A FAREWELL.
In these “piping times of peace,” undergraduates take the place
of Ensigns, and the close of the Long Vacation is attended with the
same gales of sighs, and showers of tears, as heretofore the sailing
of a regiment for actual service. Examinations are as terrible to
the fair as battles, and the future first-class man, or wrangler, is as
interesting as the possible hero.
There is something very fascinating about an Undergraduate;
he is a rose unblown, and wears “the beauty of promise;” he is a
member of an ancient establishment, therefore his youth and freshness
are at once contrasted and sanctified by beautiful antiquity;
he is a spring flower growing on the steeple of a gothic cathedral.
He is enough a man to make his notice worth having by a young
lady, and yet so much a boy, that ladies of a certain age can
make a pet of him. He has the reputation of learning without the
odium of displaying it; above all, he has a certificate of gentility,
which, let his real rank and fortune be what it will, passes unchallenged
everywhere but in his own University. There, indeed,
he is under the necessity of proving and maintaining his caste, and
the stain of a mercantile or agricultural connection can only be
washed out with claret. Everywhere else the “Collegian” is
absolute sumptus, a gentleman. But this enviable distinction
belongs to Oxford and Cambridge alone. Edinburgh or Glasgow
are no recommendation except to phrenological females, and Trinity
College, Dublin, is as alien to English associations as Salamanca or
Benares. The London University may have its day, but its day
is not yet come. At present it is looked upon as coldly by the
petticoat as by the gown. Should a youth be introduced to a fair
partner at a country ball as a collegian, and prove, after all, to be
only a member of Stincomalee, the lady's delicacy would be as
much shocked as if she were to find that the very delightful naval
officer with whom she had been dancing under the ambiguous title
Captain, was the skipper of a small vessel engaged in the Irish
butter trade. It is well: the members of the liberal establishment
must be gentlemen, if they desire to be accepted as such.
Learning, of itself, confers no rank in England. It does not
even give the éclat of a fashionable lion. But, as the passport to
learned professions, it enables a man, with good conduct, to overcome
any disadvantage of birth, and to achieve a place in the best
circles of society. Perhaps this is as it should be.
The peculiar advantage of being an Oxonian or a Cantab is
specially felt in the vacation, and in the country. In London they
form a pleasant variety indeed, but excite no commotion. They
are but as a drop of wine in the ocean. In Liverpool, or Manchester,
they are out of place. The academical aristocracy is too
strong a discord in the commercial concert. In Bath or Cheltenham
they degenerate into mere gentlemen loungers; they partake, but
they do not create or authorise, the general dissipation. But in
small villages, with a good neighbourhood and romantic scenery,
they are just what they should be. The custom of reading parties
is one of the favourable signs of the times. They read very little:
if men want to read, let them take a back-room in Cheapside, or
the county gaol. At Ambleside, in Wales, in the Isle of Wight,
or the Highlands, what have Euclid or Aristotle to do? But they
gladden the waters with their music, and the fair with their
gallantry; and what is better still, fill their imagination with
beautiful images, and their hearts with kind feelings.
It was on a rusticating (not a rusticated) Cantab that these
lines were composed. He was a poet in thought, but either
“wanted the accomplishment of verse,” or which is more probable,
concealed his possession of it. Long will his amiable manners and
green-ribboned guitar, be remembered in Grasmere.
[_]
NOT ORIGINALLY WRITTEN IN THE AUTHOR'S OWN NAME.
Sweet vale, tho' I must leave
Thy green hills and thy waters,
Nor sing again at eve,
To charm thy winsome daughters,
Yet I shall fondly think of thee,
And thy fair maids will think of me,
When I am far away.
I'll think of thee, but not as men,
Who vex their souls with thinking,
With feverish thirst, the reeky fen
Of sluggard memory drinking;
Nor shall thy maidens fair and free
With ought of sadness think of me,
When I am far away.
The fairy lake, tho' still it seems,
Is evermore a-flowing;
A moment ends the silvery gleams
That flash as we are rowing.
Yet that smooth lake as smooth shall flow,
And light oars flash, when gay youths row,
When I am far away.
So may the tide of virgin life,
As smooth, as quick, as clear,
If e'er, in momentary strife,
It dimple with a tear,
As soon regain its sweet repose—
And rest in peace, because it flows,
For ever on its way.