as she sat bent. forward, eagerly listening, in her arm chair, 'I see it! I see it a'! It's like a crystal o' licht set in my very heart. On expressing our surprise that she could so vividly recall past scenes and speak with rapture of the wild flowers which she could see no more, she said, "They're a' in my heart-I loved them too well ever to forget them.'

Janet Hamilton is pre-eminently a poet of social progress. This is the thread of gold which runs through all her writings. She feels for the oppressed and suffering everywhere, and she smites, with no sparing hand, and in no measured terms, the vices and the wrongs which have wrought such misery and woe upon the earth. Elizabeth Barrett Browning never penned a more piercing Cry of the Human,' or a more urgent Cry of the Children,' than Janet has done in some of her own spirit-stirring utterances, born in the depths of her own agony, and wrung from her own bleeding heart by our national curse and disgraceIntemperance. It is, indeed, a very touching picture to see her seated, pale and blind, in her arm chair, and lamenting, with such anguish of heart, the evils entailed upon the country by this curse. She repeated to us, with trembling emotion, the poem which appears in this volume, entitled 'The Enemy still Sits in the Gate.'

"Her Christian cheerfulness and patient submission in the midst of blindness, and other trials even more severe than this, are, after all, the true poetry of her life, and a pleasant proof to every visitor that a merciful God, who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,' has given her 'songs in the night in this the house of her pilgrimage,' and a good hope, through grace, of coming glory, when in the light of God, she will see light clearly."

Mrs. Hamilton's best poems have too much of the Scottish dialect in

them to be readily understood by English readers, so that we are compelled to select, as a specimen, poems which though good are not her bestpoems which belong to one class, and therefore give no idea of the variety of the products of her genius.

IMPORTANT QUERIES.

Why this hurrying to and fro,

Why all this strange commotion? The good ship Briton rolls and sways

Upon a stormy ocean.

Oh! where the skilful pilot's hand

To steer her through the breakers? Or must she drift till, on the strand,

She lies the prey of wreckers? Oh! why this running to and fro:

Is knowledge true increasing?
When human knowledge leads the van
The true is oft decreasing-
The newer lights, so vaunted now,

The learning of the college,
The lights of science unbaptised-

Lead they to saving knowledge?`
Oh! why this running to and fro,

The fiery demon chasing; The Moloch spirit of the still

With deadly clasp embracing! Dread spirit, at thy burning shrine Are we still sacrificing

Our all on earth, our hopes in heaven-
All-all-yet not sufficing?

Ah, mothers! why this sad neglect
Of due maternal training-
Guarding the young from speech pro-
fane-

From evil deeds restraining?
Why prove yourselves unfit to use

Your true and high vocationTo teach and train the young who form The future generation?

Why ever running to and fro,

Eschewing the reflection

That household cares and children's weal Demand your close inspection! 'Tis not enough they go to school

And enter through the portalsThe faithful mother caters lore

To suit her young immortals.

Oh! why so oft by vice and sloth

Make home unclean, unholy, Where children pine in rags and want→→

A sight most melancholy; Where boys and girls grow up untaught,

Uncared for, and untended, Their future lives a dreary waste Of sin and misery blended?

Why ever running to and fro

Are children shouting, playing, Upon the Sabbath ?-mothers, why Your sacred trust betraying? Have you no thought of guilt incurr'd While you are not restraining Their childish sports in field and street, The holy day profaning?

Oh, working mothers! list my rhymes, 'Tis you I am addressingThe workman's home and hearth are yours

For either bane or blessing. God bless and help you to fulfil

The duties of your station;

These duties, well performed, will raise, Adorn, and bless the nation.

"

THE DOOM OF THE PAPACY. Blow the trumpet, sound the doom, Let the awful clangours boom Through high heaven and earth below, Through the gloomy realms of woe; Through the caverns of the dead Let the thunder tones be sped; Million voices, loud replying, Shout, the Papacy is dying!

Hark! in heaven the martyr throng, Crying, Lord, how long, how long, Till our blood avenged shall be, Till the earth Thy judgments see? Wait ye for a little space, Some who yet on earth have place, Brother martyrs yet shall be, Vengeance full ye then shall see, Vengeance full on Papal Rome, Vengeance coming, soon to come! Lo! the herald angel stands, Poising in his mighty hands A millstone, emblem of her doom ;Loud the wrathful thunders boom, At the mighty angel's call. Thus shall Rcme for ever fall,

As this mighty stone is thrown
Into ocean depths unknown;
Fallen, sunk, for evermere,
In a sea without a shore...

Hark! in heaven a cry again
From the souls of martyr'd slain :
Now the doom of Rome is fixed,
Now the draught of vengeance mixed,
Brimm'd the bitter, burning cup,
She shall surely drink it up.

Loud responding to the skies Joyful shouts from earth arise; Now is come salvation, strength, And the weight of blood at lengthBlood of saints and martyrs blestLoads no more her groaning breast, From the loathed incubus free Joins in Heaven's high jubilee.

From abodes of endless woe, Swift as lightning currents flow, Rolls the knell of Papal Rome. Ah! they cry, Art thou become Like to us? We greet thee well, Like to us thou here shalt dwell, Sunk for aye beneath the load Of martyr-blood-the doom'd of God.

From your bloody graves awake,
Ye who have for conscience sake
Shed your blood and spent your breath,
Loved your lives not to the death!
Hear, ye sleepers in the dust!
God, the Avenger, true and just,
Now for blood makes inquisition;
Full and stern the requisition
He will make on bloody Rome.
Strike her knell!-her hour is come!

Sound again the trump of doom
Through the dread and solemn gloom
Here again the angel's call,
Rome is doomed-behold her fall!

THE ENEMY IN THE GATE.
TO BRITANNIA.

Nay, all this availeth thee nothing-
Thy prestige, thy power, and estate,
Thy glory, honour, and riches;

An enemy sits in the gate. Thy place 'mong the nations is highest Britannia, thou sitt'st as a Queen : Unequalled in commerce-in warfare

Unrivall'd thy conquests have been.

The seed of the Word ever sowing,

Thou toilest still early and late;
Yet all this availeth thee nothing,

Thy enemy sits in the gate.
Thy charities great and abundant
Relief to the needy dispense;
To open the portals of knowledge
Unsparing of time and expense.

Yet all this availeth thee nothing-
Thy commerce,thy conquests, and state,
Thy charities, teachings, and sowings,
Thy enemy sits in the gate.
For in thee for ever abideth

A demon, most potent and fell,
The land is bestrewn with his victims;
His slain, who their numbers may tell?

The cup of deep anguish he brimmeth,
For parents bemoaning the fate
Of sons in the clutch of the demon,

Who sits evermore in the gate.
The wife often steepeth her pillow

With tears, as she listens by night The voice and the tread of the demon, Whose breath sheddeth cursing and blight.

He filleth the jail and the workhouse

With numbers astounding and great He feedeth the hulks and the gibbet,

And still he sits fast in the gate.
On children pale, ragged and famish'd,
He blows with his pestilent breath,
They wither, and wander in darkness,
And pine in the shadows of death.

We struggle to vanquish the demon,
To banish him forth of the State,
To save from perdition his victims,
But still he sits fast in the gate.
So all this availeth us nothing,

While revenue coffers he fills
With gold, from his fiery Alembics,
Distillery coppers and stills.

Avaunt thee! dread Demon, ayaunt thee!

Too long we have courted our fate, Drunk deep of thy cup of enchantment, And, perishing, fell in the gate. Britannia, who lately deliver'd

The captives of dark Theodore, Has captives by thousands in bondage, The captives of Drink, on her shore.

THE HUGUENOT THOUGH late, yet not too late, have we been favoured with a memoir of one of the best of men, who ceased from his earthly labours forty years ago. And the honoured brother, Dr. Urwick, to whom we are indebted for this memoir, himself passed away to the society of the blessed before the work of his pen reached the public. The book acquires an additional interest from this circumstance.*

The following brief account of the origin of the La Touches, we take from its pages:

The founder of the La Touche family in Dublin, was, by birth, of

* Biographic sketch of the late James Digges La Tonche, Banker, Dublin. By James Urwick, D.D., Dublin: John Robertson & Co.

DUBLIN BANKER.

noble rank in France; and in religious profession a Huguenot or Protestant. David Digges de La Touche was born in 1671. His father died about eight years afterwards. His eldest brother, Paul, conformed to the Roman Catholic Church, held a commission in the army, and was in much favour with the King, Louis the Fourteenth.

In his zeal for the Church, that weak and bigoted monarch allowed the Edict of Nantes, the Magna Charta of Protestant liberty in his realm, to be for many years outraged with impunity. At length, in 1685, he formally revoked it. This let slip the dogs of war against the Protestants. Numbers of them had previously fled the country, among whom

was David's uncle, Louis Digues Signeur de La Brosse, who settled in Amsterdam. It was now almost impossible to remain in France professing the Huguenot faith. Bloodshed and spoliation were the order of the day. The seaports were narrowly watched to seize fugitives. Protestant properties were confiscated, and conferred upon votaries of the Church. Those of Digues de La Brosse, with some that belonged to the La Touche branch, were given to Paul. France was impoverished by the destruction or exile of her best citizens; but the nations which gave a home to the refugees were enriched. Switzerland, Germany, Holland, England, and Ireland, were severally thus honoured and blessed.

In the memorable year 1685, the youth, David Digues, attained the age of fourteen. From some cause, probably the death of his mother, he had been while a child under the care of an aunt, who took him with her in her wanderings to avoid danger from persecution, and whose property was by royal authority afterwards transferred to his brother Paul. By his influence at court, Paul had obtained for David a cadetship in the honourable corps of Gentlemen of Valenciennes, then under the command of Chevalier Montefrey. He promised to supply all that David required for advancement in the profession, and no doubt presumed that his young brother would follow the course he had himself taken in religion. But in this he was mistaken.

David was pondering this grave question much more calmly and earnestly than might be expected. Few youths, at his time of life and with his prospects, would think of allowing scruples as to religious matters to interfere with their secular advancement But the year 1686 had hardly commenced before David's

reasoning and convictions had settled him in the resolve to hold by the faith of his fathers, and escape to his uncle in Amsterdam. He found means of making his intention known to his aunt, who warmly cheered him on, sent him a present of a Bible, and supplied him with a hundred crowns in gold to defray the expenses of his journey. The Bible is still preserved.

On a beautiful spring morning, the 26th of April, David left the citadel, with the Bible and some family papers in his pocket, and the gold deposited in his vest. He went forth as if for a walk, to breathe the refreshing air of the country. No one, except himself and his aunt, was aware of his purpose, but it was-never to return.

Having gone a few miles on the road, it occurred to him that his uniform might excite suspicion. He therefore exchanged dresses with a countryman he met, and again hastened on as quickly as he could. Becoming exhausted, he sat down to rest himself. To his dismay he found that, though he had the Bible and papers safe, he had, in the hurry of parting with his uniform, forgotten to take his purse containing the gold pieces out of the vest. It was, however, useless to think of recovering them, and he had only to trust Providence and obtain subsistence on his way as best he could. Of course his journey was on foot.

That the cadet had disappeared was soon known in the citadel at Valenciennes, whose commander lost no time in giving intimation of it to Captain Paul Digues de La Touche, then with his company in garrison at Ypres. Assuming that David had taken the route for Holland, Paul at once started in pursuit, and was confident of overtaking him at Brussels. That hope. proved vain. The youth had left the city before Paul reached it, and the latter gave up the chase. The King

He

Meanwhile David, as he neared the frontier, grew more buoyant. forgot privation and fatigue. The soil he trod fled from beneath his feet. With an elasticity of spirit which made him next to aeriel, he cleared at a bound the line which separated the priest-ridden from the Protestant territories. He was safe!-he was free! Before him is Amsterdam-the refuge city-and its gates are open to receive him.

But, though in Amsterdam where his uncle, Louis Digues de La Brosse, resided, David had never seen him, nor was he aware in what part of the city he was to be found. This caused delay and perplexity.

While sitting on the steps at a halldoor or strolling across a squarehumming a Huguenot tune, he was suddenly accosted by an elderly gentleman whose figure, look, and manner, struck him as peculiar. following conversation ensued between' them:

The

I will show it to you.".

As they went together, the youth, being further questioned, explained his adventures. On reaching the house the gentleman said to him, "You have not presumed too much on the affection of your uncle; and if you conduct yourself as you ought, you will experience from him a father's kindness. I speak freely; I am your uncle. Remain here. I will interest myself about you."

Here was a singular concurrence of circumstances. Some will recognise the hand of God in it, as doubtless did the young man himself and his Huguenot friends

The uncle did as he had said. He made arrangements by which the youth completed his military education. On the raising of Cailamotte's Huguenot regiment, under William Prince of Orange, who became King of England, David obtained a commission in that distinguished corps; and in three years after his flight from France, namely in 1689, he came over with it for service in Ireland. The regiment was engaged at the battle of the Boyne, and contributed much to the victory, first, under its own commander, Cailamotte, and, when he was killed, under the famous Duke Schomberg, who also fell. Mr. Digues is reported to have behaved gallantly on that occasion, and in consequence acquired promotion. The issue of that battle was the flight of James and the settlement of William on England's throne.

When the war was ended, the regiment, which contained few below the rank of gentlemen, was disbanded in Dublin. No pension was allowed to the officers or men, nor had they any other reward for their services except their pay to the day of their discharge. Thus suddenly were they left to shift for themselves, strangers