t the aerial music round my bed,
Dissolving sad in dying symphony,
Whisper the solemn warning in mine ear;
That I may bid my weeping friends good-bye,
Ere I depart upon my journey drear:
And smiling faintly on the painful past,
Compose my decent head, and breathe my last.

But in spite of depression and ill health, he was really happy at
Wilford, a village in the elbow of a deep gully on the Trent, and near
his well-beloved Clifton Woods. On the banks of the stream he would sit
for hours in a maze of dreams, or wander among the trees on summer
nights, awed by the sublime beauty of the lightning, and heedless of
drenched and muddy clothes.

Later in the summer it was determined that he should go to college after
all; and by the generosity of a number of friends (including Neville who
promised twenty pounds annually) he was able to enter himself for St.
John's College, Cambridge. In the autumn he left his legal employers,
who were very sorry to lose him, and took up quarters with a clergyman
in Lincolnshire (Winteringham) under whom he pursued his studies for a
year, to prepare himself thoroughly for college. His letters during this
period are mostly of a religious tinge, enlivened only by a mishap while
boating on the Humber when he was stranded for six hours on a sand-bank.
He had become quite convinced that his calling was the ministry. The
proper observance of the Sabbath by his younger brothers and sisters
weighed on his mind, and he frequently wrote home on this topic.

In October, 1805, we find him settled at last in his rooms at St.
John's, the college that is always dear to us as the academic home of
two very different undergraduates--William Wordsworth and Samuel Butler.
His rooms were in the rearmost court, near the cloisters, and
overlooking the famous Bridge of Sighs. His letters give us a pleasant
picture of his quiet rambles through the town, his solitary cups of tea
as he sat by the fire, and his disappointment in not being able to hear
his lecturers on account of his deafness. Most entertaining to any one
at all familiar with the life of the Oxford and Cambridge colleges is
his account of the thievery of his "gyp" (the manservant who makes the
bed, cares for the rooms, and attends to the wants of the students).
Poor Henry's tea, sugar, and handkerchiefs began to vanish in the
traditional way; but he was practical enough to buy a large padlock for
his coal bin.

But Henry's in