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mate test of his worth. If he had been capable of
being spoiled, he had every opportunity for being so.
But he was too good for that; and amid all our
sorrow for the untimely shortening of his promising
career, it is a deep satisfaction to think that his was
not a wasted and fruitless life�that already, before
the mid-time of his days, which were destined to
have no decline, he had proved to the world how
well he knew the right exercise, and faithfully em-
ployed them to the last."
When Burns had fully established his reputation
as the best poet of Scotland, public gratitude could
devise no higher reward than to save him from abso-
lute starvation by making him a gauger. The pre-
sent age is improved in that respect, and Alexander
Smith was to reap the benefit of the improvement.
To place the young poet not only in a position of
independence, but of literary respectability, was
thought to be nothing more than a duty, and he was
accordingly appointed secretary of the university of
Edinburgh in 1854. Feeling that he could now
afford to write poetry as his appointed work, instead
of a chance recreation, and partaking in the universal
stir occasioned by the breaking out of the Crimean
war, Smith in 1855, and in conjunction with Dobell,
a brother poet of the Spasmodic School, produced a
volume of sonnets. Even already, however, a re-
action had occurred in the public estimation: a sus-
picion arose that the poet had been rated too highly,
and the recoil was of that indignant nature which
men are apt to exhibit when their suffrage has been
stolen from them they know not how. Severely was
Smith now to learn the value of popularity. Ear-
nestly and faithfully he had been labouring to im-
prove himself in poetry since the appearance of his
much-praised Drama�and this was the requital that
awaited him! Such was especially the case on the
appearance of his City Poems in 1857, and the wel-
come that had been received by his first production
was now delivered grudgingly, and with bated
breath. And yet these poems were greatly in ad-
vance upon his earliest, and showed how sedulously,
and also how successfully, he had laboured in the duty
of self-improvement. This was especially conspicuous
in some of the minor pieces, particularly those en-
titled "Barbara" and "Glasgow;" the former of
which contains some passages of his own history.
Animated rather than deterred by the abatement of
the popular favour, and resolute to vindicate his
claims to poetic excellence, Smith addressed himself
anew to the task, and after two years of labour pro-
duced his best and largest poetical work, and also
his most ambitious, called Edwin of Deira. This
production, by which his poetical powers have been
and will continue to be the most especially judged
and estimated, had to contend with unfavourable
circumstances. The wonderful history of this ami-
able heptarchon, Edwin the King of Deira, has been
so beautifully and touchingly told by the venerable
Bede, that few poets would have cared to disturb it,
and a repetition, however excellent, of the tale would
always be deemed inferior to the original. At the
same time also with the appearance of Smith's poem,
Tennyson published his Idyls of the King, and this
greatly superior production was thought, although
erroneously, to have served as the model of the other.
As it was, Edwin with his nobles, knechts, and hus-
carles,had little chance against Arthur and his knights
of the round table, and as a poem it was thrown into
the shade by the other. Public opinion even went
in some cases to allege that because Tennyson was
so much the superior as a poet, therefore Smith was
no poet at all. It is needless to dwell upon the
absurdity of this conclusion. Alexander Smith was
still under his probation, and the progress he had
already made was such as to warrant the hope that
all he had hitherto produced would be greatly sur-
passed by his subsequent efforts. By more than one
or two long strides he was still behind the more
talented laureate; but with every year the distance
would be lessened in the aim to reach his more for-
tunate brother. Alas that time was wanting for the
experiment, and that the only termination of the trial
was to be Alexander Smith's premature grave!
We must now turn to the everyday life and pro-
saic history of the poet. Although as secretary of
the university of Edinburgh he occupied apparently
a high literary position, his salary, which was only
�150 per annum, only equalled that of the college
janitor. His duties also continued to be increased,
while the remuneration remained stationary. He
received, indeed, an additional �40 as registrar, and
�10 as secretary to the university council; but even
with these additions, his salary was small for a lite-
rary man, and for the performance of duties which
kept him closely occupied from ten o'clock in the
morning until four in the afternoon. The necessity
of improving his limited resources was also increased
by his marriage in 1854 to Flora M'Donald, eldest
daughter of Captain M 'Donald of Ord, in the isle of
Skye. He must accordingly devote his evenings to
literary occupation, and such occupation as would be
remunerative. But he had already experience that
poetry did not fall under this description, the whole
sum derived from his Edwin of Deira being less than
twelve pounds. A poet from choice, he must be-
come a prose-writer from necessity, and his beloved
vocation must be kept in the back-ground. With a
sigh he yielded to the prevalent demand, and the
same genius that made him a superior poet enabled
him to produce good, popular, prose articles, which
he threw off with a ready pen for the principal jour-
nals of the day. In this way he became an active
contributor to Blackwood's and Macmillan's Maga-
zines, to the North British Review, the Museum, the
West of Scotland Magazine, Good Words, and latterly
the Argosy and Quiver. At the same time he con-
tributed several articles to the new edition of the
Encyclop�dia Britannica, and a great many to
Chambers' Encyclop�dia. For several years also he
wrote one or two papers weekly for the newspaper
press. The merits of the articles so hastily pro-
duced are various; but while not a few of them at-
tained to high reputation, all of them were more or
less impressed with the stamp of original genius.
Of these we would particularly refer to his biographi-
cal articles in the Encyclop�dia Britannica; his series
of papers under the title of "Alfred Hagart's House-
hold," which appeared in Good Words; and his col-
lection of papers called Dreamthorp, published in
1862. In 1865 he published his excellent and pains-
taking edition of Burns, with a memoir of the poet
and a glossary. During the same year appeared his
Summer in Skye, in two volumes, a work of brilliant
character, which has allured many a tourist to that
long-forgotten island. It gives us a high idea of
Smith's industry, when we find that in the years
1865 and 1866 his literary labours would fill seven
volumes. But much as he wrote, he could not meet
the demands of publishers that poured in upon him,
especially after the appearance of Dreamthorp in
1862, for most of the new magazines were eager to
commence with an article from the popular pen of
Alexander Smith. But even already, and in the
full flush of this growing celebrity, his task was
ended. In the summer of 1865 he exhibited symp-
toms of an exhausted constitution, the effect of
over-work, but an autumn of holidays in the High-