soon in its results. Never of a strong constitution, the confined nature of his employment and incessant application to business, proved too much for his frame, and he gradually sunk of consumption. He died the 4th January, 1865, leaving a widow and three children, one son and two daughters. The youngest drew its first breath, just as her father's soul winged its flight to inherit immortality. In this respect there is a parallel with Burns, whose youngest child was born on the day of her father's funeral. There may be those into whose hands this little work shall come, who, though never having known the author, yet, pleased with his writings, will cast a kindly thought, and stretch out a helping hand to the widow and the orphans for his sake. It will be well done. There are many who, like us, knew and loved him, who have enjoyed his society, and spent many a pleasant hour listening to his scraps of antiquarian lore and racy kindly anecdotes. There are few-nay, scarcely man, woman, or child, in Stonehaven, who cannot remember his pale face and the curling hair, and the hollow sunken eye beneath the open brow of the dying poet, as he slowly guided the tottering steps of his little son, dragging his own weakening limbs the while along the sandy beach. Stonehaven is not so rich in men of genius and kindly heart, that he should be so soon forgotten. Surely, then, we should also remember, aye, and substantially, too, the widow and the fatherless, even for the sake of that poet father-that now cold, once genial spirit. In such deeds our hearts will, like that of the poet's heart, become to us the sanctuary of tenderness—and we, too, will feel that we have done well. Had Robert Duthie lived, he would, in all likelihood, have produced a work superior to the present in mere artistic detail. His thoughts were those of the true poet. Greater experience in polishing and setting the gems would have, no doubt, heightened their brilliancy. They are of endless variety, and the effects to be produced would have depended on improved taste and skill—nay, more, his native eloquence of mind would have been improved, so as to give greater elegance to casual expressions—the same material would have assumed a thousand forms, as the rough one of iron is lost in the polished steel, and a very weed becomes a thing of beauty. To pen these remarks on such a subject has been a work of loving sorrow. We regarded him as a genial friend, we honoured him as no mean possessor of talent, and we cannot close this meagre sketch by a more appropriate quotation than one which would have come, under similar circumstances, from his own lips : "Another of our childhood's friends have pass'd into the grave, "B." ing |