discoveries are not to be taken by storm, but are to be gained by more slow and formal approaches.

Perhaps the mind of Dr Beddoes was not exactly suited to the profession in which he was cast. Many of his extraordinary powers, which would have been eminently serviceable if he had been thrown into a different thea. tre of exertion, were thoroughly useless in the pursuits to which he was dedicated his fancy served only to give liveliness to his writings, not correct ness to his opinions; and his intellect was far more comprehensive than his usual subjects demanded. Medical reasonings consist of short and simple trains of thought, and do not require that commanding power of reasoning which displays itself in passing skilfully through all the turnings and windings of a long and intricate argument, and which is in its true element when engaged in the subtilties of metaphysics, or the complexities of politics. The proper faculty for the physician is that of observation; that of perceiving, as Beddoes himself has well said, not merely where the hour hand of nature's church-clock points, but also the run of her second and third hands. Beddoes was an admirable observer; his defect, as a medical writer, consisted in an over expectancy of disposition, but this very defect was probably the cause of one of his greatest merits, his vast and perpetual activity, which enabled him to comprehend within the term of his own life the exertion of many common lives. From 1784, the date of his first publication, to the period of his death, a term of 24 years, there were only five years in which his pen was unproductive; but the fruitfulness of the others made up amply for this defect. This perpetual activity would probably not have existed, if it had

of

not been for this over expectancy disposition which we have remarked; he would not have hunted so keenly, if the game had not been valued so highly.

As a medical practitioner, Dr Beddoes is said to have been eminently successful. In the common forms of disease, of which the nature is clear and the remedies notorious and effi. cacious, the difference between such a man as Dr Beddoes and an ordinary physician is not felt; but in obscure cases, where the symptoms are numerous, indistinct, and contradictory, when the medical observer is at sea, without the chart and compass of nosology, the extraordinary resour. ces of a superior mind must be of infinite value; in cases of this description, therefore, it is said that his success was extraordinary. He was remarkably attentive, and patient in inquiring after symptoms, and in the investigation and treatment of the disease, displayed the same earnestness and zeal in the chamber of the sick, which appear so conspicuously in his writings.

The impression which Dr Beddoes made on the contiguous public among which he lived, was always strong in degree, but very different in kind. Those who had employed him long enough to sound the depth of his value, almost worshipped him; his appearance, however, was uncouth, and his manners to strangers cold and repulsive. Notwithstanding, therefore, that his abilities and learning were notorious, and that the unpleasingness of his first appearance soon yielded to a great and visible earnestness for the welfare of his patients, he is said never to have been a popular practition er, or at least that the superiority of his talents did not produce a commensurate superiority of popularity.

THE

MAGIC MIRROR.

ADDRESSED TO

WALTER SCOTT, Esq.

BY

JOHN WILSON.*

I.

METHOUGHT beneath a castle huge I stood,
That seem'd to grow out of a rock sublime,
Through the dominion of its solitude

Augustly frowning at the rage of Time.
Its lofty minarets, indistinct and dim,

Look'd through the brooding clouds; and, as a smile
Of passing sunlight showed these structures grim
Burning like fire, I could have thought the while
That they were warriors keeping watch on high,
All motionless, and sheath'd in radiant panoply.

II.

What mortal feet these rampart heights might scale!
Lo! like black atoms mingling in the sky,
The far-off rooks and their fleet shadows sail;
Scarce hears the soul their melancholy cry.
What lovely colours bathed the frowning brow
Of that imperial mansion! Radiant green,
And purple fading in a yellow glow!

Oh! lovelier ne'er on mossy bank was seen
In vernal joy; while bands of charter'd flowers
Revell'd like fairy sprites along their palace towers.

*Author of "The Isle of Palms," &c., lately published. g

VOL. III. PART II.

III.

Down sunk the draw-bridge with a thund'ring shock;
And in an instant, ere the eye could know,
Bound the stern castle to th' opposing rock,

And hung in calmness o'er the flood below ;-
A roaring flood, that, born amid the hills,

Forced his lone path through many a darksome glen, Till join'd by all his tributary rills,

From lake and tarn, from marish and from fen,

He left his empire with a kingly glee,

And fiercely bade recoil the billows of the sea.

IV.

I felt it was a dream; nor wish'd to wake :
Though dim and pale by fits the vision grew;
And oft that ocean dwindled to a lake,

And cliff and castle from the clouds withdrew.
Oft, all I heard was but a gentle swell,

Like the wild music of the summer leaves;

Till, like an army mustering in the dell,

The blasts came rushing from their pine-clad caves,

And swept the silence of the scene away,

Even like a city storm'd upon the Sabbath day.

V.

Though strange my dream, I knew the Scottish strand,
And the bold frith that, rolling fiercely bright,
Far-distant faded mid that mountain land,

As mid dark clouds a sudden shower of light.
Long have my lips been mute in Scotland's praise!
Now is the hour for inspiration's song!

The shadowy stories of departed days

Before

my

tranced soul in tumult throng,

And I with fearless voice on them will call,

From camp and battle-field, from princely bower and hall.

VI.

With only my still shadow by my side,

And Nature's lifeless things that slept around,
I seem'd to be; when, from the portal wide,
Startling as sudden light, or wandering sound,
Onwards a Figure came, with stately brow,
And, as he glanced upon the ruin'd pile
A look of regal pride, Say, who art thou,

(His countenance brightning with a scornful smile, He sternly cried,) whose footsteps rash profane

The wild romantic realm where I have willed to reign ?"

This image is from an unpublished poem of Mr Coleridge.

A, B, and C, D, sides of the coffin, each being 11 feet 7 inches long, and about 27 inches broad.

E and F, the gables, each 3 feet high, being that part of the tree next to the root, their girth measuring 7 feet 6 inches. G, part of the bottom-breadth of it, and of the cover or lid, 2 feet 3 inches, length 5 feet 8 inches.

H and I, the projecting extremities of the sides.