We have heard men listen to such lucid, pellucid "expositions" as this, with staring eyes:
"And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew."
He was a keen observer and a rare discriminator of children, who drew this little picture, in a work upon "Childhood and its Reminiscences:"
"See those two little girls! You hardly know which is the elder, so closely do they follow each other. They were born to the same routine, and will be bred in it for years, perhaps, side by side, in unequal fellowship; one pulling back, the other dragging forward. Watch them for a few moments as they play together, each dragging her doll about in a little cart. Their names are Cecilia and Constance, and they manage their dolls always as differently as they will their children. You ask Cecilia where she is going to drive her doll to, and she will tell you, 'Through the dining-room into the hall, and then back into the dining-room,' which is all literally true. You ask Constance, and with a grave, important air, and a loud whisper, for Doll is not to hear on any account, she answers, 'I am going to take her to London, and then to Brighton, to see her little cousin: the hall is Brighton, you know,' she adds, with a condescending look. Cecilia laments over a dirty frock, with a slit at the knee, and thinks that Mary, the maid, will never give her the new one she promised. Constance's doll is somewhat in the costume of the king of the Sandwich Islands; top-boots and a cocked-hat, having only a skein of worsted tied round her head, and a strip of colored calico or her shoulders; but she is perfectly satisfied that it is a wreath of flowers and a fine scarf; bids you smell of the "rose-oil" in her hair, and then whips herself, to jump over the mat.
"In other matters, the case is reversed. When fear is concerned, Cecilia's imagination becomes active, and Constance's remains perfectly passive. A bluff old gentleman passes through that same hall. The children stop their carts and stare at him, upon which he threatens to put them in his pocket. Poor Cecilia runs away, in the greatest alarm; but Constance coolly says: "You can't put us in your pocket; it isn't half big enough!"
It strikes us that there is an important lesson to parents in this last passage. Because one child has no fear to go to bed in the dark, how many poor trembling children, differently constituted, have passed the night in an agony of fear!
There are few more striking things in verse, in the English Language, than "The Execution of Montrose." The author has not, to our knowledge, been named, and the lines appeared for the first time many years ago. The illustrious head of the great house of Grahame in Scotland was condemned to be hung, drawn, and quartered; his head to be affixed on an iron pin and set on the pinnacle of the Tolbooth in Edinburgh; one hand to be set on the port of Perth, the other on the port of Stirling; one leg and foot on the port of Aberdeen, the other on the port of Glasgow. In the hour of his defeat and of his death he showed the greatness of his soul, by exhibiting the most noble magnanimity and Christian heroism. The few verses which follow will enable the reader to judge of the spirit which pervades the poem:
"'Twas I that led the Highland host
Through wild Lochaber's snows,
What time the plaided clans came down
To battle with Montrose:
I've told thee how the Southrons fell
Beneath the broad claymore,
And how we smote the Campbell clan
By Inverlochy's shore:
I've told thee how we swept Dundee,
And tamed the Lindsay's pride!
But never have I told thee yet,
How the Great Marquis died!