pieces he contributed to the little popular work, "Songs for the Nursery." There are ten songs of his in that collection, and the reader of critical taste for the felicitous expression of our Scottish idiom, and domestic sympathies and feelings, will not fail to say that George Donald is entitled, with Miller, Ballantine, Smart, Rodger, etc. etc., to the compliment paid to them by Lord Jeffrey.

During part of his last days Donald was employed in the office of the Glasgow Examiner, under Mr. Smith, who was very kind to him. A cold which he caught in 1850 settled down on his chest, and in 1851 it assumed such a serious aspect that he was advised to go into the Royal Infirmary; but his family, whose eyes watched, though unobserved, his melancholy career, took him home to Thornlie Bank, and had medical skill and nursing applied to his disease, but in vain. His lips were sealed by death 7th December 1851.

Thus passed away a hapless gifted child of song, the last passages of whose melancholy life give a fearful admonition to the tuneful tribe who come after him. In one of his notes to a gentleman who gave him assistance sometimes, he says, "My thoughts at times are fearful may God forgive and protect me." In another "I am shoeless and shirtless, and cannot write for the cold." We consider it necessary to quote these distressing passages from his correspondence, to serve as a warning to others to beware of the Poets' slaughter-house-the Tavern.

ROBERT L. MALONE.

ROBERT L. MALONE was born in Anstruther, Fife, about the year 1812, and was a younger member of a family of seven daughters and six sons, most of whom died in infancy. His father was a captain in the Royal Navy, and latterly held a command in the Coast Guard Service.

His mother was a Rothesay lady, in which town his father ultimately settled down on half-pay, but died when Robert was a child of five years of age. At fourteen, after acquiring a mere rudimental education, Robert entered the Navy, and served for three years on board the gun-brig "Marshall," Lieutenant M'Kirdy, long known in the west of Scotland in connection with the Fisheries service. He then served some time in the Mediterranean, and also in South America, on board the well-known ship Rattlesnake. At the end of ten years, declining health forced him to quit the service, and join his family at Rothesay. The fine air of that salubrious locality had a beneficial effect on him, and he rallied, but, being naturally of a delicate constitution, he never attained to anything like vigour. He had all his life been a lover of poetry, and especially that of his native land; but it was during the solitary hours which a delicate state of health imposed on him, that he was led to give his thoughts an embodiment in song. His mode of life hitherto had given a turn to his mind and his musings, and the latter found vent in his principal poem of "The Sailor's Dream," which is full of rich imagery. "The Sailor's Funeral" is another effusion in which his early associations are evoked.

In 1836 he came along with his family to reside in Greenock, where he passed his time in quiet and unobtrusive wanderings among the fine scenery of Inverkip vale, no doubt maturing his poetical aspirations, and husbanding the portion of health which he yet retained. In 1845 he published a volume of poems, which was largely patronised, and justly appreciated, gaining him many friends. Before this time, however, he had contributed some good songs to this work. About the end of the same year he obtained a situation as a clerk in the Long-room of Her Majesty's Customs at Greenock; and here he remained, highly esteemed, till about the middle of June 1850, when he was compelled to abandon his duties; and on the 6th of July, three weeks afterwards, he died, in his

thirty-eighth year, regretted by all who knew him, and admired and esteemed, not more for his writings than for his extreme modesty, and quiet, agreeable, retiring, and obliging disposition. His remains rest in Greenock cemetery, a locality around which he so often delighted to wander. Though so long a period of his short life was spent on shipboard, he ever delighted to dwell

"Mid nature's guileless joys."

Every line he has written is the emanation of a mind imbued with a keen and careful perception of all that is lofty and pure. His predilection for the muse did not lead him to neglect the more austere duties of his officehe wrote little and published less from the date of his appointment.

WILLIAM THOM.

WILLIAM THOM was born in a house in Sinclair's Close, Justice Fort, Aberdeen, about the end of 1788 or the beginning of 1789. His father was a merchant, but died soon, and left his mother so poor that the only education she could afford her son was a short attendance at a dame's school, which, however, he seems to have improved well enough to enable him to make what he learned there the foundation for some self-tuition afterwards. At an early age he was bound apprentice to the firm of Bryce and Young, cotton manufacturers, Lower Denburn, where he distinguished himself more by his smart repartees, his audacious abuse of bigger and stronger shopmates, and his success among the female weavers, than by his skill or industry, although undoubtedly he mastered sufficiently the mysteries of his craft. He was possessed from his boyhood of a wonderful " 'gift of the gab," which served him well both in putting down men, and gaining over women. Original lameness from a deformed foot had been increased by an

accident, and when his sarcastic remarks were likely to get him "a thrashing," he pawkily contrived to escape by exclaiming, "You coward, wad ye strike a cripple ?" It is suspected that he did not always get so easily out of the scrapes which his smooth tongue brought him into with the gentler sex. Although short in stature, and deformed, he could boast more conquests than the tallest man in the factory; and it is a fact that to the end of his days he possessed the power-however sparingly he may have used it-of fascinating both men and women by his conversation. He used to remark jocularly, that the true road to success was to indulge in a sort of mysterious verbiage, which neither the speaker nor the listener could understand, for that women were like seals, which the sailors had first to astonish and then secure.

About 1817 the firm of Bryce and Young was dissolved, and Thom, along with a number of his fellow-workmen, went to the large weaving-factory of Gordon, Baron and Co., where he worked for ten years, enjoying all the time much celebrity as a boon companion. He played the flute admirably-he sang well-he produced an occasional original song-he was always ready with a speech, comic or serious-and his lively, agreeable, and shrewd talk, never failed to keep the company alive. It is needless to say that he was much sought after, and that the sort of life he was almost forced to lead, contributed little either to immediate or permanent advantage. A matrimonial engagement which he had entered into turned out unfortunately, the fault being, perhaps, to some extent his own; there was a sort of break-up in the circles which he frequented; he grew lonely and dull, and, at length, left Aberdeen for the south. After trying Dundee, he went to live at Newtyle, where he seems to have passed some years of hard work and domestic happiness with his Jean. The touching autobiographical episode which he relates with so much pathos occurred at this time. Many a reader must have wept over the tale of utter destitution—the pawning of the last article of value

—the purchase of the small pack—the death of the child -the flute-playing for money—and all the other details connected with the wandering portion of the poet's life. At last, he says, his soul grew sick of the beggar's work, and times getting a little better, he settled down to his loom. In January 1840 he took up his abode in Inverury, for the sake of getting the better pay of what is called "customer work ;" and here his conversational powers secured for him again a good deal of countenance and some substantial benefit. Still there seemed no chance of escape from his lot of toil. But his better star, though he knew it not, was in the ascendant; and it shone brightly, but alas, briefly! One of the finest of his poetical pieces—No. I. of “The Blind Boy's Pranks"was forwarded to the Aberdeen Herald with a note to the editor, in which the author, with conscious pride, stated that if he did not think the poetry good, he (Thom) pitied his taste. The editor did think it good, and inserted it in his first publication, with the following note :

“These beautiful stanzas are by a Correspondent who subscribes himself 'a Serf,' and declares that he has to 'weave fourteen hours of the four-and-twenty.' We trust his daily toil will soon be abridged, that he may have more leisure to devote to an art in which he shows so much natural genius and cultivated taste."—The piece was copied widely into the newspapers, and in the columns of the Aberdeen Journal met the eye of Mr. Gordon of Knockespock, who was so much struck with the beauty and fancy it displayed, that he resolved forthwith to do something for the author, and began his good work by sending a five-pound note. This was a most welcome present to Thom in the middle of winter, and when his resources were at a very low ebb. He had found a real Mecænas; for soon afterwards, to use his own words, 'he and his daughter were dashing it in a gilded carriage in London, and under the protection and at the expense of Mr. Gordon, spent four months in