stairs by some facetious wag, who would crown the joke by singing, as I got into the uncomfortable bed,

"A wet sheet and a flowing sea."

Neither was this all, for very frequently, as I was conning over the "quis te mihi casus ademit" of the Latin Grammar, which I had to say in the morning, I found an apt illustration of the passage, in the spontaneous departure of my upper bed-clothes. Add to this the misery of early rising, and I am sure the most bigoted "laudator temporis acti" will pardon my scepticism with respect to the all-excelling felicity of scholastic life. In this manner does almost every boy regard the axiom, and it is natural that he should do so.

But, when the schoolboy has grown to manhood, and a few of the more weighty cares of life have come upon him; when he has emerged from the antechamber of life, and has gone forth into the troubled ocean of the world; when he is called upon by business to mix with spirits deadened by use, and hearts grown callous by time, he sighs as he remembers his school days; when his young mind was filled with the bright anticipations of the future; when he knew no ambition beyond reaching the head of his class, or excelling his companions at their games; when his intercourse was with hearts as light and happy as his own, and his friendships unalloyed with that suspicious caution which his after years have taught him to assume. Then does he look back with regret, and almost smiles as he perceives how exact a model of the world was the little school with which he mingled: the same passions, the same feelings, the same characters, he sees in one as in the other, with this only difference, that he sees them in the world more strongly marked, more hardened, and more irreclaimable, presenting to his view the same faults, but without their redeeming qualities

"The weeds of vice, without the flower."

The boy who at school used to speculate in knives, marbles, bats, and balls, is but an embryo of that sordid character we meet in after life, whose soul is absorbed in gain, but whose vice is now unsoftened by those traits of goodness which are ever the companions of the young. The bully of the school is but a picture in miniature of that restless tyrant whom we still see domineering, proud, and malicious. The boy who used to fag is not wanting either; we see him in the poor and industrious plodder, who

appears to be for ever rolling his gigantic stone to the summit of the hill, yet never nearer to the end of his labour. The idle boy we still see sauntering through life, with no fixed purpose, no steadiness of character. In short, we may trace out in the world all and each of the characters of school, if we will only exercise our faculties of observation. And yet there is something sad in the recollections of our school days. The past is ever a melancholy theme, and few can recall its bright hours without betraying those deep, though transient, emotions, which tell us how near and dear to our tenderest feelings are the years that are gone. But how much more sad is it to call back to our view those days which linked us to so many blissful associations? Who can remember the friendships of early life without a sigh, to think how death, separation, and estrangement, have severed them? Who can recall its bright hopes without a tear, as he sees them daily vanishing beneath the influence of cold reality? But sadder and sadder yet is it to call up once more the old familiar faces, beaming with happiness, supplied by the gladsome hearts which had then felt no check, experienced no disappointment, broken beneath no care! Alas! how changed may they be now! Where are now the hands we clasped in the brotherhood of youth? They may be cold in death, or withheld by estrangement. Where are the eyes that used to be bright and smiling? They may be sunken by anguish and misery, or turned away from us for ever. Where are the voices that used to echo in our ears, in the joyous tones of mirth and hilarity? They may be hushed for ever in death, or they may be whispering low the accents of despair.

Even the schoolmaster and the school-house,-so full of reminiscences, so linked with the past,-even these are changed. The master has grown old, and has but slight recollection of us; others have filled our places and taken our tasks, and we are forgotten. Time, too, hath left his footprints on his outward appearance, as upon his heart-his hair has grown more grey, his brow more wrinkled, his temper more irritable. The school-house, too, is changed. We may find our name carved in rude letters on some old desk or form, but others are beside it whose sounds are unknown to us. We may find our old seat, and our former cupboard, but they are occupied by others now. The play-ground is not what it was. There may be still the remains of our garden and the scene of our games, but the one has run wild, and, as we look once more upon the other, the faces which, rosy with health and exercise, are

turned towards us, are new and strange.

Truly may we say, Alas! how impossible is

"Our own place knoweth us no more." it to go back in life! We may call back the scenes, the companions, the sports, and the occupations of the past, but the feelings of those days are gone from us for ever. The world, with its chilling influence, has swept them away; and we see in the old school-house an emblem-apt and perfect-of our own changed hearts. The place and the heart are the same, but their occupants, how different! We have still our games, our occupations; but they are not, as they were, unalloyed: love, ambition, and business, are the games of manhood; but with how changed feelings do we engage in them, from those with which we joined in the sports of boyhood! We have still our successes, but they warm us not as of old; we have still our companions, but they are not those happy hearts we once were mated with; we have still friends, but, as we look round our circle, we cannot help remembering with a sigh the boon companions, free of heart, joyous, and unwarped by disappointment, that are gone, we know not whither; and the tales that yet remain treasured in our minds, when the lips that told them are silent in death, and many of the ears that heard them closed for ever.

Of our own familiar friends, how few traces have we! The grave may tell a melancholy tale of some; others may be waiting, with broken hearts, for its repose, and longing for

"The sleep that brings no wildering dreams, no voices from the past:"some may be passing on the stormy ocean; others enduring the privations of the battle-field: some may have risen in the world, and have forgotten us; others may be struggling with adversity, and weighed down by care: some may have the household treasures of an affectionate wife, and fair, happy children, sporting beside their hearths; others may be blighted in heart, and mourning, sad, and lonely, the bursting of that bright bubble of their love which time never can restore. In short, they have mingled with the world, and we see them no more. Or if we do meet them in our journey through life, how different is the greeting of manhood from the cordial grasp which spoke the welcome of our boyish days! Time has changed us and them, not more in the outward semblance than in "that within which passeth show;" and the warmth of early friendship has been chilled by the blasts of the world. All is changed, ourselves and them, and our relations to each other;

FRAGMENT OF ERINNA'S ODE TO FORtitude.

239

and we meet coldly, formally, and reservedly, those who were once the mirrors of our own hearts.

Of my own school-mates, I have met but few, and they are changed-alas! how changed!-but a few yet remain; and it is to them I would look for that friendship which endears the evening of life-to them I would dedicate these remarks; and it is my most fervent prayer that the links which bind us may never be broken : may our hearts still cling together in the darker paths of our way of life as firmly and as fondly as now, when, grey-haired and feeble-kneed, we indulge, as we totter to the grave, in the reminiscences of the past, and exclaim with the poet

"Ah! happy years-once more who would not be a boy?"

C. H. H.

TRANSLATED FRAGMENT OF ERINNA'S* ODE TO FORTITUDE.

MARS' proudest daughter! thou who flashest now,
Bright, with the golden mitre on thy brow!
High queen of war! whose glorious destinies
Upon thy nod await,

As on the Olympian throne thou dost arise,
Renowned and all serene, in guidance meet
Of thine irrefragable sway, where beat
All storms, nor shake its fate!

Thou rulest on the earth, all to constrain
Beneath the yoke of thine almighty rein,
And ocean's heaving breasts, while tempests run,
Beneath its curb incline;

And cities proud, and Time,—that mightiest one,
That shaketh all, all customs doth unbind,
And swatheth thrones in his strong, changeful wind!-
Doth bring no change for thine!

Oh! meet for thee, with warlike sons that throng
Round thee, their beauteous mother, standing strong
In lineaments of bravery, to unfold

* A Greek poetess, contemporary with Sappho, with whom she shared the title of the "Tenth Muse." Of all her works, the above Fragment alone remains.

The scene is in Portugal. The time about the year 1219.

SCENE I.-A Forest.

DON PEDRO and DON ALVARO RODRI

GUEZ with a troop of Christians in the Moorish dress.

PEDRO. Keep close, and be silent as the grave. I and Don Alvaro will watch for the arrival of Brafama and his party; and when we shout, "Down with the bridegroom!" rush out, and kill every man of them. Hush! I hear a noise. (The men retire into the forest, and their two leaders stand on the watch. In a short time Brafama and his attendants pass by. Don Pedro shouts, "Down with the bridegroom!" and his men rush out. The Moors call out, " An ambush!" and draw their swords.)

ALVARO. (attacking Brafama.) Yield thee, Moor! for thou shalt not see thy bride to-day.

BRAFAMA. Yield thou, vile misbeliever! or thou shalt find a Moor who fighteth for his bride is a fearful foe. (They fight, and all the Moors are killed. Brafama is wounded, and falls to the ground.)

PEDRO. Leave Brafama on this bank, and let us hasten to Arouche. When we approach I will ride forward, and call out that we conduct Brafama; they will open the gates for us, and we shall take the town easily. If they resist, spare them not; and

*

During the wars of Alfonzo II. with the Mahommedans, the important town of Arouche, on the eastern bank of the Guadiana, was recovered in the following singular manner; and from that day the town was known by the name of Moura, or the female Moor.