Two Portraits.

HE shall be tall and slight; of swanlike mien,

SH

White brow, and melting tints upon her cheek;
Dusk tresses where the nestling sunbeams spread
A liquid halo: but with haughty eyes
And chiselled features of a high-born maid,
Bearing an awesome presence where she treads.
Her dainty lips shall utter ringing words,
High solemn talk of chastened love, and themes
That rouse a noble swelling in the pulse,
And quicken every nerve to quiver and leap:
A very queen of women, to rule my life
With royal dignity and royal grace,

Our souls shall dwell above the thoughts of men,
In Fancy's high demesne: therein shall we
The livelong summer noontide weave sweet dreams,
In some dim alcove, where the crimson light
Through deep embrasured oriels flickers down
To paint the oaken panels: happy dreams,
In unison of heart, where each may bare
The spirit's inmost yearning, and in turn
Read its true image in a kindred soul.
No hunger there, nor wish insatiate,

But every chord shall wake a meet response.

So she and I, a single twinfold life,

Shall tread this dull earth with a mellow light
Shed round our happier heads; and, all absorbed
Each in the other, merge our several selves,
Clasped in one long embrace of wedded souls.

So in fantastic mood I idly muse,

Beneath the budding chestnuts on the marge,

What time the wan leaves burst their dusky sheaths,

And herald May. Beside, the lazy boats

Glide down the crawling stream with regular dip,
Plashing their mimic riplets in the flags;

And all around the lilac's fragrant mist

Hangs on the stagnant air. But Love stands by,
Smiling to watch the visions that I paint,

And, while my veins beat full with spring and youth,
Works out his own sweet plan, his own sweet way.

Small is she, like some jewel; but very fair;
Eyes soft and blue, wherein does laughter dance,
And dimpled cheeks and chin. Two smiling lips
Pout forth sweet saucy words of petulant love;
And in my hand there lies a tiny hand,

So small, 'tis almost pity 'tis so small.

No
queen of women she, but my true Wife,
Who treads on solid earth, and breathes, and loves,
Even as others breathe and love. Her themes

No lofty phantasies or dreamy shadows,

But winsome words that cheer my wearied heart,
And happy plans for summer afternoon,

Or winter pastime : while her merry eyes

Flash laughter into mine, or, brimmed with mist,
Cast matron shadows on the sobered face,

Yet woo my lips to check the gathering drop.
Around my heart she twines her clinging arms,

And loves, and knows not why, nor doubts for love;

But only knows the world is great and cold,
And turns, and nestles closer by my side,

Secure in supreme faith. But on her lap,

More sweet than all, so love could find more sweet,

A tiny maiden sleeps, and sleeping smiles;

A waxen lily bud, with cheek and chin,

Dimple for dimple: and we watch, and smile,
And catch the mutual sunbeams in our eyes;

And two hearts breathe one prayer to loving Heaven,
For Love's sweet plan is wrought his own sweet way.

Under the Scalping-knife; or, Oxford in the

Scales.

"

AMONG the various uses for which Providence still sees fit to maintain

that cruelly abused institution, the University of Oxford, probably not the least important is the benefit of magazine writers. When the comic article which he is inditing persists in preserving a churchyard solemnity, when the "story, in three chapters" maintains too suspicious a resemblance to the original from which it is "adapted," when-but what need of these details? when, in short, every other source fails the despairing knight of the quill, once again he turns to that inexhaustible Eldorado, "Oxford life," and throws off forthwith an article at once secure of popularity, and obtained by the least possible exertion on his own part. Cambridge, strange to say, is very rarely selected either for praise or blame : whether the name of Alfred the Great surrounds us with a peculiar halo, whether a real or imagined pre-eminence, a larger proportion of men of the day, or any other merit or accident, invests us with an interest denied to our Cambridge cousins, or whether a "golden mediocrity" shelters them alike from the smiles of genial and shafts of ungenial critics we have never sought to discover, nor indeed is it likely that any success would follow such an enquiry. Let the mere fact suffice us, and let us hope that if Parliament in the exercise of its wisdom should resolve (absit omen!) to disendow the University and convert our colleges into lunatic asylums and hospitals for the blind-let us, we say, hope that it will have due regard for the "vested interests" of our contemporaries in general, "London Society" in particular.

We have called Oxford life an inexhaustible Eldorado: the term is not strictly correct. Were it real Oxford life which the littérateurs dole out to their readers in these frequent instalments, their material would soon be exhausted. As it is, most "Oxford" articles are mere flimsy sketches, threaded with a love incident, of Commemoration week- —a time when by far the larger number of undergraduates have " gone down," and when the remainder occupy themselves in a manner as far as possible removed from their ordinary habits. Articles, however, of this class are compara

d Britannia, No. 1, January, 1869. Article, "Oxford in the Scales." Macmillan's Magazine, June, 1869. Article, "Oxford Reform."

Since the present paper was written, an article, entitled "Oxford as it Is," has appeared in the October number of "London Society," too late to be included in our criticism. While regretting this, we cannot avoid saying that its tone is gentlemanly and sensible throughout, while it bears evident marks of being from the pen of an Oxford man.

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UNDER THE SCALPING KNIFE; OR, OXFORD IN THE SCALES. tively harmless: either they openly profess to delineate only a very brief and exceptional period of the year, or, should their readers apply to the whole what was intended for the part, the portrait, if a somewhat lazy one, is at least free from vicious features. The writers against whom we do avow feelings of indignation, and who, we are sorry to say, swell the tide of this class of literature to no mean extent, are those who having little or no acquaintance with University society, study, by suppressing all its good traits and exaggerating or even inventing bad ones, to make authors' capital at the expense of their own honour and our reputation.

The specimen of this sort of dealing which it pleases us to select is to be found in the first number of a monthly magazine entitled "Britannia." As many of our readers have perhaps never heard of it, we may be excused for adding that Mr. Arthur A'Beckett is the editor, and that it contains 96 pages and 4 coloured illustrations. Fair play is a jewel, even among enemies; and, although “Britannia" has not employed it towards us, we wish to shew how utterly devoid of ill feeling we are by according "Britannia" the most liberal praise in our power. The four illustrations, then, and thirty-four pages of letterpress are very fair padding; the remaining sixty-two-well, the remaining sixty-two are what might be expected from a publication conducted by the editor of the "Tomahawk."

The particular paper to which we allude is styled "Oxford in the Scales, by a Graduate," and its author more explicitly affirms in his first page that he is an Oxford graduate. Your critic is Tomahawky in the extreme, Mr. A' Beckett: his vigorous and high-souled indignation has, we know, done good service to that weekly periodical in which you denounce and shatter vice, console and fortify virtue, and throw in a coloured picture— all for the small sum of twopence a copy. But you should not let him get out of his depth. True, you have had no University education, and could not be expected to know the accuracy of what he wrote; but one at least of your family has been to Oxford. We know better of him than to dream for one instant that this article flowed from his pen: nay, we venture to affirm that, had you referred your critic to him, he would have laid the nearest horsewhip over the sham graduate's shoulders.

The "graduate" gently prepares us at the outset for all that is in store for us. "I am going," he says, "to run down Oxford-run it down as an overrated, rather vulgar, rather dangerous place, whose influences are as pernicious as its educational powers are mythical." But this language is sickening flattery compared with what presently follows. "Yes," says the graduate (and note what a painful struggle the admission costs his honest yet tender heart), "I must out with the truth and tell it, that an Oxford University career is not worth the purchase money, even when that amounts to the moderate sum of fifteen pounds ten shillings." There, statesmen, bishops, judges, authors, et quantum est hominum venustiorum, who have made Oxford mind and manners honoured and admired through

England and the civilized world—shrink into your true nothingness when you read what the critic of the "Tomahawk" and "Britannia" tells you, that your manners and mind, so far as they were acquired during the four most important years of early manhood, are dear at £15 10s.!

......

Passing over superlative adjectives and a digressive attack on Cambridge, we arrive at the following passage, to which we invite particular attention: it is the supposed speech of " an average young man a very good type of at least three out of every four well-meaning Oxford undergraduates." "I passed the three most important years of my life at Oxford. I went through three examinations,—all of which I could have floored in the sixth form at school before I came up. To enable me to do this, though I was in residence upwards of three years, I worked very little more than three months." We have no hesitation in telling the "graduate" that either this passage or the statement of his having graduated here is a direct and intentional lie. Firstly, it is an absolute impossibility for any schoolboy in the kingdom to floor the class examinations. He would have to be acquainted with an amount of classical work equivalent to the whole of nine or ten authors, accompanied by a thorough knowledge of ancient history, logic, and philosophy! Secondly, if the pass course be alluded to, "at least three out of every four well-meaning undergraduates" are represented as contenting themselves with it. Thirdly, the statement respecting three months' work is absurd even if applied to a passman; if alluding to the class course, it is purely monstrous.

The "graduate" places his specimen man at "St. Kitt's." "Let us listen to what Templar Junior has to tell us about his College, which, lest I create feelings of jealousy among all those venerable institutions from Wadham down to Christ Church, suppose I still designate St. Kitt's. I will be bound that the whole pack of them will indignantly declaim all knowledge of the cap, I will also be bound they will all privately have tried it on, and what is more, found it no indifferent fit." As the only fault fastened by our graduate" on "St. Kitt's" is the adulation paid to its undergraduate noblemen, of whom it has five, this is another gratuitous falsehood. Corpus, Jesus, Lincoln, Magdalen, Pembroke, Queen's, Trinity, Worcester, the Halls, and we believe Exeter and University, have no noblemen, young or old, on their books; while for some years past only Balliol, Christ Church, and Merton have been favoured with the presence of "tufts."

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The marrow of this wretched slanderer's diatribe consists in an invective against the practice of seating noblemen above gentlemen in the hall of "St. Kitt's." A commemoration of benefactors is partially described, and, although we have never been present at any Christ Church ceremony of the kind, we have no difficulty in identifying "the House" with "St. Kitt's," through the mention made of "servitors" and "censors." Among those present at dinner are five young noblemen, in whose titles (Tinker