the youthful excesses so common in those days.
From this pamphlet I give an extract, as it is scarce; it began with blank verse and ended with rhyme, all being for the period courageously moral and religious. The end is as thus:—
"Enough, sad Muse, enough thy downward flight
Has cleft with wearied wing the shades of night:
Be drest in smiles, forget the gloomy past,
And, cygnet-like, sing sweeter at the last,
Strike on the chords of joy a happier strain
And be thyself, thy cheerful self, again.
Hail, goodly company of generous youth,
Hail, nobler sons of Temperance and Truth!
I see attendant Ariels circling there,
Light-hearted Innocence, and Prudence fair,
Sweet Chastity, young Hope, and Reason bright,
And modest Love, in heaven's own hues bedight,
Staid Diligence, and Health, and holy Grace,
And gentle Happiness with smiling face—
All, all are there; and Sorrow speeds away,
And Melancholy flees the sons of day;
Dull Care is gladden'd with reflected light,
And wounded Sin flies sickening at the sight.
"My friends, whose innate worth the wise man's praise
And the fool's censure equally betrays,
Accept the humble blessing of my Muse,
Nor your assistance to her aim refuse,
She asks not flattery, but let her claim
A kind perusal, and a secret name."
I scarcely like to mention it, as a literary accident, but being a curious and unique anecdote it shall be stated. I had the honour at Christ Church of being prizetaker of Dr. Burton's theological essay, "The Reconciliation of Matthew and John," when Gladstone who had also contested it, stood second; and when Dr. Burton had me before him to give me the £25 worth of books, he requested me to allow Mr. Gladstone to have £5 worth of them, as he was so good a second. Certainly such an easy concession was one of my earliest literary triumphs.
My first acquaintance with Gladstone, whom I have known from those college days now for more than five and fifty years, was a memorable event, and may thus be worthy of mention. It was at that time not a common thing for undergraduates to go to the communion at Christchurch Cathedral—that holy celebration being supposed to be for the particular benefit of Dean and Canons, and Masters of Arts. So when two undergraduates went out of the chancel together after communion, which they had both attended, it is small wonder that they addressed each other genially, in defiance of Oxford etiquette, nor that a friendship so well begun has continued to this hour. Not that I have always approved of my friend's politics; multitudes of letters through many years have passed between us, wherein if I have sometimes ventured to praise or to blame, I have always been answered both gratefully and modestly: but I have ever tried to hold the balance equally too, according to my lights, and if at one time (on occasion of the great Oxford election, 1864) I published a somewhat famous copy of verses, ending with
"Orator, statesman, scholar, wit, and sage,
The Crichton—more, the Gladstone of the age,"
my faithfulness must in after years confess to a well-known palinode (one of my "Three Hundred Sonnets") commencing
"Beware of mere delusive eloquence,"
and a still more caustic lyric, beginning with
"Glozing tongue whom none can trust,"
and so forth, as a caution against a great man's special gift, so proverbially dangerous. Some of our most honest Ministers, e.g., Althorpe and Wellington, have been very bad speakers: some of our most eloquent orators have proved very bad Ministers.
And in this place I may introduce some account, long ago in print, of the famous Aristotle class under the tutorship of Mr. Biscoe at Christ Church, wherein (among far nobler and better scholars) your present confessor took the lowest seat.
Fifty years ago Biscoe's Aristotle class at Christ Church was comprised almost wholly of men who have since become celebrated, some in a remarkable degree; and, as we believe that so many names, afterwards attaining to great distinction, have rarely been associated at one lecture-board, either at Oxford or elsewhere, it may be allowed to one who counts himself the least and lowest of the company to pen this brief note of those old Aristotelians.
Let the central figure be Gladstone—ever from youth up the beloved and admired of many personal intimates (although some may be politically his opponents). Always the foremost man, warm-hearted, earnest, hard-working, and religious, he had a following even in his teens; and it is noticeable that a choice lot of young and keen intelligences of Eton and Christ Church formed themselves into a small social sort of club, styled, in compliment to their founder's initials, the "W. E. G."
Next to Gladstone Lord Lincoln used to sit, his first parliamentary patron at Newark, and through life to death his friend. We all know how admirably in many offices of State the late Duke of Newcastle served his country, and what a good and wise Mentor he was to a grateful Telemachus in America.
Canning may be mentioned thirdly; then a good-looking youth with classic features and a florid cheek, since gone to "the land of the departed" after having healed up the wounds of India as her Governor-General. Next to the writer, one on each side, sat two more Governors-General in futuro, though then both younger sons and commoners, and now both also gone to their reward elsewhere; these were Bruce, afterwards Lord Elgin, and Ramsay, Lord Dalhousie; the one famous from Canada to China, the other noted for his triumphs in the Punjaub. When at Toronto in 1851, the writer was welcomed to the splendid hospitality of Lord Elgin, and the very lecture-room here depicted was mentioned as "a rare gathering of notables." Lord Abercorn was of the class, a future viceroy; Lord Douglas, lately Duke of Hamilton, handsome as an Apollo, and who married a Princess of Baden; and if Lord Waterford was infrequent in his attendance, at least he was eligible, and should not be omitted as a various sort of eccentric celebrity. Then Phillimore was there, now our Dean of the Arches; Scott and Liddell, both heads of houses, and even then conspiring together for their great Dictionary. Curzon too (lately Lord De la Zouch) was at the table, meditating Armenian and Levantine travels, and longing in spirit for those Byzantine MSS. preserved at Parham, where the writer has delighted to inspect them; how nearly Tischendorf was anticipated in his fortunate find of that earliest Scripture, no one knows better than Lord Zouch, who must have been close upon that great and important discovery! Doyle, now Professor of Poetry, Hill, of Mathematics, Vaughan, of History—all were of this wonderful class; as also the Earl of Selkirk, celebrated as a mathematician; Bishops Hamilton, Denison, and Wordsworth; and Cornewall Lewis, late Chancellor of the Exchequer; and Kynaston, Head Master of St. Paul's; and a member of Parliament or two, as, for example, Leader, once popular for Westminster.
Now, other names of almost equal eminence may have been here accidentally
