The Hall.

"Where are you with whom in life I started,
Dear companions of my golden days?
Ye are dead, estranged from me or parted,
Flown like morning clouds a thousand ways."

JAMES MONTGOMERIE.

"Cœtus dulces, valete."-CATUllus.

"I have had playmates, I have had companions,
In my days of childhood, in my joyous school days;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces."-CHARLES LAMB.

HALL! where an Emp'ror deign'd to feast, I see
Thy lofty roof, thy giant hearth, where blaz'd
Too liberal flame: thy haughty dais, raised
O'er the stone floor with proud distinction, free
Only for social foot of high degree:
Thy polish'd tables, and the Tutor's chair,
This for long lecture, those for simple fare,
Thy portraits, all are present; but for me

Gone is thy magic with the vanish'd crowd
Who met light-hearted at the daily board,

When thou did'st ring with jest and laughter loud.
Far parted now, we toil no more to meet-

What care I though through thee light laugh be pour'd ;
And thou dost echo still to youthful feet?

[During the time that the "allied Sovereigns" were at Oxford, in the year 1814, Alexander, Emperor of Russia, took up his quarters at Merton, a fact commemorated by a marble tablet let into the wall, and inscribed with a Latin legend, in gilt letters, as well as by a magnificent vase of green porphyry, which stands in the entrance to the Warden's lodgings. For the benefit of the uninitiated, or, I should say, 66 unmatriculated," I may mention that the dais was set apart for the Fellows of the College, and that we had not only our daily dinner, but lecture in this Hall.]

IV.

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.

V

Meeting and Parting.

'Farewell! a word that must be, and hath been."-BYRON.

We meet like stranger travellers at a well;
One hath a silver cup he fain would fill ;
And one to draw the water, strength or skill;
One knows the pleasant tale of mirth to tell;
And one with art the rapturous song to swell:
And so we sit beside each other still,

Or up and on together with a will,

company;

Wishing we might for aye together dwell.
We part, like ships, that on a summer sea,
Have for a season kept in
To meet no more: in haste sweet vows we form
Of memory; then our courteous colours vail,
And swift to different compass-points we sail.

May we break off in sunshine, not in storm.

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
Locks, bars, and chains, that saved thy tomes from theft,
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 the Scot within these walls of yore,
Transcribed the Bible without breaking fast,

Toiled through each word, and perished at the last.

[The Library was one of the oldest parts of the building, and indeed one of the earliest pieces of architecture in Oxford. There are still a few of the older volumes chained to bars which run across the different 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.]

́ My days among the dead are past,

Around me I behold,

Where'er these carnal eyes are cast,
The mighty minds of old :

My never failing friends are they ;

With whom I converse night and day."-SOUTHEY.

"Books we know

Are a substantial world, both pure and good;

Round these with tendrils strong as flesh and blood

Our patience and our happiness will grow."-WORDsworth.
"Give me

Leave to enjoy myself. That place that does

Contain my books the best companion is,

To me a lordly court, where hourly I

Converse with the old sages and philosophers :

And sometimes for variety I confer

With kings and emperors, and weigh their counsels,
Calling their victories, if unjustly got,

Unto a strict account."-FLETCHER.

"The reading of books, what is it but the consulting of the wisest men of all ages and all conditions, whereby they may communicate to us their most delicate thoughts, choicest notions, and best inventions, couched in good expressions, and digested after an exact method."-Barrow.

"I no sooner come into the library, but I bolt the door to me, excluding lust, ambition, avarice, and all such vices, whose nurse is idleness, the mother of ignorance and melancholy herself, and in the very lap of eternity, among so many divine souls, I take my seat with so lofty a spirit and sweet content, that I pity all our great ones and rich men that know not this happiness."-HEINSIUS.

Wise men have said, are wearisome; who reads

Incessantly, and to his reading brings not

A spirit and judgment equal or superior,

(And what he brings what needs he elsewhere seek ?)

Uncertain and unsettled still remains,

Deep vers'd in books, and shallow in himself,

Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys

And trifles for choice matters, worth a sponge;

As children gathering pebbles on the shore."-MILTON.