to its annexation to the British territory. Among the host of books called into ephemeral interest by the incidents of the mutiny, "The Timely Retreat," which has nothing to do with the mutiny at all, has had the largest sale, being at the same time, perhaps, the silliest book that has appeared of late on India. Mr. Moxon has given in the first and second of a four-volume life of Percy Bysche Shelley by Hogg, with many new facts. Mr. J. A. St. John, leaving his usual track, has plunged into a discussion on the education of the people. Of books of more erudite order, we have Mr. Irving on the Theory and Practice of Caste, Wm. Ewart Gladstone's Studies on Homer and the Homeric Ages, and Rawlinson's (the Rev. George) History of Herodotus, with notes by Sir Henry Rawlinson and Sir J. G. Wilkinson. We are promised soon two volumes more of the supplementary despatches of the late Duke of Wellington; but it is said there is to be no family life. Such a work is to be left to the enterprise of individual authorship. |