25th July, 1876, he died in the schoolhouse there in the eightieth year of The painstaking zeal and

his age. unvarying fidelity and integrity which characterised his whole life is truthfully described in the following chaste tribute to his memory, which was contributed to the public press by an anonymous correspondent at at the time of his

death:

"He taughte, but first he folwede it himselve.”*

"In blessed quiet, late at eventide

Hath passed away from earthly work the soul Of him whom old and young rejoiced to honour.

And rightly; for his manly, noble life
Of fourscore years was sacredly devoted
With one intent-to bless his fellow-men.

* From Chaucer's Prologue to Canterbury Tales.

In truest loyalty and faithfulness

Were fulfilled the high and solemn duties
Of the most sacred office justly his—

The arming of men's minds for their life-long

war;

He sought to do this not by pedant's lore, But foremost taught how simply to be men; Full in the front he led that upward path Which he would lovingly have others tread. No more with us is seen his reverend form, Yet he invisibly will never cease

To teach, as ever teach the holy dead

In voiceless mighty teachings, the great lesson
To consecrate life's work not to the seen,
For nobleness of soul, such as was his,
Hath o'er our spirits an immortal sway."

Mrs. Begg's two daughters, Agnes and Isabella, survived their mother several years-Agnes dying on 1st May, 1883, aged eighty-three, and Isabella on 27th December, 1886, aged eighty. Both of them lived out their

exemplary lives under the roof which had sheltered their mother's venerable head at the close of her long, weary experience of suffering and toil, and the death of Isabella-the youngest member and solitary survivor of the whole family-severed the last link which united the descendants of William Burness with the district of the poet's nativity.

THE END.