I've heard the storm-king's fiendish laugh as cries of wild despair From drowning wretches floated through the cheerless midnight

air;

I've seen the ocean in a calm when scarce a billow roll'd;
And 'neath the noon-tide's brilliant sun bathed in a sea of gold.
All these I've seen, and many more, while drifting o'er the main,
But now they're memories to me, I'll ne'er see them again,
For winds and waves have borne me unto this distant shore,
And to my native strand I may return again no more.'

Thus sang the shell, at least I thought 'twas thus it sang to me;
And touched with pity for its fate, I threw it in the sea,
And trusted to the friendly waves to bear the stranger home
Unto that sunny clime whence it unwillingly had come.

DAVID HUTCHESON

AS born at Inverkeithing, in 1799, and was brought to Port Glasgow in infancy. There, as a boy, he saw the launch of the "Comet, the first steamer built on the Clyde. In early youth he found employment at the steamers carrying cargo between Glasgow and the lower ports, and eventually became the originator and head of the well-known firm of Messrs David Hutcheson & Co., the owners and managers of the steamers plying between Glasgow and the Highlands. He died at Glasgow, in 1880, and at the time of his death he was probably the oldest man connected with steam navigation in Europe, or perhaps the world.

Although Mr Hutcheson led a busy useful life, he frequently courted the Muses, and might be said to have been a rhymer from his youth. He contributed numerous poems to the newspapers and literary journals, and these give evidence of a loving, tuneful heart, and much spontaneous fervour.

"LOCHABER NO MORE!"

Lochaber farewell! there is snow on the hill,

And the breeze, as it sighs through Glen Nevis, is chill;
No longer the linnet is trilling his lay,

And the bloom of the heather is fading away.
Yet Spring will return over mountain and glen,
And the wilderness blossom in beauty again;
The linnet will carol his songs as of yore,
But we may return to Lochaber no more.

Ah! would it were only the sweet month of June,
With its beautiful verdure, the birds all in tune,
And its golden light streaming afar through the glen-
Away would we hie to the mountains again.
For the winter is long, and we cannot fortell
What sorrows amid the dark future may dwell;
The lark to the summer cloud gaily will soar,
But we may return to Lochaber no more.

FAREWELL REQUEST.

When I am dead, oh, lay me not
Within the churchyard's crumbling walls,
But bear me to some lonely spot

Of greenwood groves and waterfalls;
Where violets bloom and daisies spring,
And the glad lark at dawn of day
Waves the cold night-dew from his wing,
And, singing, soars to heaven away.

For I would wish my bones to lie

Among those scenes I've loved so well;
The mountain glen, the gorgeous sky,
The murmuring brook, the ferny dell.
And where were sepulchre more meet
For me than mong dear Oban's braes,
Where oft in contemplation sweet

I rambling tuned my simple lays.

So, when I'm dead, oh, lay me not

Within the churchyard's crumbling walls,

But bear me to some lonely spot

Of greenwood groves and waterfalls;"
Where violets bloom, and daisies spring,
And the glad lark at dawn of day
Waves the cold night-dew from his wing,
And, singing, soars to heaven away.

THE DAY-DREAM.

I dreamt a pleasant dream to-day,
Unlike those visions wild, whose fears,
Chase the lone sleeper's rest away :
Mine was a dream of former years.

And well it might be pleasant, for
I dreamt it in a lonely vale,
Where, sweetly from the hawthorn hoar,
The linnet told his love-lorn tale.

And there were pleasant things around-
Green branching trees and flowerets fair,
And gurgling streams, whose gentle sound
Murmured like music in the air.
Ev'n as you see the light clouds roll
Along the hill then melt away,

So there are thoughts that shade the Soul
Transient and beautiful as they.

And phantom dreams that haunt our sleep
The Soul's mysterious secrets show,
As bubbles rising from the deep

Reveal the life that throbs below.
Oft have I gazed upon the Star

Of Evening, twinkling in its sphere,
With sadness strange, yet sweeter far
Than sounds melodious to the ear.

And thus, altho' the spirit feels

No brooding sorrow lowering nigh,
A melancholy o'er it steals

And yet we know nor how, nor why.
And so it came in pensive mood

I wandered through the vale alone,
Where, solemnised by solitude,

I dreamt of friends long dead and gone.

Bright apparitions were they all,

Fair forms I counted o'er and o'er :
But chiefly did my heart recall

One I ador'd in days of yore.

She was the darling of my life,

For whose pure love long, long 1 sighed

My own, my dear, my beauteous wife!
But ah! in early youth she died!

JAMES BALLANTINE.

LIKE many Scotchmen who have made their

mark in business or literature, James Ballantine was in the best sense of the term a self-made

man.

His literary productions are numerous; but he will be longest remembered for his songs, some of which, exquisitely pure, simple, and pawkily wise, have obtained a world-wide renown. Two of his songs especially, "Castles in the Air" and "Ilka Blade o' Grass keps its ain drap o' Dew," are known to every singer of "a guid Scotch sang.' He was born in 1808, at the West Port of Edinburgh, and lost his father, who was a brewer, when he was only ten years old. Being the youngest of the family, which consisted of three daughters and himself, his early training devolved upon his mother, who did all in her power to obtain for her children the advantages of an ordinary education. While yet a mere boy, however, he had to exert himself for his own. support and the assistance of the family. He was accordingly apprenticed to a house-painter, and very soon attained to considerable proficiency in his trade. On growing up to manhood he made strenuous exertions to obtain the educational advantages which were not within his reach at an earlier period of life, and about his twentieth year he attended the University of Edinburgh for the study of anatomy, with a view to his professional improvement. At a subsequent period he turned his attention to the art. of painting on glass, and he was long well known as one of the most distinguished of British artists in that department. When the designs and specimens of glass-painting for the windows of the House of Lords were publicly competed for, the Royal Commissioners of the Fine Arts adjudged those produced by Mr Ballantine as the best which were exhibited, and the execution of the work was entrusted to him.

Although Mr Ballantine began at a very early age to woo the Muse, some of his most popular pieces having been produced about his sixteenth year, he made his first appearance in print in the pages of "Whistle Binkie.' In 1843 the early edition of his well-known work, "The Gaberlunzie's Wallet," was

published in monthly numbers, illustrated by the late Alexander Ritchie. This production was enriched with some of his best lyrics. There was something taking in the very title of the work, and the evidences of original genius which it displayed were strong and unmistakable. It proved that the author had an eye to the picturesque, an ear for verse, and a true feeling both for the humorous and pathetic. A cheap edition was issued by the Edinburgh Publishing Company in 1874. This work was followed by "The Miller of Deanhaugh," which likewise contains a number of songs and ballads. In 1856 Messrs Constable & Co., of Edinburgh, published an edition of his poems, including many of those which had been previously given to the world. This volume contains the happiest effusions of his genius, and at once procured him a prominent place in the country's literature.

In 1875 a volume appeared from his pen, entitled "One Hundred Songs," and a later production, containing a love tale in the Spenserian stanza called "Lilias Lee," and "Malcolm Canmore," an historical drama, was issued in 1872. Mr Ballantine died in December, 1877, at the ripe age of seventy. His poetry is not the mere dreamy effusion of sentimental fancy, but a faithful transcript of the impressions produced upon an honest heart and a discerning mind by mutual contact with the realties of life. One of his reviewers has said that "his exquisite taste for the beautiful in natural scenery and in language, his keen eye to observe, and his warm heart to commiserate the sorrows of mankind, render him a sweet singer' after Nature's own heart; while his thorough mastery of the fine language of old Scotland, in all its wealth and pith of expressive terms and familiar idioms, gives him the power to wield at will the sympathies and feelings of a large portion of his fellow-countrymen." The grand lesson of his life is that while loving and wooing the