had I accosted him on the sudden in his own walks in Clifford's Inn, or in the Temple. In addition to a provoking short-sightedness (the effect of late studies and watchings at the midnight oil), D. is the most absent of men. He made a call the other morning at our friend M.'s in Bedford Square; and, finding nobody at home, was ushered into the hall, where, asking for pen and ink, with great exactitude of purpose he enters me his name in the book-which ordinarily lies about in such places, to record the failures of the untimely or unfortunate visitor-and takes his leave with many ceremonies and professions of regret. Some two or three hours after, his walking destinies returned him into the same neighborhood again, and again the quiet image of the fireside circle at M.'s-Mrs. M. presiding at it like a Queen Lar, with pretty A. S. at her side-striking irresistibly on his fancy, he makes another call (forgetting that they were certainly not to return from the country before that day week"), and, disappointed a second time, inquires for pen and paper as before; again the book is brought, and in the line just above that in which he is about to print his second name (his rescript)—his first name (scarce dry) looks out upon him like another Sosia, or as if a man should suddenly encounter his own duplicate! The effect may be conceived. D. made many a good resolution against any such lapses in the future. I hope he will not keep them too rigorously.

For with G. D., to be absent from the body is sometimes (not to speak it profanely) to be present with the Lord. At the very time when, personally encountering thee, he passes on with no recognition-or, being stopped, starts like a thing surprised-at that moment, reader, he is on Mount Tabor; or, Parnassus; or, co

sphered with Plato; or, with Harrington, framing “immortal Commonwealths," devising some plan of amelioration to thy country or thy species-peradventure meditating some individual kindness or courtesy, to be done to thee thyself, the returning consciousness of which made him to start so guiltily at thy obtruded personal presence.

D. is delightful anywhere, but he is at the best in such places as these. He cares not much for Bath. He is out of his element at Buxton, at Scarborough, or Harrowgate. The Cam and the Isis are to him "better than all the waters of Damascus." On the Muses' hill he is happy, and good, as one of the Shepherds on the Delectable Mountains; and when he goes about with you to show you the balls and colleges, you think you have with you the Interpreter of the House Beautiful.

CHRIST'S HOSPITAL FIVE-AND-THIRTY
YEARS AGO.

IN Mr. Lamb's "Works," published a year or two ago, I find a magnificent eulogy on my old school,* such as it was, or now appears to him to have been, between the years 1782 and 1789. It happens, very oddly, that my own standing at Christ's was nearly corresponding with his; and, with all gratitude to him for his enthusiasm for the cloisters, I think he has contrived to bring together whatever can be said in praise of them, dropping all the other side of the argument most ingeniously. * "Recollections of Christ's Hospital."

I remember L. at school; and can well recollect that he had some peculiar advantages, which I and others of his schoolfellows had not. His friends lived in town, and were near at hand; and he had the privilege of going to see them, almost as often as he wished, through some invidious distinction, which was denied to us. The present worthy sub-treasurer to the Inner Temple can explain how that happened. He had his tea and hot rolls in a morning, while we were battening upon our quarter-of-a-penny loaf-our crug-moistened with attenuated small beer, in wooden piggings, smacking of the pitched leathern jack it was poured from. Our Monday's milk-porridge, blue and tasteless, and the peasesoup of Saturday, coarse and choking, were enriched for him with a slice of "extraordinary bread and butter,” from the hot-loaf of the Temple. The Wednesday's mess of millet, somewhat less repugnant—we had three banyan to four meat days in the week-was endeared to his palate with a lump of double-refined, and a smack of ginger (to make it go down the more glibly) or the fragrant cinnamon. In lieu of our half-pickled Sundays, or quite fresh boiled beef on Thursdays (strong as caro equina), with detestable marigolds floating in the pail to poison the broth-our scanty mutton scrags on Fridays -and rather more savory, but grudging, portions of the same flesh, rotten-roasted or rare, on the Tuesdays (the only dish which excited our appetites and disappointed our stomachs in almost equal proportion)—he had his hot plate of roast-veal, or the more tempting griskin (exotics unknown to our palates), cooked in the paternal kitchen (a great thing), and brought him daily by his maid or aunt! I remember the good old relative (in whom love forbade pride) squatted down upon some odd stone in a by-nook

of the cloisters, disclosing the viands (of higher regale than those cates which the ravens ministered to the Tishbite); and the contending passions of L. at the unfolding. There was love for the bringer; shame for the thing brought, and the manner of its bringing; sympathy for those who were too many to share in it; and, at top of all, hunger (eldest, strongest of the passions!) predominant, breaking down the stony fences of shame, and awkwardness, and a troubling over-consciousness.

I was a poor, friendless boy. My parents, and those who should care for me, were far away. Those few acquaintances of theirs, which they could reckon upon being kind to me in the great city, after a little forced notice, which they had the grace to take of me on my first arrival in town, soon grew tired of my holiday visits. They seemed to them to recur too often, though I thought them few enough; and, one after another, they all failed me, and I felt myself alone among six hundred playmates.

Oh, the cruelty of separating a poor lad from his early homestead! The yearnings which I used to have toward it in those unfledged years! How, in my dreams, would my native town (far in the west) come back, with its church, and trees, and faces! How I would wake weeping, and in the anguish of my heart exclaim upon sweet Calne in Wiltshire!

The

To this late hour of my life, I trace impressions left by the recollection of those friendless holidays. long, warm days of summer never return but they bring with them a gloom from the haunting memory of those whole-day leaves, when, by some strange arrangement, we were turned out for the live-long day upon our own hands, whether we had friends to go to, or none. I

remember those bathing excursions to the New-River, which L. recalls with such relish, better, I think, than he can-for he was a home-seeking lad, and did not much care for such water pastimes:-How merrily we would sally forth into the fields; and strip under the first warmth of the sun; and wanton like young dace in the streams; getting us appetites for noon, which those of us that were penniless (our scanty morning crust long since exhausted) had not the means of allaying—while the cattle, and the birds, and the fishes, were at feed about us and we had nothing to satisfy our cravings— the very beauty of the day, and the exercise of the pastime, and the sense of liberty, setting a keener edge upon them!-How, faint and languid, finally, we would return, toward nightfall, to our desired morsel, half-rejoicing, half-reluctant, that the hours of our uneasy liberty had expired!

It was worse, in the days of winter, to go prowling about the streets objectless-shivering at cold windows of print-shops to extract a little amusement; or haply, as a last resort in hopes of a little novelty, to pay a fiftytimes-repeated visit (where our individual faces should be as well known to the warden as those of his own charges) to the lions in the Tower-to whose levee, by courtesy, immemorial, we had a prescriptive title to admission.

L.'s governor (so we called the patron who presented us to the foundation) lived in a manner under his paternal roof. Any complaint which he had to make was sure of being attended to. This was understood at Christ's, and was an effectual screen to him against the severity of masters, or worse tyranny of the monitors. The oppressions of these young brutes are heart-sickening