Is it a fair fond thought,

That you may still our friends and guardians be;
And Heaven's high ministry by you be wrought
With objects low as me?

May we not sweetly hope,

That you around our path and bed may dwell?
And shall not all our blessings brighter drop
From hands we loved so well?

'Shall we not feel you near

In hours of danger, solitude, and pain,
Cheering the darkness, drying off the tear,
And turning loss to gain?

Shall not your gentle voice

Break on temptation's dark and sullen mood,
Subdue our erring will, o'errule our choice,
And win from ill to good?

'Oh yes! to us, to us,

A portion of our converse shall be given!
Struggling affection still would hold you thus,
Nor yield you all to Heaven!

'Lead our faint steps to God;

Be with us while the desert here we roam;
Teach us to tread the path which you have trod,
To find with you our home!'

There is an interesting memoir of Dr. Morrison, but we must pass it over to detach a few anecdotes from the Recollections of Wilberforce.

Upon his religious habits, the mind of the writer of these recollections delights to dwell. He was a Christian indeed. The elevated and consistent tone of spiritual piety which he maintained during the whole course of his hurried public life, was sustained by much private prayer, by a religious observation of the rest of the Sabbath, and by study of the Scriptures. His remarks in his family devotions, on the passages which he read, were generally attractive, new, striking, practical, and in harmony with the spirit of the sacred book. The writer has seen the Bible which he used in private, the margins were crowded with annotations, references, critical emendations, and marks, all in pencil, and evidently the work of reference and love for the sacred book. I remember his expositions dwelt much on the topies of gratitude to God for redemption, of the debt of love we owe, of the happiness of religion, and the misery of a life of sin.

It required some management to draw him out in conversation. And the nearer you observed him, the more the habit of his mind appeared obviously to be modest and lowly. And, therefore, some of those who only saw him once might go away disappointed. But if he

was lighted up, and in a small circle where he was entirely at his $345 ease, his powers of conversation were prodigious; a natural eloquence was poured out; strokes of gentle playfulness and satire fell on all sides; and the company were soon absorbed in admiration. It commonly took only one visit to gain over the most prejudiced stranger.

I hardly know, whether it would be worth while particularizing two occasions. He was on a visit to Brighton; the king hearing of it, sent for him one evening, without a moment's notice, to attend at the Pavilion. Mr. Wilberforce was so much surprised that he actually called in the orderly, that he might have the message from the man's own mouth. He hurried on his dress, and went. party was assembled, and the king (George IV.) paid him much atA large tention. By degrees he was engaged in conversation, and so fixed the royal circle, that the company did not break up till a late hour, his Majesty playfully accusing Mr. Wilberforce of being the occasion.

At another time, he was invited to meet the celebrated Madame de Stael, at, I believe, Lord Lansdowne's: there were only two or three guests; one of whom told me that Wilberforce broke out on a suitable topic, leading from it into so eloquent a panegyric of missionaries carrying the gospel to the heathen nations, that the party were rapt in amazement; the conversation afterwards naturally fell into his hands, (such was the expression used to me,) and the evening was altogether delightful.

I recollect Mr. Wilberforce saying, that he once laboured for hours in endeavouring to convince Mr. Pitt of the real spirituality of Christianity, and of the value of those clergymen whom the world at that day upbraided with extravagance. He succeeded, however, in one important effort. Minister by Mr. Pretyman, (afterwards Tomline, and successively Some project had been nearly carried with the Bishop of Lincoln and Winchester,) but Wilberforce hearing of it, took such pains to inform Mr. Pitt of the real bearings of the case, that it was abandoned. Mr. Wilberforce, thirty years afterwards, told the writer he did not know that he had in anything been more really serviceable to the cause of true religion than by that private interposition.' Recollections of William Wilberforce, Esq.

It may be fairly said, upon reflecting on Mr. Wilberforce's labours for this cause, including the thirty-seven years that he was in parliament after he brought it forward, and the nine years of retirement afterwards, during which he continued to aid and direct in the conduct of it, that there has been no statesman in our memory who has proposed to himself so great an object, pursued it with such perseverance, and been crowned during his own lifetime with such complete success. His extreme benevolence contributed largely to this success. I have heard him say, that it was one of his constant rules, on this question especially, never to provoke an adversary,-to allow him fully, sincerity and purity of motive,-to abstain from irritating expressions,-to avoid even such political attacks as would indispose his opponents for his great cause. the kind-heartedness of his character, disarmed the bitterest foes. In fact, the benignity, the gentleness, Not only on this question did he restrain himself, but generally. Once he had been called during a whole debate, by a considerable speaker

The

Mr.

of the opposition, "the religious member," in a kind of scorn. impropriety had been checked by the interference of the house. Wilberforce told me afterwards, that he was much inclined to have retorted by calling his opponent "the irreligious member," but that he refrained, as it would be a returning of evil for evil.

'A friend told me that he found him once in the greatest agitation looking for a despatch which he had mislaid:-one of the royal family was waiting for it, he had delayed the search to the last moment,— he seemed at last quite vexed and flurried. At this unlucky instant, a disturbance in the nursery over-head occurred. My friend, who was with him, said to himself, Now, for once, Wilberforce's temper will give way. He had hardly thought thus, when Wilberforce turned to him, and said, "What a blessing it is to have these dear children; -only think what a relief amidst other hurries, to hear their voices, and know they are well."

We have room for only one more extract, and we cannot but pronounce the following stanzas one of the most beautiful poems in this delightful volume. We must speak of the Scrap Book next month it is a highly attractive Omnium Gatherum, fit for a drawing room.

THE SHEPHERD'S VIGIL.

Silent, and calm, and beautiful

The starry night came down,
Where rush Siloa's waters cool,

Where Kedar's deserts frown;
And deep its quiet shadow fell
Upon the hills of Israel!

The dark green hills, where oft of old
The patriarchs' tents were seen;
Where lay the still and peaceful fold,
The hanging cliffs between;
Which in his earliest, happiest days,
Heard the sweet Psalmist's lyre of praise.

And lonely lay the land around,

Lonely as when, of yore,

The footsteps of her God were found

Upon her olive shore:

And where her vine-wreathed gates unclosed

The shadow of her Rock reposed.

In Bethlehem his father's sheep

The son of Jesse led ;

And still on crag and palm-crown'd steep

Of sceptred Judah spread

A thousand folded fleeces shone
Like snow on mountain Lebanon.

6

Far, far along the purple heights

That stretched into the sky,
Scatter'd as in calm summer nights,
The clouds in Heaven lie;

When distant founts are heard to play
And the low wind is hushed away.

Silently rose the hour-when He,
Once well in Judah known,
Came to his temple suddenly,

Came veiled and alone:

A stranger in that pleasant land
Their fathers gather'd from His hand.

He who hath passed the palace by,
In lowly roofs to rest,
The dweller in eternity,

The contrite bosom's guest:
Though angels were his heralds--then
His message sent to shepherd men.

Watching among the dark green hills,
In the night shadow roll'd
Listening but to the far-off rills

The low bleat of the fold;-
They saw the awful mantle furl'd
That wraps from us the hidden world.

And voices not of this world's mirth;
But gladness far more deep;
Forms, such as walk'd the ancient earth
Or broke on holy sleep,

Startling the dreamer's dazzled eye,
Swept in unearthly splendour by.

They heard the words which never now
The ear of night may hear,
For earth's polluted, faded brow
Feels no such presence near :-

And pathless is the mountain sod,

So long by angel footsteps trod.

THOU, who hast walked the world alone,

With sad and weary feet;

THOU, who didst leave thine ancient throne,

Thy straying sheep to meet;

Tho' fallen and lost the guilty spot,

Yet oh, do THOU forsake it not.

11

ART. X. LITERARY INTELLIGENCE.

In the course of October will appear, in one volume octavo, a Treatise on the Functional and Structural Changes of the Liver, in the Progress of Disease, with numerous Cases, exhibiting the Invasion, Symptoms, Progress, and Treatment of Hepatic Disease in India. By W. E. E. Canwell, M.R.I.A., Surgeon of the Madras Establish

ment.

In the Press, Schleirmacher's Introduction to the Dialogues of Plato, translated from the German. By William Dobson, M.Ă., Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.

The Rev. Eustace Carey has in the Press, A Memoir of the Rev. William Carey, D.D., more than forty years Missionary in India, Professor of Oriental Languages in the College of Fort William, &c., &c. The Work will comprise, a review of his early life and entrance upon the Christian Ministry, by Himself. A recollection of his early life, by a beloved Sister.-An " Attempt at a Memoir," &c., by the late Rev. Andrew Fuller.-A Critique upon his Character and Labours as an Oriental Scholar and Translator, by Dr. Wilson, Professor of Oriental Literature in the University of Oxford, &c., &c.