e P better be adopted in Donald's interest to | who had sufficient kindliness of nature to bring his assailant to punishment. They look on Donald in another light than that had either no intimation of Unah's coming or they did not care to greet her. It was only some of the servants whom she encountered in the hall, and even among them every old familiar face was averted from her, reminding her sharply that in their garbled version of the story they must regard her - truly, in a sense, she owned heart-brokenly as the author of their master's hurt. But Unah had little time to spare for turned-away faces and alienated hearts. She went with her father at once to Donald's room, where he lay working himself up into a fever in his impatience for their arrival. Yet he gave her no word of welcome, and expressed no gratitude for her instant response to his summons. He proposed no rest and refreshment for her after the fatigue and exposure which she had undergone; he only acknowledged her presence by the words, "You are there, Unah? Now, sir, call in what witnesses you want, and let us get the affair over." It was suggestive that Donald, too, spoke of getting the affair over, as if it had become a mere ordeal - which might have been a class examination, or even a surgical operation, and not a marriage that had to be passed. The minister in the end testified more tenderness for his daughter than her bridegroom displayed. He looked at her anxiously. Was she able for this immediate call on her powers? of the only impediment between him and Drumchatt. John Macdonald was quite willing to witness the marriage, which would at least impose a dowager's annuity on the next successor to the estate. At the same time, he had some pity to spare for the poor young bride, who, for as young and innocent as she looked, had yet contrived-in the extraordinary imbroglio of the morning, which John Macdonald could not clear up to his satisfaction — to get herself and all connected with her into a sorry pickle. She rather took his fancy nevertheless, setting at naught his common sense, and stirring his stolid imagination with visions of woful Francescas and Beatrices, Burd Helens and Fair Janets. But, he must say, he would rather it were Drumchatt than he who should elect the marriage to go on, after all that had come and gone, with the bride to be his, in spite of herself or of a bundred desperate lovers. One of the former trustees and a couple of servants were all who were added to the company, for it was not advisable that the sick man's room should be crowded, and the minister proceeded to do his brief but momentous work. As Mr. Macdonald had signified in his conversation with Unah, the simple service of the Kirk of Scotland, no less than the manly honest rudeness of Scotch marriage laws, permits the performance of marriage under almost any conditions, with this provision - for the satisfaction of the "Yes, father, I am ready," Unah an- Kirk, although it is not required by the swered the look, brave in her timidity, civil law- that the couple be previously steadfast to the end in what she regarded" cried" three times within the kirk of the as her duty. She had taken off her hat parish in which they are resident; or, in and cloak in the hall, and now stood up extreme cases — such as when the rout in her morning-gown- one of her homely, has come to a soldier, or when a sailor has sad-colored carmelites, which she had been unexpectedly called on to join his thought to leave off that very morn- ship — outside the closed kirk doors, or at ing for gayer, richer dresses, better befit- the market cross of the nearest town. No ting a matron and a laird's wife. Instinc- friend is actually called on to give away tively, and with a girlish action of her this woman to that man; neither sacred hand, she smoothed her hair she had building, nor canonical hours, nor surplice, no other preparation to make; she wore nor cassock, nor prayer-book, not even a neither jewel nor flower, not a single marriage-ring is absolutely demanded for adornment, beyond her wistful beauty and a marriage. It may be, and it has often her meek and quiet spirit. been, performed in strange places, and The minister, while willing to comply with regard to stranger persons: in the with Donald's desire, was not going to do open air, in barns, in hospitals, by sickanything in the dark. He summoned beds - such as Donald's; over fugitive Donald's cousin and best man his near-couples, over working men and women in 1 est heir, to boot-a steady, sagacious the interval of their labor, over the dying fellow, who had not been given to count- who desire to give their name to, or to furing strongly on chances in his future, and │nish a provision for, some faithful friend, d 0 over repentant sinners, who would atone for the wrong they have done, and save innocent victims from the consequences of their parents' sin. Unah's was such an exceptional marriage. She stood up by the side of Donald's bed, where he lay flushed and panting still, the rest of the company standing with her. The minister, by reason of Donald's illness, abstained from the ordinary short address, or homily, on the sacred obligations of marriage and the duties of a wedded pair, which is generally spoken to the bride and bridegroom. He went to the heart of the matter at once by asking the questions, would Donald Macdonald take this woman, would Unah Macdonald take this man, to be lawful wedded wife and husband? receiving in affirmative a simple bend of the head, commanding them to join hands, and uttering the solemn sentence, "Whom God hath joined let not man put asunder," ending by craving God's blessing on the rite. And in less than ten minutes the most important act in two lives was over, as both Donald and Unah had sighed for it to be as if with its fulfilment would come an end of strife, and a return to the peace and confidence of former days. A gleam of triumph shot out of Donald's brown eyes when Unah was his wife beyond redemption. That he might not be deprived of any privilege, he signed to her to stoop down that he might take the kiss which is the bridegroom's right, while the rest of the party exchanged congratulations very sober ones in this case. It was only then that some relenting entered into Donald's heart. "Why, how cold you are, Unah!" he said, retaining for a moment the hand she had put in his. "Go and get yourself warmed, and never mind me. I shall do very well now." When night came only Unah and John Macdonald who was not wanted at his own place just then, and who volunteered to stay so long as his being at hand could be of service to his cousins were left at Drumchatt to keep watch over Donald, to help the old servants to nurse him, to humor the sick man's varying moods, to hang on the doctor's daily report, in lieu of a bridal tour or bridal festivities. And, although Unah was mercifully spared the terrible knowledge, for weeks to come Frank Tempest was in the county gaol for the deed he had done. Having sown the wind he was reaping the whirlwind, in the first stage of that consuming remorse, destined to be his portion. From Blackwood's Magazine. NOTHING is more fascinating than good biography, and assuredly it is the more precious for its rarity. The books we really love, the books that make the illustrious dead our friends and companions, and which may be carried about with one like the Bible or Shakespeare, may almost be counted on the fingers. That is at first blush the more surprising, since it seems there should be no very insuperable difficulty in writing an excellent life. Fidelity of portraiture, sympathy, and tact, with a discriminating use of ample materials, ought surely to be sufficient to assure success. As a matter of fact, it evidently is not so. Clever and congenial biographers take up the pen to turn out the volumes which are read or merely glanced through and laid aside. Perhaps, when we say "volumes," we have gone some way towards the explanation. For there can be no question that the most common defects of biography are useless repetition and provoking redundancy. The more earnestly the biographer throws himself into his task, the more indispensable does each trivial detail appear to him. In working out the features and the figure of his subject, he is slow to reject anything as inconsequent or insignificant. Then he is in even a worse position than the editor of a daily newspaper. He should make up his mind to seem ungracious and ungrateful. He must say "No" civilly to people who have been doing him a kindness, when he declines to make use of the valued matter they have placed at his disposal as the greatest of favors. He has been indefatigably collecting a mass of voluminous correspondence from a great variety of quarters; yet many of the letters, when they come to be read, are either unimportant or really reproductions of each other. He gets into the way of going about his labors like the watchmaker, who works with a powerful magnifying glass in his eye. In the assiduous attention he bestows on each step in the career, he is apt to lose all sense of proportion; while in the unconscious exercise of their natural critical powers, his readers become unpleasantly alive to the results. We need hardly say that our complaints of the average quality of biography do not extend to the quantity of these publications. There is no lack of the "Lives," bad, fair, and indifferent, of big and little men. Not a few of these we may owe to selfish motives; but for the most of them we are undoubtedly indebted to love, gratitude, or friendship. Now and then the office of elegist or literary executor may well excite an eager rivalry among those who can put forward any reasonable pretensions to it. There are splendid examples of reputations made vicariously by laying hold of the mantle of some illustrious man. Boswell's "Johnson" is an instance which must of course occur to everybody. His is a book that stands alone and unapproached. We subscribe to what Macaulay wrote in his essay, that 'Eclipse is first, and the rest nowhere; although we can by no means agree with the brilliant essayist in his contemptuously depreciatory estimate of the biographer. That Boswell's fortunate weaknesses went far to insure him his astonishing triumph is not to be denied for a moment. It is seldom, indeed, that one finds in an educated man of the world, who was indisputably possessed of ordinary intelligence, so ludicrous a mixture of shrewdness and simplicity; such a naïve indifference to mortifying rebuffs, and so complacent a superiority to humiliating self-exposure. It is rarer still to find an appreciative enthusiast, who, rather than not show the powers of his idol at their best, will set himself up to be shot at with poisoned arrows. But those who, going on the estimate of Macaulay, should try to rival the achievement of Boswell by simply putting self-respect and self-esteem in their pocket, and letting one form of vanity swallow all the rest, may find themselves far astray in their expectations. Boswell can have been by no means the nonentity it has pleased Macaulay to represent him. Far better judges have differed entirely from the brilliant Whig partisan when he declares that no one of Boswell's personal remarks would bear repetition for its own sake. Independently of the culture and various information they show, many of them strike us as extremely incisive for in thought as well as in style he had borrowed much from his model. Not unfrequently the remarks are epigrammatic, and almost invariably they are ingeniously suggestive. If Boswell was no great lawyer, he had a genius for one important branch of the profession. He was a master of insidious examination and cross-examination. He made it his business and study to "draw" the sparkling and bitter conversationalist, till he had acquired an intuitive perception of how to set about it, ready as he was to risk the hug of the bear. The direct evidences of his talents must be matter of opinion, and each reader 66 can form an independent judgment on them. But there is no gainsaying the indirect testimony to his merits in the illus trious company he habitually kept. It is unfair, and opposed to all probability, to suppose that the most refined intellectual society of the day merely tolerated the shadow of Johnson as their butt. Men like Burke and Reynolds, who, as Johnson would have said, had no great "gust" for humor, do not drag a sot and idiot" about with them to quiet little dinners, with the simple notion of amusing themselves by his follies. We never hear that Foote formed one at their parties, though he was courted by such spirituel roués as the Delavals. But the most conclusive testimony to Boswell's powers is the pleasure Johnson took in his company. Johnson no doubt loved flattery; but he was ruffled by praise indiscreetly administered, and was the last man in the world to tolerate the intimacy of a bore. He was certainly no hypocrite; and, setting aside innumerable passages in his letters. he gave the most unmistakable proof of his consideration for Boswell, when he chose him for his companion in the tour to the Hebrides, and encouraged him in the intention of writing his life. If. Boswell's "Johnson" be the life of lives, we may be sure that no ordinary literary skill, disguised under great apparent simplicity, must have gone to the composition, with much of the talent for biography that can only be a natural gift. But when all has been said in the author's favor that can be said, aspirants should remember that he has been living in literature as the object of a fortunate accident and a still more happy conjunction. He suited Johnson, dissimilar as they were, and the mind and qualities of the one man became the complements of those of the other. While if Johnson had followed up the famous snub at Cave's; if he had not taken a capricious fancy to the raw importation from the country he professed to detest, the Scotch advocate might have travelled to Corsica, strutted at the carnival at Stratford-on-Avon, and dined and drunk port with the wits, but he would never have emerged from obscurity in the remarkable book which claims more than a passing notice in any article on biography. But if vanity and ambition have inspired many indifferent biographies, the partiality of love or friendship has to answer for many more. We are all familiar with the emotional mourners who will obtrude the heartfelt expressions of their grief and affection into the brief obituary notice in the newspaper, which is paid at so many waste any of the flowers of his eloquence. shillings the line. So there are sorrowing that latter fault. Nothing, they think, is Turning to Mrs. Glass's cookery-book be recorded. But there the personal may | making acquaintance with a man go for a be merged in the abstract, as biography great deal. Many a life has been hastily drifts into history, which is a different de- thrown aside because we were bored by partment altogether; and not a few of the hero in his school and college days. It those biographies which have become may be true that the child is the father of standard authorities, are in reality history the man; yet we do not care to be personin a flimsy disguise. We miss those little ally introduced to the parent of each new personal traits which reflect the distinctive acquaintance who promises to interest us. lights of a marked individuality; and al- When the man has developed into an illusthough the biographer turned historian trious character, the child has often been may possibly have overlooked these, the an insufferable prig, who must have made presumption is that they had scarcely an itself a nuisance to the friends of the famexistence. On the other hand, the life of ily. We may pity those unfortunates who some very obscure individual may supply could scarcely help themselves; but it is admirable matter for the reality of ro- hard upon us half a century later to have mance. Thus, in singling out those self- more than some faint indication of the reliant individuals who have raised them- little student's precocious tastes. Macauselves to distinction by self-help, Dr. lay sneers at Warren Hastings's habit of Smiles has hit on a most happy vein. appearing morning after morning at the Who can fail to follow with the closest breakfast-table at Daylesford with the soninterest the achievements of those adven- net that was served with the eggs and turous engineering knight-errants, who rolls. But on the whole, we should rather vanquished by the vigorous efforts of their have put up with the sonnets of the exbrains the material obstacles which had governor-general of Hindostan than with been baffling our progress? Nor is it the sermons, essays, and political disquisitions in which the juvenile Macaulay showed such appalling fertility in the heavy Dissenting atmosphere of his Clapham forcing-house. We admit that the interesting life by his nephew would have been altogether incomplete without a ref erence to these; and we merely take the book as an illustration of disproportion because it is in many respects admirable, and was universally read. Yet, though Mr. Trevelyan, in the opinion of some people, may not have been unduly prolix, for ourselves we might possibly have stopped short on the threshold of his volumes, had we not been assured of the interest that must await us farther on. merely in the story of their most celebrated feats that the Stephensons or Arkwrights or Brunels impress us. Their whole experiences from their parish school-days, were a battle that ended in the triumph of faith. In the face of discouragements and difficulties, they are carried along by the natural bent that is absolutely irresistible; and often, fortunately for society, beyond either reason or control. Edward, the Banffshire naturalist - Dick, the Caithness-shire geologist, could hardly have imagined in their wildest dreams that Mr. Mudie would have been circulating their memoirs by thousands. Yet for once the readers of the fashionable world have been just as well as generous in appreciation; for the lives of the humble shoemaker and baker are pregnant with lessons and their practical illustrations. We assume that the biographer has some power of the pen, though the rule that we take for granted has many exceptions. But undoubtedly the first of his qualifications should be tact, for without that all the rest must be comparatively worthless. He should show his tact, in the first place, in deciding whether the life be worth writing or not. He must next exhibit it in the method of his scheme, and in his notions of literary prospective and proportion. Many a life that has proved intolerably dull, might well have repaid perusal had it taken the shape of slightly-linked frag ments; each fragment embracing some episode of the career. First impressions in Then tact is essential in collecting as well as in selecting. If the importance of your undertaking be sufficient to justify it, possibly the most comfortable way of col lecting is by public advertisement. You intimate a desire that any correspondents of the deceased may forward communications or letters to be returned to the care of the publishers. In the case of those who respond, you are only laid under a general obligation, and need make as little use as you please of the communication intrusted to your care. The objection to this plan appears to be, that it can but partially answer the purpose. Busy men may neither see nor heed the advertisement. And then there is the numerous class of dilettante littérateurs, who will only do a favor of the kind on urgent personal entreaty; and possibly, like the modest Mr. Jonathan Oldbuck, in the ex |