hands, and, swaying off the bough, slid downward, till my feet
struck against something which seemed to be tied to the cord.
And then, being smitten with a strong craving to know what this
thing might be, I crouched down upon^my heels, and, holding
fast to the cord with my right hand, stretched my left hand
downward. But just as I touched somewhat the cord brake,
and I fell again ; nor could I withold a. ..cry. . . .for that which
I had touched was the cold forehead and dank hair of a dead
man."
The boy's fear of the gulf beneath him till the
/swinging bough of the great tree stings him inta
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304 College Fiction.
aption; the roar of the wind in his ears; his utter
helplessness in the grip of the gale ; his swift journey
down the providential rope that is to bring him to
safety; and its gruesome ending round the neck of
a rebel's corpse that swings beneath the tree : these are
touches that enable our author to control the imagina-
tion of his readers, and show plainly that the root of the
matter in him.
In his account of the actual dissolution of the Priory
of Hexham, Mr Forster sticks very closely to the facts.
His chapter " of the coming of the King's Commisioners
to Hexham, and what they demanded, and how the
Master of Ovingham spoke with them from the Gate
House," is evidently based upon the well-known state
paper containing a report upon "the misdemeanours
of the religious persons of Hexham in the County of
Northumberland," and the language which our author
puts into the mouths of the chief speakers is for the
most part quoted by him verbatim from the report in
question. It is good to know that there is authority for
the resolute words spoken to the Commissioners by the
Master of Ovingham, as he stood on the top of the wall
like Shebna the Scribe, " being in harness with a bow
bent with arrows." "We be twenty brethren in this
House, and we shall die all, or that ye shall have the
House." In the subsequent negotiations also our
author follows the ancient record with the fidelity and
devotion of one in whom the lawyer has not quite
swallowed up the historian. But he misses one
picturesque phrase. After receiving the answer of the
House to the King's Highness, the Commissioners
^* recoiled back to Corbridge, where they lay all that
night."
But in spite of the care with which he has followed
the'records, our author does not appear to have ftiUy
grasped the social conditions of the period of which he
i3 writing. Aunt Matilda is the prey of a 19th century
|>assion for washing her nephew's face and hands, and
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To Amanda. 305
combing his hair. Her zeal for personal cleanliness
occupies an unnecessarily prominent place in the earlier
chapters, and is alluded to with wearisome persistence
some four or five times in the later ones. In these
daysy when soaps are various and cheap, such refer-
ences would be only rather tiresome ; in a Tudor story
Aunt Matilda is a quite impossible creation.
But such blemishes as these count for nothing against
the interest created by the adventures of Mr. Forster's
heroes, and the robust good sense with which he sets
himself to the task of describing them. We can only
hope that he will try his hand again at fiction, both for
his own honour and the greater glory of the Bird under
the shadow of whose wings he was reared.
J. R. T.
TO AMANDA.
Others may hymn the hues of morning's sky,
Or glories of the West when night draws nigh ;
The beauties of the moon-entrancid sea,
Or forests filled with summer melody.
I think of thee, nor know if skies be bright ;
I gaze on thee, nor heed the sunset light;
Thine influence sways me as the moon the sea;
Thy tender tones drown woodland melody.
Depart, and from my Heaven fades its bloom;
Leave me, and my bright West is filled with gloom;
Without thee hateful shines the moon-led sea,
Discordant sounds all forest melody.
P. L. B.
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BOADICEA.
When the British warrior queen,
Bleeding from the Roman rods,
Sought, with an indignant mien,
Counsel of her country's gods.
Sage beneath the spreading oak
Sat the Druid, hoary chief;
Every burning word he spoke,
Full of rage and full of grief.
" Princess ! if our aged eyes
"Weep upon thy matchless wrongs,
"'Tis because resentment ties
"All the terrors of our tongues.
"Rome shall perish — write that word
" In the blood that she has spilt ;
•* Perish hopeless and abhorred,
"Deep in ruin as in guilt.
"Rome, for empire far renowned,
" Tramples on a thousand states ;
"Soon her pride shall kiss the ground—
" Hark ! the Gaul is at her gates !
"Other Romans shall arise,
" Heedless of a soldier's name ;
"Sounds, not arms, shall win the prize,
" Harmony the path to fame.
"Then the progeny that springs
" From the forests of our land,
"Armed with thunder, clad with wings,
"Shall a wider world command.
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u
BOAlDICEA.
QuUM fera bellatrix regina Britannica virgas
Romanas lacero corpora victa tulit,
Protinus irato vultu gestuque minaci,
Consuluit patrios sanguinolenta deos.
Quercus ubi ramoa tendit spatiosa, sedebat
Dux Druidum senio consilioque gravis.
Dixit et e labris divini plena furoris,
Plena simul luctus, fervida verba cadunt:
Heu! te conspicimus, regina, indigna ferentem,
"Et veteres oculi nil nisi flere valent:
"At vindicta manet; manet alta mente repostutn
"Quod non lingxia satis significare queat.
"Roma perit; licet hoc tibi nunc inscribere verbum
" Sanguine in effuso, quo maculavit humum :
"Roma perit; perit auxilio sine; mersa ruina
'^Tot scelerum poenas causa nefanda luet.
"Imperio totum celeberrima Roma per orbem,
"Mille tenens soeva sub ditione plagas,
"Mox prostrata cadet; cadet alta superbia: victor
" Iraminet en ! portis Gallus, et ultor adest :
"Exsurgent alii, soboles Romana, Quirites
"Qui non militiae nomen honore ferent;
"Queis sonitus, non arma, placent; concordia vocum
"Prima tulit; famas semita dulce melos.
"Turn nova progenies, veteri de stirpe creata,
"Quam genuit sylvis terra patema suis,
"Fulmine telorum resonans, velataque pennis,
"Latins imperium per nova regna geret:
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3o8 Boadicea.
''Regions Caesar never knew^
''Thy posterity shall sway;
''Where his eagles never flew,
"None invincible as they."
Soch the Bard's prophetic words.
Pregnant with celestial fire.
Bending as he swept the chords
Of his sweet but awfid lyre.
She, with all a monarch's pride.
Felt them in her bosom glow;
Rushed to battle, fought, and died)
Dying, hurled them at the foe.
"Ruffians, pitiless as proud,
"Heaven awards the vengeance due;
"Empire is on us bestowed,
"Shame and ruin wait for you!"
COWPER.
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Boadtcea. 309
"Queis ignotus erat Caesar, regina, futuro
" En ! tua posteritas tempore jura dabit ;
"Victrices ubi nunquam aquilas posuere cohortes
"Caesaris, insignis gens tua sola reget."
Talia fatidico praedixit carmine vates,
Coelestique lyrae fervuit igne melos :
Corpore deflexo, percussit pollice chordas ;
Dant percussa gravem fila canora sonum.
Audivit regina ferox; fastuque superbum
Aecendunt animum fervida verba senis :
Irruit in pugnam : moriens jaculatur in hostes.
Tela velut, saevas, ultima verba, minas:
"Infames! quos nulla movet dementia, vobis
" Dant scelerum poenas, munera justa, dei :
"Nobis imperium conceditur; alta ruina
"Vos, pudor, exitium, gens scelerata, manet/'
E. K. G.
Lamrford,
April, 189S.
VOL. XX. R R
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THE COMMEMORATION SERMON
BY
The Rev Charles Elsee,
Master at Rugby School.
Now therefore ye are no More Grangers and foreigners, hut fellow
titixens with the saints, and of the household of God : and are built upon
the foundation of the apostles and prophets, yesus Christ Himself being the
chief comer stone ; in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth
unto an holy temple in the Lord : in whom ye also are builded together for
an habitation of God through the Spirit, Ephksians ii. 19-22*
KO-DAY'S celebration of the foundation and
growth and work of this College calls before
our mind the parallel between the foundation
and growth of the Christian Church itself,
and that of institutions and societies such as this, which
have sprung up within it with to some extent the same
objects and based on some of the same principles. In
both cases the ideal has been seriously modified in the
actual result by human frailties and failures, yet the
ideal was the aim in the foundation of each, and should
be still the aim in carrying out its intended object.
Glowing and inspiring are the pictures drawn for
us of the ideal early Christian Church — a society united
together, as St John describes it, in fellowship even
with the Father and the Son ; or knit together as
St Paul writes in one passage as a body of which
Christ is the Head, its several parts and members
working together in due measure, and so making
increase of the whole to the building of itself up in
love ; or here as a holy temple built up of living stones
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The Commemoration Sermon. 3 1 1
fitly framed together, each stone fashioned according
to its own appointed place and supported by those
below, and in its turn determining in some measure
the form of those above and contributing to their
support. And all for one purpose — to be a habitation
of God through the Spirit— to be a temple in which
He might manifest Himself; in which His true wor-
shippers, the true seekers after Him, might be ever
attaining to truer ideas of Him, to increasing know-
ledge of Him, to clearer recognition of what is His
will and what are the methods of His working; to
throw off one by one the trammels of ignorance, te
take larger views of His providence and His purposes
concerning menj and so contemplating Him and
studying Him as He has revealed Himself in the
history of the human past, in his works of nature,
and in the life and character of His Son, to be ever
reaching towards Him, and to be ever growing upwards
towards Him in very slow and imperfect, it may be,,,
but still for individual members increasing, likeness.
With what glory might the apostle hope would such
a temple be filled! How would the glory of such a
latter house exceed that of any that had gone before it !
And from the temple would radiate out abroad someu
of the glory which centred in it ; from it would go forth
into the world men with varied talents, with varying
capacities and varying powers, to carry with them and
spread abroad among others some of that knowledge
which had been there vouchsafed to them, to be not
only the declarers of God's truth, but to be themselves,
the evidence of it; to show in their own life and
practice the meaning and working of His will.
Inspired by the same Spii^it, some would go out
as Apostles to new lands s^nd found new churches^,
some would go to be resident in these as patient
teachers and instructors-^builders up on these extended
foundations. Some would be fitted not so much for
specially religious or doctrinal teaching as for imparting
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31^ The Commemoration Sermon.
other benefits, leading the degraded up into better
habits of life, spreading civilising influences, promoting
civilising institutions; by knowledge and skill bene-
fitting the bodies of men, and remedying the ills to
which men had become heirs; following Christ their
Master rather in the temporal blessings he bestowed
than in the spiritual, but still following him. And
some would go out specially fitted perhaps to be pro-
minent in none of these ways, yet by their quiet
influence and example, by their humble, trustful walk
with God, carrying into dark places the light of a good
life and good works which would promote his glory,
and be effectual in making known His will and in
leading men into a life in accordance with it.
And all these, separated indeed e^cternally from the
centre from which they went forth, would be still united
to it in spirit ; members still of the same body, doing
still the same work with the same object, new perhaps
in point of form but of the same old and sure substance,
bound to it by ties of sympathy and affection, rejoicing
on the one hand in its well-being and prosperity and on
the other animated and encouraged by the sense of dk
recognition there of their own work and success.
Now, observe that all this oneness of spirit, this
activity of work, this extension of scope, is due to first
training, to the instruction of each by older members,
to the influences of association with them, to the spirit
imbibed from them, to the inspiring example of the
earnest, the contagiously communicated power of the
strong, the encouragement of the successful. And
these, as years went on after the foundation of the
Church, would not all grow less. First love might
sometimes grow cooler, first energy and enthusiasm
might grow less keen, but the roll of earnest, strong,
and successful members would grow longer, and their
influence increase; the variety which marked their
characters and work would bring enlargement of view
and object; and accumulating experience would giv€>
valuable guidance.
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The Commemoration Sermon. 313
And so the formation of each member's character,
the development of his powers, the direction of his life,
the accomplishment of his work, would be affected by,
and be the result of, not only the first foundation of the
Church — though that would be the basis of all— but
intermediately also it would be due to all these other
influences from those who had gone before him, or were
contemporary with him. And the whole body of
members bound together as fellow citizens not only one
with another but with saints who had gone before, a
household of God, a temple built upon sure foundations,
with Christ Jesus himself as the chief corner stone, with
all its diverse parts fitly framed together, grew up
gradually towards a completion far off indeed, but to
be believed in, and hoped for, and worked for.
Is not this picture of the Christian Church in many
respects no inapt illustration of institutions and societies,
which have been founded and have grown up within it
to fulfil some of its purposes and to carry on a part of
its work ? Of this our own College, for instance, resting
as it does on a sure foundation of right principles,
intended to serve, and serving, a great purpose in the
good of men and the glory of God; absorbing into
itself year by year, and generation by generation,
members who become identified with it and fulfil its
objects, and themselves moulded upon the structure
they have found, do their part in their turn in enlarging
the building, and raising it and moulding others to
succeed them.
Collecting its members from far and wide it receives
them and trains them, it shapes their minds and
characters in their plastic years, influencing them and
forming them not only by knowledge imparted; not
only by the training in the process of acquisition of
knowledge, exercising, developing, and strengthening
the mental powers ; not only even by the recognition of
what is the true basis of all education as it is of all
wisdom, but very greatly by the general spirit which
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3 1 4 The Commemoration Sermon.
pervades the place, by the traditions which hang about
it and attach to it, by the recollection and association
with it of great names in the past, of names of men who
are making their mark in the world now and will be
rightly enrolled among the world's benefactors in the
future : names of members who either in their residence
here have done good direct work for religion, for
science, for literature, or have indirectly assisted in
their promotion ; or again of others, members still,
who have carried with them away from here trained
capacities and powers which have placed them in the
front as leaders of men, whether in the Church, or the
State, or in Education, in Law, in Medicine, or other of
the various departments of our country's complex life ;
some distinguished for work and influence in foreign
lands, in bringing heathen into the kingdom of God, in
spreading abroad among them true knowledge and
good habits, in leading them to better and higher
lives. What a wealth of inheritance is the roll of such
names to the College and the members of it ! What
stimulus is given to the enthusiasm and earnestness of
the young aspirant by the sense of fellow-membership
with the great men of the past, with those who stand
out in history prominent in their various departments
above the men of their day — as in the far distance Cecil
in the State, or Ascham in Education, or nearer to us
and in the almost present Martyn and Selwyn in
Missionary work. No doubt the distance from which
we have now to view the noted men of old times, while
it brings out their prominence, does also dull the
brightness of their lustre, yet they still have their
influence, and this influence commemorations of Foun-
ders and Benefactors such as we celebrate to-day will
keep alive and strengthen.
They are not indeed Founders, not in the common
sense Benefactors — though, indeed, benefactors in a
very real sense ; but they bear a very close relation to
them. They are the men, with all who in their different
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The Commemoration Sermon. 3 1 5
capacities have gone forth from this College to do good
work in the world, that have given the true value to the
original foundation and the succeeding benefactions-
The one is the ground on which the building may
stand, the land on which the tree may grow — essential
for the building or the tree ; but just as the building
enhances enormously the value of the ground, or the
products of the land give the value to it, so it is the
succession of good men who have been fitted here for
their place in the great building, who have been the
seed sown here and have germinated and rooted and
borne their fruit ; it is that which has proved the value
of the Founders' and Benefactors' gifts, which has
really given the value to them.
It is for the production and development of such
men that each place of sound learning and religious
education was established, and however great might be
the foundation, however numerous the gifts that might
accrue to it, that foundation and those gifts would be
valueless and waste if from any cause they were barren
of the results intended.
The Founder's work was needful as a foundation, as
that on which alone the superstructure could be built ;
Benefactors have added from time to time what ex-
perience or zealous foresight have shown them to be
desirable for the improvement of the edifice and its
efficient adaptation to its purpose; and thankfully do
we commemorate all who have taken part in the work
— from the man who suggested and prompted the
foundation, and the lady who listened to the sug-
gestions and acted upon them, to the latest of all those
who have since associated themselves with them ;
thankfully we commemorate both their deeds and their
purpose : but equal thankfiilness is due also for the
fulfilment of that purpose in the men whose lives have
carried it out, who were the spirit which gave life to
the body, and whose memories still exercise a power
and influence in the vigorous maintenance of that life,
and the continued fulfilment of that purpose.
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May the roll of such men going forth from this
College and fulfilling their part, whether in humble
unobserved spheres or in prominent stations observed
and known of all, grow both in length and splendour.
May there ever be found in it men with true spiritual
insight to discern and light up truths of God which lie
far down in still depths and are hardly discernible
through the ruCBed surface of practical life, but yet
which exercise an important influence upon it: men
also who shall be able and fitted to carry out on the
firm foundation of such truths sound practical work.
Men, too, who with corresponding insight shall extend
in breadth and depth the knowledge of God's natural
world in the discovery of hitherto concealed forces and
qualities and in the unravelling of the laws impressed
upon them, so as to guide and control and apply them
to good purpose in the benefit of mankind. Men,
again, who shall understand men, and be able to lead
and influence them for their well being ; who shall be
able to enlist all the powers and qualities inherent in
men which make for good and weld them together inta
an effiective force for the promotion of all that is good,
and the weakening and subduing all that is evil.
And may all consist together for one supreme end
and object — for a habitation of the Divine Spirit, the
Spirit of truth, and knowledge, and wisdom, and
holiness.
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DEMETER OF THE FAIR TRESSES.
f'TAe true account of a mysterious occurrence,)
|0R some hours we had been lounging listlessly
through the barren waste of the British
Museum, Johnes (a cultured, Oxford species
of the common genus Jones), Smith, an
irresponsible Cockney of the Cockneys, and myself j
on the morrow 1 was to undertake the moral and
intellectual training of the two sons of a wealthy
London merchant, in preparation for which I had
sought out this spot, dismal above all others in the
universe, and was imbibing a spirit of majestic gloom,
as behoved one soon to hold office under Puritanical
Mr Brown. Of the latter I can only add that he was a
vulgar, narrow-minded, humbugging -*but silence, O
Muse ; de mortuis nil nisi bonum.
An adjournment to the refreshment-room and a
-liberal diet of lemonade and buns perceptibly raised
our spirits ; Johnes especially became elated ; for it is
a marked difference between your artificial and your
natural genius, that the latter works by inspiration,
the former by inflation. So now, as soon as the
lemonade had begun to do its work, Johnes' mouth was
opened. "In the physical characterisation of her
features," I heard him soliloquise aloud— and very
much aloud, too — "there is an infinity of grief; in her
alone emotional spirituality " " Emotional spiritu-
ality be ," broke in Smith ; while after the strained
silence which followed this interjection, " who may this
VOL. XX. s s
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3i8 Demeter of the Fair Tresses.
unique female be?" I enquired, to conciliate Johnes.
" Female ! " muttered Johnes in a grieved voice ; and
then, pointing to a statue near at hand, added in a tone
of melancholy reverence, " Demeter of Knidos." Now
if lemonade and buns had stirred this spirit of sublimity
in Johnes, it had had a directly opposite effect on
Smith ; the latter drew from his pocket a cigarette, lit
it, and waving it before this statue, uttered in a tone of
mock reverence, "Deign, fair goddess, to accept this
offering of an untutored worshipper." And then as
the tramp of regulation boots was heard round a
neighbouring corner, the Vandal and the Exquisite
took their departure together, and in the increasing
distance I heard Johnes' unctuous utterance, " Material
evanescence in the presence of brute violence is the
proper attribute of a reasonable Being."
« « • « •
Left alone, I gazed long and earnestly at the
beautiful, calm features of the Madonna-like Demeter ;
the thin, blue smoke, which had been eddying in
fantastic shapes round the fair figure, now rose till it
reached the head and nostrils of the petrified deity. At
least petrified the deity should have been at this insult
to her divine majesty, but instead a thing more strange
than probable occurred. For even as I watched, the
statue before me seemed to change like some dissolving
view ; the look of sweet grief that made in her " Sorrow
more beautiful than Beauty's self" melted from those
classic features, and in their place a look of unexpected
pleasure came; and the goddess, still sniffing with
delight the uncelestial fragrance, gradually bloomed
forth into life, and rose from her throne and stood
before me I
"O forms of ancestral halls," she cried in a deep,
bell-like voice, " wherein Cloud-gatherer Zeus did use
to sit, till what time that base thief Prometheus stole
the fennell-bound chamber of opiate fire, can it be that
after these long years I have returned to the house of
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Demeter of the Fair Tresses. 319
imy Brother, and smell again the sweet scent of Lethe's