the paucity of candidates for her Degrees. They would see the deficiency compensated by a long muster roll of Associates. They complain that, of her sixty or seventy Professors, half the number lecture to empty benches. This complaint will not indeed be answered by instituting a mere system of Examinations; but if to that be added a system of middleclass instruction given by the Professors in evening lectures, then, many of the most determined opponents of the Queen's University would admit that she was doing good service, and occupying an important place in the education of the Irish people.

We shall discuss on a future occasion the measures necessary to give to popular lecturing all the power of which it is capable as an educational agent. Our chief object in the present paper was to point out the improvements which may be expected to result in middle-class schools from the institution of a corresponding system of University Examinations. To this work we trust that the governing bodies of our two Universities will soon and seriously address themselves. If they neglect it much longer, it will inevitably be undertaken in other quarters, and the Universities will incur no small loss of educational and social influence. Let not these learned bodies suppose that they consult their dignity by ignoring the educational wants of our mercantile classes, and, as a consequence, allowing the intellectual life of every successive generation to drift further and further away from University ideas and modes of culture. Of course there are objections to be met, apprehensions to be removed. There always are lions in the way when any good service is to be done. "The proposed Examinations," say one party, "will attract no candidates, as no one will regard the degree of Associate as an honour." Another party apprehend the opposite danger. "The Degree of 'Associate,'" say they, "will come in a short time to claim the same respect and be favoured with the same privileges as the existing Degree of A. B., and, being more easily attained, will be almost universally taken instead; so that there will be an end of your proper University teaching." These opposite views seem to us equally fallacious. The degree of "A. A." will not be despised, if it truthfully attest a good middle-class education, nor will it supersede the A. B. Degree so long as University examiners and lecturers do their several duties conscientiously. They who fear that it will, betray the poor opinion which they have of ordinary University education. They evidently regard this as of so low a type, or else of so doubtful a utility, that it will fall into general contempt as soon as the education of our tradesmen, and clerks, and farmers, is considerably improved. If this

be a true account of the education implied in the A. B. degree, the sooner that costly delusion be abolished the better. But to us the education of the graduate, even of the "unclassed candidate," seems to be a reality: not indeed, all that it might be, but still something sufficiently valuable to be able to hold its ground against the competition of its middle-class rival; and certain to advance pari passú with the improvement of the latter. In fact, we do not agree with these objectors in regarding University education as a market-town, and the proposed Examinations as a railway which will supersede its functions, and destroy its prosperity; but with us University education is rather a capital city which the proposed railway will put in communication with a great district, the resources of which are at present undeveloped.

While we submit these considerations to the governing bodies of our two Universities, we would suggest also to the members of certain influential professions that they could much facilitate the reform in question by showing the Universities that it would be appreciated and made use of by the Irish public. The schoolmasters of several English counties presented to the Hebdomadal Board at Oxford a memorial praying for the institution of middle-class Examinations, and pledging themselves to send up pupils to them. This example, we think, ought to be followed at once by the masters of our respectable schools. Another memorial to the Hebdomadal Board was signed by the leading physicians of London, and a third by the principal architects and engineers, stating that the proposed Examinations would lead to great improvements in the general education of youths intended for those several professions. A similar statement of opinion emanating from our Irish physicians and architects would carry great weight with our University authorities. But the class which would be most influential, as it is at once the most numerous and the most deeply interested in the reform, is that of parents in the mercantile and manufacturing classes. If any considerable number of these will call for the proposed Examinations, and will evince their earnestness by contributing to a prize fund, there is little doubt that our Universities will respond to the appeal, and will, one or both, enter with spirit on the new field of usefulness presented to them.

G. F. S.

BALLAD.

To the wars the lover hieing,
Wooed and won a lady fair,
And, amid the dead and dying,
Ceaselessly he thought of her.

Now to Fatherland returning,
Hero of the bloody fight,
Needful food and slumber spurning,
Onward pressed the victor knight.

Onward-for his heart was yearning— Speeds he through the midnight hour. See! a taper, dimly burning,

Glistens in his lady's bower.

In her leafy bower it glistens,

Streaks the grove with misty light; Breathless, pale, and faint, he listens, Checked his courser's headlong flight.

Down th' abyss of darkness sliding,
Falls the taper's slanting ray;
And amid the branches gliding

Through the grove it makes its way;

Ripples onward, like a river,

With a dimpling, eddying gleam, And the leaves and mosses quiver, Dipping in the milky stream.

As the Red Sea's waters riven,
Made a channel deep and wide,
So the darkness, backward driven,
Formed a bank on either side.

Thicker now his heart is beating,
Pale his cheek, and wild his eye;
Hope and fear, in conflict meeting,
Gain alternate victory.

Hark! a strain of gentle sadness
Floateth on the midnight air;
Doth it stir his heart to gladness,
Or awake it to despair?

Now as dew 'a sunshine spoken,'
Now as leaf on autumn's bier,
Fluttering, and not unbroken,
Fell the snatches on his ear.

Silence too came softly stealing (Mute, yet eloquently clear), All unconsciously revealing

Fitful sigh and falling tear.

Through the hours of darkness grieving,
Aye unheeded in their flight,
Tender thoughts in chaplets weaving
For her love, she spends the night.

Sleep about the casement fluttered,
Spell-bound by the tuneful strain;
Drowsy spells in vain he muttered-
Waved his magic wand in vain.

Now no more the bat is winging
Round and round its mazy way;
Nightingales forget their singing,
And the owl foregoes his prey.

Little deemed the pensive maiden
That her heart's beloved was near-

That her plaintive song, love-laden,
Fell upon his list'ning ear.

Ah! no more the maid is singing,

For the lover, now confest,
Through the open casement springing,
Clasps the maiden to his breast.

BUONAMICO BUFFALMACCO.

In this age of revolution and reform we are all taking part in many reactionary movements. We are zealously employed in dragging down from their pedestals, and bringing to the light of truth, many obsolete and unsound ideas, which for ages have held high places in the minds of our forefathers. Among these is our estimate of painters and paintings. It is only now that we are at last beginning to see that antiquity is not the chief merit in a picture; and to regard its beauties or failings before we look for the name of its painter in the catalogue. Such a change has, however, but slowly taken place. It is sad, when we read the lives of our British artists, to see how those men who so ardently loved the beautiful, and so clearly saw it in their mistress Nature, had either to turn mechanical portrait-makers, or in some lonely garret, and surrounded by their unsold pictures, to brood over their disappointed hopes and aspirations after fame. The discerning public were then well persuaded that, for a man to be a great historical or landscape painter, it was necessary for him to have been born in Italy at least two hundred years ago. Yet from the easels of these men, the martyrs to their glorious art, came those pictures which, then, perhaps, parted with to the pawnbroker for a few guineas, are now knocked down by the auctioneer for fifty times their original price. Who will venture to say that these men were less victims to ignorance and bigotry than the unflinching Socrates, or the famous Galileo? But, on the other hand, we ought not to withhold their due commendation from the Old Masters, who have been often so justly, though too indiscriminately, praised. We can never look but with wonder and admiration on the works of many of the old Italian, Spanish, and Flemish artists, and we should ever particularly honour the earnest efforts of the early Florentine painters, with their leader Cimabue, who so nobly strove to rescue Art from the cold and dead mannerism of the modern Greek School.

It is to one of these latter painters that we seek to direct our readers' attention, for a short notice of so original a character cannot but prove somewhat interesting.