y that my companions or myself had been particularly
civilized in our previous state; but nothing could be more certain, than
that during our long vacation, we became very happy, and tolerably
perfect savages. The class which we attended was of a kind not opened in
any of our accredited schools, and it might be difficult to procure
testimonials in its behalf, easily procurable as these usually are; and
yet there were some of its lessons which might be conned with some
little advantage, by one desirous of cultivating the noble sentiment of
self-reliance, or the all-important habit of self-help. At the time,
however, they appeared quite pointless enough; and the moral, as in the
case of the continental apologue of Reynard the Fox, seemed always
omitted.

Our parties in these excursions used at times to swell out to ten or
twelve--at times to contract to two or three; but what they gained in
quantity they always lost in quality, and became mischievous with the
addition of every new member, in greatly more than the arithmetical
ratio. When most innocent, they consisted of only a brace of members--a
warm-hearted, intelligent boy from the south of Scotland, who boarded
with two elderly ladies of the place, and attended the subscription
school; and the acknowledged leader of the band, who, belonging to the
permanent irreducible staff of the establishment, was never off duty. We
used to be very happy, and not altogether irrational, in these little
skeleton parties. My new friend was a gentle, tasteful boy, fond of
poetry, and a writer of soft, simple verses in the old-fashioned
pastoral vein, which he never showed to any one save myself; and we
learned to love one another all the more, from the circumstance that I
was of a somewhat bold, self-relying temperament, and he of a clinging,
timid one. Two of the stanzas of a little pastoral, which he addressed
to me about a twelvemonth after this time, when permanently quitting the
north country for Edinburgh, still remain fixed in my memory; and I must
submit them to the reader, both as adequately representative of the many
others, their fellows, which have been lost, and of that juvenile poetry
in general which "is written," according to Sir Walter Scott, "rather
from the recollection of what has pleased the author in others, than
what has been suggested by his own imagination."

"To you my poor sheep I resign,
My colly, my crook, and my horn:
To leave you, indeed