Why, my dear Seward, the Gem is the recognised most intense expression, from the natural world, of worth--inestimable priceless price--dependent on rarity and beauty. The Flower is a like intense expression, from the same world, of the power to call forth love. The first image is _felt_ by every reader to be high, and _exalting_ its object; the second to be tender, and openly _pathetic_. Of course it moves more, and of course it comes last. The Poet has just before spoken of Milton and Cromwell--of bards and kings--and history with all her wealth. Is the transition violent from these objects to Gems? He is moved by, but he is not bound to, the scene and time. His own thoughts emancipate. Brown seems utterly to have forgotten that the Poet himself is the Dramatic person of the Monologue. Shall he be restricted from using the richness and splendour of his own thoughts? That one stanza sums up the two or three preceding--and is perfectly attuned to the reigning mood, temper, or pathos. BULLER. Thank you, gentlemen. The Doctor is done brown. NORTH. "The paths of glory lead but to the grave!" Methinks I could read you a homily on that Text. BULLER. To-morrow, sir, if you please. To-morrow is Sunday--and you may read it to us as we glide to Divine Service at Dalmally--two of us to the Established, and two of us to the Free Kirk. NORTH. Be it so. But you will not be displeased with me for quoting now, from heart-memory, a single sentence on the great line, from Beattie, and from Adam Fergusson. "It presents to the imagination a wide plain, where several roads appear, crowded with glittering multitudes, and issuing from different quarters, but drawing nearer and nearer as they advance, till they terminate in the dark and narrow house, where all their glories enter in succession, and disappear for ever." SEWARD. Thank you, sir. That is Beattie? NORTH. It is. Fergusson's memorable words are--"If from this we are disposed to collect any inference adverse to the pursuits of glory, it may be asked whither do the paths of ignominy lead? If to the grave also, then our choice of a life remains to be made on the grounds of its intrinsic value, without regard to an end which is common to every station of life we can lead, whether illustrious or obscure." SEWARD. Very fine. Who says it? Fergusson--who was he? NORTH. The best of you Englishers are intolerably ignorant about Scotland. Do you know the Reverend John Mitford? SEWARD. I do--and have for him the greatest respect. NORTH. So have I. He is one of our best Editors--as Pickering is one of our best Publishers of the Poets. But I am somewhat doubtful of the truthfulness of his remarks on the opening of the Elegy, in the Appendix to his excellent Life of Gray. "The Curfew 'toll' is not the appropriate word--it was not a slow bell tolling for the dead." SEWARD.