observe, my fair cousin, that I do not reckon the notice and kindness of Lady Catherine de Bourgh as among the least of the advantages in my power to offer. You will find her manners beyond anything I can describe; and your wit and vivacity, I think, must be acceptable to her, especially when tempered with the silence and respect which her rank will inevitably excite. Thus much for my general intention in favour of matrimony; it remains to be told why my views were directed to Longbourn instead of my own neighbourhood, where I assure you there are many amiable young women. But the fact is, that being, as I am, to inherit this estate after the death of your honoured father (who, however, may live many years longer), I could not satisfy myself without resolving to choose a wife from among his daughters, that the loss to them might be as little as possible when the melancholy event takes place, which, however, as I have already said, may not be for several years. This has been my motive, my fair cousin, and I flatter myself it will not sink me in your esteem. And now nothing remains for me but to assure you in the most animated language of the violence of my affection. To fortune I am perfectly indifferent, and shall make no demand of that nature on your father, since I am well aware that it could not be complied with; and that one thousand pounds in the four per cents, which will not be yours till after your mother's decease, is all that you may ever be entitled to. that head, therefore, I shall be uniformly silent; and you may assure yourself that no ungenerous reproach shall ever pass my lips when we are married.' On It was absolutely necessary to interrupt him now. 'You are too hasty, sir,' she cried. 'You forget that I have made no answer. Let me do it without further loss of time. Accept my thanks for the compliment you are paying me. I am very sensible of the honour of your proposals, but it is impossible for me to do otherwise than decline them.' 'I am not now to learn,' replied Mr Collins, with a formal wave of the hand, that it is usual with young ladies to reject the addresses of the man whom they secretly mean to accept, when he first applies for their favour; and that sometimes the refusal is repeated a second or even a third time. I am, therefore, by no means discouraged by what you have just said, and shall hope to lead you to the altar ere long.' Upon my word, sir,' cried Elizabeth, 'your hope is rather an extraordinary one after my declaration. I do assure you that I am not one of those young ladies (if such young ladies there are) who are so daring as to risk their happiness on the chance of being asked a second time. I am perfectly serious in my refusal. You could not make me happy, and I am convinced that I am the last woman in the world who would make you so. Nay, were your friend Lady Catherine to know me, I am persuaded she would find me in every respect ill qualified for the situation.' 'Were it certain that Lady Catherine would think so,' said Mr Collins, very gravely-but I cannot imagine that her Ladyship would at all disapprove of you. And you may be certain that when I have the honour of seeing her again I shall speak in the highest terms of your modesty, economy, and other amiable qualifications.' 'Indeed, Mr Collins, all praise of me will be unnecessary. You must give me leave to judge for myself, and pay me the compliment of believing what I say. I wish you very happy and very rich, and by refusing your hand, do all in my power to prevent your being otherwise. In making me the offer, you must have satisfied the delicacy of your feelings with regard to my family, and may take possession of Longbourn estate whenever it falls, without any self-reproach. This matter may be considered, therefore, as finally settled.' And rising as she thus spoke, she would have quitted the room, had not Mr Collins thus addressed her : 'When I do myself the honour of speaking to you next on the subject, I shall hope to receive a more favourable answer than you have now given me; though I am far from accusing you of cruelty at present, because I know it to be the established custom of your sex to reject a man on the first application, and, perhaps, you have even now said as much to encourage my suit as would be consistent with the true delicacy of the female character.' 'Really, Mr Collins,' cried Elizabeth, with some warmth, you puzzle me exceedingly. If what I have hitherto said can appear to you in the form of encouragement, I know not how to express my refusal in such a way as may convince you of its being one.' My 'You must give me leave to flatter myself, my dear cousin, that your refusal of my addresses are merely words of course. My reasons for believing it are briefly these-It does not appear to me that my hand is unworthy your acceptance, or that the establishment I can offer would be any other than highly desirable. situation in life, my connections with the family of De Bourgh, and my relationship to your own are circumstances highly in my favour; and you should take it into further consideration that, in spite of your manifold attractions, it is by no means certain that another offer of marriage may ever be made you. Your portion is unhappily so small that it will in all likelihood undo the effects of your loveliness and amiable qualifications. As I must, therefore, conclude that you are not serious in your rejection of me, I shall choose to attribute it to your wish of increasing my love by suspense, according to the usual practice of elegant females.' 'I do assure you, sir, that I have no pretensions whatever to that kind of elegance which consists in tormenting a respectable man. I would rather be paid the compliment of being believed sincere. I thank you again and again for the honour you have done me in your proposals, but to accept them is absolutely impossible. My feelings in every respect forbid it. Can I speak plainer? Do not consider me now as an elegant female intending to plague you, but as a rational creature speaking the truth from her heart.' 'You are uniformly charming!' cried he, with an air of awkward gallantry; and I am persuaded that, when sanctioned by the express authority of both your excellent parents, my proposals will not fail of being acceptable.' To such perseverance in wilful self-deception Eliza beth would make no reply, and immediately and in silence withdrew; determined, that if he persisted in considering her repeated refusals as flattering encouragement, to apply to her father, whose negative might be uttered in such a manner as must be decisive, and whose behaviour at least could not be mistaken for the affectation and coquetry of an elegant female. (From Pride and Prejudice.) A too kind Half-brother. Mrs John Dashwood now installed herself mistress of Norland; and her mother and sisters-in-law were degraded to the condition of visitors. As such, however, they were treated by her with quiet civility, and by her husband with as much kindness as he could feel towards anybody beyond himself, his wife, and their child. He really pressed them, with some earnestness, to consider Norland as their home; and, as no plan appeared so eligible to Mrs Dashwood as remaining there till she could accommodate herself with a house in the neighbourhood, his invitation was accepted. A continuance in a place where everything reminded her of former delight was exactly what suited her mind. In seasons of cheerfulness no temper could be more cheerful than hers, or possess in a greater degree that sanguine expectation of happiness which is happiness itself. But in sorrow she must be equally carried away by her fancy, and as far beyond consolation as in pleasure she was beyond alloy. Mrs John Dashwood did not at all approve of what her husband intended to do for his sisters. To take three thousand pounds from the fortune of their dear little boy would be impoverishing him to the most dreadful degree. She begged him to think again on the subject. How could he answer it to himself to rob his child, and his only child too, of so large a sum? And what possible claim could the Miss Dashwoods, who were related to him only by half blood, which she considered as no relationship at all, have on his generosity to so large an amount? It was very well known that no affection was ever supposed to exist between the children of any man by different marriages; and why was he to ruin himself and their poor little Harry by giving away all his money to his half-sisters ? 'It was my father's last request to me,' replied her husband, that I should assist his widow and daughters.' 'He did not know what he was talking of, I dare say; ten to one but he was light-headed at the time. Had he been in his right senses, he could not have thought of such a thing as begging you to give away half your fortune from your own child.' 'He did not stipulate for any particular sum, my dear Fanny; he only requested me, in general terms, to assist them, and make their situation more comfortable than it was in his power to do. Perhaps it would have been as well if he had left it wholly to myself. He could hardly suppose I should neglect them. But as he required the promise, I could not do less than give it : at least I thought so at the time. The promise, therefore, was given, and must be performed. Something must be done for them whenever they leave Norland and settle in a new home.' 'Well, then, let something be done for them; but that something need not be three thousand pounds. Consider,' she added, 'that when the money is once parted with, it never can return. Your sisters will marry, and it will be gone for ever. If, indeed, it could ever be restored to our poor little boy' 'Why, to be sure,' said her husband, very gravely, 'that would make a great difference. The time may come when Harry will regret that so large a sum was parted with. If he should have a numerous family, for instance, it would be a very convenient addition.' 'To be sure it would.' 'Perhaps, then, it would be better for all parties if the sum were diminished one-half. Five hundred pounds would be a prodigious increase to their fortunes!' Oh! beyond anything great! What brother on earth would do half so much for his sisters, even if really his sisters? And as it is-only half blood! But you have such a generous spirit!' 'I would not wish to do anything mean,' he replied. 'One had rather, on such occasions, do too much than too little. No one, at least, can think I have not done enough for them: even themselves, they can hardly expect more.' 'There is no knowing what they may expect,' said the lady; but we are not to think of their expectations: the question is, what you can afford to do.' 'Certainly; and I think I may afford to give them five hundred pounds apiece. As it is, without any addition of mine, they will each have above three thousand pounds on their mother's death-a very comfortable fortune for any young woman.' 'To be sure it is; and, indeed, it strikes me that they can want no addition at all. They will have ten thousand pounds divided amongst them. If they marry, they will be sure of doing well; and if they do not, they may all live very comfortably together on the interest of ten thousand pounds.' That is very true, and therefore, I do not know whether, upon the whole, it would not be more advisable to do something for their mother while she lives, rather than for them-something of the annuity kind, I My sisters would feel the good effects of it as well as herself. A hundred a year would make them all perfectly comfortable.' mean. His wife hesitated a little, however, in giving her consent to this plan. 'To be sure,' said she, 'it is better than parting with fifteen hundred pounds at once. But then, if Mrs Dashwood should live fifteen years, we shall be completely taken in.' 'Fifteen years! my dear Fanny; her life cannot be worth half that purchase.' 'Certainly not; but if you observe, people always live for ever when there is any annuity to be paid them; and she is very stout and healthy, and hardly forty. An annuity is a very serious business; it comes over and over every year, and there is no getting rid of it. You are not aware of what you are doing. I have known a great deal of the trouble of annuities; for my mother was clogged with the payment of three to old superannuated servants by my father's will, and it is amazing how disagreeable she found it. Twice every year these annuities were to be paid; and then there was the trouble of getting it to them; and then one of them was said to have died, and afterwards it turned out to be no such thing. My mother was quite sick of it. Her income was not her own, she said, with such perpetual claims on it; and it was the more unkind in my father, because otherwise the money would have been entirely at my mother's disposal, without any restriction whatever. It has given me such an abhorrence of annuities that I am sure I would not pin myself down to the payment of one for all the world.' 'It is certainly an unpleasant thing,' replied Mr Dashwood, to have those kind of yearly drains on one's income. One's fortune, as your mother justly says, is not one's own. To be tied down to the regular payment of such a sum, on every rent-day, is by no means desirable: it takes away one's independence.' 'Undoubtedly; and, after all, you have no thanks for it. They think themselves secure; you do no more than what is expected, and it raises no gratitude at all. If I were you, whatever I did should be done at my own discretion entirely. I would not bind myself to allow them anything yearly. It may be very inconvenient some years to spare a hundred or even fifty pounds from our own expenses.' 'I believe you are right, my love; it will be better that there should be no annuity in the case: whatever I may give them occasionally will be of far greater assistance than a yearly allowance, because they would only enlarge their style of living if they felt sure of a larger income, and would not be sixpence the richer for it at the end of the year. It will certainly be much the best way. A present of fifty pounds now and then will prevent their ever being distressed for money, and will, I think, be amply discharging my promise to my father.' 'To be sure it will. Indeed, to say the truth, I am convinced within myself that your father had no idea of your giving them any money at all. The assistance he thought of, I dare say, was only such as might be reasonably expected of you; for instance, such as looking out for a comfortable small house for them, helping them to move their things, and sending them presents of fish and game, and so forth, whenever they are in season. I'll lay my life that he meant nothing further; indeed, it would be very strange and unreasonable if he did. Do but consider, my dear Mr Dashwood, how excessively comfortable your mother-in-law [step-mother] and her daughters may live on the interest of seven thousand pounds, besides the thousand pounds belonging to each of the girls, which brings them in fifty pounds a year apiece, and of course they will pay their mother for their board out of it. Altogether, they will have five hundred a year amongst them; and what on earth can four women want for more than that?—They will live so cheap! Their housekeeping will be nothing at all. They will have no carriage, no horses, and hardly any servants; they will keep no company, and can have no expenses of any kind! Only conceive how comfortable they will be! Five hundred a year! I am sure I cannot imagine how they will spend half of it; and as to your giving them more, it is quite absurd to think of it. They will be much more able to give you something.' 'Upon my word,' said Mr Dashwood, 'I believe you are perfectly right. My father certainly could mean nothing more by his request to me than what you say. I clearly understand it now, and I will strictly fulfil my engagement by such acts of assistance and kindness to them as you have described. When my mother removes into another house my services shall be readily given to accommodate her as far as I can. Some little present of furniture, too, may be acceptable then.' 'Certainly,' returned Mrs John Dashwood. 'But, however, one thing must be considered. father and mother moved to Norland, though the furniture of Stanhill was sold, all the china, plate, and linen was saved, and is now left to your mother. Her house will therefore be almost completely fitted up as soon as she takes it.' When your would have been a very pleasant addition to our own stock here.' 'Yes; and the set of breakfast-china is twice as handsome as what belongs to this house; a great deal too handsome, in my opinion, for any place they can ever afford to live in. But, however, so it is. Your father thought only of them. And I must say this, that you owe no particular gratitude to him, nor attention to his wishes; for we very well know that if he could he would have left almost everything in the world to them. This argument was irresistible. It gave to his intentions whatever of decision was wanting before; and he finally resolved that it would be absolutely unnecessary, if not highly indecorous, to do more for the widow and children of his father than such kind of neighbourly acts as his own wife pointed out. (From Sense and Sensibility.) See the Memoir of Jane Austen by her nephew, the Rev. J. E. Austen Leigh (1869; 2nd ed. 1871); the disappointing Letters, 1796-1816, chiefly to her sister, Cassandra, edited by their grandnephew, Lord Brabourne (2 vols. 1884); the Life by Oscar Fay Adams (Chicago, 1891; 2nd ed. 1897); Sketches by Sarah Tytler (1880), Miss Malden (1889), and Goldwin Smith (1890); Miss Thackeray's Book of Sibyls (1883); Mr Austin Dobson's admirable introductions to the novels in Macmillan's edition (1895-97); Sir F. H. Doyle's Reminiscences (1886; for her only love episode); W. H. Pollock, Jane Austen, her Contemporaries and Herself (1899); Constance Hill, Jane Austen, her Homes and her Friends (1902). Lady Caroline Lamb (1785-1828) was the authoress of three works of fiction, utterly worthless in a literary point of view, but from extrinsic circumstances highly popular in their day. The first, Glenarvon, was published in 1816, and the hero was obviously meant to represent-his friends thought to caricature and travesty-Lord Byron. The second, Graham Hamilton (1822), depicted the difficulties and dangers involved in weakness and irresolution of character. In the third, Ada Reis (1823), a fantastic Eastern tale, the hero is the Don Juan of his day, a Georgian by birth, who is sold into slavery, but rises to honours and distinctions. Lady Caroline Lamb, a daughter of the Earl of Bessborough, was married before she was twenty to the Hon. William Lamb (afterwards Lord Melbourne), and from the singularity as well as the grace of her manners, her literary accomplishments, and personal attractions, was long the delight of 'fashionable' circles. On meeting with Lord Byron, she contracted at first sight an unfortunate attachment for him which lasted long enough to provoke much comment, and ended in a rupture. Meeting outside her park-gates the hearse which was conveying the remains of Lord Byron to Newstead Abbey (1824), she was taken home insensible; a severe illness succeeded; and erelong her mind became permanently alienated. Lady Morgan (1780?-1859) was for a dozen years famous under her maiden name of Sidney Owenson; and in poetry, the drama, novels, biography, ethics, politics, and books of travel showed a masculine disregard of common opinion or censure, and (in her own words) a temperament 'as cheery and genial as ever went to that strange medley of pathos and humour-the Irish character.' Her father, Robert Owenson (originally MacOwen), was an actor and manager, a favourite in the society of Dublin, and author of some popular Irish songs. She was born in Dublin on the Christmas Day of 1780 or thereby-'cold, false, erroneous, chronological dates' she protests against-and in 1798 turned governess, to support the failing fortunes of her family. In 1801 she published a small volume of poetical verse, and afterwards The Lay of the Irish Harp and a selection of twelve Irish lyrics, with music-one of them 'Kate Kearney,' which bids fair to outlive all her other achievements. Two rubbishy novels had preceded The Wild Irish Girl (1806), which became exceptionally popular. This success introduced the authoress into some of the higher circles of Irish and English society, and she became attached to the household of the Marquis of Abercorn. She had had 'somewhat mysterious relations' with at least one admirer, Sir Charles Ormsby, when in 1812 she was married off-hand to Thomas Charles Morgan, M.D. (1783-1843), whom the Lord - Lieutenant knighted for the occasion. For the next quarter of a century, excepting two long visits to the Continent, the pair made Dublin their home; but in 1837 Lord Melbourne gave her a pension of £300, and in 1839 they removed to London. Ere this she had published The Missionary, an Indian Tale (1811); O'Donnel (1814); Florence Macarthy (1818; 4th ed. 1819); and The O'Briens and the O'Flahertys (1827), in which, departing from the beaten track of sentimental novels, she ventured, like Miss Edgeworth, to portray national manners. In Sir Walter Scott's opinion, O'Donnel, though deficient as a story, has 'some striking and beautiful passages of situation and description, and in the comic part is very rich and entertaining.' But Lady Morgan's high-toned society is disfigured with grossness and ters profligacy, and her subordinate characare often caricatures. The vivacity and variety of these presentations is unquestionable-if not always true, they are lively; 'whether it is a review of volunteers in the Phoenix Park, or a party at the Castle, or a masquerade, a meeting of United Irishmen, a riot in Dublin, or a jug-day at Bog-moy-in every change of scene and situation our authoress wields the pen of a ready writer.' Complaint was made against these Irish sketches that they were so personal romans a clef, it being plainly indicated that some of the portraits of personages at the viceregal court and in the 'best society' of Dublin represented actual and well-known ladies and gentlemen of the day. Their conversation is often a sad jargon of prurient allusion, comments on dress, and superfluous scraps of French and Italian. The humbler characters - even the rapparees-are infinitely more entertaining than Lady Morgan's representatives of the aristocracy. Her strength lay in describing the broad characteristics of her nation, their boundless mirth, their old customs, their love of frolic, and their wild grief under calamity or in bewailing the death of friends and neighbours. In this department she may fairly be compared with Lever and Banim and Carleton. Other works were France (1817) and Italy (1821), with dissertations on the state of society, manners, literature, and government. Lord Byron bore testimony to the fidelity and excellence of Italy; but unluckily here also she was too ambitious of being always fine and striking,' and too anxious to display her curious reading and high company. Lady Morgan wrote also The Princess (a tale founded on the revolution in Belgium); Luxima the Prophetess, an Indian tale; Dramatic Scenes from Real Life (very poor in matter and affected in style); The Life and Times of Salvator Rosa; The Book of the Boudoir (autobiographical sketches and reminiscences); Woman and her Master (a philosophical history of woman down to the fall of the Roman empire); and in 1841, in conjunction with her husband (author of Sketches of the Philosophy of Life and Morals, &c.), two volumes entitled The Book without a Name, pieces collected from the writers' portfolios and from stray sketches which had appeared in periodicals. Lady Morgan's silly but not unamusing Memoirs were edited by Hepworth Dixon (2 vols. 1862); and W. J. Fitzpatrick had already written a Life of her in 1860. The Irish Hedge Schoolmaster. A bevy of rough-headed students, with books as ragged as their habiliments, rushed forth at the sound of the horse's feet, and with hands shading their uncovered faces from the sun, stood gazing in earnest surprise. Last of this singular group, followed O'Leary himself in learned dishabille, his customary suit-an old great-coat, fastened with a wooden skewer at his breast, the sleeves hanging unoccupied, Spanishwise, as he termed it; his wig laid aside, the shaven crown of his head resembling the clerical tonsure; a tattered Homer in one hand, and a slip of sallow in the other, with which he had been distributing some well-earned pandies to his pupils; thus exhibiting, in appearance and in the important expression of his countenance, an epitome of that order of persons once so numerous, and still far from extinct in Ireland, the hedge schoolmaster. O'Leary was learned in the antiquities and genealogies of the great Irish families as an ancient Senachy, an order of which he believed himself to be the sole representative; credulous of her fables, and jealous of her ancient glory; ardent in his feelings, fixed in his prejudices; hating the Bodei Sassoni, or English churls, in proportion as he dis trusted them; living only in the past, contemptuous of the present, and hopeless of the future, all his national learning and national vanity were employed in his history of the Macarthies More, to whom he deemed himself hereditary Senachy; while all his early associations and affections were occupied with the Fitzadelm family; to an heir of which he had not only been foster-father, but, by a singular chain of occurrences, tutor and host. Thus there existed an incongruity between his prejudices and his affections that added to the natural incoherence of his wild, unregulated, ideal character. He had as much Greek and Latin as generally falls to the lot of the inferior Irish priesthood, an order to which he had been originally destined; he spoke Irish as his native tongue with great fluency, and English, with little variation, as it might have been spoken in the days of James or Elizabeth; for English was with him acquired by study at no early period of life, and principally obtained from such books as came within the black-letter plan of his antiquarian pursuits. 'Words that wise Bacon and grave Raleigh spoke' were familiarly uttered by O'Leary, conned out of old English tracts, chronicles, presidential instructions, copies of patents, memorials, discourses, and translated remonstrances from the Irish chiefs, of every date since the arrival of the English in the island; and a few French words, not unusually heard among the old Irish Catholics, the descendants of the faithful followers of the Stuarts, completed the stock of his philological riches. O'Leary now advanced to meet his visitant, with a countenance radiant with the expression of complacency and satisfaction, not unmingled with pride and importance, as he threw his eyes round on his numerous disciples. To one of these the Commodore gave his horse; and drawing his hat over his eyes, as if to shade them from the sun, he placed himself under the shadow of the Saxon arch, observing: 'You see, Mr O'Leary, I very eagerly avail myself of your invitation; but I fear I have interrupted your learned avocation.' 'Not a taste, your honour, and am going to give my classes a holiday, in respect of the turf, sir.-What does yez all crowd the gentleman for? Did never yez see a raal gentleman afore? I'd trouble yez to consider yourselves as temporary.-There's great scholars among them ragged runagates, your honour, poor as they look ; for though in these degendered times you won't get the childre, as formerly, to talk the dead languages afore they can spake, when, says Campion, they had Latin like a vulgar tongue, conning in their schools of leachcraft the aphorisms of Hippocrates, and the civil institutes of the faculties, yet there are as fine scholars and as good philosophers still, sir, to be found in my seminary as in Trinity College, Dublin. -Now, step forward here, you Homers. "Keklute moi, Troes, kai Dardanoi, ed' epikouroi.' Half-a-dozen overgrown boys, with bare heads and naked feet, hustled forward. 'There's my first class, plaze your honour; sorrow one of them gassoons but would throw you off a page of Homer into Irish while he'd be clamping a turf stack.— Come forward here, Padreen Mahony, you little mitcher, humanities, sir.-Padreen, my man, if the pig's sould at Dunore market to-morrow, tell your daddy, dear, I'll expect the pintion. Is that your bow, Padreen, with your head under your arm, like a roosting hen? Upon my word, I take shame for your manners.-There, your honour, them's my cordaries, the little leprehauns, with their cathah heads and their burned skins; I think your honour would be divarted to hear them parsing a chapter. Well, now dismiss, lads, jewel-off with yez, extemplo, like a piper out of a tent; away with yez to the turf and mind me well, ye Homers, ye, I'll expect Hector and Andromache to-morrow without fail; obsarve me well; I'll take no excuse for the classics barring the bog, in respect of the weather being dry; dismiss, I say.' The learned disciples of this Irish sage, pulling down the front lock of their hair to designate the bow they would have made if they had possessed hats to move, now scampered off, leaping over tombstones and clearing rocks; while O'Leary observed, shaking his head and looking after them: Not one of them but is sharp-witted and has a janius for poethry, if there was any encouragement for larning in these degendered times. (From Florence Macarthy.) Henry Gally Knight (1786–1846), who wrote Eastern tales in the manner and measure of Byron, was an accomplished man of fortune, born at his father's Yorkshire seat, educated at Eton and Cambridge, familiarised with foreign manners by travels in southern Europe, Egypt, and Palestine. The first of these metrical stories, Ilderim, a Syrian Tale (1816), was followed by Phrosyne, a Grecian Tale, and Alashtar, an Arabian Tale (1817). Knight also wrote a notable dramatic poem, Hannibal in Bithynia. Though showing much taste and truth to Oriental ways, these poems failed to attract much notice; and their author obtained more distinction as an authority on architecture, writing (with expert assistance) An Architectural Tour in Normandy, The Normans in Sicily, Saracenic and Norman Remains in Sicily, The Ecclesiastical Architecture of Italy. He inherited the family property in 1808, and sat in Parliament from 1824 till his death. William Knox (1789-1825), born at Lilliesleaf in Roxburghshire, was author of The Lonely Hearth, Songs of Israel, The Harp of Zion, and other poems. Sir Walter Scott in his diary gives this brief note of his life-work: His father was a respectable yeoman, and he himself succeeding to good farms under the Duke of Buccleuch, became too soon his own master, and plunged into dissipation and ruin. His talent then shewed itself in a fine strain of pensive poetry.' Knox, who from 1820 earned a precarious livelihood as journalist in Edinburgh, thus ended his Songs of Israel: My song hath closed, the holy dream And left me 'mid a night of woe- |