to angling excursions, wisely quitting the oven's neighbourhood for a cooler and fresher atmosphere. A change of occupation now took place. He went to a writer's office, and was apprenticed to the study of law. The connection of this with the hooking and catching of trouts is more apparent than with baking work, and a skilful angler ought to be a successful lawyer. Confinement, however, within a law office and environment by parchments and heaps of "cases could not be pleasant to a youth who had begun to look with a poet's eye and sympathy upon the beauty and magnificence of the external world. He yearned for a deliverance, and certainly he achieved it, for he crossed the broad Atlantic and reached America. There he remained for two years, his mind receiving a development, training, and stimulus which it could not have gotten anywhere else within a far longer period. His intellect, imagination, and humour rapidly ripened, and for their exercise he had acquired a cool self-possession which Yankeedom alone can give. He returned to Cupar-Fife: the stripling had, mentally as well as physically, become a man in the prime of all his capacities and energies.

Mr Wood's earliest poetic attempts were marked by nothing immature or juvenile in imagination and humour, or in the power of giving these a melodious expression, but were defective in taste and judgment. He was prone to satire, and employed it, not only against the folly and wickedness of mankind at large, but against the whims or presumption of a neighbour. Burns, indeed, too frequently distinguished himself by satirizing private persons who had displeased or slighted him; but even his example should not encourage poets to inflict such vengeance upon the trivial and passing offences of a neighbour.

Mr Wood's first elaborate poem bore a title which might have a thousand meanings The Serpent Round the Soul;" and when the poem has been read the title is felt to be alike arbitrary and inappropri

ate. There is, indeed, a "serpent" in the piece, even "that old serpent, the Devil," but he can scarcely be said to be even around or within the "soul" of the hero; yet genuine poetry breaks out in every page with a shining train of ideas and sentiments. There is not a little of exquisite pathos, and the occasional humour would have been felicitous and successful if it had not in the piece been entirely misplaced. "Ceres

A subsequent poem by Mr Wood on

Races" gives a much wider and freer scope to his faculty of humour. The amusements of a village can be far more adequately represented than those of a city, whether the sketcher be a poet or a painter. There is the "Pitlessie Fair" by Wilkie, and "Anster Fair" by Tennant, but who has, in words or colours, by pen or by brush, attempted to represent a fair held in London, in Edinburgh, or in Glasgow? Mr Wood gives a graphic and richly-comical representation of the various competitors and their respective bands of supporters, as well as of leading characters among the onlooking throngs.

Unlike the folk o' croodit slums,

Wha cram their bairns wi' sugar-plums
And dumplins made o' foreign floor,
And foreign fruit, and foreign stoor;
Unlike the gentry-sae by luck-

Wha canna even eat a juck,

But twa-three cook-heads maun be rackit,
To hae the beast wi' trashtrie packit,

Spoiling baith appetites and sowls,

Filling the earth wi' deein'-like owls,

Thin-shankit, white-skinned scraichs o' day,

Wha pass in idleness away,

Yea, yea! the Ceres breed is hale,

For health and strength are in their kail,
Their pise-an'-ait and barley scones,

Pork, Cabbage, Leeks, an' grawnd Blue-dons,

Their Beer and Whusky frae the Stell,
Untouched wi' "kill-the-cairter" shell,
Such as oor Pawrents, no oure nice,
Lived Tenant-folk on Paradise!

Ilk Fayther there a noble Laird,
Wha brags a theekit hoose and yaird,
Braw gruntin' swine and plots o' kail,
Hams i' the neuk and bunks o' meal,
As bonny hams a' in a raw,
As ever hung on Adam's wa',
Big tawty-pits in wooden sheds,
And siller shoo'd within their beds,-
The auld Man's surety and his stay

When comes the hirpling, friendless day.

The poem, as a whole, lacks the coherence, regularity, and polish of Tennant's "Anster Fair," but it is incomparably more powerful and vivid. Mr Wood is yet in his most productive years. We give the following from a large volume of MS. poems:

MY JOE JANET.

Tyndal for your courtesie

Draw in aboot your chair, Sir,

Redd the fire an' tell to me,

Wha made the worlds an' mair, Sir.

Those wondrous worlds through space that sail,

Tyndal, lad, ye maun explain,

Your doctrine's far frae clear, Sir,

What ken I o' hail or rain,

But that God sends them here, Sir.-
Nocht ance but atoms reeled thro'ither,
Janet, Janet,

Which cooled and drew in dads thegither,
My Jo Janet.

Then, Tyndal, tell me, gin you please,
Hoo life at first began, Sir!

We see the shrubs an' muckle trees,
An' fowls, an' brutes, an' man, Sir.-

Dear me the laws the wide world o'er,
Janet, Janet,

That grow them noo could do't before,
My Jo Janet.

Then is oor Bible a' a lee,

Got up by Kings an' Priests, Sir,

And do we, honest bodies, dee,

Juist like the very beasts, Sir?—

Weel, nae, sae far as can be seen,
Janet, Janet,

Ye'll juist gang back to what ye've been,
My Jo Janet.

But whence the first heat gin ye ken,
And what syne cooled it doon, Sir?
Gude fegs! 'twas still and cauldrife then,
Before the Sun and Moon, Sir.-
Noo! dinna cock your head sae hie,
Janet, Janet,

There's forces that we cannot see,
My Jo Janet.

Then where did seeds o' trees come frae,
The gorbies 'mang the heather, Sir,
The lammies on the sunny brae,

An' the first wee bairnie's mither, Sir?
Affinity draws like to like,

Janet, Janet,

As lads to lasses loup the dyke,
My Jo Janet.

Ah! Tyndal, tak' a thocht an' mend,
Before ye come to dee, Sir,

In case that at your latter end,
The Deil's the ane ye'll see, Sir!
No fear o' that, I do no wrong,
Janet, Janet,

An' gin some Power my life prolong,
I'll be wi' my Jo Janet!

THE CAGED BIRD.

When spring in all its glory comes

I yield my sweetest lay,

That some kind Power might burst my bars

And let me fly away

For God now calls me to the grove,

The sweet days to prolong;

Yet my dull Jailor ever deems
I sing to him my song!

In fancy oft I join the choir,

That flits among the trees,---
Or listen to the joyful notes
That float upon the breeze.
Again I see our cozy home,
Beside the waterfall,

The moss-grown rocks, the huge old trees
That overhangeth all.

Our tender offspring stretch their necks
Up from their downy nest,

Which makes me struggle in my cell,
With anguish in my breast;

Yet while I dash against the bars,
And stronger notes employ,
My Jailor's little selfish mind
Admires my "rising joy."

Once more I see the lively brood,
Their untaught wings prepare ;
And eyeing well the nearest twig,
Pass gently through the air,
When, from the nest, my mate and I
Soon chirp them back again,
My Jailor deems me happy now,
While fancy ends in pain.

Thus in my solitary cell

I fret away the hours,

For vain man thinks for him alone,
Fair Nature gives her powers.
To him my language is unknown,
But Death shall be my friend,

And when my last sweet song is sung
Man's "love" shall mourn my end!

THE WANDERER.

The bards of Nature cease their songs,
The vales rejoice no more,

A world is sleeping o'er the wrongs
That gnaw it to the core;
Yet, as if wakeful spirits passed,
A moaning river fills the blast.

Dash on thou nursling of the hills,
Rave on from stone to stone,
The writhing of a thousand rills,
Is in that form alone;

Who wanders by thy lonely stream
Of God and far-off worlds to dream.

The vile Seducer came,-she fell,-
Her race is now her foe,-

But do not think she would compel
Thy waves to hide her woe;
For though she from her fellows fly,
She dreads an angry Father's eye.

O'er stranger-vales she wends her way,
From stranger-hand is fed;

While ah! the red-robed king of day
Sneers at her crust of bread;

And bids her weep and tell her tale,

Where friendship shields the northern gale.

Borne like a withered autumn leaf

On every blast that blows;

The poor wretch wanders for relief

To where the torrent flows,

And where the stars of gentle beam,

Bend down and kiss the babbling stream.