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should I make many words about all that? I screamed, and screamed, and better screamed, but she only squeezed my hand, and shook her head, as if it was all of no avail. I had shouted till I was as hoarse as a raven, and was just going to give up all farther thoughts of making any exertion; for, in truth, I began to feel benumbed and listless all over, my friends -when we heard a gun fired. We heard it quite distinctly, though the mist was so thick that we could see nothing. I cried then; you may suppose how I cried; and Ellen too, though she had never opened her lips before, cried as lustily as she could. Again the gun was fired, and again we answered at the top of our voices; and then, God bless me !-was there ever such a moment? We heard the dashing of the oars, and a strong breeze lifted the mist like a curtain from before us, and there was a boat-a jolly ten-oar boat, sheering right through the waters towards us, perhaps about a couple of hundred yards off. A sailor on the bow hailed and cheered us; but you may imagine how far gone we were, when I tell you that I scarcely took notice it was in ENGLISH the man cried to us.

"In five minutes we were safe on board. They were kind, as kind as could be-good jolly English boys, every soul of them. Our boor lad was sitting in the midst of them with a brandy bottle at his head; and, poor soul, he had need enough of comfort, to be sure, for to Heligoland he must go and three horses lost, of course-besides the anxiety of his friends.

"It was a good while ere I got my thoughts anyways collected about me. Ellen, poor thing, sat close nestled beside me, shaking all over like a leaf. But yet it was she that first spoke to me, and upon my soul, I think her face was more woeful than it had ever been when we were in our utmost peril; it was a sore sight truly, that had made it so, and the poor lassie's heart was visibly at the bursting. There were our two horses-the poor dumb beasts-what think ye of it? -there they were, both of them, swimming just by the stern of the boat. And our honest Bauer, God bless me! the tears were running over his face while he looked at them; and by and by one of the poor creatures made an exertion and came off the side of the boat where the lad sat, quite close to ourselves, with an imploring look and a whining cry that cut me to the very heart. Ellen sat and sobbed by me, but every now and then she bolted up, and it was all I could do to hold her in her place. At last the poor beast made two or three most violent plunges, and reared himself half-way out

of the water, coming so near the boat, that one of the men's oars struck him on the head; and with that he groaned most pitifully, snorted, neighed, and plunged again for a moment, and then there was one loud, shrill cry, I never heard such a terrible sound since I was born, and away he drifted astern of us.We saw him after a very little while had passed, going quite passively the way the current was running, the other had done so just be fore; but I've been telling you a very long story, and perhaps you'll think about very little matters too. As for ourselves, we soon reached one of the transports that Sir George Stuart had sent to fetch off the brave Brunswickers; and though the rascally Danes kept firing at us in a most cowardly manner, whenever we were obliged to come near their side on the tack, they were such miserable hands at their guns, that not one shot ever came within fifty yards of one vessel that was there. It would have been an easy matter to have burnt Bremerlee about their ears, but the Duke was anxious to have his poor fellows in their quarters-God knows, they had had a sore campaign one way and another-and so we only gave them a few shots, just to see them skipping about upon the sand, and so passed them all, and got safe out of the Weser. We reached Heligoland next day, and then, you know, we were at home among plenty of English, and Ellen nursed my rheumatics; and as soon as I was able to move, we came over in one of the King's packets, and here we are, alive and kicking-1 will say it once more-in merry England.'

Shortly after, an infernal row takes place in the High Street, and Reginald accompanies the good old priest to his house, to guard him from any menacing danger. Lo! the vision rises before him at the door of that humble dwelling, which never afterwards is to fade from his brain-and certainly a lovelier vision never thrilled the heartstrings, nor stirred the blood in the veins of youth.

"A soft female voice said from within, 'Who's there?'

"It's me, my darling,' answered the old man, and the door was opened. A young girl, with a candle in her hand, appeared in the entrance, and uttered something anxiously and quickly in a language which Reginald did not understand. 'Mein susses kind,' he answered bonny lassie, it's a mere scart, just a fleabite-I'm all safe and sound, thanks to this young gentleman.-Mr Dalton, allow me to have the honour of presenting

my

Miss

you to my niece, Miss Hesketh, Hesketh, Mr Dalton. But we shall all be better acquainted hereafter, I trust.'

"The old man shook Reginald most affectionately by the hand, and repeating his request that he should go instantly home, he entered the house-the door was closed-and Reginald stood alone upon the way. The thing had past in a single instant, yet when the vision withdrew, the boy felt as if that angel-face could never quit his imagination. So fair, so pensive-yet so sweet and light a smile-such an air of hovering, timid grace-such a clear, soft eye-such raven silken tresses beneath that flowing veil never had his eye beheld such a creature -it was as if he had had one momentary glimpse into some purer, happier, lovelier world than this.

"He stood for some moments rivetted to the spot where this beautiful vision had gleamed upon him. He looked up and saw, as he thought, something white at one of the windows-but that too was gone; and, after a little while, he began to walk back slowly into the city. He could not, however, but pause again for a moment when he reached the bridge; the tall fair tower of Magdalene appeared so exquisitely beautiful above its circling groves, and there was something so soothing to his imagination, (pensive as it was at the moment,) in the dark flow of the Charwell gurgling below him within its fringe of willows. He stood leaning over the parapet, enjoying the solemn loveliness of the scene, when of a sudden, the universal stillness was disturbed once more by a clamour of rushing feet and impetuous voices."

Reginald is sinking down through dream and vision, and love has in a moment possessed him with its imaginative joy. The bashful inexperienced boy from his father's study, where he had lived till eighteen years among books and tranquil musings, is struck below the shadows of the magnificent towers of Oxford by the sudden and passionate perception of overpowering beauty. Was this fair creature, seen but for a moment, and then shut up from him in the silence and solitude of that old man's cell, the fearless one who had so behaved in that dreadful night of the sea-storm? These and other thoughts were rendering Reginald unaware of the beauty of Magdalen Tower and the moonlight and starry heavens, when his lovedream was broken in upon-by the revival of a row.

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"He was hailed by the old cry, Town or Gown?' when he came near them; but before he could make any answer, Frederick Chisney reeled from the midst of the group, and exclaimed, seizing him by the collar, Oh you dog, where have you been hiding yourself? I called at both the Star and the King's Arms for you-Here, my hearties, here's my gay young freshman here's my Westmoreland Johnny Raw'-he went on, hickuping between every word'here's my friend, Reginald Dalton, boys, we'll initiate him in style.'

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"Reginald was instantly surrounded by a set of young fellows, all evidently very much flustered with wine, who saluted him with such violent shaking of hands, as is only to be expected from the 'Baccho pleni,' or acquaintances of ten years' standing.”

Gentle reader! pardon us while we lay down the pen, and indulge in some tender recollections. We have done so we wipe away the tears from our eyes-and present you with the affecting passage which has so overwhelmed us with a crowd of delightful remembrances.

"In short, by this time the Highstreet of Oxford exhibited a scene as different from its customary solemnity and silence, as it is possible to imagine. Conceive several hundreds of young men in caps, or gowns, or both, but all of them, without exception, wearing some part of their academical insignia, retreating before a band rather more numerous, madé up of apprentices, journeymen, labourers, bargemen—a motley mixture of every thing that, in the phrase of that classical region, passes under the generic name of Raff. Several casual disturbances had occurred in different quarters of the town, a thing quite familiar to the last and all preceding ages, and by no means uncommon even in those recent days, whatever may be the case now. Of the host of youthful academics, just arrived for the beginning of the term, a considerable number had, as usual, been quartered for this night in the different inns of the city. Some of these, all full of wine and mischief, had first rushed out and swelled a mere passing scuffle into something like a substantial row. Herds of the townboys, on the other hand, had been rapidly assembled by the magic influence of their accustomed war-cry. The row once formed into regular shape in The Corn-market, the clamour had penetrated walls, and overleapt battlements; from College to College the madness had spread and flown. Porters had been knocked down

in one quarter, iron-bound gates forced in another, and the rope-ladder, and the sheet-ladder, and the headlong leap, had all been put into requisition, with as much eager, frantic, desperate zeal, as if every old monastic tower had been the scene of an unquenchable fire, every dim cloistered quadrangle of a yawning earthquake. In former days, as I have asserted, such things were of familiar occurrence. There is an old rhyme which says,

Chronica si penses, cum pugnent Oxonienses, Post aliquot menses, volat ira per Angliginenses.' Had such disturbances been interpreted as pugnæ, England could never have enjoyed five years of peace since she was the kingdom of kingdoms. But it was not so; they were regarded as but the casual effervescences of juvenile spirit, and no serious consequences ever attached or attributed to their occurrence.+

"But to our story. Chisney and his companions, the wine of the Black Bear of Woodstock still fuming in their brains, were soon in the midst of the retreating togati; and our friend Reginald, drest in the splendid attire of a Doctor of Physic, could scarcely, under all the circumstances, be blamed for following their guidance. Jem Brank stuck close to the party, wielding in his fist the fine goldheaded cane of Mr Alderman Plumridge. At the same instant, a dozen or two of stout young fellows rushed out from Queen's and University, and the front began to stand firm once more; while the animating shouts of these new allies were heard with fear and dismay by their assailants, who never doubted that the whole of New College had turned out, and who had on many former occasions been taught abundantly, that the elèves of William of Wickham can handle the single-stick with as much grace as ever their great founder did the wreathed crosier.

"It was now that a terrible conflict ensued a conflict, the fury of which might have inspired lightness, vigour, and elasticity, even into the paragraphs of a Bentham, or the hexameters of a Southeyhad either or both of these eminent persons been there to witness-better still had they been there to partake in, the genial phrenzy. It was now that 'The Science' (to use the language of Thalaba) 'made itself to be felt.' It was now that (in the words of Wordsworth) 'the power of cudgels was a visible thing.' It was now that many a gown covered, as erst that of the Lady Christabelle,

Half a bosom and a side A sight to dream of, not to see.'

It was now that there was no need for that pathetic apostrophe of another living Sonnetteer

Away all specious, pliancy of mind

In men of low degree!'

For it was now that the strong Bargeman of Isis, and the strong Batchelor of Brazen-nose, rushed together like two clouds with thunder laden,' and that the old reproach of Baculo potius,' &c., was for ever done away with. It was now that the Proctor, even the portly Proctor, shewed that he had sat at the feet of other Jacksons besides Cyril ;

For he that came to preach, remained to play.'

"In a word, there was an elegant tussle, which lasted for five minutes, opposite to the side-porch of All-Souls. There the townsmen gave way; but being pursued with horrible oaths and blows as far as Carfax, they rallied again under the shadow of that sacred edifice; and received there a welcome reinforcement from the purlieus of the Staffordshire Canal, and the ingenuous youth of Penny-farthing Street. Once more the tide of war was turned; the gowned phalanx gave back-surly and slow, indeed, but still they did give back. On rolled the adverse and swelling tide with their 'few plain instincts and their few plain rules.'. At every College gate sounded, as the retreating band passed its venerable precincts, the loud, the shrilly summons of -Gown! Gown!'-while down each murky plebeian alley, the snoring mechanic doffed his night-cap to the alarum of

Town! Town!' Long and loud the tumult continued in its fearful rage, and much excellent work was accomplished. Long and lasting shall be the tokens of its wrath-long shall be the faces of Pegge, Wall, Kidd, (and light shall be their hearts,) as they walk their rounds to-morrow morning-long shall be the stately stride of Ireland, and long the clysterpipe of West-long and deep shall be the probing of thy skilful lancet, O Tuckwell; and long shall all your bills be, and long, very long, shall it be ere some of them are paid. Yet, such the gracious accident, homicide was not.

"A third furious battle took place on that fair and spacious area which intervenes between Magdalene's reverend front and the Botanic Garden. But the constables of the city, and the bull-dogs of the University, here at last uniting their forces, plunged their sturdy wedge into the

"Though Hartford College has been erased from the list, I should hope the window, from which Charles Fox made that illustrious leap upon one of these occasions, has been spared by the piety of the present Chancellor,"

thickest mass of the confusion. Many, on both sides, were right glad of a decent excuse, and dispersion followed. But up towards Holywell, and down towards Love Lane, and away over the waters of Charwell toward St Clement's parish, the war still lingered in fragments, and was renewed at intervals.

"Reginald, although a nimble and active young fellow, broad in the chest, narrow in the pelvis, thick in the neck, and lightsome in the region of the breadbasket, a good leaper, and a runner among ten thousand, was not, as has been formerly mentioned, a fencer; neither was he a wrestler, nor a boxer, nor an expert hand at the baton. These were accomplishments, of which, his education having, according to Mr Macdonald's taunt, been negleckit,' he had yet received scarcely the slightest tincture. The consequence was, that upon the whole, though his exertions were neither few nor far between, he was, if mauling were sin, fully more sinned against than sinning. The last thing he could charge his memory withal, when he afterwards endeavoured to arrange its 'disjecta fragmenta,' was the vision of a brawny arm uplifted over against him, and the moon shedding her light very distinctly upon the red spoke of a coach-wheel, with which that arm appeared to be intimately connected."

Reginald is not killed-but, fortunately, knocked down insensible-and next morning awakes in the house of -Mr Keith. What young man, with blood in his veins, or fibres in his heart, would not have thanked the stars that shone over the row that eventually seated him at the breakfast-table with such a creature as Helen Hesketh? Last night he had but a transient glimpse of her moonlight beauty; but now she smiles upon him steady and serene as the morning.

"She spoke to him easily, kindly, gaily praised him for his interference in Mr Keith's favour-half-roguishly questioned him about the after events of the evening-gave him playful little hints about the propriety of keeping out of such scrapes for the future; and all this she did in pure English, but with an accent about which there was something not less distinctly foreign than there was in the whole of her own appearance dress, and demeanour. A beautiful girl indeed she was a smile of gentle fearless innocence sat enthroned in her soft dark eyes; and if now and then a shade of pensiveness hovered over their droop

ing lids, it was chased in a moment by the returning radiance of that young and Her rich raven tresses virgin glee. were gathered beneath a silken net upon the back part of her head, leaving the fair open front entirely unshaded; and this, together with the style of her dress, which was plainer, fuller, and infinitely more modest than was at that time fashionable among English ladies, and the little golden cross, hung from a rosary of black beads about her neck, gave to the toute ensemble a certain grave and nun-like character-not perhaps the less piquant on account of the contrast which that presented to the cheerful and airy grace of her manners. There was such a total artlessness about everything Miss Hesketh said and did, that Reginald, although but little accustomed to the society of young unmarried ladies, and full enough of those indescribable feelings which generally render unsophisticated young people shy and reserved in their first intercourse with others of a different sex, could not withstand the charming fascination, but spoke and smiled in his turn as if they had been old acquaintance.

"How much of this ease on both sides might be the effect of the gay and kind old gentleman's presence, I cannot pretend to say. In all such cases, the influence of a tertium quid is, without question, powerful; and the fact is certain, that when, on a knock of rather alarming loudness coming to the door of the house, Mr Keith went out of the apartment in which they were sitting, the young couple, left to themselves, became suddenly as reserved as they had the minute before been the reverse. They were both sitting in silencetrifling, the one with his tea-spoon, and the other with her rosary, when, after the interval of a minute or two, Mr Keith re-entered the parlour in company with Frederick Chisney."

This alternation between scenes of all the headlong and senseless violence of youth, rioting in the uncontrollable revelry of excited animal spirits, and others of beautiful repose, and of the first awakenings of the purest and most delightful of passions that can penetrate the inmost soul, will no doubt startle, has no doubt startled, many grave, old, and young persons of both sexes; but we hope and believe, that with real "boys and virgins" it will stir and arouse the imagination and the heart. Throughout all these extraordinary movements, too, one cannot help thinking of the wonder and astonishment of Reginald

Dalton himself, and fancying what he felt and thought of her who was about to become his ALMA MATER. What a contrast to the stillness and seclusion of his good father's rectory! What are they doing in Lancashire-old Mrs Elizabeth-that elderly and amiable Grimalkin Barbara-the gouty, brandynosed Squire-my butler-and the parishioners at large? A couple of days have wrought strange and deep alteration on his spirit-his knowledge is already extended-his eye sees what before had no visible existence-his ear has had notices of heavenly sounds —and Reginald, last week a mere boy, who wept to leave his father's house, and the shadow of the elms under which he had played and walked, and read Virgil and Tacitus, and Homer and Demosthenes for he was the son of a scholar-is now a manfor he has fought and bled in the wars of the Togati and Non-Togati, and seen her whom he is to remember night and day and for ever.

Review and elsewhere, will be utterly incapable of comprehending the character of such a man, or of forming to themselves, even from such a living picture, the image of the pale and recluse scholar in his pensive citadel.

"Mr Daniel Barton, of -- College, was a man, the like of whom it would be in vain to seek for in England beyond the walls of Oxford or Cambridge. Though a keen and indefatigable student in his very early years, he had, during the latter part of his residence at the University as an Under-graduate, partaken more in the pleasures than in the labours of the place. His behaviour in this respect had considerably irritated his father, who had formed extravagant expectations from the precocious diligence of his boyhood. He left England for a season, and by forming an imprudent matrimonial connection in a foreign country, aggravated so deeply his father's displeasure, that on the death of the old gentleman, which occurred very soon afterwards, he found himself cut off from the succession to a respectable family estate, and left in the world with no better provision than a very trifling annuity. His pretty little Swiss did not live long enough to be much of a burden to his slender resour

ces.

She died abroad, and he, immediately on his return to England, came back to Oxford a melancholy and disappointed

man.

Reginald is in love, and his pure admiration of Helen Hesketh is increased by the common-place and dull ribaldry of his acquaintance Chisney, who sports his gibes on the old priest and this his pretty niece. Chisney is one of those knowing and profound persons, who see evil, or cause of suspicion of evil, in every show of life, and all its most endearing and innocent relations, when the condition of that life is in some degree below their own. With such persons the vilest and most self-evident falsehoods are carelessly or insolently taken for undeniable truths; and in the simple, unsuspecting, and naturally gay and refined manners and demeanour of this de-versity, being, ere long, taken away from

lightful girl, he can see nothing irreconcilable with the belief of her living in degradation and guilt. Reginald's mind naturally averts itself from one who could thus think and speak ; and in the anger he feels and half-expresses at such unmanly insinuations, the generous boy shews how dear Helen Hesketh has already become to him, since, stranger as she is to him, and the vision but of a day, he feels a word against her reputation like a wound to his own heart.

Reginald enters himself at **** .College, and we cannot refrain from quoting the picture of his college tutor. Those ignorant persons, who prate about Oxford in the Edinburgh VOL. XV.

"He was fortunate enough to obtain a fellowship in College very soon after this, and took possession of the chambers in which Reginald Dalton was now about to be introduced to him. Here his irritated temper did not prevent him from seeking and finding occupation and consolation in his books. old friends he then possessed in the Uni

The few

his neighbourhood, and scattered over the world in various professions, his hahis resource; and at length they conbits of reading became more and more stituted his only one. The head of his own College was a man he did not like, and gradually the society of the common room, formed of course of this man's favourites, came to be quite irksome to him. In short, he had now for many years lived the life of a hermit-temperate to abstenance, studious to slavery, in utter solitude, without a friend or a companion. Years and years had glided over a head scarcely conscious of their lapse. Day after day the same little walk had been taken exactly at the same hour; the same silent servant had carried in his commons; the arrival of a

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