publication of "The Course of Time." He was considered a man of talent, however, and had written two or three sermons, containing passages of considerable power. But his heart was in his great poem during the whole of his student life. So intensely did he work upon it, that he had often to be assisted to bed, from sheer exhaustion. "The Course of Time" has many obvious faults, but abounds in strokes of genius and power. A great soul has poured itself into this rugged and sometimes gloomy channel, which, traversing the whole course of time, finally loses itself in the ocean of eternity. Pollok was tall, well proportioned, of a dark complexion, "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought," with deep-set eyes, heavy eyebrows and black bushy hair. A smothered light burned in his dark orbs, which flashed, with a meteor brilliancy, whenever he spoke with enthusiasm and energy. He was born in 1798, at North Muirhouse, in the parish of Eaglesham, Renfrewshire,-- "'Mong hills and streams And melancholy deserts, where the sun Saw as he pass'd, a shepherd only here And there, watching his little flock; or heard The ploughman talking to his steers." His father was an honest farmer, and his early home a scene of much domestic endearment. To the trees which overshadowed the paternal mansion he thus pays homage in his verse: "Much of my native scenery appears, And presses forward, to be in my song; But must not now; for much behind awaits, Of higher note. Four trees I pass not by, Which o'er our house their evening shadow threw;-- Three ash, and one of elm. Tall trees they were, And old; and had been old a century Before my day. None living could say aught About their youth; but they were goodly trees; And oft I wondered, as I sat and thought Beneath their summer shade, or in the night Of winter heard the spirits of the wind Growling among their boughs--how they had grown So high, in such a rough, tempestuous place: And when a hapless branch, torn by the blast Fell down, I mourned as if a friend had fallen." Pollok had just finished his studies, and was licensed as a preacher, by the United Secession Church, when he published his poem which thrilled all hearts in Scotland, and struck his fellow-students with perfect amazement, not unmingled, however, with delight. But he was then sick. His over-wrought frame began to yield, and he sought health in a foreign country, which he did not live to reach. He died in England in the autumn of 1827, the same year in which he had published his poem, having lived just long enough to complete it, and receive the applause of his countrymen.