Mother,' and 'Twinkle, Twinkle little Star,' can never become obso lete in the nursery. Jane Taylor was authoress of a tale entitled 'Display' (1815), and of Essays in Rhyme' (1816), and 'Contribu tions of Q.Q.' Ann married a Dissenting clergyman, the Rev. Josiah Gilbert, author of a treatise on the Atonement, who died in 1852, and a memoir of whom was written by his widow. When she also was removed, her son, Josiah Gilbert, an accomplished artist, and author of The Dolomite Mountains; 'Cadore, or Titian's Country,' &c., published in 1874, Autobiography and other Memorials of Mrs. Gilbert (Ann Taylor).' A brother of the accomplished sisters, Isaac Taylor of Stamford Rivers, became still more distinguished as a the ological writer, and will be noticed in a subsequent part of this volume.

The Squire's Pew.-By JANE TAYLOR.

A slanting ray of evening light
Shoots through the yellow pane;
It makes the faded crimson bright,
And gilds the fringe again:

The window's Gothic framework falls
In oblique shadow on the walls.

Outstretched together are expressed
He and my lady fair,

With hands uplifted on the breast,
In attitude of prayer;
Long-visaged, clad in armor, he;
With ruffled arm and bodice, she.

And since those trappings first were new, Set forth in order as they died,

How many a cloudless day,

To rob the velvet of its hue,

Has come and passed away!
How many a setting sun hath made
That curious lattice-work of shade?

Crumbled beneath the hillock green
The cunning hand must be,
That carved this fretted door, I ween-
Acorn and fleur-de-lis;

And now the worm hath done her part
In mimicking the chisel's art.

In days of yore-that now we call-
When James the First was king,
The courtly knight from yonder hall
His train did hither bring;
All seated round in order due,
With broidered suit and buckled shoe.

On damask-cushions, set in fringe,
All reverently they knelt:
Prayer-book with brazen hasp and hinge
In ancient English spelt,
Each holding in a lily hand,
Responsive at the priest's command.

Now streaming down the vaulted aisle,
The sunbeam, long and lone,
Illumes the characters awhile

Of their inscription stone;
And there, in marble hard and cold,
The knight and all his train behold.

The numerous offspring bend;
Devoutly kneeling side by side,

As though they did intend
For past omissions to atone
By saying endless prayers in stone.
Those mellow days are past and dim,
But generations new,

In regular descent from him,

Have filled the stately pew;
And in the same succession go
To occupy the vault below.

And now the polished, modern squire,
And his gay train appear
Who duly to the hall retire,

A season every year

And fill the seats with belle and beau,
As 'twas so many years ago.

Perchance, all thoughtless as they tread
The hollow-sounding floor
Of that dark house of kindred dead
Which shall, as heretofore,
In turn, receive to silent rest
Another and another guest-

The feathered hearse and sable train,
In all its wonted state
Shall wind along the village lane,

And stand before the gate;
Brought many a distant county through
To join the final rendezvous.

And when the race is swept away
All to their dusty beds,
Sti shall the mellow evening ray

Shine gaily o'er their heads: Whilst other faces, fresh and new, Shall occupy the squire's pew.

From The Song of the Tea-Kettle.'-By ANN TAYLOR.

Since first began my ominous song,
Slowly have passed the ages long..
Slow was the world my worth to glean,
My visible secret long unseen!
Surly, apart the nations dwelt.
Nor yet the magical impulse felt;
Nor deemed that charity, science, art,
All that doth honour or wealth impart,
Spell-bound, till mind should set them free,
Slumbered, and sung in their sleep-in me!
At length the day in its glory rose,
And off on its spell-the Engine goes!
On whom first fell the amazing dream?
WATT Woke to fetter the giant Steam,
His fury to crush to mortal rule,
And wield Leviathan as his tool!
The monster, breathing disaster wild,
Is tamed and checked by a tutored child;
Ponderous and blind, of rudest force,
A pin or a whisper guides its course;
Around its sinews of iron play

The viewless bonds of a mental sway,
And triumphs the soul in the mighty dower,
To knowledge, the plighted boon-is Power?
Hark! 'tis the din of a thousand wheels
At play with the fences of England's fields;
From its bed upraised, 'tis the flood that pours
To fill little cisterns at cottage doors;

Tis the many-fingered, intricate, bright machine,
With it flowery film of lace, I ween!

And see where it rushes, with silvery wreath,
The span of yon arched cove beneath;
Stupendous, vital, fiery, bright,

Trailing its length in a country's sight,
Riven are the rocks, the hills give way,
The dim valley rises to unfelt day;
And man, fitly crowned with brow sublime,
Conqueror of distance reigns, and time.
Lone was the shore where the hero mused,
His soul through the unknown leagues transfused;
His perilous bark on the ocean strayed,

And moon after moon, since its anchor weighed,
On the solitude strange and drear, did shine
The untracked ways of that restless brine;
Till at length, his shattered sail was furled,
'Mid the golden sands of a western world!
Still centuries passed with their measured tread,
While winged by the winds the nations sped;
And still did the moon as she watched that deep,'
Her triple task o'er the voyagers keep;
And sore farewells, as they hove from land,
Spake of absence long, on a distant strand.

She starts-wild winds at her bosom rage,\
She laughs in her speed at the war they wage;
In queenly pomp on the surf she treads,
Scarce waking the sea-things from their beds;
Fleet'as the lightning tracks the cloud,

She glances on, in her glory proud;
A few bright suns, and at rest she lies,
Glittering to transatlantic skies! ...

Simpleton man! why, who would have thought
To this, the song of a tea-kettle brought!

JOANNA BAILLIE.

MISS BAILLIE (1762-1851) was the daughter of a Scottish minister, and was born in the manse or parsonage of Bothwell, county of Lanark. In this manse, 'repression of all emotions, even the gentlest, and those most honourable to human nature, seems to have been the constant lesson.' Joanna's sister, Agnes, told Lucy Aiken that their father was an excellent parent: 'when she had once been bitten by a dog thought to be mad, he had sucked the wound, at the hazard, as was supposed, of his own life, but that he had never given her a kiss. Joanna spoke of her yearning to be caressed when a child. She would sometimes venture to clasp her little arms about her mother's knees, who would seem to chide her, but the child knew she liked it.' .*Herlatter years were spent in comparative retirement at Hempstead, where she died February 23, 1851. Besides her dramas (afterwards noticed), Miss Baillie wrote some admirable Scottish songs and other poetical pieces, which were collected and published under the title of Fugitive Verses.' In society, as in literature, this lady was regarded with affectionate respect and veneration, enjoying the friendship of most of her distinguished contemporaries. Lockhart, in his 'Life of Scott,' states that Miss Baillie and her brother, Dr. Matthew Baillie, were among the friends to whose intercourse Sir Walter looked forward with the greatest pleasure, when about to visit the metropolis.

Wanton droll, whose harmless play
Beguiles the rustic's closing day,
When drawn the evening fire about,
Sit aged Crone and thoughtless Lout,
And child upon his three-foot stool,
Waiting till his supper cool;
And maid, whose cheek outblooms the
rose,

As bright the blazing fagot glows,
Who, bending to the friendly light,
Plies her task with busy sleight;
Come,shew thy tricks and sportive graces,
Thus circled round with merry faces.

Backward coiled, and crouching low,
With glaring eyeballs watch thy foe,
The housewife's spindle whirling round,
Or thread, or straw, that on the ground
Its shadow throws, by urchin sly
Held out to lure thy roving eye;
Then, onward stealing, fiercely spring
Upon the futile, faithless thing.
Now, wheeling round, with bootless skill,
Thy bo-peep tail provokes thee still,

As oft beyond thy curving side
Its jetty tip is seen to glide;
Till, from thy centre starting fair,
Thou sidelong rear'st, with rump in air,
Erected stiff, and gait awry,
Like madam in her tantrums high:
Though ne'er a madam of them all,
Whose silken kirtle sweeps the hall,
More varied trick and whim displays,
To catch the admiring stranger's gaze.
The featest tumbler, stage-bedight,
To thee is but a clumsy wight,
Who every limb and sinew strains
To do what cost thee little pains;
For which, I trow, the gaping crowd
Requites him oft with plaudits loud.
But, stopped the while thy wanton play,
Applauses, too, thy feats repay:
For then beneath some urchin's hand,
With modest pride thou tak'st thy stand,
While many a stroke of fondness glides
Along thy back and tabby sides.
Dilated swells thy glossy fur,

* Memoirs of Lucy Aikin, London, 1864.

And loudly sings thy busy pur,
As, timing well the equal sound,
Thy clutching feet bepat the ground,
And all their harmless claws disclose,
Like prickles of an early rose;
While softly from thy whiskered cheek
Thy half-closed eyes peer mild and meek.
But not alone by cottage fire

Do rustics rude thy feats admire;

Who in the still, but cheerless shade
Of home unsocial, spends her age,
And rarely turns a lettered page;
Upon her hearth for thee lets fall
The rounded cork, or paper-ball,
Nor chides thee on thy wicked watch
The ends of ravelled skein to catch,
But lets thee have thy wayward will,
Perplexing oft her sober skill.

The learned sage, whose thoughts ex- Even he, whose mind of gloomy bent,

plore

The widest range of human lore,
Or, with unfettered fancy, fly
Through airy heights of poesy,
Pausing, smiles with altered air
To see thee climb his elbow chair,
Or, struggling on the mat below,
Hold warfare with his slippered toe.
The widowed dame, or lonely maid,

In lonely tower or prison pent,
Reviews the coil of former days,
And loathes the world and all its ways;
What time the lamp's unsteady gleam
Doth rouse him from his moody dream,
Feels, as thou gambol'st round his seat,
His heart with pride less fiercely beat,
And smiles, a link in thee to find

That joins him still to living kind

From Address to Miss Agnes Baillie on her Birthday.'*

Dear Agnes, gleamed with joy and dashed with tears
O'er us have glided almost sixty years,

Since we on Bothwell's bonny braes were seen

By those whose eyes long closed in death have been-
Two tiny imps, who scarcely stooped to gather
The slender harebell on the purple heather;
No taller than the foxglove's spiky stem,
That dew of morning studs with silvery gem.
Then every butterfly that crossed our view
With joyful shout was greeted as it flew;
And moth, and lady-bird, and beetle bright,
In sheeny gold, were each a wondrous sight.
Then as we paddled barefoot, side by side,
Among the sunny shallows of the Clyde,*
Minnows or spotted parr with twinkling fin,
Swimming in mazy rings the pool within.
A thrill of gladness through our bosoms sent,
Seen in the power of early wonderment.

A long perspective to my mind appears,
Looking behind me to that line of years;
And yet through every stage I still can trace
Thy visioned form, from childhood's morning grace
To woman's early bloom-changing, how soon!
To the expressive glow of woman's noon;
And now to what thou art, in comely age,
Active and ardent. Let what will engage
Thy present moment-whether hopeful seeds
In garden-plat thou sow, or noxious weeds
From the fair flower remove, or ancient lore
In chronicle or legend rare explore,

Or on the parlour hearth with kitten play,

The author and her sister lived to an advanced age, constantly in each other's society. Miss Agnes Baillie died April 27, 1861, aged 100.

*The manse of Bothwell was at some considerable distance from the Clyde, but the two little girls were sometimes sent there in summer to bathe and wade about. Joanna said she rambled over the heaths and plashed in the brook most of the day.' One day she said to Lucy Aikin. I could not read well till nine years old.' O Joanna,' cried her sister, not till eleven.'-Memoirs of Lucy Aikin.

Stroking its tabby sides, or take thy way
To gain with hasty steps some cottage door,
On helpful errand to the neighboring poor-
Active and ardent, to my fancy's eye

Thou still art young, in spite of time gone by.
Though oft of patience brief, and temper keen,
Well may it please me, in life's latter scene,

To think what now thou art and long to me hast been. 'Twas thou who woo'dst me first to look

Upon the page of printed book,

That thing by me abhorred, and with address
Didst win me from my thoughtless idleness,
When all too old become with bootless haste
In fitful sports the precious time to waste.
Thy love of tale and story was the stroke
At which my dormant fancy first awoke,
And ghosts and witches in my busy brain
Arose in sombre show a motley train.
This new-found path attempting, proud was I
Lurking approval on thy face to spy,
Or hear thee say, as grew thy roused attention,
'What! is this story all thine own invention ?"

Then, as advancing through this mortal span,
Our intercourse with the mixed world began;
Thy fairer face and sprightlier courtesy-
A truth that from my youthful vanity
Lay not concealed-did for the sisters twain,
Where'er we went, the greater favour gain;
While, but for thee, vexed with its tossing tide,
I from the busy world had shrunk aside.
And now, in later years, with better grace,
Thou help'st me still to hold a welcome place

With those whom nearer neighbourhood have made
The friendly cheerers of our evening shade.
The change of good and evil to abide,

As partners linked, long have we, side by side,
Our earthly journey held; and who can say
How near the end of our united way?

By nature's course not distant; sad and 'reft
Will she remain-the lonely pilgrim left.

If thou art taken first, who can to me

Like sister, friend, and home-companion be?

Or who, of wonted daily kindness shorn,

Shall feel such loss, or mourn as I shall mourn?

And if I should be fated first to leave

This earthly house, though gentle friends may grieve, And he above them all, so truly proved

A friend and brother, long and justly loved,

There is no living wight, of woman born,

Who then shall mourn for me as thou wilt mourn.

Thou ardent, liberal spirit! quickly feeling

The touch of sympathy, and kindly dealing
With sorrow or distress, for ever sharing

The unhoarded mite, nor for to-morrow caring-
Accept, dear Agnes, on thy natal day,

An unadorned, but not a careless lay.

Nor think this tribute to thy virtues paid

From tardy love proceeds, though long delayed

Words of affection, howsoe'er expressed,
The latest spoken still are deemed the best:
Few are the measured rhymes I now may write;
These are, perhaps, the last I shall indite.