in his case, to recognise in his decision the leadings of Divine providence; for whatever was the result on his comfort and pecuniary advantage, it undoubtedly promoted the entertainment and improvement of thousands of readers.

In launching on the wide ocean of literature, our author was dependent on any favourable current he might meet, rather than on any fixed course. Without long waiting to weigh the probabilities of success, and under the influence of strong feelings, and relying more on tact than talent, he pushed forth on those deeps whereon so many have made shipwreck.

There were some points in his favour. In early life Mr. Mogridge had imbibed an ardent and deep-rooted love for natural scenery. The grand and beautiful in creation can scarcely fail to arrest the eye of even incurious spectators; but there are minds of lively temperament which are powerfully affected by the display of infinite goodness and power in the natural world. When Legh Richmond visited Loch Lomond, he gazed intently on the landscape, and hushed his restless companions with the sentence, "The eye is not satisfied with seeing." On the same spot, Dr. Chalmers exclaimed in rapture, "I wonder if there will be a Loch Lomond in heaven." Dr. Cæsar Malan at the sight knelt

down and prayed; and the missionary Macdonald wrote of it in his diary, "Oh! how sweet and tranquil was the bosom of the lake! I thought of the peace of God that passeth all understanding." With similar feelings of devotion and wonder, Mr. Mogridge beheld such a goodly prospect. Overcome at the sight, he involuntarily fell on his knees with a fervour of feeling that was painful to him, and prayed that God in his goodness would either subdue his emotions, or give him the greater ability to sustain the enjoyment of them. In one of those impromptu pieces of rhyme, of which so many are left behind him, unpublished, he refers to the pleasures he found in natural objects:

A pleasant thing it is to stray

Beneath a sunny sky,

Where flowery fields their charms display,
And brooks run bubbling by :

To sit with leafy bowers o'erhung,

And read in grateful mood,

While heart, and mind, and eye, and tongue
Confess that God is good.

The observation of character is a source of much interest to many; with Mr. Mogridge it was a cultivated habit. In those around him he found something to admire, or to disapprove, to imitate, or to avoid. He could scarcely fail

to take an intelligent view of men and things as they passed before his eyes. 'Every man," he once observed, "has a picture gallery of his own, in which are hung the likenesses of those he has known. These likenesses are dependent on the point of view whence they were taken, and on the character of the mind in whose memory they are retained. A portrait depends almost as much on the painter as on the face of him whose likeness it represents; and if it be thus with sketches taken by the pencil, it is still more so with sketches of the pen." This habit enabled him to present those delineations of character in the Old Humphrey papers, which are evidently taken from life.

His frequent perambulations and love of adventure brought him into contact with different interesting characters, whose peculiarities he was not slow to discern, though he was ever careful not to allow an ill-natured criticism to escape his pen. He was also fond of intercourse with those whose stores of wisdom could enrich his mind, and whose reminiscences could supply topics for profitable conversation. "From the time of my early boyhood," he observed, "I have had the habit of keeping my eyes and ears open to the busy world about me; and for many years it has been my custom to keep a common-place

Oh,

book of passing thoughts and occurrences. what a strange medley of matter does it contain! Sometimes my remarks have been made hastily, as sudden impulses have called them forth at other times, they have been written down with greater reflection and care."

A habit of frequently reviewing the past materially aided in turning to practical account this faculty of observation. A tenacious me

mory, too, held as in a treasury the varied incidents of life as they had come under his eye, and supplied him with abundant illustration to enforce a moral or adorn a tale. His imagination was active and speculative on scenes as they arose to his view. In one of his rhyming moods he thus notices the workings of this latter faculty:

Yet deem I not the high-wrought bliss

Of fancy's thrilling reign,

Her thousand ardent hopes and fears,

Romantic, light, or vain.

Without these sparkling gems of thought,

The human heart would be,

At times, a desert far more drear

Than thine, dread Araby.

Many have mistaken the fervour of poetic feeling for poetic talent. It is not, then, a matter of surprise that, after revelling in the

natural and earnest thoughts of Wordsworth, or the glowing strains of Montgomery, or the rich imagery and quaint sublimities of the early poets, they should have been sufficiently carried away to believe that they could produce stanzas which would become, to some extent, also popular. The subject of our memoir had long felt the inspiration of poetry; it was theretore to be supposed that he would first direct his attention to this line of authorship. Accordingly he submitted a few pieces, as specimens of an extended series, to the editor of the “Literary Gazette," who freely expressed his approbation, but required that he should have in his possession the whole of the papers, before he published any, on the ground that authors were too much in the habit of beginning with power, and ending with weakness.

In another interview, Mr. Mogridge found in the editor's study the celebrated, but afterwards unhappy, L. E. L. (Miss Landon). She was about to retire, but being told that the communications required no secrecy, she resumed her seat, and in a sprightly and agreeable way, took part in the conversation. The topic was a contemplated work by Mr. Mogridge, to be entitled "The Churchyard Lyrist," a considerable portion of which the editor had perused in