never may I be ungrateful, and here have a pride, a pleasure, in acknowledging, that many a day in after life have I remembered you with affection; and when I have felt that my taste has been improved, I have ever been thankful to you, to whom I owe that source of enjoyment. "Man. ners makyth man," was the college motto. There was the precept, in you we found the example. But at this rate I never shall get on my new mouse-colour leather breeches, and it is time, for they will certainly shrink in my box.

"My box!" that of itself would make an episode; but I forbear. A boy's box on first going to school! Yet I will tell an anecdote of the return of a boy's box after his first term at the university. I knew him well, poor fellow! He had an odd stammer, that began with great irresolution of voice, and terminated most decisively with a bounce; and such was the youth, and such was his career. He came to the university quite raw from the country, where he had previously practised to be a clergyman, by standing upon stools with the tablecloth round him, marrying, burying, and christening his elderly maiden aunts. Poor boy! he was quite unfit to be trusted as yet from home. He came a clown, and in two or three months returned. What did he not return? But, to his box. He was rusticated for a term or two, and choosing rather to be absent from home for a time, visited a friend. Meanwhile his box, and another box arrived; and, as they were wont, his maiden aunts thought it best to see that all was safe, and unpacked them. Never were elderly maiden eyes so bewildered- so astonished coats, waistcoats without number-but the breeches, as they lifted them out one after the other, holding them up higher each time in increased astonishment, audibly counting

"Only think the twentieth pair of pale yellow kerseymere breeches what could Tom, sister Sue, want of so many? Why, his poor father will be ruined-we shall all be ruined."

Then Sue took up the outcry, lifting her voice at each pair, and with emphasis "Look here, sister Kate, Twenty-one, Twenty-two, Twentythree, crescendo, Twenty-four!!!"

Here the hands and breeches drop

ped together, and they were watered by a flood of tears.

"The ungrateful boy! didn't we have made for him," cried sister Sue, "three excellent pairs out of his father's greatcoat; he could not have wanted any more."

Now sister Kate could again go on, but in a low voice of despair-"Twenty-five, Twenty-six, Twenty-seven, oh! oh! oh! Twenty-eight-then the last, Twenty-nine pair of brecches the good-for-nothing boy!"

And so it was; in one box he had brought home with him twenty-nine pair of pale lemon-colour kerseymere breeches. Oh ye parents! who send raw youths to the university! it is quite hopeless if you think you can confine their ideas, after the first term, to corduroys, or even mouse-coloured leathers; and you may be quite sure that the turning old greatcoats, by the hands of a village tailor, into habiliments for the seat of learning, is money thrown away.

Now it was not so with me on my first going to college-though that coflege was but a school, a public one, be it remembered with pride-as I told you, Eusebius, I had a pair of new mouse-coloured leather breeches, and I had put them on once. Would you could have seen me in them then!-but had you seen me in them the second time of putting them on, it would have been a treat, and you would have remembered it, as I do, and therefore write this account of it. But you must be aware my place is taken per coach- Mr John Cracklatin booked for Winchester college, with one box, containing-for the present we will say no more than one mouse-coloured pair of leather breeches. Accompany me, Eusebius, my first real exit from home; that is, from within ten minutes' reach of home, with such a stock of Latin as I have certified you in this. Be so kind as to go with me, and see me safe lodged. "Comes jucundus pro vehiculo est." My father had gone he same road before me-uncles and cousins without number all to Winchester. I was therefore taking the family recipe for learning. I had at least a great veneration for my father and his learning, and therefore, though going to school, went at least half-willingly, as much as could then be expected of any welldisposed youth-as Homer says, έκων

αεκητι γε θυμώ. I said my father had gone there before me. I remember his account of his first appearance. His mother took him, for he went first to a preparatory school at Winchester. She told the master, who was not the most gentle-looking of pedagogues, that she wished her son to be particularly looked to, for he was a very delicate boy.

"Ma'am," said the man, "I have no others; they are all delicate boys." And so my father found it, for the second day he was flogged, and the third burnt out of his bed, and that was the last he enjoyed in a preparatory school.

Do not imagine I was allowed to travelin my new clothes; not a bit of it. Any one might have been ashamed of those I wore. To make my first appearance in them on any stage, much less at Winchester, was impossible. I will not digress to describe my reception, and how very strange all things appeared to me. Every one knows all this; but it is not every one that knows what followed_"Non cuivis homini contingit." You can easily imagine me in my room in my little bed, by the side of which was my box, and in which room were eight or ten other boys, to me unknown. There I lay, with my treasure by my side; and that being the case, though a boy and after a journey, I did not sleep too soundly until towards morning.

I

was awakened early enough, but late for all I had to do. There is no greater offence than the missing chapel in the morning - punishment a flogging. This was announced to me before I went to bed, and as a flogging was to me an unknown thing, it went in my mind according to the Latin, " omne ignotum pro mirifico." I was therefore determined to be up betimes, and up betimes I was; but dressed betimes, that was to be quite another matter. The chapel bell goes a quarter of an hour, and it was going as I opened my box, and there was some distance to the chapel, for I was not then in college, but in the head-master's house; as it is termed, I was a commoner, not on the foundation. Now, imagine that all this while the fatal bell is going, and in such a manner as if it threatened to stop, and I am not dressed yet, nor like to be. Of all things in the world I have ever been averse to early rising; it was the chief cause of all the punishments

I ever received at school. I once wrote a paper against it, and sent it to Blackwood's Magazine, where I have a suspicion you, Eusebius, will send this. The early morning light ever creates in me a nausea. I once had a bilious fever from early rising and a pair of yellow plush-breeches, and this was on leaving Winchester once on the first morning of holidays ;but here I find myself in another digression. It cannot be helped; so here goes my bilious fever.

I had been some years at Winchester then, and had become a pretty considerable puppy; so what must I do on going home for the holidays, but have a new pair of top-boots, which, when on, I could not get off, so I slept in them all night. Besides my new top-boots, I had a green coatee, yellow kerseymere waistcoat, and a pair of splendid yellow plush breeches. It was the height of summer, very hot weather, and, boots and all as I stood, it was very hot work before I started. There were three of us, and so we took a chaise. We had proceeded about a mile, when I found that I had left my purse, or something as important, behind me; I ran back to college, and thence to the chaise waiting for

me.

I never shall forget that return-for by this time the sun was very hot and as I generally look down when I run, the hot sun, reflected from my yellow plush breeches, and the heat and pressure of my new tight top-boots, so stirred the bile, that by the time I returned home I was actually in a fever. It gave me a disgust to foppery, and I really believe I must date my slovenliness as to dress from that day. This came of deserting the old original mouse-colours, which, with the exception of the first day of actual wearing, served me in good stead.

But, dear me! Eusebius, imagine that all this while the bell has been going "tempus fugit"-every toll threatens a flogging, and I cannot for the life of me get on my breeches.

"Why, they don't fit," said one boy. "Pull at 'em," said another. "Let us all take a pull at 'em," said a third, who was dressed.

"I shall be flogged, if I do, said a fourth.

"What the d-l do you call 'em ?" said a fifth.

" Leathers," said I.

"A pretty leathering you'll have," said he.

"Tuck your shirt above them un. der the waistcoat," said a sixth, " and they may slip on easier."

This was a good thought, and I did so-still it was very hard work to get them on at all.

"Bell will be down in a minute," said a seventh.

"Do be so kind as to wait for me," said I, beseechingly; " for I do not know the way."

"Wait and be flogged!" said they. Here was a state of trepidation for a poor boy just from his father's house, within three tolls of a bell of a flogging-dire and unknown thing!and he standing with his breeches, new mouse-colour leathers, not quite one quarter part on. The thoughts of aflogging at such a time, and in such a situation, may be a very jocose thing to witness, but to have them rushing into the mind, in a torrent of cold-sweat, at the early age of some twelve or thirteen years, is not very jocose to the sufferer. I never knew of but one boy that actually was, as it were, case-hardened, and took a flogging himself for diversion, and as a joke. It is a singular thing, and therefore, though another digression, I must tell it. The boy's name was Smith, a good family name for casehardening. Somehow or other, he was insensible in the flogging parts. There was no communication between them and the brain; and here let me observe, obiter, that it is a very absurd practice at private schools to punish one part for another; at public schools they scarcely ever flog for learning, or the lack of it. But why, if the head fails of doing its work, the tail should suffer, I never could hear any good reason given. And why should a dunce be called a blockhead, when it is quite the contrary part goes to the block? But this belongs to the philosophy of schools, and has nothing to do with my breeches, which will never be on and I had nigh forgotten the flogging story. This Smith did not care a pin for a flogging, and used to put himself in the way of them, for mere amusement to himself and others. "Smith, again!" the master usually called out at flogging-time, and with a groan. Smith was always ready, affected to kneel down, then rose up again, and said facetiously

"Allow me, sir, to put my handkerchief under my knees - these breeches cost my father five-and-twenty shillings, and he gave me particular charge not to soil them."

Then would he begin only to kneel down, the master all the while vociferating-"Take him up, take him up!"

" Sir," Smith would say, "be so kind as to hit high and gentle." Then, when fairly down, he would look round, and at every stroke make most horrible faces, as if in dreadful agony, and, when the matter was over, jump up with alacrity, make his bow, and say, "I thank you, sir."

It is evident such a boy must have been incorrigible-and he went away as such he did not remain more than, if so much as, a half-year.

The bell is 'most down, and in what state am I now with regard to breeches? By dint of great exertion and help I have them just up to my hips-a little more exertion may get them an inch higher -more than that is hopeless. The boys are quitting me fast. One kind soul remains to show me the way. Hurrah! I have contrived to get them over, and to button one button; but then how am I to get my shirt in again? That must be inevitably tucked under my waistcoat.

I

"Here," said the boy, "pull it down a little, just to meet, and button your waistcoat over, and nobody will see it-so let's be off." And off we were, as well at least as I could move my knees. I think those who fought in ancient armour must have run, if it is not a bull to say those who fought ran, pretty much as I did. When we arrived at the chapel-door I was donequite out of breath and all the boys were just kneeling down. In I shuffled, and down I attempted to kneel directly in front of the master. I had not calculated upon this difficulty. made a desperate effort, and so far succeeded as to my knees-but in that effort the button burst, and the upper part of my mouse-colour leather breeches, which had been continually stretched, dropped and discovered to the gaze of eyes sacred and profane, of masters, chaplains, and some hundred or so of boys, my poor unshirted, unshrouded personification of innocence. Could the service go on? Did it go on? I know not. The following half-hour was so like a dream that I have forgotten it; but I believe

it was considered that I had intended to insult masters and the whole school by my barefaced-no, not bare-facedimpudence. I believe serious thoughts were entertained of expelling me ere I had well entered on my schoolship; and if I had then taken a flight back, there should have been two lamentable flights, mine and the breechesmaker for I was hot enough for revenge, and none so small but that they may find means of annoying.

As it was, I was so badgered about my exposition, that I had to fight no less than three battles the very first day to defend the honours of my mouse-coloured leathers. But time is a great stretcher, and so hestretched my breeches. The flight of time did that which the sedentary Flight never did. Time, as my early rly copybook, set by that greatest of calligraphers, the German, Jansen Von Splutterinck, saith, maketh all things easy, and so he made my breeches. Henceforth I shall be of the opinion of the currier in the fable, “There's nothing like leather." Kings that have

been made kings from low degree, have kept their poor breeches in remembrance of their humble state. I might have kept mine in remembrance of my humbled state, and as monuments of my after knowledge. A heathen would have made them the subject of an apotheosis. If some have been celebrated as having seen the "Siege of Bulleyn," mine had witnessed the siege of Troy. They had sat down many a day with "the seven against Thebes." Taking into account, my dear Eusebius, the seas of ink that have been spilt upon themthe Greek with which they have been bespattered the versification that has been made upon them, and those engraftings of buds from the tree of knowledge, of which I have spokenI may, without fear of contradiction, say of them, that, wherever they may be, there must be the seat of learning. So that, "take them for all in all, I ne'er shall look upon their like again."

My dear Eusebius, yours as ever.

"TWOPENCE more, and up goes the donkey!" The words shot through us like a spell! fast and far flocked the excited multitude - man, boy, woman, girl, and hobble-de-hoy of either sex;-the cabman from his stand, the sweeper from his crossing, the dog's-meat man from his truck, and the apple-wife from her stall;the exquisite and the shirtless, the delicately tripping miss and the sturdy tramper of St Giles's; -the new policeman, forgetful for once of the duties of office, the very pickpocket for a moment neglectful of his opportuDity. It seemed as though that mysterious voice had summoned together by some magic a representative of every caste and calling beneath the sun, to form at last a true national convention. " What a thing," soliloquized we inwardly, as we elbowed our way into the thickest of the throng, "What a thing is a crowd! What a lesson for the great and the haughty! What a spectacle to moralize! What a picture of the troubled course of human existence! A cease

less struggle for self, careless of the comforts and the happiness of others, feeling nought for their miseries, their pangs, their"

"Beg your pardon, sir," said a jolly seventeen-stone butcher on our right," but I'm afeard I trod rayther heavyish on your toes just now."

sour.

Our theory was done for-squashed in a moment;-selfishness was not omnipotent, and the milk of human kindness had not all turned We turned round to the apologizing vender of meats, and looked him full in the face; we would have said "Don't mention it!" but the remark struck us as being behind time. - " Curiosity," said we mildly, "has been the bane of the race, from the days days of grandmother Eve upwards." The man of the skyblue jerkin starred with grease-spots looked as if the heaven of his intellect was somewhat clouded.

" Sir?" said he enquiringly.
"What we mean to say," said we,

" is "

"One penny more, and up goes the

donkey!" broke in the same stentorian voice that had originally electrified us.

We could have patience no longer : "Here!" shouted we, stretching forth the required coin over three of the greasiest heads in Christendom, "for Heaven's sake satisfy these good people, and let us go about our business!"

A hand, clothed in a rich coating of dirt, rose rapidly from the centre to clutch the proffered desideratum, and a sort of applauding murmur passed among the nearest witnesses of our generosity

"Three cheers for the patriotic cove in the brass barnacles!" shouted an embryo Barrington from the extreme gauche. We had given five guineas and a half for them at Dollond's that very morning!

"After all," said we, applying ourselves once more to the destroyer of beeves-who was, as we have above noticed, as fat as any mortal "who slays fat oxen" ought to be "What is it we are to see after all this noise? quid tanto dignum feret." Half a second more, and we should have thrown away the whole line, but our friend saved us the waste.

"Ferret, sir! Lord love you! do you take him for a rat-catcher? it's only a donkey as that chap's a-going to balance on the top of his ladder!"

"Then for once in our lives," said we, "we shall see a dead donkey!"

"Not this time, sir," said the butcher, with a smile which bespoke the deepest commiseration for our simplicity; "unless the hanimal should be suddenly taken hapoplectic. That ere's a pretty tolerable strong pair of lungs for a beast as is departed."

And truly, as he spoke, there arose the most hearty, healthbetokening, unequivocal heech-haw which ever greeted our ears in the not-over-much-frequented-by-donkeys metropolis. Gracious heaven! and we had been contributing, unwittingly, to the torture of an unhappy animal that is itself the meekest, mildest, most unoffending of brutes!-that never so much as with malice-prepense and aforethought set foot upon a worm; and we must needs add our mite to the huge sum of suffering which its patient merit of the unworthy

takes, in this its much enduring existence!

no

If, now, it had been a dead donkey, said we, inwardly, as we made our escape from the still-thickening crowd -for, as to stopping to see the show, we would almost as soon have stopped to look at our maternal parent dangling by the neck in the Old Bailey, after having been convicted upon our own evidence-if, now, it had been a dead donkey; but, pshaw! we might have known it wasn't a dead donkey! How could it have been a dead donkey? We might just as reasonably have expected to see a mermaid, or a dodo, or a hippogriff, or the great sea-serpent himself. We do not believe that Methuselah, nay, we do not believe that the Wandering Jew him self, (and he will soon be twice as old as the antediluvian,) ever set eyes upon such a thing in the whole course of his peregrinations; -there is such thing! That rigmarole of Sterne's about the dead ass is concocted only, like an impostor's begging-letter, to draw tears from the eyes of the over-credulous and tender-hearted. The libellous scoundrels who charged Mike Scales with vending a defunct jackass for veal, stand, by their very accusation, convicted of falsehood. What really becomes of superannuated donkeys we do not profess to know, though we have our private opinion on the subject, as indeed there are few matters on which we have not. We believe, then, that donkeys are deathless, - not, by any means, that they live for ever, but that they do not die, or, to use the expressive phraseology of a gentleman who has been of late much before the public, that they do not become "dead, cold, moist, unpleasant bodies;"-that, like the husband of Aurora, that ill-starred victim of an oversight, they fade away gradually and slowly, and almost imperceptibly, till, at their appointed moment, they cease to exist, blending with unsubstantial air, hastening to be resolved into the elements, vanishing like a morning-dream, leaving not a wreck behind! It is our confident creed that those venerable grandsires of the race, whom we sometimes light upon standing fixed and motionless in bylanes, by the side of an overgrown thistle, and reduced to the extreme degree of asinine emaciation, are don