how this and that thing will fit my spirit, and the design of my
creation, and can find nothing on which to rest, for nothing here doth
itself rest, but such things as please me for a while, in some degree,
vanish and flee as shadows from before me. Lo! I come to Thee--the
Eternal Being--the Spring of Life--the Centre of rest--the Stay of the
Creation--the Fulness of all things. I join myself to Thee; with Thee I
will lead my life, and spend my days, with whom I aim to dwell forever,
expecting, when my little time is over, to be taken up ere long into thy
eternity."--JOHN HOWE, _The Vanity of Man as Mortal_.

_Necesse est tanquam immaturam mortem ejus defleam: si tamen fas est aut
flere, aut omnino mortem vocare, qua tanti juvenis mortalitas magis
finita quam vita est. Vivit enim, vivetque semper, atque etiam latius in
memoria hominum et sermone versabitur, postquam ab oculis recessit._

* * * * *

The above notice was published in 1851. On sending to Mr. Hallam a copy
of the _Review_ in which it appeared, I expressed my hope that he would
not be displeased by what I had done. I received the following kind and
beautiful reply:--

"WILTON CRESCENT, _Feb. 1, 1851._

"DEAR SIR,--It would be ungrateful in me to feel any displeasure
at so glowing an eulogy on my dear eldest son Arthur, though
after such a length of time, so unusual, as you have written in
the _North British Review_. I thank you, on the contrary, for
the strong language of admiration you have employed, though it
may expose me to applications for copies of the _Remains_, which
I have it not in my power to comply with. I was very desirous to
have lent you a copy, at your request, but you have succeeded
elsewhere.

"You are probably aware that I was prevented from doing this by
a great calamity, very similar in its circumstances to that I
had to deplore in 1833--the loss of another son, equal in
virtues, hardly inferior in abilities, to him whom you have
commemorated. This has been an unspeakable affliction to me, and
at my advanced age, seventy-three years, I can have no resource
but the hope, in God's mercy, of a reunion with them both. The
resemblance in their characters was striking, and I had often
reflected how wonderfully my first loss had been repaired by the
substitution, as it might be called, of one so cl