situation of your aunt Burns [her brother Gilbert's wife], who is very ill. I have not seen her, but Nancy was there to-day, and from her account she is in a very alarming state. They had not called the surgeon until yesterday, and he took three teacupful of blood from her yesterday, and as much to-day, and she is forbid to speak or make the smallest exertion. Your uncle will write you when he is determined when the funeral is to take place. He is thinking of Thursday, and I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you on Wednesday evening.

"I had a letter the week before last from John [her elder son, who had recently sustained a family bereavement]. He is well and composed, and though he must feel his sorrows like a man, he also seems to bear them like a man. Good night, my dear child. May God bless you, and make you good and wise and happy.-Your Affectionate mother,

"ISABELLA BEGG."

The poet's mother was interred in Bolton Churchyard at noon on Thursday, 20th January 1820, and many is

the pilgrimage which has since that date been made to her lowly grave by the enthusiastic admirers of her son's genius. During the past half-century much has been written, both in prose

and verse, in honour of Agnes

Brown," but perhaps the most touching and eloquent tribute to her memory is that contained in a poetic reverie over her grave by Mr. John Russell, of Chambers's Journal, from which are extracted the following six stanzas :

"Here in this alien ground her ashes lie,

Far from her native haunts on Carrick shore, Far from where first she felt a mother's joy O'er the brave child she bore.

"Ah, who can tell the thoughts that on her prest As o'er his cradle-bed she bent in bliss,

Or gave from the sweet fountains of her breast

The life that nourished his ?

"Perhaps in prescient vision came to her Some shadowings of the glory, yet afar,

Of that fierce storm whence rose serene and clear

His never-setting star.

"But dreamt she ever, as she sang to still
His infant heart in slumber sweet and long,
That he who, silent lay the while, should fill
Half the round world with song?

'Yet so he filled it; and she lived to see
The singer, chapleted with laurel, stand,
Upon his lips that wondrous melody
Which thrilled his native land.

"She saw, too, when had passed the singer's breath,

A nation's proud heart throbbing at his

name,

Forgetting in the pitying light of death

Whatever was of blame."

During the spring following her mother's death, Mrs. Begg's maternal

anxieties seem chiefly to have been con

centrated on the necessity for securing higher class education for her daughter Jane, a delicate but exceedingly interesting and promising girl, then in the sixteenth year of her age. In a postscript to a letter from her eldest son to his brother Robert, dated 30th March 1820, she says:

"I would wish to write you, as I do not like to see a blank page in your letter; but as I have suffered more than an ordinary share of vexation of spirit this some time, I perhaps may not find words fit to lay before you. My plan for Jeanie, on which my mind was so ardently bent, is entirely defeated. When I came to close enquiry about the teacher in Tranent of whom I had heard so much, I found she taught nothing that

I wanted; and what shall I do, or rather what can I do, but sit down and cry in vexation, disappointment, and remorse? Your's people, if they were willing, could easily help us without injuring themselves much, but I have received more obligations at their hands than I have been able to swallow.

In her next letter (24th April 1820), the same engrossing subject is again discussed in a shrewd and practical manner, and leads in the most natural way to an incidental expression of political sentiment, which for vigour and independence might fitly have formed part of one of the poet's own trenchant utterances :

"I have as desired thought anxiously on your proposal for Jane, and most ardently do I wish it was in our power to send her, but how shall we be able to support such an additional expense? How