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any detailed account either of the grand old city itself, or of our life during the time we were privileged to spend within the walls, whose every stone seems to speak with a deathless voice of the glories of those ancient days, when England's faith brought forth such goodly fruit, and raised aloft such noble homes, where sanctity and science might settle and take root, as may, perchance, still plead her cause before God, as may, perchance, be allowed to stand in some small measure against the errors and varications of the evil times on which her lot has fallen. It seems to me as if the very stones of such a place as Oxford must for ever cry aloud to us to remember the days of old and the generations which have passed away-to remember the days when England's kings and England's princes deemed their faith the brightest jewel in their crown-the days when there was through all the land but the one altar, as there was but the one true faith-the days when Mary's name was a "household word," and "Mary's dower" was one of England's proudest titles-the days when Englishmen could bend in willing and in happy submission to the dictates of their conscience and their faith-a faith that was obedient, and rational because it was obedient—the days of faith that were happy and were blessed because they were days of faith-a faith which spoke in works, which raised for the worship of God, Westminster, and Hereford, and York, and the rest of the glorious churches which cast such a solemn and a moving beauty on our waving fields and on our smiling valleys; a beauty which is all the more touching now, because it is so mournful, too; the beauty of the fair body which has not as yet seen corruption on its outward form, but which, never

theless, has lost the living soul, which gave it half its beauty and all its life -a faith which raised and which endowed such stately homes, where holy men might teach, and studious youth might learn, as Oxford and as Cambridge-a faith which ever set aside its richest fields and its most fertile lands for the monastery and the abbey, which, even in their ruins, are ten thousand times more grand and fair than the stately workhouses which have taken their place, and in which the Gothic windows and the fanciful spires that grace the exterior, are supposed to be compensation enough to God's blessed poor for the harsh rule which reigns inside-compensation enough to console the aged pair who have been so foully parted, although the minister of God told them, when they stood before the altar, in the trusting confidence of their life's young spring, that God had joined them together, and that no man should put them asunder; that aged pair who, after a long life of labour and of duty, truly and faithfully done in their own humble sphere, would fain go down the hill together side by side, would fain tend one another, even to the last. Ah! God help ye, my poor brethren, when such a pitiful boon as this may not be granted to you;-God help ye, in the evil days on which you have fallen, when short-sighted men forget that you are far dearer than themselves, with all their riches and their gewgaws, in the sight of God; when they would fain put you out of the way altogether if they could, but, being obliged to tolerate you, stow you away in houses that are fair to look upon outside, that you may be as little offensive to their daintiness as is compatible with the fact of your existence; that your prison house may, exteriorly, at least, remind them as little as possible

of poverty, and of suffering, and of all such unpleasant things; and, this end secured, why should they trouble themselves because the children, whose curse it is to come into the world beneath such roofs, are tainted-tainted did I say?-nay, steeped in the foul leprosy which is born of places such as these, almost as soon as they can speak-children, upon whose cheeks the fair hues of childhood are never seen-children whose tongues have never uttered a gentle or a loving speech, but whose first words have been the curse which sounds so fearfully upon the childish lips, and whose first responsible acts have been acts of sin and shame ? Why should they trouble themselves because these children of corruption grow up to add each one its own foul share to the mass which festers all around us, and which grows each day more unmanageable, more beyond the control of magistrates and of law-makers; threatening to bring down upon us a ruin which we are impotent to stave off, but which, in its approach, is causing honest, earnest men no little fear, no little dread and apprehension? Why should they trouble themselves because this mighty land of ours, with all her wealth and all her boundless resources, with all that pure religion of which she talks so much, and which she labours so unceasingly to spread abroad, can devise no happier home for her wornout poor than a parish workhouse; where the faithful hearts which fought the battle of the world so long together may be rent asunder at the very last; may be left to pine away in that saddest solitude of all, the solitude of the heart; may be brought to such sorrow and such bitter care that they never seek or never leave their miserable beds without begging God to take them out of the evil place, to take them to

Himself at once? Ah, God help ye, my poor brethren, and God help us all, when we have nothing but workhouses with Gothic gables and pitched roofs; nothing but the harsh word and the harsher treatment of those who only serve you with an unwilling hand, and because they are paid to do it; nothing but the pauper's miserable funeral and the pauper's miserable grave to give you, in place of the watchful care which, in the blessed days gone by, sought you at the convent's gate: which led you in and tended you with such a loving hand, because you were one of God's own blessed poor, and because the sister who waited by your side saw her Master's image reflected forth in you; which closed your eyes with such a reverent touch; which laid you in your hallowed grave with holy mass and solemn rite; which placed the cross above the spot where you slept in faith, and peace, and rest; which loved you none the less in life, which prized your memory none the less in death, because you were one of those whom He who cannot lie, He before whose eternal justice all things shall be set right in the time to come, has declared to be "blessed" with an everlasting blessing amongst the sons of men.

HAVE said that I did not intend to trouble my reader with any long history of Oxford or Oxford life, and I intend to keep that promise, more especially as in the last chapter I relapsed into an old transgression of mine, and rambled away from the chain of my story into several digressions, which digressions may, perhaps, form links, more or less elegant, or quite the contrary, in the embellishing of that chain, but which are in no wise necessary for its due construction. Besides, I dare say that Oxford life is considerably changed from what it was in my days; and there are plenty of works to be had which will give the reader a much clearer insight than I could pretend to do into the present state of things at that great seat of learning. For example, he who is anxious to view Oxford from an aesthetical and controversial point of view may surely satisy himself to the full in "Loss and Gain," a work from the master-hand of one who, more deeply, perhaps, than any other in these later times, entered into the heart and soul of that great storehouse of learning; who appreciated more keenly, perhaps, than any other, all that Oxford had been in the olden times, all that she might be. and all that she ought to be; and who, as he loved