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
Have made familiar pomp which not endears,
And intellect that awes, I yearn apart
For the fresh blossoms of the opening heart,
And Love's voice, filling not alone the ears.

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
Our spirits from their urns."

"Velut fidis arcana sodalibus olim
Credebat libris."-HORACE.

QUAINT gloomy chamber, oldest relic left
Of monkish quiet; like a ship thy form,
Stranded keel upward by some sudden storm,
Now that a safe and polished age hath cleft [theft,
Locks, bars, and chains, that saved thy tomes from
May Time, a surer robber, spare thine age,
And reverence each huge black-lettered page,
Of real boards and gilt-stamp'd leather reft.
Long may ambitious student here unseal
The secret mysteries of classic lore;

Though urg'd not by that blind and aimless zeal,
With which, within these walls, the Scot of yore,
Fasting, to copy through the Bible tried,

'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
Vitabit Libitinam."-HORACE.

A MILLION million blessings from each Age,
And every Land, and Nation, on his head,
Who first of men imagined how to spread
The eloquent thought upon the silent page!
All honour to the unremember'd sage

Who strangled Time, all distance conquered;
Link'd the weak Living to the mighty Dead;
And shelter'd Wisdom from Oblivion's rage!

Whether in simple knots, or painted scroll,
Or hieroglyph, or arrow-headed sign,

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
Lethargic on the supreme Lecture Chair,
While Life's best golden years of promise wear
Away their hope in grinding Greek 'neath rods:
When Youth, which might become as wise as Gods,
Is fashioned to a glossary of bare

Dead words, more prized if obsolete and rare,
And Toil the millhorse round of Language plods.
Doubtless they have their beauty, each old Tongue,
And one in every thousand minds may store
With charms against the listlessness of Age;
Yet who would waste his whole prime on a page
Of the vast Book of Learning, as if more
Might not be safe for the much-curious Young?

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:
Herbs, up from hyssop to the trees that rise
Highest on Lebanon: what hath refined,
Best govern'd, or made wealthiest mankind;
And every
sister Art which beautifies

Our social life, or any want supplies.