We see the London of James the First in the “Fortunes of Nigel;” we hear in “Rokeby” the echo of the battle of Marston Moor; we follow the struggle of Argyle and Montrose in the “Legend;” and talk with the young exile, Charles the Second, in the groves of “Woodstock.” In “Peveril of the Peak” we find the King upon his throne, surrounded by Buckingham and the most desolate court of Europe. In “Old Mortality” we sympathize with the Covenanters, a people devout and sincere in their character, as they were unpractical in their conduct. In “The Pirate” we note some of the surviving customs of old Scandinavia. In the “Bride of Lammermoor” we see the decay of a noble House. “The Black Dwarf” is related to the fierce discussion in Scotland at the time of the national Union. “Rob Roy” introduces us to the Pretender in the Affair of 1715. “The Heart of Midlothian” gives us a picture of Edinburgh; and so our historic chain, composed of poetic links, brings us down to the beginning of our own century. No wonder that Scott has been styled the Great Magician, when, by the lifting of his wand, he was able to make the heroes of neglected history burst their cerements. I sat one evening on the banks of the Tweed amid the ruins of Dryburgh Abbey, by a plain monument in St. Mary’s Aisle; the soft moonlight, streaming through broken casements, added solemnity and beauty to the peaceful sylvan scene. I recalled the ruins of Kenilworth Castle, far off on another poetic stream, and the pageant of history which there passed before England’s Elizabeth; and I thought how much grander the procession of Eight Hundred Years, which passed in long review before the mental vision of the great novelist and poet, now resting beneath the quiet stars. The ivy still rustles in the breeze; the gray ruins again gleam in the moonlight, and, reader, the years can never lift their furrows of care between me and that twilight picture hallowed by the poetic memory of a noble man. ALASKA—ITS MISSIONS. By the REV. WM. H. LEWIS. No one familiar with the spiritual obstacles that missionaries encounter expects that characters that shall be Christian from highest principle, and through and through, will be formed in the first, or even the second generation of converts, as a rule, though every mission field furnishes shining exceptions to this rule. We shall not be disheartened, then, when we come to look into the history of Alaska, if the present state of society there is found to be slightly savage still.