The breath and the cry come alike from the same organs. There is a temporary confusion in the exercise of the lungs and the larynx. After a little practice this difficulty will be overcome, except, indeed, the child is going to belong to the class that cannot manage themselves, who are ready to cry whenever they are spoken to, and have tears in their eyes whenever they speak.

There are times, from the first to the last, in this mixed life of ours, when the body will have its own way, and it may, and it must be allowed its liberty. There are times to cry. We are, however, to keep under the body, and to bring it into subjection. There are many tears that may be prevented, and there is much crying that should be stopped. We hold the opinion that if there were better training, there would be more "good babies ;" and if the babies were better, there would, we believe, be more good people.

Let us turn to our new-born babe, and see what can be done. Except it be sickly, if we understand and anticipate its bodily wants-which, by the bye, will involve no small amount of study, patience, and devotion-we shall be able to say, what many have said before us, who have nursed their babes from the birth, "Our children never cry!" The fact will prove that we possess the genius for nursery nurture, at least, so far as the first few months are concerned. If the child be out of health, we admit that the case is altered. There will be special difficulties connected with its management, but these difficulties must be met and mastered. We shall have many a weary day and many a sleepless night, but yet there is something that we can do for the child, and much that we can do for ourselves, by intelligence and submission. Babies' cries differ, and they must receive different treatment. In some instances they are to be met by fun, in others by philosophy. By fun, we mean some harmless flash of humour, which is ever ready to show itself in a holy home; by philosophy we mean "the wisdom that cometh from above," which we all lack, and which none can receive except it be given by our Father in heaven. The parents of a sick child

must live very near to God, and learn of Him that pity and patience which will be required for its nurture and admonition.

Our healthy babe, however, except the greatest caution be maintained, will imperceptibly acquire a habit of crying. If its wants be misunderstood or neglected it will cry; the cry will be followed by help. It will soon understand this association, and will learn to cry for anything that it wants. We have heard this conduct justified: "What else, poor little thing, can it do? it is its way of asking for what it wants." We do not accept as a home institution, the chronic cry of a healthy babe. Our belief is that crying should be the exception, and not the rule. The babe ought not to be left to cry for anything that it really needs. If it be, then those who have it in charge have failed in their duty; and further (for it is in this way that the child is the father of the man), if the little urchin finds, as it will, that it can obtain anything it cries for, it will discover the power it possesses in making itself disagreeable to others. The babe will have been trained to be tiresome. It is in this way those children are reared whose gifts of teazing seem to be almost supernatural, and are often acknowledged to be beyond human endurance. It is in these crying homes that you may find the birthplaces of those miserable members of society, who are ever troubling others, in order that they may be comfortable themselves.

There is but a step between crying for everything and crying for nothing; the one leads to the other; the force and impetus of the habit are in this direction. Use breeds a fatal facility. Babies' crying may become a vice. We all know the misery of a home where any one of its members has fallen into evil ways. The misery is often greater than it appears. Vicious habits demoralise; they take away the heart; and it is not only the transgressor who suffers; the home is an organism, and all the members suffer with it. The little sinner who has been allowed to fall into the habit of crying for nothing, will not be alone in its iniquity; the other children will only too readily follow the example of selfishness. Even the parents, though they may not choose to acknowledge the fact, or may not, perhaps, be aware of it, are not free from its influence. The difficulty has become a nuisance. Because this iniquity abounds, the love of some fathers has waxed cold. "Babies' crying" has interfered with the home habits of other men besides those who work for their living.

If the first cry of the first child be responded to with alacrity and intelligence, if it be regarded, as indeed it is, as a summons to understand and sustain parental responsibility, nursery nur ture will never become invested with insuperable difficulties,

and nursery cries will never be considered a nuisance. The vocation will be received as a call from God, and that power will be sought and obtained by which alone the courage will be maintained in the face of any difficulty, and the temper will be kept under any annoyance.

We shall have occasion once and again in these papers to notice the sphere left for the exercise of humour in the management of children. A laugh will often prevent a cry. It will sometimes stop "babies' crying;" and if it fails in these, it may succeed in accomplishing another and almost as desirable an effect. While it may not work out a way of escape, it will help parents to bear the temptation.

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A minister of our acquaintance had a course of wearisome nights appointed to him, during the babyhood of his little girl Kate," and while aiding and abetting the mother in her attempts to give the first lessons in patience to their child, he was in the habit of trying to keep his own temper by looking at the ludicrous side, which is easily to be found in trifling grievances. The nursery rhyme which follows is now often sung in his home, and was produced by him on the one night of the week when he would have been the most thankful, if his little one had not lifted up her voice. We close our paper with the hope, that his example may stimulate some of our readers, who may be placed in similar circumstances, to go and do likewise.

SATURDAY NIGHT.

Come, come, little Kitty,

I'll sing you a ditty,

A ditty, if quiet you'll be;

I'm sure it's a pity

Our dear little Kitty,

To wake your mother and me.

You know it's not right,

On a Saturday night,

To make such an awful row.

Another night, I might strike a light,
But, to-night, it's out of the question quite,
Come, hush-a-by, baby, now.

What! keeping up still?

I know you're not ill!

What is it all about?

Be still, be still, or else I will,
Whether your mother will or nil,
From the window throw you out

DAVID GRAY AND ROBERT BUCHANAN.

WHEN the uninitiated reader saw advertised a few years back, "The Luggie, and other Poems, by the late David Gray" (with a preface by Monckton Milnes, who was not then, we fancy, Lord Houghton), he probably wondered what the "Luggie" was. Many people, to our certain knowledge, thought it was a caravan of some kind. But most of us have by this time gathered that it is the name of a river; the "native" stream of David Gray, a young Scotchman of marked faculty as a lyric poet, who died young under very saddening circumstances. The story of David Gray may now be said to be completed. His father is dead, and David himself has a monument. The Athenæum of the 12th of August, 1865, contained these passages, from the pen of Mr. Robert Buchanan, David's intimate friend:

"David Gray, the young poet of the Luggie, has received the last honour which local sympathy can confer upon him. A monument-the result of subscriptions sent in from all quarters of the land. and from all classeshas been erected over his grave in the Auld Aisle Burying Ground, Merkland, Kirkintilloch. Of the obelisk form, the memorial is composed of the finest white granite, from the Wigton Bay Quarries. The basement consists of three blocks, in which is placed the needle, the height of the whole being eleven feet. Near the top of the needle is sculptured a harp surrounded with a garland of bay-leaves. This is the inscription written by Lord Houghton: This Monument of Affection, Admiration, and Regret, is erected to David Gray, the Poet of Merkland, by friends from far and near desirous that his grave should be remembered amid the scenes of his rare genius and early death, and by the Luggie, now numbered with the streams illustrious in Scottish song. Born, 29th January, 1838; Died, 3rd December, 1861.' The monument, from its elevated site, commands an extensive prospect, embracing most of the spots made familiar by the poet's song-the Luggie, the little Bothlin, and the faint blue background of the Campsie hills."

David Gray was the first-born son of a weaver, who lived in a cottage about a mile from Kirkintilloch, and eight miles from Glasgow. He went first to the parish-school of the place, and then to Glasgow University, being "destined" by his parents for the ministry in the Free Church. On the Saturday night he used to come home to Kirkintilloch, and then he would spend his Sunday in Luggieside. Taken in connection with his opportunities of reading, these conditions were not unfavourable for the development of his mind, and, in plain truth, David Gray had a very fair education. Lord Houghton speaks of him as having received the ordinary education of a Scottish artisan; but if every Scottish artisan gets a university training, and the

opportunity of reading "the poets from Chaucer to Tennyson when he is a lad, Scotland is a very happy land. But David Gray's opportunities, though such as are offered in Scotland to a great many young men, were such as to remove him altogether from the category of poets like John Clare, and such as to make possible a question about the originating as distinguished from the imitative power of his mind. There are people who sing, and sing well, taking the hint from those who have sung before them. There are people who would, under any circumstances, have been singers-who would have begun the sacred, sweet task of the poet, if there had never been a poet before in all the world. We believe David Gray to have belonged to the latter class; but neither in quantity, nor in superficial quality, is his performance, measured by his opportunities, so large or so overpowering as to prevent the raising of the question. The fact that his mind determined itself, and with passion, to poetry as its special work, is, of itself, indicative of the temperamental differentia of the man; and the work he left behind him is genuine work, showing, as Lord Houghton justly says, an astonishing lyrical faculty;" but it is work which shows traces of favourable poetic culture, and great, even excessive, reading in modern poetry.

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David Gray would not be a minister-he could not have been The whole structure and appearance of the man made it plain to an observer who understood-his father and mother did not understand-that he belonged to quite another class of human beings than that from which pulpits are usually filled. He had a poet's eyes, a poet's mouth, and a poet's manner. He was not dogmatic; he was sympathetic, ready, out of exuberance of sympathy, to take any side, enter into any and every form of life: quite unfitted to guide and control others; quite unfitted for social intercourse, except by fits and starts which left him his moods, his leisures of fancy-in all things, the opposite of the "pastor" type. He might have preached a telling rhapsody now and then; but he could never have gone in and out among the people. The poet may be a man of the strongest social emotion; but he cannot always be sociable,-cannot always present the most accessible side of his mind to other folks; cannot, at brief warning, collect the controlling forces of his nature-all which the pastor of a flock should be able to do. David Gray, however, in his resistance to the plans of his parents for his future, was a great puzzle to them; and it would have been impossible to make them understand that such "plans have an immense root of selfishness in them. We may have our wishes for our children; but we have no right to seek to control their choice of a path in life, much less have we any