and ascended the bank by a pleasant path to the shadow of a fine old cedar, not far from the entrance gate. There I rested, and sketched the quaint cottage half shrouded in English ivy. Its master soon appeared in the porch, with a little fair-haired boy whom he led to the river bank in search of daisies and buttercups. It was a pleasant picture, and yet there was a cloud-shadow resting upon it. (jlis best eai'thly affections

THE HUDSON. 343

had been buried, long years before, in the gi'ave with a sweet young lady who had promised to become his bride. Death interposed between the betrothal and the appointed nuptials. He remained faithful to that first love. Throughout all the vicissitudes of a long life, in society and in solitude, in his native land and in foreign countries, on the stormy ocean and in the repose of quiet homes, he had borne her miniature in his bosom in a plain golden case, and upon his table, for daily use, always lay a small Bible, with the name of his lost one, in the delicate handwriting of a female, upon the title-page. As I looked upon that good man of gentle, loving nature, a bachelor of sixty-five, I thought of his exquisite picture of a true woman, in his charming little story of " The Wife," and wondered whether his own experience had not been in accordance with the following beautiful passage in his ' ' Newstead Abbey," Jin which he says: -- "An early, innocent, and unfortunate passion, however fruitful of pain it may be to the man, is a lasting advantage to the poet. It is a well of sweet and bitter fancies, of refined and gentle sentiments, of elevated and ennobling thoughts, shut up in the deep recesses of the heart, keeping it green amidst the withering blights of the world, and by its casual gushings and overflowings, recalling at times all the freshness, and innocence, and enthusiasm of youthful days." (l visited Sunnyside again only a fortnight before the death of Mr.