lows. We now watched this youthful
congregation with redoubled interest. We marked the difference of character
among the boys, and endeavoured to read the future man in the stripling.
There is nothing more lovely, to which the heart more yearns than a
free-spirited boy, gentle, brave, and generous. Several of the Etonians had
these characteristics; all were distinguished by a sense of honour, and
spirit of enterprize; in some, as they verged towards manhood, this
degenerated into presumption; but the younger ones, lads a little older
than our own, were conspicuous for their gallant and sweet dispositions.

Here were the future governors of England; the men, who, when our ardour
was cold, and our projects completed or destroyed for ever, when, our drama
acted, we doffed the garb of the hour, and assumed the uniform of age, or
of more equalizing death; here were the beings who were to carry on the
vast machine of society; here were the lovers, husbands, fathers; here the
landlord, the politician, the soldier; some fancied that they were even now
ready to appear on the stage, eager to make one among the dramatis personae
of active life. It was not long since I was like one of these beardless
aspirants; when my boy shall have obtained the place I now hold, I shall
have tottered into a grey-headed, wrinkled old man. Strange system! riddle
of the Sphynx, most awe-striking! that thus man remains, while we the
individuals pass away. Such is, to borrow the words of an eloquent and
philosophic writer, "the mode of existence decreed to a permanent body
composed of transitory parts; wherein, by the disposition of a stupendous
wisdom, moulding together the great mysterious incorporation of the human
race, the whole, at one time, is never old, or middle-aged, or young, but,
in a condition of unchangeable constancy, moves on through the varied
tenour of perpetual decay, fall, renovation, and progression."[2]

Willingly do I give place to thee, dear Alfred! advance, offspring of
tender love, child of our hopes; advance a soldier on the road to which I
have been the pioneer! I will make way for thee. I have already put off the
carelessness of childhood, the unlined brow, and springy gait of early
years, that they may adorn thee. Advance; and I will despoil myself still
further for thy advantage. Time shall rob me of the graces of maturity,
shall take the fire from my eyes, and agility from my limbs, shall steal
the better part of life, e