no small praise of his poetry to say that it is allowed to surpass in merit anything which Burns wrote at the same age. The poet of nature, of the social and domestic affections, and of the moral regeneration of society, Robert Nicoll has been designated. To himself, personally, the honour due to high rectitude of character and conduct cannot be denied. Still the enlightened Christian will desire more ample evidence than is yet before the world, that the basis on which he would build both personal religion and the moral regeneration of society, as well as the means which he would employ to promote them, were of that thoroughly evangelical

in the autumn those symptoms, indicating consumption, became alarming. In October he removed for change of air to a friend's house at Knaresborough, whence he wrote to his brother William: "The length of time I have been ill and my weakness alone frighten me; but whether I am to die or live is in a wiser hand. I have been so long ill, I grow peevish and discontented sometimes; but on the whole I keep up my spirits wonderfully. Alice bears up, and hopes for the best, as she ought to do. Oh, Willie! I wish I had you here for one day-so much, much I have to say about them all, in case it should end for the worst. It may not, but we should be pre-order which from God's word we know can alone pared. . . .

"The mountains old and hoar,

The chainless winds, the streams so pure and free, The God-enamel'd flowers,

be successful. It is pleasing, indeed, to mark the "I have just received another letter from Tait, high reverence with which he regarded that word, which made me weep with joy, and which will and his warm appreciation of its influence in raishave the same effect upon you. He bids me sending his native land to the position it occupies. It to him for money, if I need it; and urges me to is the Ha' Bible of the peasant's cottage which he leave Leeds and the paper instantly, and come to thus addresses :Edinburgh where there is a house ready for me; and there to live and attend to nothing but my health, till I get better. He urges me to this with a father's kindness, and bids me feel neither care nor anxiety on any account. . . . . . . . And so delicately, too, he offers and urges all this. How can I ever repay this man, and the Johnstones, for such kindness? Should I do this? I know not. You admire my articles; they are written almost in torment. . . . . . I wish my mother to come here immediately to consult with her. I wish to see her. I think a sight of her would cure me. I am sure a breath of Scottish air would."

The mother, eager to obey this summons, procured the money necessary for such a journey, by reaping in the harvest-field-a touching incident in the story of poor Grace's trials. It was no small aggravation of her son's distress, that the hopes he had so fondly cherished of aiding her and her family, and placing his parents in more comfortable circumstances, were now fading away. But no thoughts of self mingled with the poor mother's anguish.

Towards the end of October, Nicoll, accompanied by his wife, his mother, and his mother-in-law, reached Leith. They immediately took up their abode in Mr. Johnstone's house at Laverock Bank, the family being then in Edinburgh. Skilful physicians were called in, and for a few weeks hopes were entertained that the patient might rally. His mother, who could be ill spared from her little business, left him, and he was visited by his brother William and the dearly loved "only sister" of his verses. In the beginning of December he became rapidly worse, and his parents were hastily sent for. "Instantly, on receipt of the letter." writes Nicoll's biographer," and at nightfall on a December day, they left their cottage at Tullibeltane, and, walking all night, reached Laverock Bank, a distance of fifty miles, on the afternoon of the following day, and but a few hours before their early called and gifted son, in whom they must have placed so much of mingled delight and hope, breathed his last breath. It is the poor only, it is those who are called upon to suffer and to sacrifice for each other, who have the high privilege of knowing to the full extent, how choice a thing is family affection."

Nicoll died in his twenty-fourth year; and it is

The waving forest, the eternal sea,

The eagle floating o'er the mountain's brow,
Are teachers all; but, oh! they are not such as thou!
"Thou doubly-precious book!

Unto thy light what doth not Scotland owe:
Thou teachest age to die,

And youth in truth unsullied up to grow!
In lowly homes a comforter art thou-

A sunbeam sent from God-an everlasting bow! "O'er thy broad, ample page

How many dim and aged eyes have pored :
How many hearts o'er thee

In silence deep and holy have adored:
How many mothers, by their infants' bed,
Thy holy, blessed, pure, child-loving words have read!
"And o'er thee soft young hands

Have oft in truthful plighted love been joined;
And thou to wedded hearts

Hast been a bond-an altar of the mind!
Above all kingly power or kingly law

May Scotland reverence aye-the Bible of the Ha'!"

A DAY AT WATERLOO.

Ir was my first visit to Belgium. I was on my way to the banks of the Rhine, there to recruit failing health, and to rest for a season from mental toil. Accompanied by my wife, I left London Bridge for Ostend early on the morning of Saturday, the 11th June, 1853. At eleven o'clock on the evening of the same day we found ourselves comfortably established in the Hotel de Brabant, Brussels. We could not think of pressing on to our destination without paying a visit to the field of Waterloo. On the morning of the 13th, accordingly, we found ourselves comfortably seated on a real English stage-coach, whose driver, with his white hat and neckcloth, gray surtout, ruddy mottled cheeks, and bluff figure, presented the true type of an English coachman of the olden time; while, as his splendid team of horses swept over the pavement and ascended towards the Pare, an English guard with his bugle made the old streets ring cheerily to the notes of many a stirring English melody. Stopping at one or two of the hotels in the upper town to take up fresh passengers, we were soon outside the barriers, and

the few straggling tourists over the roads and fields only make the heart more desolate.

attack on the left, "a gentleman in plain clothes called out to the dragoons, 'Go along, my boys! now's your time.' It was the late duke of Richmond, come out merely as an amateur, and to see how his ball guests and his three sons on the field were faring."*

And now, ere we leave this spot, look along that narrow road to the left. On the crest of the ground overhanging it, across it, and behind the hedge which fenced it in front, were the best and bravest of Wellington's troops drawn up. Again the voice of the guide rings out, as he points you to that field in front of the road, where the French squa

And now, standing at the cross roads already mentioned, the eye first sweeps the horizon, and then rests on objects near at hand. Here there are two ridges separated from each other by a narrow valley about a mile and a half long. Along the crest of yonder opposite ridge were ranged the French cavalry and infantry, and thence were they launched by their master's orders, from time to time, on the columns and squares of the British, drawn up to the right and left of the place where we stand. Yonder, in the centre of the French position, on the high road leading to Genappe, is the white-drons charged about two o'clock, and where their washed farmhouse of La Belle Alliance, near splendid chivalry was shattered to pieces by the which Napoleon, toward the close of the day, seated combined cavalry charge under Picton: "Yonder, on his white charger, directed the final and disas- Picton was killed." It was indeed yonder that, trous charge of his veteran grenadiers, (raising his as he cried, "Charge, charge, hurra!" a ball penearm as they passed, and pointing towards the high trated his forehead, and in a moment he died. road to Brussels); and there, a few hours after, There, too, a little farther to the left, fought those Wellington and Blucher met in the bright moon- soldiers of the 92nd and 42nd Highlanders, who light, and shook hands in mutual congratulå- had survived the charges of Ney's cavalry at tion. And see there, in the valley to the left of Quatre Bras; and here it was, moreover, after a the road, is a ploughed field, the place where, as concentrated and destructive volley thrown in by the guide tells us, the gallant sir William Pon- the advancing French, that the Scotch Greys came sonby fell, pierced by the Polish lancers, and be-up, and the Highlanders opening to let them pass, beath that black grave-like loam (we shudder as we the enemy was driven down the heights with great hear it) there are laid the bones of 20,000 men! slaughter, two eagles being captured and a host of Drawing in the eye to nearer objects imme- prisoners. It is well known in what terms of admidiately before us, what is this peaceful-looking cot-ration Napoleon himself spoke repeatedly of the tage, nestling with its orchard in front and its Scotch Greys, almost expressing regret that they small garden in the rear, beneath the hill? Why, must be destroyed. As for the Highland infantry, this is the famous farmhouse of La Haye Sainte, too, their valour was as great on the field as their (the Holy Hedge,) so fiercely assaulted and so reso gentleness was conspicuous after all was over. lutely defended-the key of the left of the British Many of them, it will be remembered, when bilposition. We shall pay it a visit by-and-by. Mean-leted at Brussels after the fight, took charge of time look again and mark, behind the farm-house garden on the knoll, the monument of sir William Gordon, Wellington's favourite aide-de-camp, who in this spot received his death-wound. On the other side of the road, what means that pillar? It is a columnar trophy to the memory of the German legion, who perished here in hundreds. And now listen to the guide as he says, pointing to the right corner of the cross-road on which you stand: "Here stood Wellington's tree!" Stood! why is it not standing still? It is long since cut down, sold to a London tradesman for 1007., and its wood, like that of the "Royal George," made up into snuff-boxes and other articles, now widely dispersed as souvenirs of Waterloo. Here, then, grew the tree near which Wellington sat on his favourite charger Copenhagen, at a time when Our party now moves on to the right. On the the fight was hottest, coolly remarking to his some- centre of the ridge, in front of the road to Braine what nervous staff, as the balls fell fast around, Lalland, (where Lord Hill's troops were ranged on grazing the trunk and sweeping through the the morning of the battle,) rises up between us branches," Sharp practice, gentlemen!" It was and the western horizon, a vast mound, and on its indeed "sharp practice;" few of the duke's staff, if top the figure of a lion with uplifted paw placed any, escaped from that terrible field unhurt, and on a globe of stone. Somehow the impression many of the number were killed. How strange made by this "lion" mound was not pleasant, and to find the sense of danger so entirely over- I still think that its erection is to be regretted come by the excitement of the scene and a daring spirit of adventure, that several persons, dressed in plain clothes, were observed riding in Wellington's train as he passed down the line on the morning of the battle, and were afterwards seen in different parts of the field! When the Enniskillen dragoons were dashing down on the columns of the French, as the latter were making their first

the little children in the houses where they were billeted, rocking their cradles while the mothers were absent for a time.

One glance more and we leave the spot where we have made so long a pause. Following the hand of the guide, we look again to the left until the eye rests on the woods of Frichmermont on the edge of the horizon. Thence, as we are reminded, the Prussians, marching all day from Wavre, debouched in the afternoon of the 18th, driving in the French right, and storming and carrying in succession those little villages of La Haye and Papelotte, which you see in the intervening valley, and sweeping with irresistible fury along the heights, so as to ensure the triumph of the combined army.

for several reasons. Although the battle was fought on the territories of the then king of Holland, and the mound is placed over the spot where the brave prince of Orange received a wound in the shoulder, still the Belgian lion on the top of it appears to an Englishman as a creature “having

*Cotton's "Voice from Waterloo,"

no business there;" indeed, as many of " les braves Belges" ran away, and at all events, as it was a British force, led by a British general, which won the day, it is the British not the Belgian lion which ought to look down upon the plain. But even passing over this, what grieved me most was to find that the features of the British position have been materially altered from their original aspect, by the cutting away of the ground to the depth of several yards, in order to erect the mound. What need was there, moreover, for any memorial like this? Waterloo, while the world stands, shall be its own dread remembrancer! Still, let us climb that long flight of steps down which some tourists are descending, that we too may have a wider range of view than we have yet enjoyed. But who is this who stops our progress? A youth with a collection of bullets, small eagles from the front of French helmets, and other articles, which he avers have been gathered on the field. Remembering " Murray," and his warnings against impositions, we hesitate about purchasing; but at length a bargain is struck, and the articles are bought for the cabinet of curiosities at home. We give both ourselves and the guide “the benefit of the doubt," and I say to myself: "If these have been made to order,' at all events, the genius loci | seems to invest them with a character of genuineness; and so, too, of this hazel stick. If it has not been just cut in the orchard of Hougoumont,' at all events, it must have grown not far from it." Some qualms, however, afterwards arising, we added to our stock of relics from the late serjeant Cotton's well-known museum, before finally leaving Mount St. Jean, Meantime, paying for the stick and the bullets, and the lady of the party being politely presented with a bouquet of wild flowers gathered on the field, we are allowed to move on.

English strangers, as well as by the recollection of what we had so often read, our eyes turned to the famous chateau of Hougoumont, which formed the main defence of the British right, and against which Napoleon directed his first attack, under the guidance of his brother Jerome. The orchard, the yard, the chateau, the chapel (which had been for a time set on fire), the gateway, whose ponderous door the gallant colonel Macdonnel, as sisted by the brave serjeant Graham, had closed against the French-the whole scene of the defence conducted for many hours by lord Saltoun and colonel Hepburn in succession-all was immedi ately beneath the eye to the west. Then turning round to the northward, we looked over the narrow road to the meadow where now the sweetbreathing hay was being gathered, and at the corner of which Wellington stood as the French guards, under Ney, ascended those heights in front, about seven o'clock in the evening, and as the Guards lay down before and around him, uttered the brief command to make their final charge.

The rain now began to fall, and the thunder to mutter with a voice like that of a conflict begun. Having descended the mound, we took shelter in the little auberge, where we found a number of strangers. Among these was a family of Ameri cans, father, mother, and several children. Despite the rain, they all rushed towards the mound, resolved to leave nothing unseen. When the shower abated we returned along the cross road already traversed, passing a number of farm-labourers by the way-side. Walking quickly down the steep, we entered the gateway of La Haye Sainte. What a scene of slaughter was here! Over yonder wall and through the gateway to the south, the German riflemen long held their assailants at bay. Retreating to that large barn on the west, they still dealt out death on the foe, till at last, when

Turning through a gateway, we come to a little cottage which must have sprung up since the battle was fought; and where the kine in the stall with-driven out by its being set on fire, they made their out, and the face of the landlord within, remind you that a glass of either milk or wine is at your service, for a consideration. After a toilsome ascent, we reach the top of the mound; and here we find the English guide, a portly serjeant, the successor of the well-known serjeant Cotton, and linger near him, as in sonorous tones and with military precision he points out various scenes in that bloody drama in which he himself was an actor. He is directing the party to the slope on the left of the mound, to the spot where Shaw, the life-guardsman, fell exhausted with many wounds, with the bodies of nine Frenchmen around him slain by his own hand. And then, loud and rapid, his voice proclaims the story of La Haye Sainte, its capture, and the slaughter of the German troops who occupied it, their ammunition being exhausted, or, as the serjeant said, "the fresh bullets which were supplied them being too large for their muskets." We were half ashamed to listen to a description for which we were not paying, and as the party left the mound, we regretted that we had not (as we advise every reader when he visits Waterloo to do) taken care to be early at Mount St. Jean, and thus secure the services of one who spoke our own tongue, and who was himself a Waterloo man.

Left to our Belgian guide, assisted by several

last stand in this cottage and the garden which you can see through the open door, and there all of them (save perhaps one or two who escaped over the wall in the rear) fought from room to room, until the struggle was hushed in the silence of death. The under half of the front door of the farmhouse was removed by the owner soon after the battle, in order to its being preserved as a memorial of the scene. It was completely riddled with balls. But look at that parlour-door to the right; see what perforations and rents are there, and imagine how terrible this hand-to-hand contest, when "no quarter" was the cry, must have been! And now we turn sadly away, and moving out upon the road, our eye falls on the sand-pit opposite, where the riflemen long kept the enemy at bay, but from which they were at last expelled when La Haye Sainte was taken. Towards the close of the battle, this quarry was filled with wounded men, who had taken refuge in it as a shelter from the shot and shells and from the assaults of the cavalry-when, horrible to relate! a body of French cuirassiers were completely overthrown into this quarry by a furious charge of the British, and horses and riders were rolled in death above these unfortunate sufferers. Such are the tremendous woes of war!

And now ascending the steep, our farewell and