upils, Mr. Thistlethwaite, whose father wrote to thank me for this
unexpected though not unmerited luck falling to his son.

One short presentable piece of verse-making in the schools is as below
from Virgil: there were also three odes of Horace, a chorus from
AEschylus, and more from other Greek and Latin poets.

"Sicilian Muses, sing we loftier strains!
The humble tamarisk and woodland plains
Delight not all; if woods and groves we try,
Be the groves worthy of a consul's eye.
Told by the Sibyl's song, the 'latter time'
Is come, and dispensations roll sublime
In new and glorious order; spring again
With Virgo comes, and Saturn's golden reign.
A heavenly band from heaven's bright realm descends,
All evil ceases, and all discord ends.
Do thou with favouring eye, Lucina chaste,
Regard the wondrous babe,--his coming haste,--
For under him the iron age shall cease,
And the vast world rejoice in golden peace," &c. &c.

I select this bit, famous for being one of the places in Virgil which
goes to prove that the Sibylline books (to which the Augustan poets had
easy access) quoted Isaiah's prophecies of Christ and the Millennium. It
will be considered that my public versifying was quite extempore, as in
fact is common with me. For other college memories in the literary line,
I may just mention certain brochures or parodies, initialed or
anonymous, whereto I must now plead guilty for the first time;
reflecting, amongst other topics, on Montgomery's Oxford, St. Mary's
theology, Mr. Rickard's "African Desert," and Garbet's pronounced and
rather absurd aestheticism as an examiner. Here are morsels of each in
order:--

"Who praises Oxford?--some small buzzing thing,
Some starveling songster on a tiny wing,--
(_N.B._ They call the insect Bob, I know,
I heard a printer's devil call it so)--
So fondly tells his admiration vast
No one can call the chastened strains bombast,
Though epitheted substantives immense
Claim for each lofty sound the _caret_ sense," &c. &c.

Next, a bit from my Low Church onslaught on St. Mary's in the Hampden
case, being part of "The Oxford Controversy":--

"Though vanquished oft, in falsehood undismayed,
Like heretics in flaming vest arrayed
Each angry Don lifts high his injured head,
Or 'stands between the living and the dead.'
Still from St. Mary's pulpit echoes wide
Primo, beware of