&c.; the whole forming a scene of stately and impressive beauty not to be conceived of without seeing it, and not to be surpassed. Let us now return to our inn to breakfast, after having thus completed, I hope not uninterestingly, the first portion of our summer's day.

There are few things pleasanter, upon occasion, than the regular confusion of a well-frequented inn, in a populous country town. It keeps speculation perpetually alive. In such a scene the mind can never flag, and can never recoil upon itself. A melancholy man should live in the coffee-room of a country inn, whose windows look to the high street. It is a place exorcised of all bad spirits, except licensed ones: and as these only come, unlike Glendower's, when they are called for, we have no right to complain even of them. Here, while discussing our substantial meal (for breakfast is too slight a name for it) of fresh eggs, ham, water-cresses, and coffee--(ever while you live take coffee at an inn, and tea at home; but seek not to know the why? lest I should lack an answer;)—here, while looking out upon the smart shops, the nicely-paved streets, and the trim damsels that are pacing them, mixed here and there with the students in their half gallant, half scholar-like attire, let us endeavour to forget, for a time, the splendid scene we have just been contemplating; otherwise we shall not be duly prepared and fitted to appreciate that which is to come: for we have, as yet, had but a slight taste of the architectural as well as picturesque riches of this magnificent spot.

Having forgotten, then, for a moment, if we can, the rich and varied scene just presented to us, let us now look at one altogether different, but still more complete in its kind, and still more impressively beautiful beautiful to a degree that is nothing less than affecting. Quitting the High street through the gate of All Souls, we find ourselves in the outer quadrangle of that college. Here we will only notice the gorgeous painted and gilded sundial, which looks down upon us from the front of the chapel; and which, in the midst of the grey antiquity that surrounds it, looks like a richly jewelled diadem glittering on the forehead of a faded and wrinkled beauty. Passing for a moment out of this square through a low portal on the right, we reach a small inner court, the sweetest of its kind in Oxford-braided all over one side with ivy, from the ground to the summit of the walls-festooned from window to window by various parasite plants, clinging by their tendrils and hanging their gorgeously-tinted leaves up to the very chimney tops;-and below, the star of the jasmin, shining not unheeded, however mild its light. Returning reluctantly from this sweet spot, we pass through another portal into the inner quadrangle. It is to view the unrivalled coup-d'ail from the centre of this court that we are here. Notwithstanding the amazing number of buildings forming this University, we are never tired of looking at them, on account of their infinite variety of form and character. But I fear any thing like a detailed description of many of them would very soon have this effect. Still, however, I cannot resist the temptation of endeavouring to convey some notion, however indistinct, of the scene which presents itself from the centre of this court; because there is unquestionably nothing of the kind so beautiful in existence. Standing, then, in the centre of the western side of this court, with its emerald carpet of turf spread out

at our feet, we see before us two lofty towers, flanked by ranges of building which occupy the rest of that side of the square. These towers, though entirely differing from all others in Oxford, are of the most chaste and exquisite beauty. They are square, and consist of three compartments, diminishing in size as they rise above each other; the lower compartment surmounted at the corners by knotted pinnacles, and each finished by a pierced parapet. Between the lower compartment of these towers is the stately entrance to the Common Room; and the ranges of buildings which flank the towers, and complete the side of the square, are supported by rich graduated buttresses, each terminating in a knotted pinnacle rising considerably above the roof. On the opposite side to this runs a plain but elegant colonnade, in the centre of which is a handsomely worked iron gateway, surmounted by a low turret, richly ornamented, and taking the form of an imperial The remaining sides of the court consist of uniform ranges of building, pierced by exquisitely-formed pointed windows, and supported at intervals by graduated buttresses, which are, like those on the eastern side, terminated by rich knotted pinnacles.

crown.

Thus far of the court, or quadrangle, which consists of buildings forming part of the college itself; and even this may be considered as superior in beauty to any other in Oxford. But, as if to complete and perfect the scene, and render it quite unrivalled, it takes in a view of several of the finest single objects belonging to the University, which seem to look down upon it in silent admiration, as if willingly admitting its claims. At the left corner of the square, looking from the sister towers, rises the sweet spire of St. Mary's Church, and by its side, like a younger sister, that of All Saints. Immediately to the right of the turretted gateway stands the bold and majestic dome of the Radcliffe Library; a little beyond the right hand corner come clustering up the venerable pinnacles of the Schools; and still farther to the right rise a few lofty poplars, that seem to wave their green tops as if to keep a living watch and ward over the ineffable beauty of the scene beneath them. Except the foregoing, and the clouds and sky, not a ingle object of any kind whatever can be seen from any part of this spot.

It was my intention, in this our first walk, to have described, in addition to the foregoing scenes, the splendid one which presents itself from Radcliffe Square; also the Christ Church Meadows and Elm Walk, the evening scene on the Isis, &c.: but I find that I have already transgressed my limits; I must therefore defer, till a future occasion, the pleasure of accompanying the reader to the spots just named. In the mean time, if I were able (which I am not) to convey an adequate notion of the sensations these objects excite in me, I should not attempt to do so in this place, because my purpose is, not to explain what I feel, but to induce or excite others to feel for themselves. To this end, those who cannot visit these scenes in fact, I would convey thither in fancy; and those who can visit them I would persuade to do so forthwith promising them, as I confidently may, that if they explore Enrope, they will find, in its way, nothing to be compared with the University of Oxford.

1

PETER PINDARICS.

The Collegian and the Porter.

AT Trin. Coll. Cam.-which means, in proper spelling,
Trinity College, Cambridge, there resided
One Harry Dashington-a youth excelling
In all the learning commonly provided
For those who choose that classic station
For finishing their education :-
That is he understood computing
The odds at any race or match;
Was a dead hand at pigeon-shooting;

Could kick up rows-knock down the watch-
Play truant and the rake at random-
Drink-tie cravats-and drive a tandem.

Remonstrance, fine, and rustication,
So far from working reformation,

Seem'd but to make his lapses greater,
Till he was warn'd that next offence
Would have this certain consequence―
Expulsion from his Alma Mater.

One need not be a necromancer

To guess that, with so wild a wight,
The next offence occurr'd next night;
When our Incurable came rolling

Home as the midnight chimes were tolling,

And rang the College bell.-No answer.

The second peal was vain-the third
Made the street echo its alarum ;
When to his great delight he heard
The sordid Janitor, old Ben,

Rousing and growling in his den.—

"Who's there?—I s'pose young Harum-scarum.”

""Tis I, my worthy Ben-'tis Harry."

"Ay, so I thought-and there you'll tarry.

'Tis past the hour-the gates are closed,

You know my orders-I shall lose
My place if I undo the door."—
"And I”—(young Hopeful interposed)
Shall be expell'd if you refuse,
So prythee"-Ben began to snore.—

"I'm wet," cried Harry, "to the skin,
Hip! hallo! Ben !-don't be a ninny;
Beneath the gate I 've thrust a guinea,
So tumble out and let me in."

"Humph!" growl'd the greedy old curmudgeon,
Half overjoy'd and half in dudgeon,

66

Now you may pass; but make no fuss,

On tiptoe walk, and hold your prate."-
"Look on the stones, old Cerberus,"
Cried Harry as he pass'd the gate,
"I've dropp'd a shilling-take the light,
You'll find it just outside-good night."

Behold the porter in his shirt,

Cursing the rain which never stopp'd,
Groping and raking in the dirt,
And all without success; but that
Is hardly to be wonder'd at,

Because no shilling had been dropp'd;
So he gave o'er the search at last,
Regain'd the door, and found it fast!-

With sundry oaths and growls and groans,
He rang once-twice-and thrice; and then,
Mingled with giggling heard the tones
Of Harry mimicking old Ben.-

"Who's there?-'Tis really a disgrace
To ring so loud-I've lock'd the gate-
I know my duty-'Tis too late-
You wouldn't have me lose my place."—

"Psha! Mr. Dashington: remember,
This is the middle of November.

I'm stripp'd;-'tis raining cats and dogs." "Hush, hush!" quoth Hal; "I'm fast asleep;" And then he snored as loud and deep

As a whole company of hogs.

"But, harkye, Ben, I'll grant admittance At the saine rate I paid myself."

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Nay, master, leave me half the pittance,"
Replied the avaricious elf.

THE Duc de Broglie was at Coppet when I visited it, which forbade all attempts at seeing the interior. It mattered little. Nothing can be more contemptible than the pedantry which hoards up the petty memorials of genius, and boasts a pen, a chair, or a chamber, as the sole substantial relics of a great mind. Familiar objects of domestic association may recall the memory of a friend, of our parents, or children; but genius cannot be viewed by such means. Its relation towards us is not of that individual kind;-it is above either our friendship or tenderness. Nor should we intrude upon the privacy of its sons, living or dead. Besides, this curiosity baffles itself; it is like becoming valet to a hero for the sake of admiring him more closely; by which both hero and self-respect are lost. We English, not famed for being over-civil to the living, are in this way extremely impertinent towards the dead. We care as little for coffin or sarcophagus, as for tower and bastion, and seem determined to get at the inside of every thing. From Robert Bruce to Tom Paine, no bones can rest for us. A French Emperor cannot have handled a pen which we will not purchase, nor can a poet leave an arm-chair that we will not be seated in. It is strange, too, that we, who are the most incredulous pilgrims in the world, on the score of sacred relics, should be the most credulous as to those of literature and genius. "You are very Catholic in every thing but religion," observed a French gentleman, with whom I visited Chillon; you believe in this ring to which Bonnevard was chained; but if he had been a saint or a martyr, you would have laughed outright.'

As memorials of passion, of feeling, or misfortune, domestic relics are of powerful effect, for in such our interest is personal; or when they have belonged to the worldly great, for here the contrast speaks a mighty moral. Those who have beheld the humble cloak and bonnet still preserved in a chamber at Claremont, must have experienced the force of both these associations. But to link the memory of intellect with such petty objects, or to think we do homage to genius by such puerile curiosity, is the very bathos of sentiment.

In spite of all these arguments, it would have afforded us some satisfaction to have seen the salon, or the boudoir of Corinne. Beautiful as were the shores of Coppet, and the Leman that stretches beneath, it was impossible to link with them the spirit of De Staël ;-of her who despised all the beauties of mountain and lake, and preferred the filthiest street in Paris to the solitude of her Swiss home, so far as even to number the days passed there among her Dix Années d'Exil. I was at first much at a loss to conceive how such a want could be in a mind constituted like hers; but a few weeks' tour in Switzerland having given me a complete surfeit of the picturesque, I came more easily to understand apathy towards rural beauty in one brought up between the Jura and the Alps. That this, in her, proceeded less from any defect

The ring which they shew at Chillon, as that to which Bonnevard was chained, is evidently an imposture. It is much too small to have served such a purpose; the mortar about the stone is comparatively fresh; and it has been placed away from the light to avoid detection.