Although the revelations of a divine philosophy have taught us no more to entertain the blind notions of the Epicureans of old, that everything is the result of chance--or to agree with the Stoics, that the revolutions of the planetary system decree the fates and regulate the actions of mankind--yet the vicissitudes of human life, and the uncertainties of earthly hope, continue no less frequently to be the theme of the poet, and the regret of the philosopher. The truth is deep; nor is it ever suffered to be so long uncalled forth from our memories as to allow of its force being blunted. Striking and melancholy examples continually crowd upon us. Daily we are summoned to behold some noble aspiration blasted--to behold youth cut off in the bud--learning disappointed of its reward--worth suffering under the grip of misfortune--and industry sowing the wind to reap the whirlwind. These are dread and warning lessons to us, yet affording the surest marks of proof, that this sublunary and distempered world cannot be the final abode of man; that the seeds sown here will grow to maturity in a more genial clime; and that the events which now baffle the scrutiny of our moral reason, will yet appear to us revealed in clear and unperplexed beauty. The story I am now about to narrate is simple in the extreme, yet affording scope for melancholy, and, it is to be hoped, not unprofitable meditation. Robert Brown, a Scottish carrier, living in a remote district in Roxburghshire, contrived to bring up his family, consisting of five sons, by a course of unwearied industry and rigid economy, to an age at which the youngest had attained his sixteenth year--a time when it was thought by his friends that he might be able to take himself as a burthen from off his father's hands, and set about something towards his ultimate provision for life.