TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

FORTY YEARS AGO.

From the New Monthly Magazine.

IT was a lovely morning; a remittance had arrived in the very nick of time; my two horses were in excellent condition; and I resolved, with a college chum, to put in execution a long concerted scheme of driving to London, Tandem. We sent our horses forward, got others at Cambridge, and tossing Algebra and Anarcharsis "to the dogs," started in high spirits. We ran up to London in style-went ballpitch to the play-and after a quiet breakfast at the St James's, set out with my own horses upon a dashing drive through the west end of the town. We were turning down the Haymarket, when whom, to my utter horror and consternation, should I see crossing to meet us, but my old warmhearted, but severe and peppery, uncle, Sir Tho

mas

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To escape was impossible.-A cart before, and two carriages behind, made us stationary; and I mentally resigned all idea of ever succeeding to his five thousand per annum. Up he came. "What! can I believe my eyes? George? what the do you here? Tandem too, by (I leave blanks for the significant accompaniments which dropped from his mouth like pearls, and rubies in the fairy tale, when he was in a passion.) I have it, thought I, as an idea crossed my mind which I resolved to follow. I looked right and left, as if it was not possible it could be me he was addressing."What! you don't know me, you young dog? Don't you know your uncle? Why, sir, in the name of common sense-Pshaw! you've done with that.-Why in name a'nt you at Cambridge?" "At Cambridge, sir ?" said I. "At Cambridge, sir," he repeated, mimicking my affected astonishment; " why I suppose you never were at Cambridge! Oh! you young spendthrift: is this the manner you dispose of my allowance? Is this the way you read hard? you young profligate, you young you Seeing he was getting energetic, I began to be apprehensive of a scene; and resolved to drop the curtain at once. "Really sir," said I, with as brazen a look as I could summon upon emergency, "I have not the honour of your acquaintance."-His large eyes assumed a fixed stare of astonishment." I must confess you have the advantage of me. Excuse me; but, to my knowledge, I never saw you before."-A torrent, I perceived, was coming.-Make no apologies, they are unnecessary. Your next rencontre will, I hope, be more fortunate, though your finding your country cousin in London is like looking for

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a needle in a bundle of hay.Bye, bye, old buck." The cart was removed, and I drove off, yet not without seeing him, in a paroxysm of rage, half frightful, half ludicrous, toss his hat on the ground, and hearing him exclaim" He disowns me! the jackanapes ! disowns his own uncle by

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What

Poor Philip Chichester's look of amazement at this finished stroke of impudence is present, at this instant, to my memory. I think I see his face, which at no time had more expression than a turnip, assume that air of a pensive simpleton, d'un mouton qui rêve, which he so often and so successfully exhibited over an incomprehensible problem in "Principia." "Well! you've done it.Dished completely. could induce you to be such a blockhead ?" said he. "The family of the blockheads, my dear Phil," I replied, " is far too creditably established in society to render their alliance disgraceful. I'm proud to belong to so prevailing a party.' "Pshaw! this is no time for joking. What's to be done ?" "Why, when does a man want a joke, Phil, but when he is in trouble? However, adieu to badinage, and hey for Cambridge instantly.” "Cambridge ?" "In the twinkling of an eye not a moment to be lost. My uncle will post there with four horses instantly; and my only chance of avoiding that romantic misfortune of being cut off with a shilling, is to be there before him.

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Without settling the bill at the inn, or making a single arrangement, we dashed back to Cambridge. Never shall I forget the mental anxiety I endured on my way there. Every thing was against us. A heavy rain had fallen in the night, and the roads were wretched, the traces broke turnpike gates were shut-droves of sheep and carts impeded our progress; but in spite of all these obstacles, we reached the college in less than six hours. "Has Sir Thomas been here ?" said I to the porter, with an agitation I could not conceal. "No, sir." Philthanked God, and took courage." "If he does, tell him so and so," said I, giving veracious Thomas his instructions, and putting a guinea into his hand to sharpen his memory. "Phil, my dear fellow, don't shew your face out of college for this fortnight. You twig! God bless you."-I had barely time to get to my own room, to have my toga and trencher beside me, Newton and Aristotle before me, optics, mechanics, and hydrostatics, strewed around in learned confusion, when my uncle drove up to the gate.

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"Porter, I wish to see Mr " said he ; ❝is he in his rooms?" "Yes, sir; I saw him take a heap of books there ten minutes ago.' This was not the first bouncer the Essence of Truth, as Thomas was known through college, had told for me; nor the last he got well paid for. "Ay! very likely; reads very hard, I dare say ?” “No doubt of that, I believe, sir," said Thomas, as bold as brass. "You audacious fellow! how dare you look in my face and tell me such a deliberate falsehood ?" You know he's not in college!" "Not in college! sir, as I hope' "None of your hopes or fears to me. Shew me his rooms. If two hours ago I did not see- See him,Yes, I've seen him, and he's seen the last of me."

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He had now reached my rooms; and never shall I forget his look of astonishment, of amazement bordering on incredulity, when I calmly

My

came forward, took his hand, and welcomed him to Cambridge. dear sir, how are you? What lucky wind has blown you here ?” What, George! who-what-why-I can't believe my eyes!". "How happy I am to see you!" I continued; "How kind of you to come! How well you're looking !"- How people may be deceived! My dear George, (speaking rapidly,) I met a fellow, in a tandem, in the Haymarket, so like you in ever particular, that I hailed him at once. The puppy disowned me-affected to cut a joke and drove off. Never was I more taken off my stilts? I came down directly, with four post-horses, to tell your tutor; to tell the master; to tell all the college, that I would have nothing more to do with you; that I would be responsible for your debts no longer; to inclose you fifty pounds and disown you for ever"- "My dear sir, how singular !"—" Singular ! I wonder at perjury no longer, for my part. I would have gone into any court of justice, and have taken my oath it was you. I never saw such a likeness. Your father and the fellow's mother were acquainted, or I'm mistaken. The air, the height, the voice, all but the manner, and that was not yours. No, no, you never would have treated your old uncle so."—"How rejoiced I am, that" "Rejoiced; so am I. I would not but have been undeceived for a thousand guineas. Nothing but seeing you here so quiet, so studious, surrounded by problems, would have convinced me. Ecod! I can't tell you how I was startled. I had been told some queer stories, to be sure, about your Cambridge etiquette. I heard that two Cambridge men, one of St John's, the other of Trinity, had met on the top of Vesuvius, and that though they knew each other by sight and reputation, yet, never having been formally introduced, like two simpletons, they looked at each other in silence, and left the mountain separately and without speaking: and that cracked fellow-commoner, Meadows, had shewn me a caricature, taken from the life, representing a Cambridge man drowning, and another gownsman standing on the brink, exclaiming, Oh! that I had had the honour of being introduced to that man, that I might have taken the liberty of saving him!' But,-it, thought I, he never would carry it so far with his own uncle !-I never heard your father was a gay man," continued he, musing; "yet, as you sit in that light, the likeness is" I moved instantly-" But it's impossible, you know, it's impossible. Come, my dear fellow, come; I must get some dinner. Who could he be ? Never were two people so like!"

We dined at the inn, and spent the evening together; and instead of the fifty, the last fifty," he generously gave me a draft for three times the amount. He left Cambridge the next morning, and his last words were, as he entered his carriage, "My brother was a handsome man ; and there was a Lady Somebody, who, the world said was partial to him. She may have a son. Most surprising likeness. God bless you. Read hard, you young dog; remember. Like as two brothers!" I never saw him again.

His death, which happened a few months afterwards, in consequence of his being bit in a bet, contracted when he was a "little elevated," left me the heir to his fine estate; I wish I could add, to his many and noble virtues. I do not attempt to palliate deception. It is always criminal. But, I am sure, no severity, no reprimand, no re

proaches, would have had half the effect which his kindness, his confidence, and his generosity wrought on me. It reformed me thoroughly, and at once. I did not see London again till I had graduated: and if my degree was unaccompanied by brilliant honours, it did not disgrace my uncle's liberality or his name. Many years have elapsed since our last interview; but I never reflect on it without pain and pleasure -pain, that our last intercourse on earth should have been marked by the grossest deception; and pleasure, that the serious reflections it awakened, cured me for ever of all wish to deceive, and made the open and straightforward path of life, that of AN OLD STudent,

STANZAS

WRITTEN AT THE CLOSE OF A YEAR.

From "The Edinburgh Magazine."

AND it hath gone into the grave of time-
The past the mighty sepulchre of all!
That solemn sound the mid-night's mournful chime,
Was its deep dead-bell!--but within the hall,
The old and young held gladsome festival-
What hath it left them, thus to cause such joy?
Gray hairs to some and hearts less green to all,
And fewer steps to where their fathers lie,

Low in the church-yard cell-cold-dark-and silently.

Strange time for mirth !-when round the leafless tree
The wild winds of the winter moan and sigh,

And while the twilight saddens o'er the lea,
Mute every woodland's evening melody—
Mute the wide landscape, save where hurrying by
Roars the dark torrent on its headlong flight,
Or, slowly sailing through the blackening sky,
Hoots unto solitude, the bird of night,
Seeking the domeless wall, the turret's hoary height :-

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And yet with Nature, sooth, we need not grieve;
She does not heed the woes of humankind;
No; for the tempests howl-the waters heave
Their hoary hills unto the raging wind,
And the poor bark no resting place can find;
And friends on shore shall weep and weep in vain,
For, to the ruthless elements consigned,

The seaman's corpse is drifting through the main,
Ne'er to be seen by them, nor heard of e'er again.

Now o'er the skies the orbs of light are spread,
And through yon shoreless sea they wander on :
Where is the place of your abode, ye dead?
To what far regions have your spirits gone?
But ye are silent-silent as the stone
That gathers moss above your bed of rest,
And from the land of souls returneth none
To tell us of the place to which we haste:
But time will tell us all, and time will tell us best.

How still-how soft-and yet how dread is all
The scene around!-the silent earth and air!
What glorious lamps are hung in night's high hall,
Her dome so vast, magnificent, and fair!
Oh! for an angel's wing, to waft me there!
How sweet, methinks, e'en for one little day,
To leave this cold, dull sphere of cloud and care,
And, midst the immortal bowers above to stray
In lands of light and love-unblighted by decay.

Surely there is a language in the sky-
A voice that speaketh of a world to come ;
It wells from out thy depths, Immensity !
And tells us this is not our final home,
As the tossed bark amidst the ocean's foam,

Hails, through the gloom, the beacon o'er the wave;

So from life's troubled sea, o'er which we roam,

The stars, like beacon lights beyond the grave,

Shine through the deep, o'er which our barks we hope to save!

Now gleams the moon, o'er Arthur's mighty crest,
That dweller of the air-abrupt and lone;
Hushed is the city in her nightly rest;

But hark! there comes a sweet and solemn tone,
The lingering strains, that swell'd, in ages gone,
The music of the wake-Oh! many an ear,
Rais'd from the pillow, gentle sleep hath flown,
Lists with delight, while blend the smile and tear,
As recollections rise of many a vanish'd year.

It speaks of former scenes of days gone by-
Of early friendships-of the lov'd and last-
And wakes such music in the heart, as sigh
Of evening wooes from harpstrings gently crost;
And thoughts and feelings crowd-a varied host,
O'er the lone bosom from their slumbers deep,
Unfelt amidst its winter's gathering frost,
Till the soft spell of music o'er it creep,
And thaw the ice away, and bid the dreamer weep!