Part 4 (1/2)

” And is it not in truth A poisoned sting in every social joy, A thorn that rankles in the writhing flesh, A drop of gall in each do petty misery,-- That I can never look on one I love And speak the fulness of led joy Meet a long-loved and long-expected friend Because I feel, but cannot vent ht, but must not, speak,-- Because Iin kindness to anticipate The word of welcoled in its birth?

Is it not sorrohile I truly love Sweet social converse, to be forced to shun The happy circle, fronant consciousness-- That I ood in rational argu in brilliant quickness of reply, Friendshi+p's ingenuous interchange of mind, Affection's open-hearted sy, A very wilderness of ed thought!”

All this is only sad stern truth; nothing morbid here: let any poor stast others afflicted like sley, whom I kneell at a time when I had overcorave with hieous eloquence, preaching energetically in a somewhat artificial voice,--in private he stammered much, as once I used to do, no doubt to hisin God's will

Chess is a chief intellectual resource to the staument without the toil of speech, and prove himself practically more eloquent than the ly, in days gone by (for of late years I have given it up, as too toilsoaame at all,--but a wearisome if seductive science; just as cricket is an artillery co breaks the athlete's heart, and billiards can only be played by a bar-spot professional, and tranquil whist itself has developed into a sens; even so the honest coame of chess has coarowths upon the wholesome house-plant, that I for one have renounced it, as a pursuit for which life is too short and serious (give me a farce or a story instead), and one ames may crow over the wisest of men in an easy, because stereotyped, checkmate However, in this connection, I recollect a snorance of fae; just as the skilled fencer will be baffled by a brave boor rushi+ng in against rules, and by close encounter unconventionally pinning hiht off When a youth, just before ood rector there, a chess-player to his own thinking indohbours could checkht to htful boy-staae, a certain knight (his usual dodge, it appeared) which would have ensured an ultienerous offer, which began to nettle my opponent; but when afterwards I refused to answer divers ht), and finally reduced hie that I would not play again; his ”revenge” ht be too terrible For another trivial chess anecdote: a very worthy old friend ofit: and I re in the chessboard, whispered to ain, sir,--he didn't sleep a wink last night;” accordingly, after a respectably protracted struggle, sohts were made, and my reverend host came off conqueror: so he was enabled to sleep happily I reed pieces in a box-board at so strange a place as outside the Oxford coach; and I think my arown into a great Church dignitary If he lives, my compliments to him

One of the best private chess-players I used often to encounter,--but almost never to beat, is my old life-friend, Evelyn of Wotton, now the first MP for his own ancestral Deptford It was to me a triumph only to puzzle his shrewdness, ”to h his carelessness I lory indeed If he sees this, his n it

Let so much suffice, as perhaps a not inappropriate word about the Literary Life's frequent mental recreation, especially, where the player is, like Moses, ”not a inal, ”lo ish devarim anochi”

(Exod iv 10), came to my lot in Pusey's Hebrew class, to my special confusion: but every tutor was very considerate and favoured the one who couldn't speak, and Mr Biscoe in particular used to say when my turn came to read or to answer,--”Never o on, Mr So-and-So” This habitual confidence inmy consciousness to deserve it; and it usually happened that I really did know, silently, like Macaulay's cunning augur, ”who knew butof recreation, Izaak Walton's joy as a contemplative man has beensonnets, just found in the faded ink of three or four decades ago, which e or two, and would have rejoiced sley and Leech in old days, and will not be unacceptable to Attwood Matthews, Cholmondeley Pennell, and the Marstons with their friend Mr Senior in these I have had various luck as an angler from Stennis Lake to the Usk, from Enniskillen to Killarney, from Isis to Wotton,--and so it would be a pity if I omitted such an authorial characteristic; especially as ed e Queen of May, the stream Dances her best before the holiday sun, And still, with olden sands, which brighter glea fleet Above the silver feet That ripplerise In the calay cascade Marked an old trout, who shuns the sunny skies, And, nightly prowler, loves the hazel shade: Well thrown!--you hold him bravely,--off he speeds, Now up, non,--nowthose flowering reeds,-- How the rod bends,--and hail, thou noble trout!”

II

”O, thou hast robbed the Nereids, gentle brother, Of soer; behold,-- His dappled livery prankt with red and gold Shows hie: just such another Sad Galataea to her Acis sent To teach the new-born fountain how to flow, And track with loving haste the way she went Down the rough rocks, and through the flowery plain, Ev'n to her horow, And where the sea-nyain: We the while, terrible as Polypheme, Brandish the lisso treacherous fly And win a brace of trophies from the stream”

III

”Co shallow's tiny wave To yonder pool, whose calmer eddies lave So fly; there drop it lightly: A rise, by Glaucus!--but he missed the hook,-- Another--safe! thebrightly: Off let him race, and waste his prowess there; The dread of Dale hair, Will tax ently; quick, the net, the net!

Now gladly lift the glittering beauty out, Hued like a dolphin, sweet as violet”

CHAPTER VII

PRIZE POEMS, ETC

In the course of ate Prize poems, ”The Suttees” and the ”African Desert,” won respectively by Claughton, now Bishop of St Albans, and Rickards, whose honours of course I ought to know, but don't A good-looking and well-speaking friend of mine, EH Abney, now a Canon, was so certain that the said prizes in those two successive years were to fall to me, that he learnt my poems by heart in order to recite them as my speech-substitute in the Sheldonian Theatre at Commemoration, and he used frequently to look in upon me to be coached in his recital It was rumoured that I came second on both occasions,--one of them certainly had a 2 marked on it when returned to me, but I know not who placed it there However,my ”Ballads and Poems,”

by Hall and Virtue, and are now before e of such _literaria_, I aht fairly have won Newdigate prizes, even as friend Abney & Co were sure they would

At the close of my University career came, of course, the Great Go, which I had to do as I did the Little Go, all on paper; for I could not answer _viva voce_ And this rule then, whateverin for honours, though I had read for a first, and hoped at least to get a second Neither of these, nor even a third class, was technically possible, if I could not stand a two days' ordeal of _viva voce_ examination, part of the whole week then exacted

However, I did all at my best on paper, specially the translations from classic poets in verse: whereof I'll find a specimen anon The issue of all was that I was offered an honorary fourth class,--which I refused, as not willing to appear at the bottom of the list of all, alphabetically,--and soto lose the honour for our college, et it transferred to another of his pupils, Mr Thistlethwaite, whose father wrote to thankto his son

One short presentable piece of verse-il: there were also three odes of Horace, a chorus from aeschylus, and more fro we loftier strains!

The huht not all; if woods and groves we try, Be the groves worthy of a consul's eye

Told by the Sibyl's song, the 'latter tilorious order; spring again With Virgo con

A heavenly band froht realm descends, All evil ceases, and all discord ends

Do thou with favouring eye, Lucina chaste, Regard the wondrous babe,--his coe shall cease, And the vast world rejoice in golden peace,” &c &c