In this series of sketches, now brought to a close, it has been the author's aim to make a contribution to literature, which, while it might prove attractive, would yet exert a pure moral influence. Such an excursion beyond the peculiar limits of his profession, he thinks, was permitted him, and may tend in some slight degree to promote the great object for which he desires to live. At all events, if he has accomplished nothing more, he has yet succeeded in calling up "a gentle vision" of "Auld Lang Syne," by which his own heart has been solaced and cheered. "Lang Syne! how doth the word come back, With magic meaning to the heart, As memory roams the sunny track, From which hope's dreams were loath to part! No joy like by-past joy appears; For what is gone we fret and pine; Were life spun out a thousand years, It could not match Lang Syne! "Lang Syne!--ah, where are they who shared With us its pleasures bright and blithe? Kindly with some hath fortune fared; And some have bowed beneath the scythe Of death; while others scattered far O'er foreign lands, at fate repine, Oft wandering forth 'neath twilight's star, To muse on dear Lang Syne! "Lang Syne!--the heart can never be Again so full of guileless truth; Lang Syne!--the eyes no more shall see Ah, no! the rainbow hopes of youth. Lang Syne!--with thee resides a spell To raise the spirit, and refine. Farewell!--there can be no farewell To thee, loved, lost Lang Syne!" _Dr. Moir._