The Hall. (Continued.) "Vix sibi quisque parem de millibus invenit unum."-MILTON. DEAR friends of youth! I have not found your peers, And shall not. That first unsuspicious mart, Where young affections barter without art, Hath closed on me for ever! Though late years So when I mark the flowers of gorgeous hue, Which from the depths of India's jungle spring Scentless; and when her silent birds I view Glance, gleam-like, by, on sunbeam-painted wing, Heart-sick I long, the while I weary roam, For the brown warblers, hedge-row sweets of home. The Library. "The monument of vanish'd minds."-D'AVENANT, "The dead but sceptred sovereigns who still rule "Velut fidis arcana sodalibus olim QUAINT gloomy chamber, oldest relic left Though urg'd not by that blind and aimless zeal, 'Tis said; and with the last word finished, died. building, and indeed There are still a few across the different [The Library was one of the oldest parts of the one of the earliest pieces of architecture in Oxford. of the older volumes chained to bars which run bookcases, and it was here that Duns Scotus, a Fellow of Merton, is said to have carried through his vow to make a copy of the Bible without tasting meat or drink. He completed his task, says the legend, and died just as he had written the last word. A curious picture of him engaged at his labour is preserved in the Bodleian.] The Art of Writing. "Non omnis moriar, multaque pars mei A MILLION million blessings from each Age, Who strangled Time, all distance conquered; Whether in simple knots, or painted scroll, Are track'd the footprints of the infant Art, The Giant now hath half pluck'd from Death's dart Its feather; all portray'd the vanished soul Doth it not hint of origin divine? Polite Education- Words. "Here, therefore, is the first distemper of learning, when men study words, not matter."—Advancement of Learning. "Quæ Imberbi didicere, senes perdenda fateri."-HORACE. SHAME on the sluggish apathy which nods Dead words, more prized if obsolete and rare, Polite Education- Things. "Nay, 'tis dishonourable to men, if, in our age, the regions of the material world, that is, the earth, the ocean, and the heavenly bodies, are discovered and displayed to a vast extent, but the boundaries of the intellectual world are still fixed within the narrow space and knowledge of the ancients."-BACON, Interpretation of Nature. FEED me with Things, not Words alone, the Mind An-hungered and a-thirst for knowledge, cries; Teach me to know and love the mysteries Of Nature; this orb's face and structure; lined With what rich minerals; what the powers that bind Atoms together by affinities; Forces and all the motions of the skies: : Each living thing after its form and kind, Whether it walks, or crawls, or swims, or flies: Our social life, or any want supplies. |