in her domestic duties, little time was given to gratify her literary tastes; but this was little regretted, as she believed that a woman's place and work lay in the bosom of her family. In a prize essay on 'Home,' which she wrote some years ago, the following passage occurs:— That home may be a safeguard against temptation, it must be something more than a place to eat or sleep in. Mothers must put the preservation of their children's purity first, and a well-kept house after that. Highly-polished furniture and a spotless floor are only conditional elements of a comfortable home. If the touch of a little hand, or the stamp of a little foot, tarnish them so grievously that the act brings a shower of blows to the back, or words to the ear, the case is altered. I have sometimes pitied boys. In many homes there seems to be no place for them-clean, active, working-mothers seem to regard them as domestic nuisances, always making dirt and turning the house upside down. Mothers, you ought to consider your boys more. By all means keep a clean, tidy, tasteful house; but do not let it be too good for use. Do not grudge them a book now and then, take an interest in their lessons, and help them all you can. If they have not sense to appreciate your kindness and self-denial now, perhaps when they grow older they will listen all the more readily to your sober counsels, when they remember that you did not think their boyhood's cares and pleasures beneath your sympathy.'

The only time Mrs Davidson held sacred for reading was when putting her baby to sleep, and her writing was usually done on Sunday evening. Almost every piece was finished at one sitting, as she did not know when an opportunity would offer of returning to it. She was a very regular and valued contributor to several religious periodicals, and took a deep and lively interest in the temperance cause. From early life she had strong religious feelings. She

frequently remarked that she was sick of creeds and theology, and that, if the teachers of Christianity had gone more to the life and precepts of Christ, instead of to books of divinity, the Church would have been in a more flourishing condition.

Mrs Davidson's poems are natural and unrestrained in style, and eminently pure. A sweet Christian spirit pervades every page, and, as might be expected, the thought-element is sympathetic and intelligent. In the words of one of her reviewers, "she has written out of her own womanly heart, just as the heather sends up its bloom-because there was a divine impulse to do it within."

AUTUMN LEAVES.

Leaves of the forest-beautiful leaves !
Ere the swallow sought the cottage eaves,
When the cuckoo's song was fresh and new,
Fair was your first soft and tender hue;
In shady paths your rustle above,
Waked by zephyr, seemed whispers of love,
When summer sat in the woodland bowers,
And strewed the emerald sward with flowers;
When forest isles were flooded with song,
And ye screened from view the minstrel throng.
I see you now, when Boreas' breath
Spreads o'er your forms the hues of death,
Shrouds you in glory, fair to behold,
Radiant in crimson, brown, and gold!
Ye quiver and gleam in the golden ray,
And crown with beauty the autumn day,
When the sun the morning vapour cleaves;
Leaves of autumn-beautiful leaves !

Leaves of autumn--beautiful leaves !
Garnered now are the golden sheaves;
Gathered the fruits, and safely stored,
To smile again on the festal board;
Yet ye are left when your work is done,
To shiver and pine in frost and sun,
Till blustering Boreas, fierce and rude,
Rushes in wrath through the quaking wood,
And stripping the twigs and branches bare,
Chases you up through the buoyant air;
Till quivering, dancing, whirling round,
Ye fall at length on the lowly ground,

F

The common grave of all mortal things;
Where bright fancy folds her starry wings,
And love is lonely vigil keeping,

O'er love and hope together sleeping.
Thus life a band of union weaves,
With autumn's beautiful, dying leaves.

Leaves of autumn-beautiful leaves !
From you yet more my heart receives;
When life's short autumn shall near its close,
And my soul shall long for death's repose,
May some beauty gild the closing day,
Some glory flash from the setting ray:
Some good be left that will firmly cling
To the stems whence burst the buds of spring,
That may help to nourish to life, and bloom
Above the present, beyond the tomb.
Thus may we wisdom and pleasure gain—
Pleasure unmixed with folly and pain;
Wisdom that never the heart deceives,
From leaves of autumn-beautiful leaves !

LIBERTY.

Spirit of liberty, spirit of life,

Star of the nations 'mid darkness and strife
Soul of the patriot, dream of the slave,
Dread of the despot, boon of the brave.

Thou breathest on nations-they spring to life;
Thou frownest on tyrants-they rush to strife;
To drive thee afar over mountain and flood,
They trample on honour and swim through blood.

On the mountain heights thou delightest to dwell,
Where the glaciers gleam and the tempests swell;
They nearest to heaven first caught thy ray,
As they catch the sun-ray at blush of day.

Thou hast swept through the orange groves of Spain,
And her withered hopes have revived again;
Thou hast breathed on Italia's sun-kissed land,
And her tyrants have fled at thy command.

Thou hast knocked at the gates of Imperial Rome,
And shaken the wings of St Peter's dome,
Till the Vatican reels, and its lights grow dim,
As rings through its courts thy victorious hymn.

Long since didst thou gather the lilies of France,

And the reptiles which soiled them recoiled from thy glance,
Till anarchy snatched them, and blackened thy fame,
By deeds foul and bloody performed in thy name.

Then thou fledest afar to thy A lpine throne,
And the rays of thy glory no more on her shone ;
But a despot's hand, with an iron grasp,
Round her bleeding form did his fetters clasp.

He fell; but a form from his ashes grew,
With a soul as proud, of as dark a hue,
Who stole her diadem, and crushed as before,
The golden lilies thou hadst claimed once more.

We have felt thy breath; we have seen thy power,
Thou camest to us as our Father's dower;

Thou hast nerved each arm, and guarded each home,
From the thatched cot to the pillar'd dome.

Spirit of liberty, mayest thou remain
To crush each tyrant, and shatter each chain
Which fetters the soul, that so we may be
In mind, and in government gloriously free.

THE OLD FAMILY CLOCK.

Comest thou, old friend of bygone days,
From the scenes of thy youth to roam,
And seek with me in this stranger land,
For thy hoary age a home?

'Twas thy hand which measured my childhood's hours,
As they swiftly pass'd amid summer bowers.

Thou seest me now when life's stern cares

Have chased youth's visions away,

And years of pain and trouble too soon
Have streak'd my locks with gray;

And here together we still shall be,
For all are gone save thee and me.

And sadly, my childhood's friend, I look
On thy old familiar face,

While the sound of thy tick falls on my heart,
Like the music of other days,

Recalling the dreams I know were vain,

And the friends I ne'er shall see again.

But the memories thou hast stirr'd, old friend,
I must lay in their storehouse again,

For I may not linger to brood o'er the past,

Sorrow but weakens-regret is vain,

But hope gives strength, and when earth's hopes are riven, There's balm for the wound as the heart turns to heaven.

Though dimm'd by the dust of the world's real strife
Are the ideal dreams of youth,

Bright 'bove the gloom all radiant with light
Are the words of heavenly truth,-

Be faithful till death-be trusting-fight on,
The strife is not long, and the prize is a throne.

Then may I hope, and hoping be strong,

To stand for the right nor think of the scorn;
The bound'ry of night is the portals of death,
Beyond is the light of an endless morn!

Where death shall not come the home circle to sever,
And time shall not breathe on its brightness for ever.

GEORGE S. MATHIESON,

UTHOR of a little volume bearing the quaint title of "A Poetical Scroll Book," is widely known as a sturdy Highland rhymer. He was born at Gartymore House, in the vicinity of Helmsdale, Sutherland, in 1857. His grandfather was evicted from a fertile spot called Badstore about 1813-the time of the Sutherland clearances. "He was, says George, "at that time truly torn up, like an uprooted tree, and his glory cast along the ground. Yet rather than seek the vagaries of fortune in a distant clime he preferred to cling to a land wherein, if he could not get a living, he could get a grave beside his forefathers. He retired to a slope of a hard hill which escaped the envy of the now favoured 'Sassenach,' which under his hand has become the sunny braes along the heaving sea, in which is my 'own sweet home of infancy' (with its rolling stream and majestic hills towering high on each side)."

On leaving school George worked on the croft, and "between times" assisted his father, who was a shoemaker, and ultimately he became a book-deliverer or agent in the Kirkwall district, and afterwards at Aberdeen and Montrose.

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