Yet I can say, from sorrowful experience, that duty and work seldom look more gloomy and disheartening than they do to a student of that ancient University of which the writer is an unworthy son, when he gets up in darkness and cold and hurricane; and hastens through mud and sleet along the gloomy streets to the lecture at half-past seven.

One happy result follows. During all the remainder of his life, the man who for three long winters in succession, each beginning about the twenty-eighth of October, and reaching on till the end of April, has undergone that discipline, can never cease to have a special feeling of thankfulness when on a day of late October or early November he awakes at halfpast five in the morning, and hears the rain outside; and then reflects that he need not get up and go out. The remembrance of many mornings past may send a chill through his frame; and various worries and cares which must be faced at rising may painfully suggest themselves: yet at least there is not that dismal rising before he has gathered heart to face the dreary day.

Things which were very far from pleasant when they occurred, are sometimes very pleasant to look back on. I remember well how through months of over-work at College, anything but enjoyable while they passed over, I kept written on a piece of paper, always before my eyes, Virgil's line which says so. I can see it yet, in large letters on my table: I used

to look at it, in the silent house, at half-past three in the morning before going to bed, and to repeat it over when getting up wearily at half-past six again. Forsan et hæc olim meminisse juvabit: which was the graceful classic way of saying that there is a good time coming, and of advising sensible folk to wait a little longer. That time has come to the writer, and to many of his friends. We like to talk, when we meet, of the old days with their dismal mornings. It rejoiced me, between five and six this morning, to remember these things; and to feel the force of the anniversary. And now, when a new generation is gathering, on this very day, within the gloomy courts so well remembered, the recollection does no worse than call up in the writer many thoughts of the varied ways in which men take to work again. Suffer me to say here, my friendly reader, May the City and the University flourish together; according to the simple and straightforward wish of the pious burghers who first inscribed the motto on the scutcheon of the ancient town. And let me confess that I have already grown so old, that not without a certain mist that dims one's eyes, I can look on the crowd of lads and boys (for most of them are no more) in the Hall on the day of the opening of a session. You look back yourself, my friend: and from a record, not far to seek, you are able to discern a little of the mistakes, the follies, the repentances, the humiliations, the mortifications, the labours, the manifold

takings-down, which await those hopeful young fellows, before they are battered, rudely enough, into trim for sober life. The Duke of Wellington said that all war was a series of blunders: it is not too much to say that blunders and repentances make up great part of the career of every mortal, especially in the days when he begins first to think for himself.

The winter session, which is the only one of the year in that University which is not to be named here, begins, as has been said, about the twentyseventh or twenty-eighth of October. The vacation has lasted since the first of the preceding May. It need not be said, that to the more industrious students, that long vacation is in great part given to diligent study: yet it is always study to which your own sense of duty fixes the times and limits. Now, you begin to be under authority, and to have your task allotted to you from day to day. And at this season, it is a curious thing to come from the country to that city. You pass at a step from autumn, still rich with colour, into winter, gloomy and gray. In an inland country region, late October is often a charming time; and the landscape has its own touching and even glowing beauty. Though many leaves have fallen, and make a dry rustle under your feet as you go through woodland ways, yet many of the trees are thickly clad: some wonderfully green; some touched by decay into beauty and glory, in the still sunshine of those beautiful days that come. And

the dahlias and hollyhocks are blazing: for as the season advances, the colours of nature deepen; and the pale and delicate hues of the early snowdrops, primroses, and lilies, pass through the gradation of summer blossoms and roses into the glow of the late autumn flowers. It is as gentle maidenhood passes into blooming matronhood, with all its qualities more pronounced. And coming away from the country, at such a season, I daresay you have thought it still looking almost its best. But all these things are not, in the great city of that ancient University. The leaves are gone: all the country round is bare and bleak. The College gardens, large and black-looking, are the most dismal scene that ever bore the pleasant name. You will find no winding walks through thick masses of evergreens, which in winter rain or winter frost look so life-like and warm and cheering. The trees, poor and stunted, are all deciduous: and their leaves are not merely capable of falling, but have fallen in fact. The air is thick, and smoke aboundsthe smoke that makes the wealth of that wealthy city. And though you may be willing enough to set to work, and indeed rather weary of idleness or desultory study for some weeks past, you will probably confess that, even apart from the dismal lectures at half-past seven in the morning, it is rather a sad setting to work again.

Let us be thankful, my friend, if our work be such, that, after some escape from it, we can take to it again

cheerfully and willingly. When we read in the newspapers about the re-assembling of Parliament, the general effect conveyed to one's mind is a pleasant one. The impression left with us is that the members come back to their work willingly; they have been free from it so long that the appetite for the kind of thing has revived; and each man rises that morning with a positive feeling of exhilaration as he looks on to the event of the day. It is not as it was with Napoleon, even when he was Emperor. You remember how he enjoyed his Saturday and Sunday in the country quiet: and how on Sunday night he was accustomed to say, thinking of his return next morning to Paris and the cares of state, 'To-morrow I must put on the yoke of misery again.' Many people, young and old, feel as Napoleon felt. There is the heartsinking of the nervous little boy, going back to school after the holidays, with vague fears of evil. There is the apprehension of

a great mercantile man, entering upon a season in which he foresees many painful difficulties and complications, and does not know how things may turn out. It is as with the little bark, which, from a sheltered nook where it was lying snug and safe, puts out unwillingly into the full fury of winds and waves. And even coming back to work which you like, and to which you thankfully feel yourself in some degree equal, there is a certain shrinking from putting the shoulder to the collar again, and going stoutly at your task. There is a certain inertia, a certain nervous