From Hogg's Instructor. THE LATE D. M. MOIR. BY GEORGE GILFILLAN. Pleasant and joyous was the circle wont to assemble now and then (not _every_ night, as the public then fondly dreamed) in Ambrose's, some twenty-five years ago: not a constellation in all our bright sky, at present, half so brilliant. There sat John Wilson, "lord of the lion-heart and eagle-eye," his hair somewhat thicker, and his eye rather brighter, and his complexion as fresh, and his talk as powerful, as now. There Lockhart appeared, with his sharp face, _adunco naso_, keen poignant talk, and absence of all enthusiasm. There Maginn rollicked and roared, little expecting that he was ever destined to stand a bankrupt and ruined man over Bunyan's dust, and cry, "Sleep on, thou Prince of Dreamers!" There De Quincey bowed and smiled, while interposing his mild but terrible and unanswerable "buts," and winding the subtle way of his talk through all subjects, human, infernal, and divine. There appeared the tall military form of old Syme, alias Timothy Tickler, with his pithy monosyllables, and determined _nil admirari_ bearing. There the Ettrick Shepherd told his interminable stories, and drank his interminable tumblers. There sat sometimes, though seldom, a young man of erect port, mild gray eye, high head, rich quivering lips, and air of simple dignity, often forgetting to fill or empty his glass, but never forgetting to look reverently to the "Professor," curiously and admiringly to De Quincey, and affectionately to all: it was Thomas Aird. There occasionally might be seen Macnish of Glasgow, with his broad fun; Doubleday of Newcastle, then a rising litterateur; Leitch, the ventriloquist, (not professionally so, and yet not much inferior, we believe, to the famous Duncan Macmillan); and even a stray Cockney or two who did not belong to the Cockney school. There, too, the "Director-general of the Fine Arts," old Bridges, (uncle to our talented friend, William Bridges, Esq. of London,) was often a guest, with his keen black eye, finely-formed features, rough, ready talk, and a certain smack audible on his lips when he spoke of a beautiful picture, a "leading article" in "Maga," or of some of the queer adventures (_quorum pars fuit_) of Christopher North. And there, last, not least, was frequently seen the fine fair-haired head of Delta, the elegant poet, the amiable man, and the author of one of the quaintest and most delightful of our Scottish tales, "Mansie Wauch."