Windsor. His meditations on the house-tops soon grew into form and substance; and, about the year 1780, he aspired, with all the impudence of Shadwell, and a little of the pride of Petrarch, to the laurel-crown of Eton. From that day he has worn his honours on his Cibberian forehead' without a rival."

"And what is his style of composition?" said Frazer.

"Vastly naïve and original;-though the character of the age is sometimes impressed upon his productions. For the first three odes, ere the school of Pope was extinct, he was a compiler of regular couplets, such as

Ye dames of honour and lords of high renown,

Who come to visit us at Eton town."

During the next nine years, when the remembrance of Collins and Gray was working a glorious change in the popular mind, he ascended to Pindarics, and closed his lyrics with some such pious invocation as this ::

And now we'll sing

God save the King,

And send him long to reign,

That he may come

To have some fun

At Montem once again.'

During the first twelve years of the present century, the influence of the Lake School was visible in his productions. In my great work I shall give an elaborate dissertation on his imitations of the high priests of that worship; but I must now content myself with a single illustration :

There's Ensign Rennell, tall and proud,

Doth stand upon the hill,

And waves the flag to all the crowd,
Who much admire his skill.

And here I sit upon my ass,

Who lops his shaggy ears;

Mild thing! he lets the gentry pass,

Nor heeds the carriages and peers.'

He was once infected (but it was a venial sin) by the heresies of the Cockney school; and was betrayed, by the contagion of evil example, into the following conceits :

Behold Admiral Keate of the terrestrial crew,

Who teaches Greek, Latin, and likewise Hebrew ;
He has taught Captain Dampier, the first in the race,
Swirling his hat with a feathery grace,

Cookson the Marshal, and Willoughby, of size,

Making minor Sergeant-Majors in looking-glass eyes.'

But he at length returned to his own pure and original style; and, like the dying swan, he sings the sweeter as he is approaching the land where the voice of his minstrelsy shall no more be heard. There is a calm melancholy in the close of his present Ode which is very pathetic, and almost Shakspearian :-

Farewell you gay and happy throng!

Farewell my Muse! farewell my song!

Farewell Salthill! farewell brave Captain!'

Yet, may it be long before he goes hence and is no more seen! May he limp, like his rhymes, for at least a dozen years; for National Schools have utterly annihilated our hopes of a successor!"

Paterson finished his apostrophe at a lucky juncture; for the band struck up, and the procession began to move.

The newspapers have monopolized "Henry's holy shade," and there is not a bit of the "antique towers" left for me to seize, with the slightest chance of originality. If I were less careful upon these points I might here possess a golden opportunity of sketching the most picturesque appendages of the procession;—and I trust that I might accomplish the feat with a felicity, that, as some venerable critic said of the Etonian in the Quarterly, "may in time raise the youthful writer to an equality with Geoffrey Crayon himself."

I do not desire, gentle lady, or kind sir, unless you wish me to exercise a special interest in your behalf,—I do not desire to be a partaker of the mysteries of the ring in the Stable-yard. I leave that privilege to Dukes and Doctors, who here see, with all the advantage of a close private view in a dingy square, what the commoners see at the mount, with the drawback of twenty thousand spectators on an ample green. They see a banner flourished with all the elegance and strength that three months' practice of six hours a day can accomplish. These wavings on the right arm and on the left-these horizontal revolutions of the flag about the head and about the waist-ought to be introduced as the diurnal exercise of all military academies. Your Ensigns, that first try the weight of the regimental colours on Constitution Hill, totter before the north blast like aspens in March-but Ensign Dansey, with his Long-chamber practice, is the beau-ideal of an Ensign.

We at length emerge to the Playing Fields. This is indeed a glorious scene. How deliciously the sun, peeping forth from the light clouds, like Coleridge soliloquizing to his levée at Highgate, throws life and gladness and poetry over nature and art-over the first delicate leaves of the tall elms, and the "spring-patterns" of the tall misses! I cannot stay to describe. With your leave, Madam, we will ride to Salthill. Gently, coachman. I beg pardon, Sir, for the presumption with which our pole intrudes upon the society of your pannel. But mine is a travelling-carriage, and has learnt something of the nonchalance of foreign manners.

We have at length reached the foot of the mount-a very respectable barrow, which never dreamt, in its Druidical age, of the interest which it now excites, and the honours which now await it. Its sides are clothed with mechanics in their holiday

clothes, and happy dairy-maids in their Sunday gear ;—at its base sit Peeresses in their barouches, and Earls in all the honours of four-in-hand. The flag is again waved; the scarlet coats and the crimson plumes again float amongst us-" the boys carry it away, Hercules and his load too,”—and the whole earth seems made for the enjoyment of one universal holiday.

And now, Madam, that the thirsty pedestrians are fairly committed to Botham's port, and the five hundred lads (I beg to except the sixth form from this denomination) are realizing all the substantial enjoyments that their liberal Captain has provided for them, we will walk in the garden for half an hour. It is a glorious scene. All have laid aside their cares, and very many their self-importance; and they feel that opening leaves, and delicate buds, and full-blown flowers, have a voice, even if it were not a triennial jubilee, that calls upon man (and woman too) to be happy. Madam, I blush to quit you at such an interesting crisis, but I am relieved by committing you to the protection of the gentleman reader;-there is a table for six at the Windmill, and Gerard is in the chair.

"And is this all?" said Archibald Frazer, after the first toast, in a tone of querulous contempt, which became almost positively mournful in his Doric dialect;" is this all that these thousands "is of silken ladies and silly clowns are come to gaze upon?-Out upon such tom-foolery, whose origin is as obscure as its end is pointless."

6

6

Paterson at once took up the cudgels." And I say, out upon your eternal hunting for causes and reasons. I love the nomeaning of Montem. I love to be asked for Salt,' by a pretty boy in silk stockings and satin doublet, though the custom has been called something between begging and robbing.' I love the apologetical Mos pro Lege,' which defies the police and the Mendicity Society. I love the absurdity of a Captain taking precedence of a Marshal; and a Marshal bearing a gilt bâton, at an angle of forty-five degrees from his right hip; and an Ensign flourishing a flag with the grace of a tight-rope dancer; and Sergeants paged by fair-skinned indians and beardless Turks; and Corporals in sashes and gorgets, guarded by innocent Polemen in blue jackets and white trowsers. I love the mixture of real and mock dignity;-the Provost, in his cassock, clearing the way for the Duchess of Leinster to see the Ensign make his bow; or the Head Master gravely dispensing his leave till nine, to Counts of the Holy Roman Empire and Grand Signiors. I love the crush in the cloisters and the mob on the Mount-I love the clatter of carriages and the plunging of horsemen-I love the universal gaiety, from the peer who smiles and sighs that he is no longer an Eton boy, to the country-girl who marvels that such little gentlemen have cocked hats and real swords.

Give me a Montem with all its tom-foolery-I had almost said before a coronation—and even without the aids of a Perigord-pie and a bottle of claret at the Windmill."

"If there were some association," replied Frazer," which could, in the slightest degree, connect the pageant with the objects of a royal school of learning-(I had expected at least to have heard a Latin oration)-I would not so much reprehend it; but for a procession in pumps, along a dusty road, to end in the College Exercise of a King's Scholar waving a banner, is too absurd even for Gerard's fancy to dress up a vindication."

"A vindication of a ceremony that makes twenty-thousand people happy!" exclaimed Gerard: "the very scene before the window furnishes a ready answer to every objector. Here is folly enough in conscience; but it is the folly of an age when folly sits easily and gracefully upon us. Did you ever see an installation, Frazer? The mantles are not much finer than little Sutton's, and the plumes not much more exalted than lofty Platt's ;-and then, for a procession, we beat them hollow. Look at the eight beautiful boys that attend the Captain-their ages and figures are pretty equal, and their eyes beam with a joy which sparkles like their spangles-is not this something more natural and pleasing than a train of decrepid Dukes or hobbling Marquisses, where the flowing mantle but ill conceals the shrunk calf, and the ostrichfeathers nod over sunken eyes and wrinkled cheeks?"

Holyoake chimed in: "Let mathematics muddle the cold head," he exclaimed, "that requires a reason for Montem. A parting toast to Eton, and then with me to the gardens. Floreat Etona. At the gardens, Gerard, you shall put Frazer down at once with a poet's feeling."

"I think," quoth William Payne as they left the inn—(he had, till that moment, been a balancing listener to the rival opinions)— "I think Montem may be defended upon very reasonable grounds; it encourages the arts and manufactures of the country, improves the revenue, and is altogether consonant with the soundest principles of political economy."

"A fig for your political economy!" exclaimed Gerard, as they entered the gate," here's a scene! What but Montem could have brought together so many divine shapes, such beaming eyes! Oh that I had the tongue of the Morning Post, to tell of the beauty and fashion' that is here to gaze upon. How gracefully they lounge through the shadowy walks! how they stud the lawn with hues more delicate than the lilacs! how they beat time with their eloquent fingers to Love among the roses! how they smile upon the slim lads, who, after the sixth glass, come amongst them to make conquests! It is a right English scene; there is the staymaker's wife from Thames-street elbowing a Cavendish, and a gentleman-commoner of Cambridge playing the agreeable to the

farmer's pretty daughter from Cippenham-green. Frazer, Frazer, abandon your heresy!"

"It is, indeed, an English scene," said Paterson; "The peasant's toe doth gall the courtier's kibe', with a glorious freedom. Beneath that elm stands one of our great Etonians; he is evidently pleased. There is a smile of pensive joy playing about his lips, and his eyes are lighted up with a fond recollection of happiness that is past away. I dare be sworn that George Canning, the first of living orators, the statesman whose genius is piercing its way through the dark clouds of Europe's destiny, is even now looking back with more real pleasure to the triumphs of Gregory Griffin, than to the honours of the most successful policy; and is feeling, with a true philosophy, that the swords and plumes of Montem are worth as much-perhaps much more-than the ribbons and stars of a riper age- a little louder, but as empty quite.""

"And there," said Holyoake, “stands his acute and sarcastic rival ;—and he, too, is pleased. I see no frown gathering like a whirlwind about the brows of Henry Brougham. He is chatting with a happy little hero of buckles and silk-stockings, as delighted himself as if he were perfectly unconscious of briefs and Brookes's. Montem for ever, say I, if it were only that it can make two such men forget the cares and passions of their ordinary life, even for a few hours."

"Come," said Gerard, "politicians are every-day persons on 'such occasions as these ;-I can see these foremost men of all the world' for half-a-crown, any night between this and the prorogation. Look yonder-there is a mother kissing her boy who is just arrived to the dignity of the fifth form, and the privilege of a Corporal's coat-while his lovely sister gazes on him with a speechless admiration, and wishes that heaven had made her such a man.' That trio alone redeems Montem from all its folly.” "I can behold such a piece of the pathetic any day," said Frazer," at an establishment' at Islington, or a 'seminary' at Camden Town."

"I will not attempt to reason with Frazer," said Gerard, "about the pleasures of Montem ;-but to an Etonian it is enough that it brings pure and ennobling recollections-calls up associations of hope and happiness-and makes even the wise feel that there is something better than wisdom, and the great that there is something nobler than greatness. And then the faces that come about us at such a time, with their tales of old friendships or generous rivalries. I have seen to-day fifty fellows of whom I remember only the nicknames ;-they are now degenerated into scheming M. P.'s, or clever lawyers, or portly doctors;-but at Montem they leave the plodding world of reality for one day, and regain the dignities of sixth-form Etonians."