After his death, I searched his papers, vainly, for a scrap Whereon some dropped memento might record His inner nature; but he nothing left-- Nothing of that deep life whose wondrous light Guided him onward through the realms of sense, And in a world of practical self-need Sustained him with a glory unexpressed. And thus it is that round the Poet's urn, The sod is beaten down with pensive feet: And thus it is that where the Merchant lies, The grass, untrodden, groweth rank and green. THE BLUE HANDKERCHIEF. I had passed my last examinations, and had received my diploma authorizing me to practise medicine, and I still lingered in the vicinity of Edinburgh, partly because my money was nearly exhausted, and partly from the very natural aversion I felt from quitting a place where three very happy and useful years had been spent. After waiting many weeks--for the communication between the opposite shores of the Atlantic were not then so rapid as now--I received a large packet of letters from 'home,' all of them filled with congratulations on my success, and among them were letters from my dear father and a beloved uncle, at whose instance (he was himself a physician) my father had sent me abroad to complete my medical education. My father's letter was even more affectionate than usual, for he was highly gratified with my success, and he counselled me to take advantage of the peace secured by the battle of Waterloo to visit the continent, which for many years (with the exception of a brief period) had been closed to all persons from Great Britain; he enclosed me a draft on a London banker for a thousand pounds. My uncle's letter was scarcely less affectionate; my Latin thesis (I had sent my father and him a copy) had especially pleased him; and after urging me to take advantage of my father's kindness, he added that he had placed a thousand pounds at my disposition, with the same London banker on whom my draft was drawn. A letter of introduction to a French family was enclosed in the letter, and he engaged me to visit them, for they had been his guests for a long time when the first Revolution caused them to fly France, and they were under other obligations to him; which I afterward learned from themselves was a pecuniary favor more than once renewed during their residence with him. Ten thousand dollars was a good deal of money to be placed at the disposition of a young man as his pocket money for eighteen months, even after a large deduction had been made from it for a library and professional instruments.