and antiquity of its history, the light it affords in various researches, its inimitable touches of nature, together with the sublimity and beauty so copiously poured over its pages, will be deemed subsidiary ornaments, the embellishments of the casket which contains the "pearl of great price."

Scriptural knowledge is of inestimable value on account of its supplying an infallible rule of life. To the most untutored mind, the information it affords on this subject is far more full and precise than the highest efforts of reason could attain. In the best moral precepts issuing from human wisdom, there is an incurable defect in that want of authority which robs them of their power over the conscience they are obligatory no farther than their reason is perceived; a deduction of proofs is necessary, more or less intricate and uncertain, and even when clearest it is still but the language of man to man, respectable as sage advice, but wanting the force and authority of law. In a well-attested revelation it is the judge speaking from the tribunal, the Supreme Legislator promulgating and interpreting his own laws. With what force and conviction do those apostles and prophets address us, whose miraculous powers attest them to be the servants of the Most High, the immediate organs of the Deity! As the morality of the gospel is more pure and comprehensive than was ever inculcated before, so the consideration of its divine origination invests it with an energy of which every system not expressly founded upon it is entirely devoid. We turn at our peril from him who speaketh to us from heaven.

Of an accountable creature duty is the concern of every moment, since he is every moment pleasing or displeasing God. It is a universal element, mingling with every action, and qualifying every disposition and pursuit. The moral quality of conduct, as it serves both to ascertain and to form the character, has consequences in a future world so certain and infallible, that it is represented in Scripture as a seed no part of which is lost, "for whatsoever a man soweth, that also shall he reap." That rectitude which the inspired writers usually denominate holiness, is the health and beauty of the soul, capable of bestowing dignity in the absence of every other accomplishment, while the want of it leaves the possessor of the richest intellectual endowments a painted sepulchre. Hence results the indispensable necessity to every description of persons, of sound religious instruction, and of an intimate acquaintance with the Scriptures as its genuine source.

It must be confessed, from melancholy experience, that a speculative acquaintance with the rules of duty is too compatible with the violation of its dictates, and that it is possible for the convictions of conscience to be habitually overpowered by the corrupt suggestions of appetite. To see distinctly the right way, and to pursue it, are not precisely the same thing. Still nothing in the order of means promises so much success as the diligent inculcation of revealed truth. He who is acquainted with the terrors of the Lord, cannot live in the neglect of God and religion with present, any more than with future, impunity; the path of disobedience is obstructed if not rendered impassable; and wherever he turns his eyes he beholds the sword of divine justice stretched out to intercept his passage. Guilt will be appalled, conscience alarmed, and the fruits of unlawful gratification embittered to his taste. It is surely desirable to place as many obstacles as possible in the path of ruin : to take care that the image of death shall meet the offender at every turn; that he shall not be able to persist without treading upon briars and scorpions, without forcing his way through obstructions more formidable than he can expect to meet with in a contrary course. If you can enlist the nobler part of his nature under the banners of virtue, set him at war with himself, and subject him to the necessity, should he persevere, of stifling and overcoming whatever is most characteristic of a reasonable creature, you have done what will probably not be unproductive of advantage. If he be at the same time reminded, by his acquaintance with the word of God, of a better state of mind being attainable, a better destiny reserved (provided

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SIR PATRICK SPENCE.

[Tars is the Scotch ballad which Coleridge, in his 'Dejection,' calls "The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence." This is also printed in Percy's 'Reliques.']

O quhar will I get guid sailor,
To sail this schip of mine?
Up and spak an eldern knicht,
Sat at the king's richt kne:
Sir Patrick Spence is the best sailor,
That sails upon the se.

The king has written a braid letter,

And sign'd it wi' his hand; And sent it to Sir Patrick Spence, Was walking on the sand.

The first line that Sir Patrick red,

A loud lauch lauched he:
The next line that Sir Patrick red,
The teir blinded his ee.

O quha is this has don this deid,
This ill deid don to me;

To send me out this time o' the yeir,
To sail upon the se?

Mak hast, mak hast, my mirry men all,
Our guid schip sails the morne.

O say na sae, my master deir,

For I feir a deadlie storme,

Late, late yestreen, I saw the new moone
Wi' the auld moone in hir arme;
And I feir, I feir, my dear master,

That we will com to harme.

O our Scots nobles wer richt laith
To weet their cork-heil'd schoone;
But lang owre a' the play wer play'd,

Thair hats they swam aboone.
O lang, lang, may thair ladies sit

Wi' thair fans into their hand,
Or eir they see Sir Patrick Spence

Cum sailing to the land.

O lang, lang, may the ladies stand,

Wi' thair gold kems in thair hair, Waiting for thair ain deir lords,

For they'll se thame na mair.

Have owre, have owre to Aberdour,
It's fiftie fadom deep :

And thair lies guid Sir Patrick Spence,
Wi' the Scots lords at his feit.

AULD ROBIN GRAY.

[THIS ballad, which Leigh Hunt has truly said "must have suffused more eyes with tears of the first water than any other ballad that ever was written," is the production of Lady Anne Barnard, who died in 1825. In a letter to Sir Walter Scott this lady gives the following interesting and curious account of the circumstances under which she composed this most charming poem :—

"Robin Gray,' so called from its being the name of the old herd at Balcarras, was born soon after the close of the year 1771. My sister Margaret had married, and accompanied her husband to London. I was melancholy, and endeavoured to amuse myself by attempting a few poetical trifles. There was an ancient Scotch melody, of which I was passionately fond;

who lived before your day, used to sing it to us at Balcarras. She did not object to its having improper words, though I did. I longed to sing old Sophy's to different words, and give to its plaintive tones some little history of virtuous distress in humble life, such as might suit it. While attempting to effect this in my closet, I called to my little sister, now Lady Hardwicke, who was the only person near me :-'I have been writing a ballad, my dear; I am oppressing my heroine with many misfortunes. I have already sent her Jamie to sea-and broken her father's arm-and made her mother fall sick-and given her Auld Robin Gray for her lover; but I wish to load her with a fifth sorrow within the four lines, poor thing! Help me to one.' 'Steal the cow, sister Anne,' said the little Elizabeth. The cow was immediately lifted by me, and the song completed. At our fireside, and amongst our neighbours, Auld Robin Gray' 'was always called for. I was pleased in secret with the approbation it met with; but such was my dread of being suspected of writing anything, perceiving the shyness it created in those who could write nothing, that I carefully kept my own secret. "Meanwhile, little as this matter seems to have been worthy of a dispute, it afterwards became a party question between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. Robin Gray' was either a very ancient ballad, composed perhaps by David Rizzio, and a great curiosity, or a

6

very modern matter, and no curiosity at ail. I was persecuted to avow whether I had written it or not, where I had got it. Old Sophy kept my counsel, and I kept my own, in spite of the gratification of seeing a reward of twenty guineas offered in the newspapers to the person who should ascertain the point past a doubt, and the still more flattering circumstance of a visit from Mr. Jerningham, Secretary to the Antiquarian Society, who endeavoured to entrap the truth from me in a manner I took amiss. Had he asked me the question obligingly, I should have told him the fact distinctly and confidentially. The annoyance, however, of this important ambassador from the antiquaries was amply repaid to me by the noble exhibition of the 'Ballat of Auld Robin Gray's Courtship,' as performed by dancing dogs under my window. It proved its popularity from the highest to the lowest, and gave me pleasure while I hugged myself in my obscurity."]

"When the sheep are in the fauld, when the cows come hame,

When a' the weary world to quiet rest are gane,

The woes of my heart fa' in showers frae my ee,
Unken'd by my gudeman, who soundly sleeps by me.

Young Jamie loo'd me weel, and sought me for his bride;
But saving ae crown-piece, he'd naething else beside.
To make the crown a pound, my Jamie gaed to sea;
And the crown and the pound, O they were baith for me!

Before he had been gane a twelvemonth and a day,
My father brak his arm, our cow was stown away;
My mother she fell sick-my Jamie was at sea-
And Auld Robin Gray, oh! he came a-courting me.

My father cou❜dna work, my mother cou❜dna spin ;
I toil'd day and night, but their bread I cou❜dna win;
Auld Rob maintain'd them baith, and, wi' tears in his ee,
Said, 'Jenny, oh! for their sakes, will you marry me?'

My heart it said Na, and I look'd for Jamie back;
But hard blew the winds, and his ship was a wrack;
His ship it was a wrack! Why didna Jamie dee?
Or, wherefore am I spar'd to cry out, Woe is me!

My father argued sair-my mother didna speak,

But she looked in my face till my heart was like to break ;
They gied him my hand, but my heart was in the sea;
And so Auld Robin Gray, he was gudeman to me.

I hadna been his wife, a week but only four,
When mournfu' as I sat on the stane at my door,
I saw my Jamie's ghaist-I cou'dna think it he,

Till he said, 'I'm come hame, my love, to marry thee!"

O sair, sair did we greet, and mickle say of a';
Ae kiss we took, nae mair-I bad him gang awa.
I wish that I were dead, but I'm no like to dee;
For O, I am but young to cry out, Woe is me!

I gang like a ghaist, and I carena much to spin!
I darena think o' Jamie, for that wad be a sin.
But I will do my best a gude wife aye to be,
For Auld Robin Gray, oh! he is sae kind to me."