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570 When round the lonely cottage
Roars loud the tempest's din,
And the good logs of Algidus
Roar louder yet within;

575

69

When the oldest cask is opened,
And the largest lamp is lit;

When the chestnuts glow in the embers,
And the kid turns on the spit;
When young and old in circle
Around the firebrands close;

580 When the girls are weaving baskets,
And the lads are shaping bows:

585

70

When the goodman mends his armor,
And trims his helmet's plume;
When the goodwife's shuttle merrily
Goes flashing through the loom,-
With weeping and with laughter
Still is the story told,

How well Horatius kept the bridge

In the brave days of old.

573. The Romans brought some of their firewood from the hill of Algidus, about a dozen miles to the southeast of the town.

DR. JOHN BROWN.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

Ir happens now and then that a man writes some one story, or sketch, or poem, which goes straight to the heart of people. Though he may produce many other things, he is known peculiarly by this one; and it often happens that he is not a professional author, but it may be a lawyer, or a schoolmaster, a minister, or a doctor, who has written the one notable thing out of some particular experience. Thus, at any rate, it was with Dr. John Brown, a Scottish physician, who one day told the story of Rab and his Friends, and thereupon became as famous among English-speaking people as he was loved and honored in his own town of Edinburgh.

He was born September 22, 1810, and has himself told, in one of the tenderest tributes of a son to his father, something of his own childhood in the Scottish manse at Biggar, and more of that father, who was minister of the parish. Brought up in religious ways, he retained through life a simple faith, blended with an exquisite charity for men and women, children and animals, which was seen in his helpful work as a physician and surgeon, in his friendships, -for many both great and obscure people called him friend, and in his regard for dogs and other animals. "Once, when driving," writes a friend, "he suddenly stopped in the middle of a sentence, and looked out eagerly at the back of the carriage. 'Is it some one you know? I asked ́No,' he said, 'it's a dog I don't know

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often used to say that he knew every one in Edinburgh except a few new-comers, and to walk Princes Street with him was to realize that this was nearly a literal fact.”

Besides Rab and his Friends, Dr. Brown wrote a number of sketches of dogs he had known; he wrote also a delightful account of Pet Marjorie, a bright little girl, who was a friend of Walter Scott, and a number of papers, half medical, half literary. These writings preserve a memory of his kindly genius; but after all, really to know the man one would need to have heard his friends and neighbors speak of him: it was not so much through his books as through his personal presence that he fixed himself in the minds of people. One of his friends thus writes of him: "Perhaps the time and place his friends will most naturally recall in thinking of him is a winter afternoon, the gas lighted, the fire burning clearly, and he seated in his own chair in the drawing-room (that room that was so true a reflection of his character), the evening paper in his hand, but not so deeply interested in it as not to be quite willing to lay it down. If he were reading, and you were unannounced, you had almost reached his chair before the adjustment of his spectacles allowed him to recognize who had come; and the bright look, followed by 'It's you, is it?' was something to remember. The summary of the daily news of the town was brought to him at this hour, and the varied characters of those who brought it out put him in possession of all shades of opinion, and enabled him to look at things from every point of view. If there had been a racy lecture, or one with some absurdities in it, or a good concert, a rush would be made to Rutland Street to tell Dr. Brown, and no touch of enthusiasm or humor in the narration was thrown away upon him."

In the latter part of his life he suffered from seasons of melancholy, which shadowed his beautiful spirit. He died May 11, 1882.

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