by the blue Egean, many a spot is there more ing of the hum of its bees; nor take much beautiful or sublime to see, many a territory account of the rare flavour of its honey, since more ample; but there was one charm in Attica, Gozo and Minorca3 were sufficient for the which, in the same perfection, was nowhere else. English demand. He would look over the The deep pastures of Arcadia, the plain of Egean from the height he had ascended; he Argos, the Thessalian vale, these had not the would follow with his eye the chain of islands, gift; Boeotia, which lay to its immediate north, which, starting from the Sunian headland, was notorious for its very want of it. The seemed to offer the fabled divinities of Attica, heavy atmosphere of that Bootia might be good when they would visit their Ionian cousins, a for vegetation, but it was associated in popular sort of viaduct thereto across the sea; but that belief with the dulness of the Baotian intel- | fancy would not occur to him, nor any admiraleet: on the contrary, the special purity, elas-tion of the dark violet billows with their white ticity, clearness, and salubrity of the air of edges down below; nor of those graceful, fanAttica, fit concomitant and emblem of its like jets of silver upon the rocks, which slowly genius, did that for it which earth did not;-rise aloft like water spirits from the deep, then it brought out every bright hue and tender shiver, and break, and spread, and shroud themshade of the landscape over which it was selves, and disappear in a soft mist of foam; spread, and would have illuminated the face of nor of the gentle, incessant heaving and panteven a more bare and rugged country. ing of the whole liquid plain; nor of the long waves, keeping steady time, like a line of soldiery as they resound upon the hollow shore,he would not deign to notice that restless living element at all except to bless his stars that he was not upon it. Nor the distinct details, nor the refined colouring, nor the graceful outline and roseate golden hue of the jutting crags, nor the bold shadows cast from Otus or Laurium by the declining sun;-our agent of a mercantile firm would not value these matters even at a low figure. Rather we must turn for the sympathy we seek to yon pilgrim student, come from a semi-barbarous land to that small corner of the earth, as to a shrine, where he might take his fill of gazing on those emblems and coruscations of invisible unoriginates perfection. It was the stranger from a remote province, from Britain or from Mauritania, who in a scene so different from that of his chilly, woody swamps, or of his fiery, choking sands, learned at once what a real University must be, by coming to understand the sort of country which was its suitable home. A confined triangle, perhaps fifty miles its greatest length, and thirty its greatest breadth; two elevated rocky barriers, meeting at an angle; three prominent mountains, commanding the plain,-Parnes, Pentelicus, and Hymettus; an unsatisfactory soil; some streams, not always full;-such is about the report which the agent of a London company would have made of Attica. He would report that the climate was mild; the hills were limestone; there was plenty of good marble; more pasture land than at first survey might have been expected, sufficient certainly for sheep and goats; fisheries productive; silver mines once, but long since worked out; figs fair; oil firstrate; olives in profusion. But what he would not think of noting down, was, that the olive | tree was so choice in nature and so noble in shape that it excited a religious veneration; and that it took so kindly to the light soil, as to expand into woods upon the open plain, and to climb up and fringe the hills. He would not think of writing word to his employers, how that clear air, of which I have spoken, brought out, yet blended and subdued, the colours on the marble, till they had a softness and harmony, for all their richness, which in a picture looks exaggerated, yet is after all within the truth. He would not tell, how that same delicate and brilliant atmosphere freshened up the pale olive, till the olive forgot its monotony, and its cheek glowed like the arbutus1 or beech of the Umbrian hills. He would say nothing of the thyme and the thousand fragrant herbs which carpeted Hymettus; he would hear noth 1 strawberry-tree, ma- 2 In Italy. droña "As the nimble Atties would say, a glorious climate for eels, but a bad air for brains." B. L. Gildersleeve. Yet Pindar was a Baotian, Nor was this all that a University required, and found in Athens. No one, even there, could live on poetry. If the students at that famous place had nothing better than bright hues and soothing sounds, they would not have been able or disposed to turn their residence there to much account. Of course they must have the means of living, nay, in a certain sense, of enjoyment, if Athens was to be an Alma Maters at the time, or to remain afterwards a pleasant thought in their memory, And so they had: be it recollected Athens was a port, and a mart of trade, perhaps the first 3 Islands in the Med- 5 not originated, self iterranean. existing, divine 4 The Egean is famous 6 fostering mother in Greece; and this was very much to the versity for the Long Vacation, when I found point, when a number of strangers were ever myself in company in a public conveyance with flocking to it, whose combat was to be with a middle-aged person, whose face was strange intellectual, not physical difficulties, and who to me. However, it was the great academical claimed to have their bodily wants supplied, luminary of the day, whom afterwards I knew that they might be at leisure to set about fur- very well. Luckily for me, I did not suspect nishing their minds. Now, barren as was the it; and luckily too, it was a fancy of his, as soil of Attica, and bare the face of the country, his friends knew, to make himself on easy yet it had only too many resources for an ele- terms especially with stage-coach companions. gant, nay, luxurious abode there. So abundant So, what with my flippancy and his condescenwere the imports of the place, that it was a sion, I managed to hear many things which common saying, that the productions, which were novel to me at the time; and one point were found singly elsewhere, were brought all which he was strong upon, and was evidently together in Athens. Corn and wine, the staple fond of urging, was the material pomp and cirof subsistence in such a climate, came from the cumstance which should environ a great seat of isles of the Ægean; fine wool and carpeting learning. He considered it was worth the confrom Asia Minor; slaves, as now, from the sideration of the government, whether Oxford Euxine, and timber too; and iron and brass should not stand in a domain of its own. An from the coasts of the Mediterranean. The ample range, say four miles in diameter, should Athenian did not condescend to manufactures be turned into wood and meadow, and the himself, but encouraged them in others; and a University should be approached on all sides population of foreigners caught at the lucrative by a magnificent park, with fine trees in groups occupation both for home consumption and for and groves and avenues, and with glimpses and exportation. Their cloth, and other textures views of the fair city, as the traveller drew for dress and furniture, and their hardware- near it. There is nothing surely absurd in for instance, armour-were in great request. the idea, though it would cost a round sum to Labour was cheap; stone and marble in plenty; realize it. What has a better claim to the and the taste and skill, which at first were purest and fairest possessions of nature, than devoted to public buildings, as temples and the seat of wisdom? So thought my coach porticos, were in course of time applied to the companion; and he did but express the tradimansions of public men. If nature did much tion of ages and the instinct of mankind. for Athens, it is undeniable that art did much more. For instance, take the great University of Paris. That famous school engrossed as its territory the whole south bank of the Seine, and occupied one half, and that the pleasanter half, of the city. King Louis had the island pretty well as his own,-it was scarcely more than a fortification; and the north of the river was given over to the nobles and citizens to do what they could with its marshes; but the eligible south, rising from the stream, which swept around its base, to the fair summit of St. Genevieve, with its broad meadows, its vineyards and its gardens, and with the sacred elevation of Montmartres confronting it, all this was the inheritance of the University. There was that pleasant Pratum, stretching along the river's bank, in which the students for centuries took their recreation, which Here some one will interrupt me with the remark: "By the by, where are we, and whither are we going?-what has all this to do with a University? at least what has it to do with education? It is instructive doubtless; but still how much has it to do with your subject?" Now I beg to assure the reader that 1 am most conscientiously employed upon my subject; and I should have thought every one would have seen this: however, since the objection is made, I may be allowed to pause awhile, and show distinctly the drift of what I have been saying, before I go farther. What has this to do with my subject! why, the question of the site is the very first that comes into consideration, when a Studium Generale is contemplated; for that site should be a lib- | Alcuin10 seems to mention in his farewell verses eral and a noble one; who will deny it? All authorities agree in this, and very little reflection will be sufficient to make it clear. recollect a conversation I once had on this very subject with a very eminent man." I was a youth of eighteen, and was leaving my Uni7 School of Universal Learning. * I 8 "Mount of Martyrs," north of the Seine: so named from the tradition that St. Denis. Bishop of Paris, suffered martyrdom there. 9 Latin for "meadow"; French, pré. 10 An English scholar who was Charlemagne's superintendent of education. * Probably Dr. Edward Copleston (1776-1849), Provost of Oriel College, where Newman later became a Fellow. It was he who raised Oriel to a position of leadership at Oxford. no wonder, for their heads took off, and showed them to be full of sugar-plums; there were fiddles and drums; there were tambourines, books, work-boxes, paint-boxes, sweetmeatboxes, peep-show boxes, and all kinds of boxes; to Paris, and which has given a name to the hands, at least, and an endless capacity of great Abbey of St. Germain-des-Prés.11 For being wound up) dangling from innumerable long years it was devoted to the purposes of twigs; there were French-polished tables, innocent and healthy enjoyment; but evil times chairs, bedsteads, wardrobes, eight-day clocks, came on the University; disorder arose with- and various other articles of domestic furniture in its precincts, and the fair meadow be- (wonderfully made, in tin, at Wolverhampton1), came the scene of party brawls; heresy stalked perched among the boughs, as if in preparathrough Europe, and Germany and England no tion for some fairy housekeeping; there were longer sending their contingent of students, a jolly, broad-faced little men, much more agreeheavy debt was the consequence to the academ-able in appearance than many real men-and ical body. To let their land was the only resource left to them: buildings rose upon it, and spread along the green sod, and the country at length became town. Great was the grief and indignation of the doctors and masters, when this catastrophe occurred. "A wretched there were trinkets for the elder girls, far sight," said the Proctor of the German brighter than any grown-up gold and jewels; nation,12 a wretched sight, to witness the sale there were baskets and pincushions in all deof that ancient manor, whither the Muses were vices; there were guns, swords, and banners; wont to wander for retirement and pleasure. there were witches standing in enchanted rings Whither shall the youthful student now betake of pasteboard, to tell fortunes; there were himself, what relief will he find for his eyes, | teetotums, humming-tops, needle-cases, penwearied with intense reading, now that the wipers, smelling-bottles, conversation-cards, pleasant stream is taken from him?" Two bouquet-holders; real fruit, made artificially centuries and more have passed since this complaint was uttered; and time has shown that the outward calamity, which it recorded, was but the emblem of the great moral revolution, which was to follow; till the institution itself has followed its green meadows, into the region of things which once were and now are not.13 CHARLES DICKENS (1812-1870) A CHRISTMAS TREE* I have been looking on, this evening, at a merry company of children assembled round that pretty German toy, a Christmas Tree. The tree was planted in the middle of a great round table, and towered high above their heads. It was brilliantly lighted by a multitude of little tapers; and everywhere sparkled and glittered with bright objects. There were rosycheeked dolls, hiding behind the green leaves; and there were real watches (with movable 11 Founded about 542 and dedicated to St. Ger- 12 The Dean of the resident German students. France, but in 1896 it became once more the * Contributed by Dickens to Household Words, Dec. 21, 1850. dazzling with goldleaf; imitation apples, pears, and walnuts, crammed with surprises; in short, as a pretty child before me delightedly whispered to another pretty child, her bosom friend, “There was everything, and more." This motley collection of odd objects, clustering on the tree like magic fruit, and flashing back the bright looks directed towards it from every side some of the diamond-eyes admiring it were hardly on a level with the table, and a few were languishing in timid wonder on the bosoms of pretty mothers, aunts, and nursesmade a lively realization of the fancies of childhood; and set me thinking how all the trees that grow and all the things that come into existence on the earth, have their wild adornments at that well-remembered time. Being now at home again, and alone, the only person in the house awake, my thoughts are drawn back, by a fascination which I do not care to resist, to my own childhood. I begin to consider, what do we all remember best upon the branches of the Christmas Tree of our own young Christmas days, by which we climbed to real life. Straight, in the middle of the room, cramped in the freedom of its growth by no encircling walls or soon-reached ceiling, a shadowy tree arises; and, looking up into the dreamy brightness of its top-for I observe in this tree the singular property that it. appears to grow 1 In Staffordshire; a center for the manufacture of hardware, downward towards the earth-I look into my stiff and lazy little set of lazy-tongs; no old youngest Christmas recollections! All toys at first I find. Up yonder, among the green holly and red berries, is the Tumbler with his hands in his pockets, who wouldn't lie down, but whenever he was put upon the floor, persisted in rolling his fat body about, until he rolled himself still, and brought those lobster eyes of his to bear upon me when I affected to laugh very much, but in my heart of hearts was extremely doubtful of him. Close beside him is that infernal snuff-box, out of which there sprang a demoniacal Counsellor in a black gown, with an obnoxious head of hair, and a red cloth mouth, wide open, who was not to be endured on any terms, but could not be put away either; for he used suddenly, in a highly magnified state, to fly out of Mammoth Snuffboxes in dreams, when least expected. Nor is the frog with cobbler's wax on his tail, far off; for there was no knowing where he wouldn't jump; and when he flew over the candle, and came upon one's hand with that spotted back-red on a green ground-he was horrible. The cardboard lady in a blue-silk skirt, who was stood up against the candlestick to dance, and whom I see on the same branch, was milder, and was beautiful; but I can't say as much for the larger cardboard man, who used to be hung against the wall and pulled by a string; there was a sinister expression in that nose of his; and when he got his legs round his neck (which he very often did), he was ghastly, and not a creature to be alone with. woman, made of wires and a brown-paper composition, cutting up a pie for two small children; could give me a permanent comfort, for a long time. Nor was it any satisfaction to be shown the Mask, and see that it was made of paper, or to have it locked up and be assured that no one wore it. The mere recollection of that fixed face, the mere knowledge of its existence anywhere, was sufficient to awake me in the night all perspiration and horror, with, "O I know it's coming! O the mask!'' I never wondered what the dear old donkey with the panniers-there he is!-was made of, then! His hide was real to the touch, I recollect. And the great black horse with the round red spots all over him-the horse that I could even get upon-I never wondered what had brought him to that strange condition, or thought that such a horse was not commonly seen at Newmarket.2 The four horses of no colour, next to him, that went into the waggon of cheeses, and could be taken out and stabled under the piano, appear to have bits of furtippet for their tails, and other bits for their manes, and to stand on pegs instead of legs; but it was not so when they were brought home for a Christmas present. They were all right, then; neither was their harness unceremoniously nailed into their chests, as appears to be the case now. The tinkling works of the musiccart, I did find out to be made of quill toothpicks and wire; and I always thought that little tumbler in his shirt sleeves, perpetually swarming up one side of a wooden frame, and coming down, head foremost, on the other, rather a weak-minded person-though goodnatured; but the Jacob's Ladder,3 next him, made of little squares of red wood, that went flapping and clattering over one another, each developing a different picture, and the whole enlivened by small bells, was a mighty marvel and a great delight. When did that dreadful Mask first look at me? Who put it on, and why was I so fright ened that the sight of it is an era in my life? It is not a hideous visage in itself; it is even meant to be droll; why then were its stolid | features so intolerable? Surely not because it hid the wearer's face. An apron would have done as much; and though I should have preferred even the apron away, it would not have Ah! The Doll's house!-of which I was not been absolutely insupportable, like the mask. proprietor, but where I visited. I don't admire Was it the immovability of the mask? The the Houses of Parliament half so much as that doll's face was immovable, but I was not afraid | stone-fronted mansion with real glass windows, of her. Perhaps that fixed and set change and door-steps, and a real balcony-greener coming over a real face, infused into my quickened heart some remote suggestion and dread of the universal change that is to come on every face, and make it still? Nothing reconciled me to it. No drummers, from whom proceeded a melancholy chirping on the turning of a handle; no regiment of soldiers, with a mute band, taken out of a box, and fitted, one by one, upon a than I ever see now, except at watering-places; extensible tongs, commonly used for picking up objects at a dis tance, 3 Name taken from Gen esis, xxviii, 12. the fiction of a staircase), it was but to shut it up again, and I could believe. Even open, there were three distinct rooms in it: a sittingroom and bedroom, elegantly furnished, and best of all, a kitchen, with uncommonly soft fire-irons, a plentiful assortment of diminutive utensils-oh, the warming-pan!-and a tin mancook in profile, who was always going to fry two fish. What Barmecide justice have I done to the noble feasts wherein the set of wooden platters figured, each with its own peculiar delicacy, as a ham or turkey, glued tight on to it, and garnished with something green, which I recollect as moss! Could all the Temperance Societies of these later days, united, give me such a tea-drinking as I have had through the means of yonder little set of blue crockery, which really would hold liquid (it ran out of the small wooden cask, I recollect, and tasted of matches), and which made tea, nectar. And if the two legs of the ineffectual little sugartongs did tumble over one another, and want purpose, like Punch's hands, what does it matter? And if I did once shriek out, as a poisoned child, and strike the fashionable company with consternation, by reason of having drunk a little teaspoon, inadvertently dissolved in too hot tea, I was never the worse for it, except by a powder! ness, and his shoes of swiftness! Again those old meditations come upon me as I gaze up at him; and I debate within myself whether there was more than one Jack (which I am loth to believe possible), or only one genuine original admirable Jack, who achieved all the recorded exploits. Good for Christmas time is the ruddy colour of the cloak, in which—the tree making a forest of itself for her to trip through, with her basket-Little Red Riding-Hood comes to me one Christmas Eve to give me information of the cruelty and treachery of that dissembling Wolf who ate her grandmother, without making any impression on his appetite, and then ate her, after making that ferocious joke about his teeth. She was my first love. I felt that if I could have married Little Red Riding-Hood, I should have known perfect bliss. But, it was not to be; and there was nothing for it but to look out the Wolf in the Noah's Ark there, and put him late in the procession on the table, as a monster who was to be degraded. O the wonderful Noah's Ark! It was not found seaworthy when put in a washing-tub, and the animals were crammed in at the roof, and needed to have their legs well shaken down before they could be got in, even there-and then, ten to one but they began to tumble Upon the next branches of the tree, lower out at the door, which was but imperfectly down, hard by the green roller and miniature fastened with a wire latch—but what was that gardening-tools, how thick the books begin to against it! Consider the noble fly, a size or hang. Thin books, in themselves, at first, but two smaller than the elephant: the lady-bird, many of them, and with deliciously smooth cov- the butterfly—all triumphs of art! Consider ers of bright red or green. What fat black the goose, whose feet were so small, and whose letters to begin with! "A was an archer, and balance was so indifferent, that he usually shot at a frog." Of course he was. He was tumbled forward, and knocked down all the an apple-pie also, and there he is! He was a animal creation. Consider Noah and his famgood many things in his time, was A, and soily, like idiotic tobacco-stoppers;1 and how the were most of his friends, except X, who had so little versatility, that I never knew him to get beyond Xerxes or Xantippe-like Y, who was always confined to a Yacht or a Yew Tree; and Z condemned for ever to be a Zebra or a Zany. But now, the very tree itself changes, and becomes a bean-stalk-the marvellous beanstalk up which Jack climbed to the Giant's house! And now, those dreadfully interesting, double-headed giants, with their clubs over their shoulders, begin to stride along the boughs in a perfect throng, dragging knights and ladies home for dinner by the hair of their heads. And Jack-how noble, with his sword of sharp leopard stuck to warm little fingers; and how the tails of the larger animals used gradually to resolve themselves into frayed bits of string! Hush! Again a forest, and somebody up in a tree-not Robin Hood, not Valentine, not the Yellow Dwarf (I have passed him and all Mother Bunch's wonders,2 without mention), but an Eastern King with a glittering scimitar and turban. By Allah! two Eastern Kings, for I see another, looking over his shoulder! Down upon the grass, at the tree's foot, lies the full length of a coal-black Giant, stretched asleep, with his head in a lady's lap; and near them is a glass box, fastened with four locks of shining steel, in which he keeps the lady |