islets, the landscapes swelling from its beach, and the distant grandeur of the mountains, the Cheviots in the south and the snowy Grampians in the north. Genius does not owe its development to cloth of gold and lordly dainties: the barefooted boy with the unplumed bonnet on his head, and the few pieces of oatcake in his pocket, was able to take in the materials of a poem which for beauty and accuracy of local description would not have disgraced the pen of Cowper. When Michael returned to school for the winter months, he was soon at the head of the class; but his fellow-scholars saw him pass them without jealousy or ill-feeling. He was a favourite with them all, and they yielded to him as their "guide, philosopher and friend." There was a charm in his manner that ensured affection and confidence, and there can be no doubt that religion did much in making him so attractive. The teaching and example of his parents affected him from his early childhood, and when his intellect began to expand, he delighted in talking on sacred subjects, and would revert with evident pleasure to any new thought on theology that had been suggested to him. He conducted family worship when his father was from home, and his prayers were characterised by solemnity, appropriateness of language and Scriptural allusion, which seemed beyond his years. He wished to go to college, but was without the means, and there was some indetermination as to his future career. The desire of his heart was, however, at length gratified; his father received a legacy of about £11, and on the strength of this accession of family wealth, it was decided that he should enter himself as a student in Edinburgh. This was a small sum with which to commence college life, but it sufficed to pay the usual fees, and the young student had the promise of an occasional supply of provisions from the father of one of his companions. While attending college, we are told," he applied himself to the several branches of literature and philosophy with remarkable assiduity and success. Of the Latin and Greek languages he acquired a masterly knowledge, and he made eminent progress in metaphysics, mathematics and mental philosophy." Having completed his sessions in Edinburgh, he went to the Divinity Hall of the Burgher branch of the Secession Church, his purpose being to devote his powers to the work of the Christian ministry. The Divinity Class was under the care of the Rev. Mr. Swanston, the minister of Kinross. Mr. Swanston had several people in good circumstances in his church, who lodged and boarded the students free of charge, an arrangement admirably suited to the low condition of Bruce's finances. He soon became a great favourite with the professor, who treated him rather as a brother than a student. According to custom he had to give a discourse in the Hall. Knowing the bent of his mind his hearers anticipated imagery and eloquence, but were disappointed, for his homily was characterised only by tame thoughts expressed in prosaic words. But had he been spared there can be little doubt that his genius would have been developed in his sermons, or that he would have presented the truth in forms of beauty that would have been hailed by the devout, and have won sinners from the error of their ways. What he might have been as a preacher is however only matter of conjecture, for a pulmonary affection compelled the abandonment of his Divinity studies, an affection aggravated by the ungenial neighbourhood and damp room in which he kept a school during the vacations. But it was at Forest Mill, where he taught, that he recalled the scenes with which he had been familiar in boyhood, and wrote his "Lochleven," concluding with the plaintive lines : "Thus sung the youth, amid unfertile wilds And nameless deserts, unpoetic ground! Far from his friends he strayed, recording thus The dear remembrance of his native fields, To cheer the tedious night; while slow disease Preyed on his pining vitals, and the blasts Of dark December shook his humble cot." He had to leave Forest Mill and return to his parents. He lingered through the winter, and saw the spring brighten over the Loch; but he had given up all hope of life. Pale and feeble, he walked under the old ash trees that skirted his native village, or watched the budding of the honeysuckle he had trained round the window of his father's house. But the attractions of the outer world had slight influence on him; themes appropriate to a dying man filled his mind, and while still able to write he employed himself in revising and enlarging his poem on the Last Day. At length he was almost constantly confined to bed, and spent nearly the whole of his time with his Bible, reading it with glowing appreciation of its consoling truths, committing portions of it to memory, and commenting on passages to those who visited him. Though his earthly life was passing, he was calm and joyous, and when his friend George Lawson called on him and manifested surprise at finding him so cheerful, he said: Why should not a man be cheerful on the verge of heaven?" But he was overwhelmed with grief on hearing of the sudden death of his beloved tutor Mr. Swanston, and though he lived a month after that event, was never seen to smile again. He died aged twenty-one years and three months. His Bible was found on his pillow with a mark at the words: "Weep ye not for the dead, neither bemoan him;" and on a blank leaf were these lines: "'Tis very vain for me to boast How small a price my Bible cost : The day of judgment will make clear, 'Twas very cheap or very dear." John Logan, who was tutor in a gentleman's family at the time of Bruce's death, went to Kinnesswood and asked for the manuscripts of the deceased poet, assuring the bereaved parents that the publication of the poems would realise sufficient to keep them in comfort to the end of their days. Two years passed away and nothing was done, and Alexander Bruce, wearied by delay, wrote to Logan urging him either to publish or return the poems. At the end of the third year a small volume came out, entitled, "Poems on Several Occasions, by Michael Bruce," but the preface stated that only part of the work was by Bruce, yet without intimating to whom the other pieces were to be ascribed. When the little book appeared Bruce's friends were surprised to find that it contained none of the sacred songs with which they had become familiar by seeing them in manuscript, or hearing them sung, and his father on looking through the contents burst into tears exclaiming: "Where are my son's Gospel sonnets?" The old man went to Logan and accused him of having kept back some of his son's best pieces, and insisted on having them again. Logan gave him a few loose papers, but he demanded the volume in which Michael had tran scribed his poems. Logan professed not to be able to find it, but promised to look for it, and hand it to him the following day, but when the day came it was still not to be obtained, and Logan said he feared the servants had singed fowls with it. This inexplicable conduct was deeply painful to the sorrowing father, and without receiving any pecuniary benefit from the poems that were issued, he died about five years after following his godly and gifted gifted Michael to the grave. Eleven years elapsed from the date of the publication already mentioned, and Logan appeared as the author of a volume of poems in which were nine hymns or paraphrases, which with two others supplied by him, were appended to the Scotch Version of the Psalms. Three of these have been identified beyond doubt as Bruce's, and there is a strong supposition, based on good evidence, that he composed the whole eleven. Of the three, the one on the Millennium contains the most spiritstirring lines: "The beam that shines from Zion's hill Shall lighten every land; The King who reigns in Salem's towers Shall all the world command. "No strife shall rage, nor hostile feuds Disturb those peaceful years; To ploughshares men shall beat their swords, To pruning-hooks their spears. "No longer hosts, encountering hosts, Shall crowds of slain deplore ; and as the bird could but rarely be seen, the poet's mother went with a number of villagers to look at it, and asked: "Will that be the bird our Michael made a song about?" A letter from Bruce to one of his friends contained this sentence: "You will think me ill-employed, for I am writing a poem about a gowk." It is difficult to understand how Logan could stoop to the meanness of appropriating the fruit of another man's genius, but the lightest verdict that can be pronounced on his whole career is that he was lacking in high principle. There was little admirable in the course of his life. He was the son of a farmer in East Lothian, and was trained under the ministry of John Brown of Haddington. In youth he decided on being a minister of the Secession Church, and made great professions of piety, but after a time became so loose in religious matters that his old acquaintances found it necessary to shun his society. Influenced in part by Dr. Blair, he entered the Established Church and obtained presentation to a charge in South Leith, but he was too ambitious to content himself with parochial duties, and delivered a course of lectures in Edinburgh, on the Philosophy of History, which excited considerable attention. Successful as a lecturer, he sought further renown in a sphere utterly out of the line of his sacred profession: he wrote a tragedy which though interdicted in London for political reasons, was acted in Edinburgh. His people were offended by his connection with the theatre, and by the convivial habits into which he had fallen, and he had to resign his pastorate. He went to London and eked out the annuity which his congregation allowed him, by writing for reviews. It is said that in his later days he became penitent and spent the greater part of his time in reading the Bible. He was not without natural ability, but in his eagerness for fame made free use of other men's materials. After his death a selection of his sermons was published, which was well received; but the best parts consist of long passages taken without acknowledgment from English divines. There is also something more than a strong suspicion that in his lectures on history he was guilty of wholesale plagiarism. But his appropriation of some of the choicest of Bruce's stanzas is the worst part of his conduct. What selfishness, what disregard of truth and honour he betrayed in filching the garland from the urn of the departed youth, for his own decoration ! He must have forgotten all the grand Christian morality he heard from the lips of his pastor, John Brown, or he would not thus have robbed Bruce's memory, and added indignant chagrin and cruel disappointment to the grief of a bereaved father. Thomas Campbell tells us that when Edmund Burke was in Edinburgh, he sought out Logan, to express to him his admiration of the "Ode to the Cuckoo," which he thought one of the most beautiful lyrics in the English language. But if Logan had any conscience, the praise of the great statesman must have sent a pang to his heart, knowing as he did that he had only gained it by shameful fraud. But if Burke was mistaken as to the author, he was right in his commendation of the ode. The verses are instinct with the life of nature, and renew in the mind of the reader the fresh and fragrant world of childhood: "Hail, beauteous stranger of the grove! Thy certain voice we hear. And hear the sound of music sweet From birds among the bow'rs. "The school-boy, wand'ring through the wood To pull the primrose gay, Doth start thy curious voice to hear, "What time the pea puts on the bloom, Thou fly'st thy vocal vale, An annual guest in other lands, "Sweet bird! thy bow'r is ever green, Thou hast no sorrow in thy song, "O could I fly, I'd fly with thee ! We'd make, with joyful wing, OLD CATHOLICISM IN SWITZERLAND. As soon as the official report of movement may be of interest. This will deal not so much with Austria, Italy, France, Belgium, Holland or Mexico, of which many interesting accounts might be given, as with Switzerland and Germany, the two countries that take the lead in the movement, which is called in Germany Old Catholic and in Switzer that it ought not to be undertaken except by the united action of the Dutch, Swiss and German Old Catholics; that most will at any rate admit that the time for the change has not yet arrived; and that it seems strange that those who have undertaken the herculean task of reforming the Church should deem it desirable to begin by throw land Christian Catholic. On October 14th, there commenced the "Christian Catholic Synod" of the Canton of Bern. The Synodal Council was commissioned to prepare a catechism to be based on that of Bishop Salzmann, and to select out of the existing Bible histories the one most fitted to be recommended to the congregations. The necessity of a prayer-book and church hymn-booking off a merely personal yoke, no was acknowledged. The use of the cassock as a constant dress (after the manner of the French clergy) was forbidden, but on the other hand the proposal to alter the massliturgy and the vestments was not accepted. It was finally decreed that auricular confession before communion should not be compulsory, and that marriage should no longer debar from admission to, or hinder the further exercise of, the functions of the priesthood. Thirteen refused to vote for the abolition of the compulsory celibacy of the clergy. The proceedings of this Synod have caused a good deal of anxiety to the Germans, who have acted all along more conservatively than the Swiss. They say first of all that none of these changes ought to have been made except by a properly constituted Synod, that is, a representative church-body with a bishop in the chair; that the Swiss having no bishop cannot hold a Synod in the Catholic sense of the word. They admit that clerical celibacy, having only Church authority for its appointment, may be done away with, and further that with certain limitations, as in the Orthodox and United Greek Churches, it must be done away with, in order to avoid the abominable consequences which the "forbidding to marry" has entailed on the Romish priesthood. They add, however, that this reform is one of such far-reaching consequences matter how unjustifiably imposed upon them. They complain further that the Swiss priests and congregations have on individual authority, in several cases, made considerable changes; that whilst in some places mass is celebrated in the ancient manner, in Latin, and with incense, benediction and processions, there are other priests who celebrate it in German, others in French, and that in forms or dress framed or adopted by themselves according to the taste of each; and that some have already perpetrated matrimony. The approaching National Synod (so-called) is viewed with equal anxiety, because it is intended to propose that all such existing reforms may be recognised, and the resolutions of the late Synod adopted for the entire of Switzerland. But that is not all. Not only do the Germans complain that the assemblies held at different times, in Bern and elsewhere, ought not to be called synods, but they have an uneasy feeling that one or other of the two following courses may perhaps be adopted by the Swiss. The first is that of quietly and coolly going through with reconstructive legislation, even in detail, and then when all is finished, crowning the movement with a bishop, merely as a kind of decoration. The danger then would be that no able man would allow himself to be elected, and that one might be chosen who would not have the full |