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doubtless, to let their thoughts wander, but it is not a sin peculiar to College chapels.

One morning the wished-for letter appeared on Paul's table when he returned from chapel. It was Edith's first letter to her lover, one which had been gained after repeated entreaties from Paul, and with arguments which would have become a Jesuit better than a member of the Protestant University of Oxford. The arguments were, however, either very strong, or very well put, for from that day Paul received many letters from that same hand, and on the mornings when they were expected Paul's manner towards the end of the chapel service would hardly have satisfied the minds of the school of Boanerges.

Paul's time was fully occupied about this time. He was reading for honours in Moderations, the second examination of the University, so well-known to Oxford men by the familiar name of "Mods." Besides this, he was obliged to take his place in the boat, and undergo the ordeal of the "trial eights," from which the University crew who row in the race against Cambridge are selected. So well did Paul succeed in the trials, that his name was confidently mentioned as one of the crew of "the 'Varsity eight," who in the ensuing Easter vacation would contend with the sister University in the "Derby of the Thames." Paul had some doubts whether he ought to row in the race, considering that the schools required his presence in the following summer term, but the honour of rowing in "the 'Varsity," and the knowledge that he could by hard reading prepare his work for the schools, determined him not to forego the pleasure and credit of the race.

During this term Paul saw much of Percy Cheyne, nor did he fail to give him some pretty strong counsel on his future proceedings. Percy listened with perfect good humour to "the slanging" of his friend, promised to "reform and get his hair cut," and to leave the Phlegethon Club at the end of the year, the only time when his name could be removed, and moreover to avoid all excesses in any visits to the club which he might pay in the meantime. Percy bewailed his hard fate in not being allowed to write to Maude till his uncle knew of his attachment, and declared that he would tell Ralph Cheyne the whole story at Christmas, come what might. Challoner and Paul met frequently, but not so often as formerly; for the former was reading hard for honours at his degree, or "Greats" as it is familiarly called, the examination taking place in the same summer term as that in which Paul had to run the gauntlet of the schools.

With the Dons of St. Chrys'tom's Paul had had little intercourse. It is seldom that that august body are sufficiently oblivious of their dignity to allow themselves to mix with and sympathize with the undergraduates of their colleges. As a rule they find it almost impossible to sink the Don and assume the man. There are exceptions, however, to this rule; there are Dons who are so only in name, and who are the friends and advisers of the men in college as well as their tutors

and rulers. Such an exception was Thomas Barker of St. Chrys'tom's. Whilst the Dean considered his only functions to be those of frightening men going into the schools by telling them that they did not know their work, and threatening them when they came out of the schools with the horrors of rustication for their failure, beyond this, and a vigorous attention to all matters of discipline, the Rev. the Dean did not trouble himself. Mr. St. Albyn was idle and good-natured, generally took no notice if men cut his lecture, and was very gentlemanly and very useless to any who were foolish enough to ask his advice. Mr. Smee was a dead letter to any man who had ever been guilty of the slightest peccadillo, such as attending a noisy wine within hearing of the sensitive Smee; a long lecture upon the vice of drunkenness would be the portion of the hapless man who only asked advice in some college matter. As for Dr. Benison, the Principal, he seldom appeared except at morning chapel, or at Collections, the college examination which takes place at the end of every term. Whenever he met any of the St. Chrys'tom's men he always greeted them with a pleasant smile and good-humoured nod; and beyond that he did nothing, thereby fully per forming the regular duties of a principal. Mr. Barker, however, was a different order of man. I have said that there were certain pious people who shook their heads at him, and doubted whether the college could maintain its character whilst a man so 66 unorthodox" was harboured amongst its fellows; but it takes a good deal of head-shaking to shake a man out of his fellowship at Oxford, so Tommy Barker remained where he was. With him Paul had become familiar, and often after a lecture was over he would stay behind and have a few minutes' talk with his tutor. There was, perhaps, a kindred spirit between the rough, shaggy-headed scholar and our friend Paul, at least they understood each other very well, and when Barker proposed to Paul to take a walk with him our friend gladly complied. To a stranger the manner of Mr. Barker would not have appeared prepossessing. He was decidedly rough, and had a habit of pulling his thick, shaggy beard when interested or excited by a subject. But no one could listen to his conversation upon many subjects without being at once astonished and pleased with the honesty and candour of his remarks, and the shrewdness and clear-sightedness which they displayed. During several walks which they took together, Paul Romaine had ample opportunities of judging of his tutor's character. and so favourable an opinion did he form, that though by no means fond of confiding in people as a rule, Paul talked more freely of his affairs, of his difficulties, and hopes, and fears to thorough-spoken Barker than he had ever yet done to any one.

In this

Paul and his new friend had walked one afternoon to the quaint little village of Cumnor, four miles from Oxford, and they had stayed to rest themselves in the ancient grass-grown church-yard. church, which is a fine specimen of antiquity, is the monument erected to the memory of Anthony Foster, once the master of Cumnor Place,

and the gaoler of the luckless Amy Robsart. Paul had visited the church before, and with the aid of the old clerk, an intelligent man, and a devoted worshipper of Sir Walter Scott, he had mastered the story of the place, and could point to the very portion of the church-yard wall which once formed a portion of "the Place," and to the open gap in the village where the veritable "Bonnie brown Bear" stood till within a late period, when a certain great man of Vandal tendencies pulled it down.

"Are you one of the modern sceptics concerning the existence of Amy Robsart?" asked Paul, as he and Barker stood in the quiet churchyard together."

"Not I," answered Barker, "I never forsake my old belief till I'm convinced by sound argument that I am wrong, and I don't think the Archæological Society will be the means of my conversion."

"I'm glad of that," said Paul, “I thought you might perhaps laugh at me for holding fast my faith in poor Lady Dudley, and for believing in Sir Walter Scott. It's the fashion now, you know, to call Scott passè, and to say that he was all very well, but that we want something more now-a-days."

"Yes, and we get it!" exclaimed Barker, tugging at his beard with might and main. "What is the master, the creator of English romance to be put aside for the ocean of rubbish which deluges the libraries at present? Passè, indeed! why, man, Scott wrote "for all time," like Shakespeare; he is the Shakespeare of prose romance; and he is to be passed over for such wretched scribblers of dangerous trash as the sensation school exhibits! I know their sweet productions too well."

"I didn't think that college tutors ever-"

"Ever read anything but classics and the newspapers, you would say ; but you're wrong, Romaine. We're not all machines, though some are ; we're men still, for all that you young fellows have dubbed us Dons. I read a little of most of the new novels, otherwise I shouldn't be competent to give an opinion about them."

“And yet I assure you that many people whom I thought sensible, have told me that Scott must give place to the new school,” said Paul.

"They're fools, I tell you, hopeless idiots, man," exclaimed Barker. "Don't talk to me! isn't Shakespeare passè, isn't he on the shelf? As far as the stage is concerned he is, sure enough; but some people read him, why do they? He isn't sensational, he doesn't make people ride on wild horses up paste-board rocks, or jump into muslin rivers. Don't talk to me! everything's used up, time, space, Faith, Hope, and Charity, the Christian Religion; it's all used up together, no doubt!"

"I agree with every word you say," replied Paul, delighted at Barker's tirade.

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Agree with me! Of course you do! You're not a fool, or a newspaper writer, or a bigot, which are all synonymous terms, mark you, so of course you agree with what's true. Don't do it because I say it though; keep your independence of thought to the last; they may chain up your

body, but they can't chain up your opinions. Good Heavens, it makes one sick to hear the cant of the day, about the advance of intellect, and the requirements of the age, and that this, that, and the other is past and done for. Look here," he continued, pointing to a tombstone at his side, "what does a man mean by talking of his advancement, and his need of new lights, when he may die to-morrow, and a fool may write such an epitaph as this over him?

"When blooming youth and beauty is most brave,
Death plucks us up, and plants us in the grave,

Take care, young folks, your precious time to spend
In living mindful of your latter end." *

"Preserve me from my friends, ought to be the last words of every dying man who dreads to be shown up in an epitaph," said Paul.

"Ay, and of most living men too," answered Barker, leading the way from the churchyard; "the secret of friendship is to know how much your friend wants of you. As a simple contract in law is void without a consideration, so is friendship in nine cases out of ten."

There was a twinkle in the keen grey eyes, overhung by their shaggy brows, which half gave the lie to this cynical remark.

"You speak bitterly; have you proved the truth of that hard saying?" asked Paul.

"Perhaps I have," replied his companion, "I'm not meditating a sensational romance, I assure you, so you may believe half what I say. The rule is to believe half of what is supposed to be all true, and nothing of what is supposed to be partly true. But let us quicken our pace, it's nearly five o'clock, and I have to read prayers in chapel,"

* You may read this for yourselves in Cumnor Churchyard, if you choose.

(To be continued.)

MEDALS FROM THE ANTIQUE.

No. 2.-VIRGIL.

BY THE CHEVALIER DE CHATELAIN.

VIRGIL was born in Andes, a small village, about a league distant from Mantua, known in our times as Petiola. He was brought up at Cremona, and it was there he began his studies. At the age of seventeen, he assumed the toga virilis, and after a short stay at Milan and at Mantua, he went to Naples to finish his studies in the Greek and Latin languages. He likewise turned his attention towards medicine

and mathematics.

On returning to his native place, he witnessed the lamentable calamities he has depicted in his first Eclogue, in which he represents himself, under the name of Menalcas, as sharing the fate of the unfortunate inhabitants of the rural districts of Mantua and Cremona, whose estates were seized upon and divided amongst the veterans of an undisciplined army. While thus heaping unspeakable woes upon their country, these cruel robbers of patrimonies considered themselves as merely acting according to the rights of conquest. For Octavius, by way of conciliating and attaching to his service some 170,000 veterans, had promised them 20,000 sesterces apiece, besides the privilege of sharing amongst themselves the best landed estates, and most opulent houses of Italy. And though for a time, he shrunk from realizing so audacious a project, he had become so completely the slave of an unbridled soldiery, that he found himself compelled, in the assembly held in the Campus Martius, to satisfy the lawless claims of the veterans.

The unfortunate victims thus barbarously despoiled of the inheritance of their ancestors, hastened to Rome, followed by their wives and children, to cry vengeance on this violation of all justice. They made the forum ring with their clamours, loudly demanding of what crime they were accused-born, as they were, in Italy, and children of the same soil, and consequently invested with the same rights as the artificers of their misfortunes? Their lamentations found an echo in every heart, and Octavius, finding himself beset on all sides by the entreaties of these unfortunates, could not refuse to lend an ear to their remonstrances; while, on the other hand, the exasperated soldiers, considering themselves despoiled of the lands restored to their lawful owners, clamoured boldly for compensation for their losses.

By way of appeasing their insolent murmurs, fresh confiscations took

VOL. VI.

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