Extract from a Letter of Dr. Carey, in India, to Mr. J. Cooper, "With great labour I have preserved the common Field Daisy, which came up accidentally in some English earth, for these six or seven years; but my whole stock is now only one plant. I have never been able, even with sheltering them, to preserve an old root through the rains, but I get a few seedlings every year. The proportion of small plants in this country is very inconsiderable, the greater number of our vegetable productions being either large shrubs, immense climbers, or timber trees. By the kindness of yourself and other gentlemen, who have lately sent me roots or seeds, our number of small shrubs is much increased, and our stock of bulbous plants become very respectable. Still, however, tulips, hyacinths, snowdrops, most of the lilies, &c. are strangers to us. I have a great desire to possess honeysuckles, especially the common woodbine. I mix the seeds which I send you with twice or thrice their bulk of earth, and ram the whole in a box (a cask would be better), and nail or hoop them up close. I have no doubt but a quantity of most of your wild seeds, and many others, would succeed here, if well packed in earth as I have done with this box. A cask of your peat-earth, thus full of seeds, would be an invaluable treasure, as the earth itself would be of great service in the culture of many plants. We have no peat in India. All our soils are either strong clays, deep loam, or loose, but fertile, sands. I need not say, that the seeds should be packed as soon as possible after they are ripe. Old seeds have scarcely ever succeeded in this country." THE CHILD ANGEL:-A DREAM. I CHANCED upon the prettiest, oddest, fantastical, thing of a dream the other night, that you shall hear of. I had been reading the "Loves of the Angels," and went to bed with my head full of speculations, suggested by that extraordinary legend. It had given birth to innumerable conjectures; and, I remember, the last waking thought, which I gave expression to on my pillow, was a sort of wonder," what could come of it." I was suddenly transported, how or whither I could scarcely make out but to some celestial region. It was not the real heavens neither-not the downright Bible heaven-but a kind of fairy-land heaven, about which a poor human fancy may have leave to sport and air itself, I will hope, without presumption. Methought-what wild things dreams are !-I was present-at what would you imagine?—at an angel's gossiping. Whence it came, or how it came, or who bid it come, or whether it came purely of its own head, neither you nor I know-but there lay, sure enough, wrapt in its little cloudy swaddling bands-a Child Angel. Sun-threads---filmy beams-ran through the celestial napery of what seemed its princely cradle. All the winged orders hovered round, watching when the new-born should open its yet closed eyes: which, when it did, first one, and then the other with a solicitude and apprehension, yet not such as, stained with fear, dims the expanding eye-lids of mortal infants-but as if to explore its path in those its unhereditary palaces what an inextinguishable titter that time spared not celestial visages! Nor wanted there to my seeming-O the inexplicable simpleness of dreams! -bowls of that cheering nectar, -which mortals caudle call belowNor were wanting faces of female ministrants,-stricken in years, as it might seem so dextrous were those heavenly attendants to counterfeit kindly similitudes of earth, to greet with terrestrial child-rites the young Present, which earth had made to heaven. Then were celestial harpings heard, not in full symphony as those by which the spheres are tutored; but, as loudest instruments on earth speak oftentimes, muffled; so to accommodate their sound the better to the weak ears of the imperfect-born. And, with the noise of those subdued soundings, the Angelet sprang forth, fluttering its rudiments of pinions-but forthwith flagged and was recovered into the arms of those fullwinged angels. And a wonder it was to see how, as years went round in heaven-a year in dreams is as a day-continually its white shoulders put forth buds of wings, but, wanting the perfect angelic nutriment, anon was shorn of its aspiring, and fell fluttering-still caught by angel hands---for ever to put forth shoots, and to fall fluttering, because its birth was not of the unmixed vigour of heaven. And a name was given to the Babe Angel, and it was to be called Ge-Urania, because its production was of earth and heaven. And it could not taste of death, by reason of its adoption into immortal palaces; but it was to know weakness, and reliance, and the shadow of human imbecility; and it went with a lame gait; but in its goings it exceeded all mortal children in grace and swiftness. Then pity first sprang up in angelic bosoms; and yearnings (like the human) touched them at the sight of the immortal lame one. And with pain did then first those Intuitive Essences, with pain and strife to their natures (not grief), put back their bright intelligences, and reduce their etherial minds, schooling them to degrees and slower processes, so to adapt their lessons to the gradual illumination (as must needs be) of the half-earth-born; and what intuitive notices they could not repel (by reason that their nature is to know all things at once), the halfheavenly novice, by the better part of its nature, aspired to receive into its understanding; so that Humility and Aspiration went on even-paced in the instruction of the glorious Amphibium. But, by reason that Mature Hu manity is too gross to breathe the air of that super-subtile region, its portion was, and is, to be a child for ever. And because the human part of it might not press into the heart and inwards of the palace of its adoption, those full-natured angels tended it by turns in the purlieus of the palace, where were shady groves and rivulets, like this green earth from which it came: so Love, with Voluntary Humility, waited upon the entertainment of the new-adopted. And myriads of years rolled round (in dreams Time is nothing), and still it kept, and is to keep, perpetual childhood, and is the Tutelar Genius of Childhood upon earth, and still goes lame and lovely. nevertheless, a correspondency is between the child by the grave, and tha. celestial orphan, whom I saw above; and the dimness of the grief upon the heavenly, is as a shadow or emblem of that which stains the beauty of the terrestrial. And this correspondency is not to be understood but by dreams. And in the archives of heaven I had grace to read, how that once the angel Nadir, being exiled from his place for mortal passion, upspringing on the wings of parental love (such power had parental love for a moment to suspend the else irrevocable law) appeared for a brief instant in his station; and, depositing a wondrous Birth, straightway disappeared, and the palaces knew him no more. And this charge was the self-same Babe, who goeth lame and lovely--but Mirzah sleepeth by the river A Pison. ELIA. By the banks of the river Pison is seen, lone-sitting by the grave of the terrestrial Mirzah, whom the angel Nadir loved, a Child; but not the same which I saw in heaven. pensive hue overcasts its lineaments; THE FAIRY MILLER OF CROGA. I wish my story so well as to wish it had happened in some more noted nook of earth, where Fame had already sounded her trumpet, where Nature had been less frugal of her sweets, and where Fiction might delight to place her heroes. But I have no wish to plant lilies where nature sows nettles, nor breathe a foreign perfume among the wild bells and foxgloves of a rustic landscape. Nature is ever wise, and men would do well to step as she steps, and hold by the skirts of her many-coloured and ever changing robe, even as a child clings tottering to the side of its mother. The man who knows more than Nature, knows far too much; she has made no hill wholly desolate, and no land utterly barren; she has scattered every where the most rare and remarkable things; and he who seeks to embellish her beauty is no wiser than the lunatic who called his grace of Queensberry a fool for not planting the vale of Nith with raspberries. It happened one fine evening nigh the close of autumn,-when the corn wore its covering of broom in the stack-yard,-when the nuts began to drop ripe from their husks, and the morning flowers hung white with hoar frost, that two riders entered the southward gorge of the wild glen of Croga. It was wearing late,the moon had still a full hour to march before she reached the tops of the western hills,-the lights began to disappear from the windows of the peasantry, and, besides the murmuring of the water of Orr, which winded among the rocks and trees, an anxious ear might hear the cautious step and the lifting latch of some young ploughman holding tryste with his love. It was a market night, and to these soft and pleasurable sounds might be added the sharp, shrill, and rapid admonition of woman's tongue, when a late hour, a pennyless pocket, and a head throbbing with drink, called forth a torrent of sage and gracious remarks on her husband's folly and her own wisdom and forbearance. But of those sounds, if such sounds were, the two riders seemed to take no note; they entered the glenabreast, and inclining their heads beyond the graceful uprightness of good horsemanship, laid them together in the true spirit of confidential communication. It may be imagined that as they were of different sexes, I could honestly say as much of him: love, or some such cause of mu--he is never seen, and he is often tual attraction, inclined them to this heard ;-but he's a brave miller, and friendly fellowship. I wish to leave. I have tasted meal of his grinding no room for such unfounded sus- myself:-But that was in my youthpicion. One was a man in years, ful days, when I had less of the fear of a douce and grave exterior, with of God and the grave afore me :-we much of that devout circumspection have been all foolish upon a time, and prudence of look, which might miller,-but it's the surest saint that mark him out to the parish minister has had the soundest fa',-a proverb in a nomination of elders. His dress, that ought to have been in the goslike himself, seemed fit for the wear pel." and tear of the world,-firm of texture and home-made; a good gray mixture, adapted to the dusty la bours of a mill, and a miller he was, and one as good as ever wet a wheel in water-the miller of Croga mill, and his name was Thomas Milroy. Of his companion I ought to say something; but how can a man less than inspired touch off the sedate simplicity, the matronly demeanour, and that look of superstitious awe and love for the marvellous, which belonged to Barbara Farish, the relict of the laird of Elfknowe. Her very horse seemed conscious of his load of surpassing sanctity and knowledge, and looked on the dapple gray nag of the dusty miller with an arched neck, and an eye worthy of the steed of so good and so gifted a dame. Her gray riding skirt hung far beneath her feet, and nearly reached the ground; a black silk hood, lined with gray, covered her head, and was fastened beneath her chin; while over a nose, long and thin, and transparent as horn, looked forth two deep-set and searching eyes, of a light and lively blue. I have said they were in earnest conference ;I must let the voice of the miller be heard first. "Ye say true, woman," said he of the sieve and the millstone: "all ye have spoken is as true as that my outer wheel runs round, and my hopper holds corn. There are elves about, woman, and strange spirits, -Croga glen is swarming with them: -I have heard them at the dead hours of night, and I may say I have as good as seen them, and that in broad day.""'Deed, miller," said she of the Elfknowe, "we all ken full well that the mill of Croga has two millers,-one of flesh and blood, and as douce a man as ever wet corn with water, even yourself, Thomas; but for the other, I wish "And ye have tasted meal of the Elf-miller's grinding, good-wife?" said the miller:-" hegh, woman, but ye're a fearless bodie. Now, touching the miller, I could tell something of a tale myself. It was ae fine summer night, I mind it well,-it was just the time lang Tam Freysel died, and that I lost three mug ewes in the side-ill. The wind was down, and the moon shone so clear ye might have gathered saxpences on Crogahill, and seen needles and pins in the bottom of my mill-dam. I went out to pray at my own house-end,---for to tell ye nae fiction, I am far from being so bold as one with so clear a conscience might be, who never wronged a man aboon the worth of three handfulls of meal at a time. So to my knees I went,---and I mind well I was petitioning against the drought of summer, for the streams were parched up, and a drove of oxen would have drunk Croga mill-dam dry; but I trow I got a raising. I heard a sound as of the rushing of water,---the clapper of my mill began to clap, the wheels went dunnering round, the dust streamed out as thick as a corn sack from door and wicket, and I heard the din as of twenty tongues making merry over a meller of meal. Now, said I, through might from aboon I shall see who they are that run off my milldam with this wicked speed,---but it was may be for my soul's health, that I was not to be made so wise. I had reached the brink of my milldam, and the lights shone, and the mirth abounded, more than ever. Judge ye now, good wife, if it was ought good that beguiled and befooled me sae; instead of my bonnie mill-dam shining beneath the summer moon, what beheld I but a palace of burning gold, rising before me with carved pillars nae doubt, and sculptured porches I'll warrant, and a roof,---O sic a roof!---the roof of heaven was but a spider web to it,--for every star there were ten: ---I grew dizzy to behold it. I stood astonied, as ye may guess ;---and the more so, because I heard the sound of dulcimer and flute, and all manner of profane music, coming sounding from the porch,---a sound like the falling of water on my outer wheel, when the hopper's heaped and the stone's geared,--but mair sweet, mair sweet. A weel, said I, the hand of some sonsie spirit has been here,--for I was right bold at the time,--and I should have told ye before, that as I prayed, black Will Smith, the smuggler, rode past, and I had tasted just as much brandy as did me good. And as I looked on the fairy palace, and on its portals, I forgot myself, and, lifting up my staff, I knocked at the door, saying, peace be here:---but, O the deceit of Satan,---o'er the head I plumped in my own mill-dam,---swash, like a salmon of fifty pound weight at the troutloup of Croga. 'Now, Gude protect us a', quoth our wife, for the miller's drowned;' and down with a shriek and a clapping of hands came she. Na, na,' quoth I, I'm no drowned, but gloriously dooked;--Croga elves, by the aid of a bright moon and their own magic, turned the mill-dam into a palace of gold, and gloriously dooked am I.' 6 "Miller," said his companion, "all this may be accounted for in a natural way. That smuggled brandy's a deceitful servant. I have tried it for the cough, for shortness of breath, and for dimness of sight, and may therefore speak. A cupful of it makes the floors seem walls, and the walls floors, and ten thousand lights dance before one's eyes. It's a deceitful friend, and a deluding servant, and nae wonder ye were misled. But to let that drop,---what I am about to tell ye has perplexed me and the minister to explain, and ye maun ken a drop of smuggled sinful had not passed my door for a full month before I saw what I shall tell ye. It was in that sad year, the seventeen, that the sun dried up the land, and scorched the standing corn; no rain fell for forty days, and there was sore want in the earth. The very grasshopper ceased to sing. that brings me in mind of the wicked laird of Lauriebank, auld Gomorrah, as he was called, and not unjustly;-he was an old man then, and I but a young quean, no aboon a year married. I saw him sitting among his scorched-up corn, and heard him crying to the clouds, whenever he saw one arise: Come hither, if ye be a minister of rain, and no a bearer of fire, come hither, for Lauriebank is cracking and fizzing, and would singe the wing of a laverock. Will ye cast away rain on the Solway sea, and so much good corn in the country perishing for lack of water? One may roast eggs on the banks of Burnbourack, and make tenpenny_nails among the burning sand of Topplestarvit ;---will ye no come hither? A weel,---to forsake the auld sinner and his sayings---I was a new married body then ;---beginning the world, and all to buy, and little to buy it with. The plague of drought came upon the land, as I said; the milk of life refused to come into the ear of corn; the cattle came from the parched uplands into the lowland marshes to cool their mouths with frog-pipes, and the people were in sore want. I dwelt then in a lonesome house at the foot of Kinharviehill, and no other sound heard I for the livelong day, but the sound of my spinning wheel, the gushing of the little burn, the cry of the plover, and the pleasant sound of my goodman's voice as he returned at e'en from distant labour." "I kenned the place well," said the miller; "monie a bonnie burn trout have I neeved in that stream; monie a bonnie gray moorcock have I shot on that hill; and monie a bonnie hour at even have I wasted, sitting by the side of a sonsie lass at the warm hearth of Kinkarvie. But that was before the time ye talk of, good wife, and I'm stopping your story." "It was a bonnie place,” said Barbara, " and I have aye a warm side till it yet: a place where ane has been happy in,---and bore monie a bonnie bairn in,---and tasted some of the rebuke of affliction and poverty in, is dearer than all meaner places. But I was young then, and carried my head high, for sorrow had not bowed my neck,---and trimly I kept my house, tidily kept I myself, and kindly loved I our goodman;---I |