informed that
the law is as good as the versification. Mr. Swinburne was in those days
the favourite butt of young parodists, and the gem of the book is the
dedication to "J.S." or "John Stiles," a mythical person, nearly related
to John Doe and Richard Roe, with whom all budding jurists had in old
days to make acquaintance. The disappearance of the venerated initials
from modern law-books inspired the following:--

"When waters are rent with commotion
Of storms, or with sunlight made whole,
The river still pours to the ocean
The stream of its effluent soul;
You, too, from all lips of all living,
Of worship disthroned and discrowned,
Shall know by these gifts of my giving
That faith is yet found;

"By the sight of my song-flight of cases
That bears, on wings woven of rhyme,
Names set for a sign in high places
By sentence of men of old time;
From all counties they meet and they mingle,
Dead suitors whom Westminster saw;
They are many, but your name is singles
Pure flower of pure law.

* * * * *

"So I pour you this drink of my verses,
Of learning made lovely with lays,
Song bitter and sweet that reheares
The deeds of your eminent days;
Yea, in these evil days from their reading
Some profit a student shall draw,
Though some points are of obsolete pleading,
And some are not law.

"Though the Courts, that were manifold, dwindle
To divers Divisions of One,
And no fire from your face may rekindle
The light of old learning undone,
We have suitors and briefs for our payment,
While, so long as a Court shall hold pleas,
We talk moonshine with wigs for our raiment,
Not sinking the fees."

Some five-and-twenty years ago there appeared the first number of a
magazine called _The Dark Blue_. It was published in London, but was
understood to represent in some occult way the thought and life of Young
Oxford, and its contributors were mainly Oxford men. The first number
contained an amazing ditty called "The Sun of my Songs." It was dark,
and mystic, and transcendental, and unintelligible. It dealt extensively
in strange words and cryptic phrases. One verse I must transcribe:--

"Yet all your song
Is--'Ding dong,
Summer is dead,
Spring is dead--
O my heart, and O my head
Go a-singing a silly son