This is the spirit of Robert Nicoll; the spirit which is the fruit of early purity and self-restraint, of living “on bread-and-cheese and water,” that he may buy books; of walking out to the Inch of Perth at four o’clock on summer mornings, to write and read in peace before he returns to the currants and the whisky.  The nervous simplicity of the man come out, in the very nervous simplicity of the prose he writes; and though there be nothing very new or elevated in it, or indeed in his poems themselves, we call on our readers to admire a phenomenon so rare, in the “upper classes” at least, in these days, and taking a lesson from the peasant’s son, rejoice with us that “a man is born into the world.”

For Nicoll, as few do, practises what he preaches.  It seems to him, once on a time, right and necessary that Sir William Molesworth should be returned for Leeds; and Nicoll having so determined, “throws himself, body and soul, into the contest, with such ardour, that his wife afterwards said (and we can well believe it) that if Sir William had failed, Robert would have died on the instant!”—­why not?  Having once made up his mind that that was the just and right thing, the thing which was absolutely good for Leeds, and the human beings who lived in it, was it not a thing to die for, even if it had been but the election of a new beadle?  The advanced sentry is set to guard some obscure worthless dike-end—­obscure and worthless in itself, but to him a centre of infinite duty.  True, the fate of the camp does not depend on its being taken; if the enemy round it, there are plenty behind to blow them out again.  But that is no reason whatsoever why he, before any odds, should throw his musket over his shoulder, and retreat gracefully to the lines.  He was set there to stand by that, whether dike-end or representation of Leeds; that is the right thing for him; and for that right he will fight, and if he be killed, die.  So have all brave men felt, and so have all brave deeds been done, since man walked the earth.  It is because that spirit, the spirit of faith, has died out among us, that so few brave deeds are done now, except on battle-fields and in hovels, whereof none but God and the angels know.

So the man prospers.  Several years of honourable and self-restraining love bring him a wife, beautiful, loving, worshipping his talents; a help meet for him, such as God will send at times to those whom he loves.  Kind men meet and love and help him—­“The Johnstones, Mr. Tait, William and Mary Howitt;” Sir William Molesworth, hearing of his last illness, sends him unsolicited fifty pounds, which, as we understand it, Nicoll accepts without foolish bluster about independence.  Why not?—­man should help man, and be helped by him.  Would he not have done as much for Sir William?  Nothing to us proves Nicoll’s heart-wholeness more than the way in which he talks of his benefactors, in a tone of simple gratitude and affection, without fawning and without vapouring.  The man has too much self-respect to consider himself lowered by accepting a favour.