"Travelling" is a really interesting account of a journey in the Pneumatic Dispatch Tube. It is, however, prefaced by so many antiquated puns, that we really could not inflict them upon our readers. THE UNDERGRADUATE. I WISH to say a word or two on undergraduate life. We from Marlborough have just been sending up our annual contingent of representatives to the two great Universities. As in former years, so now, we regard all of those who are gone with interest, and some of them with hope and pride, sure that they will make the most of their opportunities, and win new victories. for the School. It is not of undergraduates like these that I am now about to write, at any rate not chiefly of these. My more immediate reference is to the ordinary and conventional undergraduate, the man who permits himself to fall more or less a victim to the lower social influences around him, and to the weaknesses incident to his time of life. Keats, in a well-known passage, tells us of a mental condition of ferment, indecision, and uncertainty which intervenes between the more healthy states of boyhood and manhood. What he says of the imagination may be transferred to the general circumstance and detail of life in the case of university men. School-life is healthy; settled and matured occupation in after life is healthy. But between the two there comes a time when "the way of life is uncertain, the character undecided, the ambition thick-sighted;" and with that transition time undergraduate experience falls in. The indefinable frontier line of manhood then encounters one. The Rubicon, for better or worse, has to be passed as best it may at the University. Some one has left on record (it ought to have been David Copperfield) his varied sensations on passing along a street at eighteen or thereabouts, and on hearing a small boy exclaim, with pointed finger, "Look at that ere man." External recognition of manhood was thus enjoyed for the first time. It must have been, indeed, a moment of satisfaction. Previous impressions must have been pleasingly confirmed; ideas of position and responsibility no doubt began to grow faster than they had done before. This kind of result, on a wider scale, is brought about by undergraduate life much more surely and completely than by any other social means. The enormous facilities for disposing of one's own time in one's own way, the secure freedom of one's rooms, the alert servility of scouts, the cringing deference of tradesmen, and fifty other causes, all contribute to create the sense of a new, an important-to some minds it seems almost a final-stage in human development. It is to the incipiency of the whole thing, and to the singular results of imitation, when not counterbalanced by sound sense, that the grotesque side of university life is due. Very grotesque it sometimes is. A large and "rowy" undergraduate " wine" is a truly grotesque spectacle. It is curious to watch the elder men drop in just to shew themselves, and, after a few minutes of courteous attendance, move away from what they know to be the most comfortless parody possible of a social entertainment Very grotesque it is to see a man whose native enjoyment of riding is not large; whose allowance from home is still smaller; and whose brains and time-regarded with reference to the object of avoiding a pluck, or winning a classare smallest of all, mount in pink costume an expensive hack on a hunting morning, at the college gates. It is something more than grotesque to see men who were active enough at school celebrate their promotion to manhood by a mastery of the studied High-Street lounge, and an earnest devotion to short pipes. sets. As for the duties of College, and the University, the ordinary undergraduate inherits the opinion of his predecessors as religiously as the Dutch hand down an heirloom from generation to generation. Whatever opinion some people may hold of collegechapel, its worst enemies cannot regard it as a serious hardship, or as a gross imposition on an undergraduate's valuable time. At any rate people, almost to a man, cease to regard it in that light in after life. However, to condemn it as a nuisance is an article of the conventional creed, and to cut it as often as possible is an item of conventional duty, in certain If this kind of sentiment were real and deepseated, it would be a matter of very serious consideration. What makes it grotesque and absurd, rather than serious, is the discovery that the feeling is only skin-deep after all. It just guages the deference paid by the ordinary man to the apparent opinions of those who surround him, and of the generations who have gone before him. Even the current phrases in which undergraduate opinion is expressed are significant; they vary rapidly, but there is a general agreement in the employment of any given term while it has its run. We may just mention, in passing, that Oxford men, within a very short time, have thought fit to express a joke by the three successive terms of "jest," " jibe," and now finally by the Chaucerian "jape." " It is, perhaps, at the Union, more than anywhere else, that the commonplace undergraduate may be studied to the best advantage. Debate-night, on a Thursday, is an instructive hour at Oxford. The speakers' opinions vary widely, of course, but as a rule they naturally agree in this, that they run into extremes. The Tory hardly scruples to stigmatize Mr. Bright as a man who has been virtually guilty of high treason, and believes that if he could but be hanged for it, England might yet again be "merrie England." The Liberal thinks the whole of Lord Derby's cabinet little better than a mixture of the rogue and the imbecile. In discussing Mr. Gladstone's policy, we are told that he has "sown the wind," and that the only thing he can reasonably expect is "to reap the whirlwind." And the opponents of Churchrates are pathetically reminded that there is such a thing as making a solitude and calling it peace (solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant). Intermingled with addresses of this kind, and pointing the height to which an able and thoughtful man may rise above the conventional level, there may sometimes be heard a speech of great merit, which would do honour to any deliberative meeting. Such, in a bygone generation, were the undergraduate speeches of Macaulay and his friend, Macworth Praed. Such, in later times, have been those of Mr. Goschen, † at Oxford, and at Cambridge of Mr. H. Fawcett, who, though accidentally blinded shortly after his degree, has raised himself by heroic efforts to hold at the age of thirtyfive, a professorship and a seat in Parliament. What, after all, is the harm of conventionality? Why should not a man be ordinary, if nature has made him so? And why should not an undergraduate enjoy life in an easy way, as thousands have done before him? A few words in answer to these questions. To be conventional, as far as it has a definite meaning, means to decline settling questions for oneself, and to allow the majority of other people to think for one. Conventionality therefore implies, in its degree, a want of what Arnold spent his life in trying to teach, namely, "moral thoughtfulness." This is a quality which alters men's places in the world considerably. It takes away the right of excusing indolence and indifference by incapacity, because it can be proved that very ordinary men indeed have come, by the exercise of moral thoughtfulness, to do very extraordinary work for themselves and for other men. However ordinary, therefore, a man may be in point of natural endowment, he need never remain ordinary in point of achievement. And the reason why these thoughts rise in force at a moment when new College lives are just beginning, is because one's years at college are capable of being made a rare and magnificent time, the value of which canont be reckoned with gold. When once men have left that time behind, no matter how it has been spent, they can seldom, without some "stir of heart," see others inheriting their turn in the succession. Much as they may have made of their own turn, they know that more might have been made; and they would like to see those who follow them make the most possible. And if any undergraduates may be said to have a special reason for keeping in view a high standard at Oxford and Cambridge, they are, beyond question, the Old Marlburians. Spartam nactus est hanc exorna may well be the feeling of everyone belonging to the School. It should be the motto of every Marlburian as he passes on to the University. KNOWLEDGE AND LOVE. Down by a turning of the river, where That throbs from matual breasts. This too is power. The ice-clad peaks of knowledge or of scorn, SORDELLO. IS C. HOUSE HAUNTED? Shall I answer my readers this question? I think rather I will tell my own story, brief and simple as it is, in as few words as possible, and let you judge for yourselves. There is a common saying abroad, that we have " a skeleton in our cupboard" more often than we are aware of; yet I think you will agree with me that, though C. House may not teem with living shades, yet, at all events, a mystery is a mystery, and the fact that C. House has had, or may still have, a nocturnal visitor, ought not at the first glance to be rejected. It was on one of the bleak evenings in October, 1864, that my story commences. The scene lies in one of the most antiquated of C. House lavatories. In it were seated two boys, one slightly taller than the other. To judge by the set look of their countenances, one would suppose they were working, and such was apparently the case. The hour was bordering on twelve o'clock, and, to all intents and purposes, they were reading one of the Ancient Poets, with the aid of a Liddell and Scott; yet their feet were in warm water, and they seemed as comfortable as two people could well make themselves. The inmates of the adjoining dormitory were asleep, some even snoring, and, save the occasional hurried whispering of the lavatory occupants, no sound broke the stillness of the place. Yet what were they doing, surely they were not working, or why were they glancing at each other so suspiciously and nervously? Anon, one would extend his head, gazing at the darkness that deepened down those staircase windings, and the hists and scowls they occasionally interchanged showed they were expecting no ordinary visitor. Prefects and Masters were by this time all in bed, and yet still these boys remained there. Their water had long grown cold, their books had fallen from their hands, nay, one of them was even nodding to and fro; and yet, with pertinacity, they sat there. Perhaps you will ask why they sat there? I will tell you. They were expecting a visitor in the shape of a Ghost! In fine, my two young friends had heard that at the fatal hour of mid-night, steps had been heard, and were still to be heard, ascending those staircase windings. They therefore resolved, when all were asleep, to slip out of bed and countenance this nocturnal visitor, whoever he might be. Bold fellows they were to countenance this apparition of the dead. They had not long to wait; C. House clock had barely tolled the eleventh stroke, when the face of the taller boy grew decidedly some shades paler, while, strange to say, upon the face of the other there lurked a sardonic grin, and ere the last echo had died away, the boy who had grown pale now grew livid, while the other seemed cheerfully nerving himself for the expected apparition. And now, in the distance, was heard the wished for tread. And now it came louder and louder, and the fancied tread of the dreaded nocturnal visitor had barely reached the last flight of stairs, when a loud splash ensued, and a stifled scream from the boy with the pale face. A large Liddell and Scott had fallen from his knees into the foot-pan below. But it had its effect-the charm was broken; with the force of an electric shock they bounded blindly forward to their ruin, forgetful in that awful moment that their feet were reposing in cold water: needless i it is to say that their legs met the iron edge of the | ruthless pans, and the catastrophe was complete. Choked with soap, blinded with water, paralysed with fear, they wallowed on the flooring. On a sudden a door opened and closed with violence, which added panic to their present consternation. With dripping feet and saturated clothes they sought a remedy for their evils in their still colder beds. Such is the authenticated account which came from the lips of one of those doomed adventurists, to the purport that C. House is haunted. It remains for you to decide whether it is safe to traverse that staircase at the hours of midnight. Although the ascender of that staircase, and the opener of that door, has and ever will be involved in mystery, yet it is to be remembered that the apparition, whoever he may be, has caused broken shins and freezing beds to more than one of the many who boast C. House as their dwelling and their glory. LAURA. B. T. As I slept on the lawn, the leaves whispering above, Fair Laura tript stealthily nigh, From the gold of her locks a frail fetter she wove, As she passed on I woke and in laughter I tried But my laughter alas! soon in mourning has died; P. S. ANTHOS. (Adapted from Greek Anthology). A REVIEW OF SEVEN YEARS AT MARLBOROUGH COLLEGE, WRITTEN ON LEAVING, 1865. School of boyhood! ere I leave thee, Ere I turn my steps away, Summers seven have passed o'er me, Years of sorrow, years of gladness, Years of sorrow for the dead. Lone were all my early school-days: Stole a brighter happier light; Far from thee I now must roam : Thee-my lov'd, my second home. NUPER MARLBURIENSIS. MODERN THOUGHT. WHAT characteristic stamp will our age leave on the history of the world? is a question which has probably suggested itself to at least some of my readers. It is a most difficult question,-too difficult for me to attempt to solve,—perhaps at present incapable of solution, depending as it does on other questions of no less difficulty. It may, however, be in some degree elucidated by trying to answer a simpler problem :-How far do our great thinkers, our poets in the true sense of the word, those who spend their lives in discovering and expressing the truths of nature, aim at the beautiful and the good? Nature herself shall be our judge; let us see what sentence she will pass upon our Modern Thought. We will suppose her first to give a glance over the labours of past ages; see her smile of sympathy as the world of the "myriad-minded" Homer lies open before her, less genial as she cons the more subjective, but scarcely less majestic passion of Eschylus, -gradually compressing itself into a frown as she hears the cold insincerity of Euripides. See her smile of loving sorrow at the unsuccessful efforts of Plato and Lucretius, only unsuccessful because their aim is too pure and too high; how different from the half contempt with which she passes by the tinsel of the Augustan muse, ever deeper and deeper as the ages roll on. And the smile which spreads itself over her countenance when Dante, in all his truth and grandeur, speake his love to her, is doubly sweet; nor fades it until our Chaucer, our Shakespeare, and our Spencer have left her. Then it fades, lighted for a moment by the majesty of Milton, into a cold scorn, while the heartless conceits of Pope and his followers fall her ear. upon And now we come before her; we and our Wordsworth, our Shelly, our Keats, our Tennyson. A bitter smile is on her lips: how will she receive us ? We love her, so she will not frown upon us; but will she greet us as she did our great fathers? Let us see how our affection differs from theirs. The two marking characteristics of our writers,— our poets and our novelists alike—are their mysticism and their sensationalism. By the first I mean the intense sympathy which they, rightly or wrongly, feign to exist between the creation around us and the human heart; by the second, their love of the strange and the horrible. These are the points wherein they differ from Homer and from Shakespeare. The latter told a simple tale in no less simple language; simple, yet powerful, because true. Our poets clothe the simple or the marvellous, according to their taste, with a veil of their own fancies, prettily conceived connections between themselves or their horoes and nature,-beautiful, indeed, but often less powerful, because less true; not the masculine beauty of strength, but that feminine prettiness which we admire for its very fragility. Did Homer, think you, feel less than ourselves the grandeur and the eloquence of the exterior world? Was it not because his judgment was as strong as his imagination that he felt that the truth was stronger than the fancy? It is only, remember, where this resemblance is false that I find fault with it. The human heart beats verily in harmony with nature, and the more truly it does so, so much the more will it desire to see her as she is. The second characteristic of our age,-its sensationalism,-is a more important foe to the spirit of real poetry. But as its attacks are more open, it is less to be feared. Our best writers-even our novelists (Thackerary, for instance), though novels appear to demand something out of the common, something marvellous, to sustain their interest-avoid it, and rightly, for it is opposed to every principle of beauty. But even in them a germ of sensationalism at times arises. The plot, for example, of Enoch Arden, contains a something which appears to me antagonistic to good taste. These examples, however, are not frequent, and are not sufficient to detract greatly from the merits of our modern school. These faults, or weaknesses, were more exaggerated in the poets of the age that preceded our own; but it was not these, it was their heartlessness which called the frown to our judge's brow. We are at least sincere in our devotion to her, so we cannot but gain her love. But her smile is tinged with sorrow,—a foreboding sorrow,-for the worship of our heart is dearer to her than the fantastic offerings of our hand. EPIMENIDES. HOC ERAT IN VOTIS. Mine be a cot beside a tan, Binomial sums shall soothe my ear, Quadratic surds, that stump a man With many a root, shall linger near. THE Master and Fellows of St. Dunstan's College, Oxbridge, were assembled in solemn conclave. A most scandalous outrage had been perpetrated; a senior fellow had been screwed up in his room, and the authorities were met, firstly to discover, secondly to punish the offender. On one point they were all agreed, that the guilt rested between two friends, almost inseparable, and the majority did not doubt on which of the two to lay the blame. Welworth, the elder of the two, was a reading man, a sure double first, of unexceptionable character; Hawkshawe's principal qualities lay in another direction-a firstrate oar, a good cricketer, he had also a reputation for recklessness which in the minds of the many was as sure evidence as a plea of guilty. Some few, who knew the kindness the victim had shown to Hawkshawe and the latter's gratitude, thought otherwise. The examination was brief; Welworth denied all knowledge of the outrage, Hawkshawe was silent, and, with the indignant words of the master ringing in his ears, and the reproachful looks of his benefactor, before him, left the room-expelled. Even then some would not believe his guilt; he was a general favourite, and vague rumours went about the College of servants who had seen Welworth in a state in which the charitable say men are not responsible for their actions. But Welworth was a man of good character and, more than all, a sure double first; Hawkshawe a scamp, and. so sympathy only spoke in whispers. That evening Hawkshawe, a disgraced and ruined man, with his career blighted before it was begun, left Oxbridge. The game of life was played and lost while he was yet a mere boy. Home was no place to hide his disgrace. He dared not return there, and |