Have the broad eyelids of the morn beheld Thee? Support Thy throne? O look with pity down MICHAEL BRUCE. BORN 1746-Died 1767. MICHAEL BRUCE was born near Kinross, in Scotland, in 1746. His father was a country weaver, who, by ways and means which are only practicable to the concurring pride and self-denial of a Scottish peasant, contrived to give his son a learned education. Bruce displayed an early and happy talent for poetry, of which he has left many interesting specimens. The naturally delicate constitution of Bruce speedily sunk under the fatigue of study, and the attendance which it was necessary to give to a little village school, where, by a method common to Scottish students in humble life, he earned the scanty pittance which was to eke out the sum necessary for his support at college during the winter. His last station as a teacher was at Forest Mill, near Alloa, from which he returned to the humble dwelling of his poor parents far gone in consumption. There he lingered for some months, and expired in his twenty-first year-"a light too early quenched." He was the fellow student and friend of Logan; and it is still a subject of debate whe ther or not the well-known exquisite verses to the Cuckoo, usually published as Logan's, were not in reality written by his young friend Bruce. The singular and affecting presentiment of his own early dissolution, which speedily followed the composition of the Elegy on the Return of Spring, gives that poem a deep and peculiar interest. ODE TO SPRING. Now Spring returns; but not to me returns The vernal joy my better years have known; Dim in my breast life's dying taper burns, And all the joys of life with health are flown. Starting and shiv'ring in th' inconstant wind, And count the silent moments as they pass: The winged moments, whose unstaying speed Oft morning-dreams presage approaching fate; And morning-dreams, as.poets tell, are true; Led by pale ghosts, I enter Death's dark gate, And bid the realms of light and life adieu. I hear the helpless wail, the shriek of wo; I see the muddy wave, the dreary shore, The sluggish streams that slowly creep below, Which mortals visit, and return no more. Farewell, ye blooming fields! ye cheerful plains! There let me wander at the shut of eve, When sleep sits dewy on the labourer's eyes; The world and all its busy follies leave, And talk with Wisdom where my Daphnis lies. There let me sleep forgotten in the clay, When death shall shut these weary aching eyes; Rest in the hopes of an eternal day, Till the long night is gone, and the last morn arise. JOHN LOGAN. BORN 1748-DIED 1788. JOHN LOGAN was born at Fala, in Mid-Lothian, and bred to the Scottish church. He became one of the ministers of Leith; but disagreed with his congregation, and in 1786 went to London, and became a writer for the English Review. He contributed many of the finest of the paraphrases to the collection now used in the churches in Scotland. They are written with simplicity and elegance. The Cuckoo is an unique production; and his ballad of the Braes of Yarrow is one of the happiest imitations of the old romantic ballad which this imitative age has produced. Logan's Sermons, published after his death, had many admirers; but their reputation does n increase. It is to the credit of the public taste, that it demands more substantial aliment than would have sufficed a quarter of a century ago. HYMN. O GOD of Bethel ! by whose hand Our vows, our pray'rs, we now present God of our fathers! be the God Through each perplexing path of life O spread thy cov'ring wings around, Such blessings from thy gracious hand And portion evermore. HYMN. THE rush may rise where waters flow, And flags beside the stream; But soon their verdure fades and dies So is the sinner's hope cut off; Or, if it transient rise, 'Tis like the spider's airy web, From ev'ry breath that flies. Fix'd on his house he leans: his house He holds it fast; but, while he holds, Fair, in his garden, to the sun His boughs with verdure smile; And, deeply fix'd, his spreading roots Unshaken stand a while. But forth the sentence flies from Heav'n, Lo! this the joy of wicked men, But, for the just, with gracious care, |