8 THE NEW HOUSE. Moore, c. Gordon, b. Richards...... 3 Hornby, b. Richards ..................................... Hervey, c. Trevelyan, b. Richards b. Henderson 0 .... c. Henderson, b. 5 c. Brackenbury, b. Shelley, b. Dawson 0 Secretan, b. Lyall Kewley, c. Gordon, b. Richards Luscombe, b. Henderson REV. T. W. LEE'S ELEVEN. Hodgson, b. Lyall....... Swindells, b. Dawson Sutherland, not out................... Aylward, b. Dawson... Gay, c. Dudding, b. Lyall Hardy, b. Gordon ...... Otter Emmett, c.Cummings, b.Henderson 1 10 Carles, not out Poole Macgregor, c.Garnier, b. Henderson 19 ON Thursday last the Rev. T. W. Lee brought down SECOND ELEVEN v. 16 OF THE THIRD.-This match 1st innings. 63 2nd innings. 63 SECOND ELEVEN BALL. The competition for the Second Eleven ball came J. C. Richards H. P. Henderson J. Bourdillon ·- For slow bowling the ball was adjudged to E, E. Victory has recently declared for the Old House, TO CORRESPONDENTS. "The Sirens," "Life and Death,' We have also received "Boadicea," "Advice to New The number of contributions sent in has certainly Printed by CHARLES PERKINS, "Times" Office, Waterloo THE MARLBURIAN. Majores Majora Sonent. No. 2. EDITORIAL. OCTOBER 4тí, 1865. In noticing our "rejected addresses,' we cannot but congratulate our readers on the variety of thought and originality to which they have treated us, and thank them for the hearty manner in which they have responded to our call. Indeed we could not have believed, until we saw how rapidly our box was filling, that so much varied literary energy existed in the School. The Poetic genus, however, is decidedly the predominant one, and therefore we feel that it claims. our first notice. The "ball was opened" by Boadicea,' evidently the work of 'a Patriot' of but tender years, who, following the example of a more exalted muse, begins by dreaming "that he stood upon a lofty hill.” There are evidently signs of promise in the poem, but we must remind the author that there is such a thing as bathos as well as pathos, and that the primary object of "warriors rushing into battle " is not " to be killed," although that does rhyme with "thrilled." "The Sirens" is a production of a very different character; indeed there are so many traces of real poetic taste and power, that, although the metre is cumbersome, we are sorry to have to number it among the rejected. Price 3D. above the standard of a mere school exercise to be worthy of publication. The remarks that we addressed to the author of "The Sirens," apply equally to the author of " Life and Death." The idea of his poem is well-conceived and original, and the metre is pretty; it bears, however, the marks of too much haste. A charade on a "Violet" is in itself weak, and certainly "startled metre flies before its face." The most dreadful of all dreadful inflictions, a bad Epigram, concludes our "Poet's Corner." The author gratuitously informs us that it is "A first attempt;" we sincerely hope it may be a last. Our prose contributions begin with a feeble imitation of one of Junius' letters, yclept "Advice to New Fellows." To the author we might say, in the words of the immortal Mr. Toodles to the "Game Chicken," that "his sentiments were gross, and his meaning obscure." His intentions are doubtless good, but his taste questionable. If our Magazine were of "Liddell and Scott" proportions, instead of our modest eight pages, we might think of inserting selections from "Marlborough to Stonehenge," an attempt at combining amusements and instruction worthy of our old friend Mr. Barlow, of Sandford and Merton celebrity. The "Life of Dundee " painfully reminds us of laborious researches in biographical dictionaries, and therefore, though well and carefully written, does not contain sufficient original matter to make it worthy of insertion. "The Sangrail" shews considerable power of thought, but our Magazine is not a receptacle for sermons even though the texts that head them are taken from Tennyson. "Manias," by "Two Maniacs," is a subject which, if well handled, might have been made very amusing. The authors tells us that " everyone has his mania." Theirs appear to have taken the form of an enthusiastic devotion to the rhetorical question,-the only form of English sentence with which they seem to be acquainted. "The Good Cause," evidently the ebullition of the long pent-up feelings of some rampant politician, is rambling and not well sustained. The author having assumed the justice of his cause as a "postulate," blind credulity on the part of his readers as an "axiom," we can hardly be surprised at finding a reductio ad absurdum" as a result. ages MUSCULAR CHRISTIANITY. No quality, perhaps, is so striking and captivating, so universally admired, as that of physical force. In ruder of the world it was all in all; the heroes and gods whom our fathers worshipped in the depths of the primeval forest, were personifications of the great pysical qualities, strength and might, or of what we may call the physical virtues, such as personal courage, endurance, and the like. We may trace, as civilization advances, the decline of homage to mere personal strength. First, personal skill and dexterity begin to take its place; then wiles and stratagem ; and lastly the power of intellectual force has its reign. One of these transitions was the theme of an old Grecian myth, which is handed down in the sublime verse of Eschylus. It tells us how the old physical force gods, disdaining wiles, were overcome by the strategy of the young and less mighty, but more skilful gods. The Norse mythology relates a similar struggle between the old Frost Giants and the race of Esir. But still though the day of its entire ascendancy has passed away. there is an attraction which will never die out in physical greatness, and, like King Henry VIII., we like to look upon a man. This fascination has cast its spell over most of our novelists, and perhaps in the works of the author of "Guy Livingstone" we see this trait most fully developed. In "Guy Livingstone" we have the picture of a man to whom muscular christianity was the rule of life; and from his first appearance in the football match, to the last scene of his life, where almost his last act is a brutal feat of personal strength, we can but pity him, and as we watch a fine character, through debasement after debasement,-we see that muscular christianity and its morality are but blind guides. We know the morality of a muscular man he is either under the guidance of all his passions, obeying only such motives as courage, generosity, and fear of disgrace, the higher animal qualities, but animal still. He may be this, or he may be stern, uncompromising, without feeling or compassion for the weaker, with a bitter cruel scorn for those who have not his qualities; such a man was Jehu, and after him Claverhouse. The former type, is, perhaps, best represented by Alaric. The one muscular heathenism, the other muscular christianity, with a mild religious feeling of its own. It is a fine thing, no doubt, when one is young, to shine among one's schoolfellows for this bodily prowess, and a healthy and manly aim. Such an one is more looked up to and adored among his Schoolfellows than even a great general among his countrymen; the homage is more genuine, more heartfelt, and more real. But is this to be our sole aim? It is a fine career when youth is hearty, the eye keen and the limbs strong; but age will come, and at a time when the hand cannot wield the bat, the eye sight the gun, or the knees grasp the saddle. Then it will be a sad and bitter feeling to look back,—not on a life of usefulness and good deeds, but mere empty feats of personal skill and strength; to muse on past triumphs in the cricket field, or like a dog to hunt in dreams. Many such an one now bores the youthful listener with tales of the exploits of their youth, for even the Greeks must have got tired of Nestor, and the muscular hero has degenerated into a "proser." There are surely higher aims for man than this. We know that nearely three thousand years ago, while other men fought and did deeds of might and valour, there was one who was meek and blind, who did not take a part in the battle, but sang of the battles of days before. They were the greater men then, but now they are nameless; and their wars were battles of the Kites and Crows, but the blind man and his pocms live for ever. So, while Muscular Christianity may be good as a feature in a man's character, it ought not to be the whole, but with it should be coupled the noble devotion, the compassion for the weak, and the high sense of duty which makes true chilvalry. FAUST. TO THE KENNET. River, I weep for times that come no more, When here were forms my eyes still thirst to see; Bright faces gleamed more richly than before, Catching a momentary glow from thee. On! River, river, still I see her as she stood, Oh! River, river, if she come to thee, For I, like thee, have passed her by and caught, And kept her sweet reflection, and will die Rather than vex her spirit with the thought Of my poor love; for, River, what am I? FOSSIL REMAINS. F. L. First meeting of the D.A.A.F.S.* was held at Dingo Academy, Papua,† A.P. 2902. Exhibited, a gigantic fossil claw. A vessel containing eatables, also in a fossilized state. The President, the Serene Quanka Samba, read a most interesting paper on the remains. These remains were found beneath the Alluvial deposit which covers the greater part of Britannia. Look the county out in your maps, gentlemen, at a place called Marl, the rest of the name, which was found on an inscription, being obliterated. This some Antiquarians derive from Marl a Britannic word for earth, but more recent philological discoveries point to a derivation from the verb Maul, signifying to fight, whence we may conclude that the inhabitants were a pugnacious race. This claw is supposed to have belonged to a race of Pupædiggers, a species of Britons. You observe that the upper part of the claw is round, about an inch or more in diameter, the lower broad and flat, sharp all round; with this they used to dig for Pupæ, their natural food. This points to a low state of civilization; they seem, however, to have had many of the weaknesses common to a more advanced state. Thus such of their hieroglyphics as have been deciphered point to the existence of a Society, probably a protectionist union for keeping up the price of Pupa, Cocoons, and other articles of their food. • Dingo Academy Antiquarians Fossilizing Society. † Anno Prince, the founder of the Agapemonian Religion professed by the people of Paupa, They are a most interesting people, forming the designed link between the great nations of Go-ril-las, formerly erroneously supposed to have been Monkeys, (whose gigantic remains, the remnant of a pre* Tomkinsonite civilization, have recently been discovered), and the Inglese. The vessel I have here, apparently contains eatables, and is inscribed "JAM,” pronounced djam. It is by some supposed to be connected with a word in the kindred Yankee tongueSquash, the notion being that of anything violently compressed. Whence some conclude that this mixture was prepared by the same process as the Tartar Mutton-by being sit upon-hence the Yankee proverb to "whip creation to eternal squash," originated in the colloquial expression, sat upon, in a metaphorical sense of course. The contents are of a dark red colour. Are these potted Pupa? It is evidently a specimen of the food of Pupa-diggers. Perhaps the Protectionist Society revelled on it after their meetings. Mysterious writings have been discovered belonging to a time when one Repmag was chief of the tribe; it is probable that they are pamphlets in defence of the society's opinions. These discoveries point to a curious state in civilization, when people were at once so barbarous as to dig for insects, and so civilized as to publish pamphlets. SUNNY MEMORIES. "O mihi præteritos referat si Jupiter annos." Thus sang one of Rome's greatest poets, and such has been the substance of the thoughts and feelings, not only of poets, but of all mankind since the world began. There can hardly exist a single individual who has not some memories more or less sunny to look back to; though too often even these have their clouds, yet at all events they seem sunny in comparison with the dreary darkness of his present life. The dying murderer on the eve of his execution, with his death-knell ringing in his ears, even he can call to mind the day when, though perhaps poor and halfstarved, he was at all events innocent, with life before him to choose between the good and the evil; and those days form his sunny memories. How much brighter then must be the recollections of the generality of mankind! How often to the man of business, harassed with the cares and anxieties of every-day life, must recur "the scenes of his * Probably Tomkinson the great progenitor of the race. childhood, whose loved recollection embitters the present compared with the past." These days of our boyhood, indeed, form the sunniest of all sunny memories in the heart of every man; no matter whether success or disappointment attend his life, it is all the same. The great statesman, the admired poet, the successful soldier, the rich merchant, all alike look back with longing and regret to the bright days of their boyhood, with their freedom from anxiety and care; no less than the unsuccessful and disappointed man, with hopes blighted and aspirations checked, who remembers the days of his boyhood as days when "gay hope was his," when all was sunshine, and he looked forward cheerfully to his future life to be one of success and usefulness. But of all memories of boyhood, none afford us so bright a retrospect as those of school life, especially those of a public school. And it is to memories like these that we especially refer to in the words "sunny memories." None can be so sunny as these, none so little chequered with shade and gloom. To everyone of us here now, whatever his station in life is destined to be, his Marlborough career will assuredly be the brightest spot in his life's history. Very often in very different circumstances, and in very different scenes, will "the field where he sported" and "the streams where he swam" come back to his memory. And if his school career has been a successful one, his recollections will be doubly sweet. If his success has been in school work, whatever triumphs he may win afterwards, none of them will recall such sunny memories as the day in which he was received back in triumph to his school, having ended a successful school career by some honourable distinction at the University. Or if his tastes have lain in another direction; if the successful cricketer, the energetic foot-ball player has become the distinguished soldier; to him, too, will his Marlborough life constantly recur. Never again, perhaps, will he experience such thorough excitement, never feel such desperate enthusiasm in any cause again, not even when successfully leading some forlorn hope, as he did when leading the last victorious charge in some hardly-fought sixth-form and school contest. And even at the end of his career he will never look back to any exploit with such pride, not even to the time when his coolness and sagacity turned the fortunes of a battle, as to the day when, as captain of the eleven, by his cool pluck and perseverance, he won some up-hill Rugby or Cheltenham match. No, be sure our Marlborough memories will be our sunniest; let us then by success, either in the cricket field or in the school-room, or, better still, in both, do our best to make them doubly sunny. P. P. [A poem entitled Moonbeams appeared in this place in the first edition, but was afterwards discovered to have been plagiarised. The present Editors (1870) consider that no good purpose would be served by its republication.] THE SNOW GRAVE. Under low and leaden skies Still and deep the white snow lies, And a whisper seemed to say Long and weary is the way, Sister stay awhile and rest, Sleep, forgetting care and sorrow, Sad to-day and sadder morrow, In a sweet oblivion blest." Was it but the night-wind's moan Through the pine-trees, grim and lone? "Better far upon the down Under Nature's pall to lie. Than to toil, and strive and die, In the hard and cruel town." So she laid her down to rest On earth-mother's snowy breast, To the wild wind's lullaby- As of old in years before. So slept she then, and, ere the day, While the snow fell fast around her, PORPHYRO. |