I knew that Time was fleeting fast,
I knew thy pleasures could not last;
I knew too well that riper age
Must step upon a busier stage;
Yet when around thine ancient towers
I pass'd secure my tranquil hours,
Or heard beneath thine aged trees
The drowsy humming of the bees,
Or wander'd by thy winding stream,
I would not check my fancy's dream;
Glad in my transitory bliss,

I reck'd not of an hour like this;
And now the truth comes swiftly on,
The truth I would not think upon;
The last sad thought, so oft delay'd,
"These joys are only born to fade."

Ye Guardians of my earliest days,
Ye Patrons of my earliest lays,
Custom reminds me, that to you
Thanks and Farewell to-day are due.
Thanks and farewell I give you,—not
(As some that leave this holy spot),.
In labour'd phrase, and polish'd lie,
Wrought by the forge of flattery,
But with a heart, that cannot tell
The half of what it feels so well.
If I am backward to express,
Believe my love is not the less;
Be kind as you are wont, and view
A thousand thanks in one "Adieu!"
My future life shall strive to show
I wish to pay the debt I owe;
The labours that ye give to May
September's fruits shall best repay.

And you, my friends, who loved to share Whate'er was mine, of sport or care; Antagonists at Fives or Chess,

Friends in the Play-ground or the Press,

I leave ye now; and all that rests
Of mutual tastes, and loving breasts,
Is the lone vision, that shall come,
Where'er my studies and my home,
To cheer my labour and my pain,
And make me feel a boy again.

Yes! when at last I sit me down,
A scholar, in my cap and gown;
When learned doctrines, dark and deep,
Move me to passion or to sleep,

When Clio yields to Logic's wrangles,
And Long and Short give place to Angles,
When stern Mathesis makes it treason
To like a Rhyme, or scorn a Reason,
With aching head, and weary wit,
Your parted friend shall often sit,
Till Fancy's magic spell hath bound him,
And lonely musings flit around him ;
Then shall ye come, with all your wiles,
Of gladdening sounds, and warming smiles;
And nought shall meet his eye or ear,
Yet shall he deem your souls are near.

Others may clothe their Valediction
With all the tinsel charms of fiction;
And one may sing of Father Thames,
And Naiads, with a hundred names;
And find a Pindus here, and own
The College pump a Helicon;

And search for Gods about the College,
Of which old Homer had no knowledge.

And one may eloquently tell

The triumphs of the Windsor belle,
And sing of Mira's lips and eyes,
In oft-repeated ecstasies;

Oh! he hath much and wondrous skill,
To paint the looks that wound and kill,
As the poor maid is doom'd to brook,
Unconsciously, her lover's look,

And smiles, and talks, until the Poet
Hears the band play, and does not know it.
To speak the plain and simple truth,
I always was a jesting youth;
A friend to merriment and fun,
No foe to quibble and to pun;
Therefore I cannot feign a tear;
And, now that I have utter'd here
A few unrounded accents, bred
More from the heart than from the head,
Honestly felt, and plainly told,

My lyre is still, my fancy cold.

Which read, and read, we roll our eyes in doubt,
And gravely wonder what it is about."-

BAVIAD.

I.

I AM a great admirer of flowers.

In my childish days my predilection for these little toys of Nature amounted to an absolute passion. They seemed to me vested with a mysterious and unearthly beauty," the glory and freshness of a dream." But those days are gone; boyhood is past, and the enchanted

* These words, which, in the first edition, were quoted as a fragment of Anacreon, form part of a Greek version of a well-known nursery song, by a gentleman of distinguished classical attainments in the University of Cambridge. As this circumstance has been misunderstood, or misrepresented, so as to fix a charge of intentional plagiarism on the writer of

atmosphere which boyhood carries about with it, and through which it beholds all things arrayed in colours not their own, is vanished likewise.

66

Nothing can bring back the hour

Of splendor in the grass, or glory in the flower."

They are now mere terrestrial objects-and yet how passing beautiful!-Since my flower-loving days, a period of many years has elapsed, during which I have had few opportunities of access to my early favourites; it is only within the last month or two that I have resumed my acquaintance with them, and they now wear the charm of novelty combined with that of early recollec-* tions. I love them all, from the piony to the heart'sease--from the sublime hollyhock to the unpretending laburnum.

It was but the other day, that, tired out with doubts and dochmiacs, I immersed myself in my friend — 's garden. What a delightful renewal of old acquaintance! There was the glowing marigold, breathing forth its rich oriental fragrance; the pretty rustic honeysuckle, fitly named; the laburnum, with its profusion of minute sweetnesses; the royal sunflower, in its amplitude of

the article, he has thought it worth while to make the above statement. He has also obtained permission to publish the whole of the translation.

Ποῖ σὺ, χηνίδιον, ἀλαίνεις;
Βάθρα κλιμάκων ἀμείβω·
Παρθενώνας ἐμβατεύω

Σὸς πατὴρ μακροσκελής
Εἰς θεοὺς οὐκ εὐσεβεῖ
Θατέρου σκέλους λαβών νιν,
Τὸν ἀσεβέστατον γέροντα,

Ρίπτε κλιμάκων ἄπαι
Ετ δὲ, καταπεσών, λιταῖσι

Θεοκλυτῶν οὐ κείσεται,
Θατέρου σκέλους λαβών νιν,
'Ρίπτ ̓ ἐς ἀυτὸν οὔρανον.

charms, resembling that noble creature of Nature's handywork, Mrs. ; the genial wall-flower, reminding me of my cordial cousin, Fanny H; the virgin lily, towering in stately meekness, like my dear kinswoman, M. F, the most matronly of maidens, and the most maidenly of matrons; and the gallantlyattired sweet-pea, and the spruce sweet-william; and the rose, the queen of them all, in her many forms, all beautiful; the red rose, and the Austrian rose, with its luxurious purple leaves; and the white rose, as Cowper describes it, throwing up into the gloom of the neighbouring yew or cypress

"Its silver globes, light as the foamy surf

Which the wind severs from the broken wave.'

Even the yellow Dutch rose pleases me for its name's sake. There is something really superior in the pleasure you derive from a rose. One feasts one's eyes on the colour of a tulip, with the same sensations one experiences in reading Darwin's Poems-pleased with the gaudy hues, and nothing more; and the fragrance of the jonquil is, after all, but a mechanical sort of enjoyment; but there is something of sentiment in a rose. It is beautiful, too, at all stages of its existence-whether in the bud, or full-blown, or newly opening---like Caroline Mowbray, already exquisitely fair, yet giving promise of a rich arrear of beauties, hid one within the other, fold behind fold.- -But I am losing myself.

I have compared sundry flowers to sundry women--and, indeed, there appears to be an analogy between women and flower kind,--both beautiful, and delicate, and weak-gay in attire, and requiring assiduous care and fostering. Surely flowers are the womankind of inanimate nature. Man may take the trees and shrubs for his emblems;--the venerable elm may signify wisdom; and the pine, warring with the storm, be the type of

courage--