"But Heaven soon granted what my sire denied;"

which was true, my earnest petition for a new watch having been unceremoniously ridiculed by my father, even in the agonies of my parting farewell, the last holidays. I continued, and wreaked my cherished vengeance upon a truant schoolfellow, whom I hated, not for his truancy, which we all tremblingly admired, but for his having refused me the loan of his "crib," when translating a tough passage in the "De officiis," by pointing direct upon him as he sat near, with the exclamation,

"Yon trembling coward, who forsook his master!"

The speech was soon over, and the cheers were so loud that they inspired me with the thirst for public approbation which is now manifested in my productions. Again I bowed, and was invested with the watch, which, by way of justifying my father's predictions, I broke the same evening in a fight with "the trembling coward," who wreaked his revenge upon my bitter tongue, by planting his fists upon my sweet physiognomy.

It being near the holidays, I had selected my oration from Douglas, having at the time a peculiar penchant for Home, but others were not so retiring, and boldly ventured upon a flight with wings of their own construction. Some of these Dædali reminded me, at the time, of a paper kite, as, though they might have the cane behind, they were unable to pursue their course for want of a tale. The utter paucity of ideas amongst our theme writers was pitiable, but it was attended with this good effect, that the essayists, having no particular premises or arguments, seldom came to a very false conclusion. The following may perhaps be excused, for the writer, if he displayed no other talent, had certainly that of brevity. The original was presented to me as an especial mark of affection, and I have lately found it among some other memorials of "my boyish days." It was read by Master Philemon Figg, a promising youth of fourteen, on this eventful evening. The pupils being at liberty to select any subject they chose, naturally selected none at all, hence the want of a heading.

"At the creation of the world there can be little doubt to any deeply reflecting mind, upon taking into mature consideration the posture of affairs in the universe in general, and in Great Britain in particular, that the arts and sciences, more especially those by which this great nation has been enabled at once to commence, achieve, and secure a succession of conquests over all parts of the globe, and to extend the blessings of freedom and civilization to all within its compass, were scarcely advanced beyond a comparatively early stage of helpless infancy. It must therefore be a most delightful and encouraging prospect to those who have at heart the interests of the rising generation, and who love, to use the words of the poet, which are probably not altogether strangers to the ears of some of those whom I have the honour of addressing on this evening-an evening when the friends of so many of us are met to enjoy that rational and satisfactory." I thought I had the whole of the theme, but I find a leaf is lost, and can only add, that Figg was received with great plaudits, in the midst of which the incipient genius of Mr.

Thomas H- broke forth in the felicitous observation, that he "knew the whole affair to be a figment of his friend's, but was utterly puzzled to know what Figg meant to say." As a reward for the early commencement of the young essayist's theme, he was presented with a splendid copy of Adam's Antiquities, upon which the little punster ventured his remark that to Figgulus, Potter's work on the same subject had been more suitable.

The next youth called to the bar was my particular enemy. I am sure I shall not be thought quarrelsome when I say that Alfred Sidney Eustace Higgins had committed the unpardonable crime of thinking, and not contented with that offence, of communicating his thoughts to the whole school, that I, Adonis Evergreen, fought like a girl. I might take this as a compliment, since the female reform clubs and the last French revolution, but at that time I could not brook the speech, and retorted by hurling little Benjamin (our ruler) at the head of the insulter. As matter of course, we came to single combat immediately, but were interrupted by the entrance of Dr. Birchemall, who, upon hearing the cause of dispute, considered, with Gay's shepherd umpire, that

"An oaken staff each merited for his pains,"

and more than that, gave us our desert impromptu. The feud was never stanched, and I sat, on the present occasion, as fully prepared to hiss the performance as was ever a theatrical critic who had been forced to pay at the door. Higgins sheepishly ascended the rostrum, and, in a mumbling tone, grunted forth the following composition.

ON LIBERTY.

When Philip's son, the lord of Grecian guilt,
Despoiled the arcana of the blood he spilt,
When Bacchus hurled, degraded and alone,
The godlike Nero from his time-worn throne,
And Rome with trophies bade her eagle soar,
Till half the world obeyed that curb no more,
A voice of thunder, veiled in smoke and storm,
Discharged the summons, yet with fury warm,
And Britain waved her crest of native oak,
While Nerva's crescent dared the assassin's stroke.

How gazed Hymettus, as the Pythian brave
Unloosed the flag that chastened India's wave,
As charged the phalanx of the clustering west,
And manned a rush against Othello's breast!
Then shrieked the tyrant, as his glass descried
The dart that tore him from his island bride,
And slaves intoxicate, from cell to cell,
In freedom's proudest accents looked farewell.

Be such, O England! such thy pristine meed,
And grace thy pageant with the arid weed,
High flash thy banners, prostrate greet the day
That iron slavery melts in showers away;
Be thine the glory, sovereign of the isles,

To stamp thy heaven-born crest on bridgeless piles,
To guide the fleet that fills the empty sail,

And spread thy wings of fire to catch the gale!

Then! then! shall Britain, through her floating ships,
Blessings unprayed receive from voiceless lips,
And like the Moor, ere Romeo stabbed his king,
Of slavery whisper loud THERE'S NO SUCH THING !"

Such was the bad taste of the audience, that a universal clapping of hands followed my antagonist's poem, and the signal honour was conferred upon him of being invited to the stranger's seats to receive congratulations. As he passed me, however, Alfred Sidney Eustace Higgins contrived to entangle his feet with mine, and fell prostrate, like his own England, before those he wished to salute. He descended direct upon his nose, and was consequently borne from the room with his blushing honours red upon him. This was a small gratification to me, which I took no pains to conceal, informing those around me, that if Higgins' verses were correct, he himself could not manage his feet; that for so clever an Ovidian scholar it was disgraceful not to understand Naso, and giving vent to various witticisms of the like nature. A few other speeches were delivered, the remaining prizes distributed, of which three were awarded to a sharp fellow named Blunt, who was immediately christened "Prize Money by his associates, and then the worthy doctor addressed us in a luminous harangue, wherein he set forth the advantages of education, the various occurrences of the half year, the great pains that had been taken with us, and the fact that the holidays would last long enough to enable us to weary out our friends, and forget all we had been learning, and concluding by dismissing us to the playroom. I soon found my way down stairs, and a loud knock at the door occurring, waited to see the new arrival. The red-armed giantess opened the door, ordering me out of the way in no respectful style, two faces appeared,

And at the self-same moment at the door,

Of our barouche my parents well-known forms,
Welcomed their offspring to six weeks of bliss.

So ended my first examination. The remaining half-years passed away like unto each other, and I was in due time removed to scenes and circumstances of a different kind. Oh! Oxford, for the pencil of Le Keux to trace thy time-honoured, row-desecrated halls; thy streets, whose echoes have so often awakened to the clash of combat, now of roundhead and cavalier, now of town and gown. Queen of cities! an additional gem was added to thy coronal on the day that I took up my abode at College.

THE LIFE OF A SUB-EDITOR.1

BY THE SUB-EDITOR.

WE will despatch the object of persecution in a few words. Lieutenant Silva was given the option of a court-martial, or of exchanging into a sloop of war. He chose the latter. The captain and his messmates saw him over the side two days after we had anchored in Port Royal. The spiteful commander purposely contrived, when his effects were whipped into the boat, that one of the heavy, suspiciouslooking cases, should be swung against the gun and smashed. The result was exactly what we all expected. The water was strewed with copies in boards of the "Tour up and down the Rio de la Plate." They must certainly have been light reading as they floated about triumphantly. "I wonder whether they will pave their way up to Kingston," said the captain, with a sneer.

As the author would not suffer them to be picked up, they sank one by one, and disappeared, like the remembrance of their creator in the minds of his companions. We heard a few weeks after that he had died of the yellow fever, and thus he, with his books, were consigned to, or are only rescued from, oblivion, if haply this work do not share his fate, by this short memento of him.

Yellow fever! malignant consumer of the brave! how shall I adequately apostrophize thee? I have looked in thy jaundiced face, whilst thy maw seemed insatiate. But once didst thou lay thy scorching hand upon my frame, but the sweet voice of woman startled thee from thy prey, and the flame of love was stronger than even thy desolating fire. But now is not the time to tell of this, but rather of the eagerness with which most of my companions sought to avoid thee.

Captain Reud had got, apparently, into his natural, as well as native, climate. The hotter it was, like a cricket, he chirped the louder, and enjoyed it the more. Young and restless, he was the personification of mischievous humour and sly annoyance. The tales he told of the fever were ominous, appalling, fatal. None could live who had not been seasoned, and none could outlive the seasoning. For myself, I might have been frightened, had I not been so constantly occupied in discussing pine-apples. But the climax was yet to be given to the fears of the fearful.

All the officers that could be spared from the ship were invited to dine with the mess of the 60th regiment, then doing duty at Kingston and Port Royal. That day, Captain Reud having been invited to dine with the admiral at the Penn, we were consequently deprived of his facetiousness. All the lieutenants and the ward-room officers, with most of the midshipmen, were of the party. The master took charge of the frigate. Suppose us all seated at the long table, chequered red and blue, with Major Flushfire, the officer in command of the

Continued from p. 207.

garrison, at the top of the table, all scarlet and gold, and our own dear Doctor Thompson, all scarlet and blue, at the bottom. These two gentlemen were wonderfully alike. The major's scarlet was not confined to his regimentals: it covered his face. There was not a cool spot in that flame-coloured region; the yellow of his eyes was blood-shot, and his nose was richly Bardolphian. The expression of his features was thirst; but it was a jovial thirst withal-a thirst that burned to be supplied, encouraged, pampered. The very idea of water was repugnant to it. Hydrophobia was written upon the major's brow.

We have described our rubicund doctor before. He always looked warm, but since his entrance into the tropics, he had been more than hot, he had been always steaming. There was almost a perceptible mist about him. His visage possessed not the adust scorch of the major's; his was a moist heat; his cheeks were constantly parboiling in their own perspiration. He was a meet croupier for our host. Ranged on each side of this noble pair were the long lines of very pale and anxious faces, (I really must except my own, for my face never looked anxious till I married, or pale till I took to scribbling,) the possessors of which were experiencing a little the torment of Tantalus. The palisades, those graves of sand, turned into a rich compost by the ever-recurring burial, were directly under the windows, and the land-breeze came over them, chill and dank, in palpable currents, through the jalousies into the heated room; and had any one thrust his head into the moonlight and looked beneath, he would have seen hundreds of the shell-clad vampires, upon their long and contorted legs, moving hideously round, and scrambling horribly over the newly-made mounds, each of which contained the still fresh corpse of a warrior, or of the land, or of the ocean. In a small way, your land-crab is a most indefatigable resurrectionist. But there is retribution for their villany. They get eaten in their turn. Delicate feeding they are doubtlessly; and there can be no manner of question, but that at that memorable dinner a double banquet was going on, upon a most excellent principle of reciprocity. The epicure crab was feeding upon the dish, man, below, whilst epicure man was feeding upon dished-up crab above. True, the guests knew it not; I mean those who did not wear testaceous armour; the gentlemen in the coat of mail knew very well what they were about. It was, at the time of which I am speaking, a standing joke to make Johnny Newcome eat land-crab disguised as some savory dish. Thank God, that was more than a quarter of a century ago. We trust that the social qualities and the culinary refinements of the West Indians do not now march à l'ecrivisse and progress à reculons.

There we all sate, prudence coqueting with appetite, and the finest yellow curries contending with the direst thoughts of yellow fever. Ever and anon some amiable youth would dash off a bumper of claret with an air of desperate bravery, and then turn pale at the idea of his own temerity. The most cautious were Scotch assistant-surgeons, and pale young ensigns who played the flute. The midshipmen feasted and feared. The major and the doctor kept on the "even tenor of their way," that is, they ate and drank à l'envie.