THE

æq.

G. G. Bradley, Esq.

Rev G E L. Cotton.

...... Rev. H. J. Buckoll.

ECLIPSED SUN.

I rose in my orient shining,
But mortals regarded me not,

I sloped to my westward declining,
Yet my lustre and warmth were forgot

I glowed at my noontide of glory,
Yet none deigned to owe me a debt,
It was but a wearisome story,

That the sun rose, ascended, and set.
But now that a shadow comes o'er me,
I set the whole world in amaze,
Not of Persian, that kneels to adore me,
More ardent and searching the gaze.
The child and the dotard of science,
The sage and the multitude run,
All eager to bid me defiance,

And gaze at a spot in the sun.
In my lustre each scornfully passes,

To praise me none opens his lips;
O strange fact! they blacken their glasses,
The moment I mourn in eclipse.

But mortals, I scorn to upbraid you-
Not a shade of resentment I feel;
For ye slight thus the being that made you,
Who made me to shine for your weal.

His mercies are new every morning,

They tend you from noontide to eve,
They linger from nightfall to dawning,
Reluctant your dwelling to leave.
But feebly and scanty the praises,
That daily to heaven ascend,
Scarce matin or vesper upraises

One thought of so faithful a friend.
Yet let but the darkness of sorrow,

Obscure for one moment his ray, Though joy should return on the morrow, Ingratitude lords it to-day.

Farewell to each anthem of gladness,

Past joys are remembered in vain! Man prides him in dark sullen sadness, And thinks he does well to complain.

Crossley and Billington, Printers, Rugby.

No. XIV.

A CRITIC is a biped wasp, without a tail, but by no means without a sting. He is as yellow as envy itself: and fixes himself assiduously on the sweetest morsels. He is maliciousness itself, embodied in a human form, and animated with a soul. He can repeat to you the errors and anachronisms in Milton; reduce with a chilling word a Homeric simile to a high-flown absurdity; and has the topography of the spots in the sun at his fingers' ends. He is the bane of authors; a pit-fall for poets; he can suggest any number of improvements to be made in a literary paper; pores over the Edinburgh and the Quarterly, and brings forward their remarks at dinner, with revisions and additions of his own. He thinks Dickens puerile, and Thackeray affected; considers that society is running down the hill at a fearful pace, and kindly will offer to put the drag on. He is never happy but when dissatisfied; he will run his eye over the pages of a new volume to discover any inaccuracy upon the surface, and revels in the prospect of a literary discussion. Such then, gentle reader, is the bug-bear we have to face in again presenting to your notice the Rugbæan. We do not pretend (we could not pretend) that it is faultless; we will not answer for its correctness in its opinions; we will not promise you that it will fulfil your expectations, or afford you a permanent amusement. The lover of ribaldry will, no doubt, brand it as slow; the would-be philosopher will denominate it trifling: we for our parts allow that it may be both. If, however, one of the many errors which are prevalent amongst us be reformed; if one mind be led through the perusal of these pages to a more serious style of intellectual enjoyment, we shall be amply repaid. With this preface we commend our paper to your kind consideration. If any one feels disposed to cavil, let him remember the difficulties which lie in our path, and delay his sentence a little longer. If any one thinks he can improve our work, we shall be happy to entertain his proposals, and read with attention whatever he may offer us.

A PICNIC.

The genial sun of a merry May morning was throwing its mellow light over the fair pastures of Surrey, as a-no, stop, that won't do! though the truth of the fact is incontestable I think it's too much in the style of a certain historical novelist; we'll try again.-There is somewhere in Read's beautiful essay on the Human Mind, a passage which endeavours to prove that "self-evident facts are often hidden from the eyes of the greatest men,"-stay that's a little too Bulwerian, though we hope to prove this assertion too to be true, in the course of our story.-Try again :-" Talk about eggs and bacon, why they look perfect fools by the side of strawberry and cream," (there, that's something original, now we can go-a-head) and to explain further, I may add that the speaker of this invidious comparison between esculents, which, I believe, have never before entered the arena as rivals, was a young gentleman much addicted to facetiousness, and who had on the present occasion given himself up with perfect abandonnement (I believe it's the swell thing to use a French word or two every now and then) with perfect abandonnement I say, to the pleasures of making all the rest of the party laugh at his expense. "Delightful," replied his eldest sister, a pretty young lady of seventeen; or to become sentimental and quote, of that age "where womanhood and childhood meet;" this giving an opportunity of avoiding exactly specifying a lady's age, which is always an awkward business; but I'm sorry Mr. Valmor is not here, he would enjoy himself so much." "Ah, poor Ernest" said his affectionate wife, "I'm sure he would like it, but that currency question bothers him so, he can't get away from his printers." Hardly had she spoken, when her words were falsified by the appearance of the currency-man himself, who had walked from the town to the place of picnic with excited steps, at a pace something between a walk and On his head appeared a hat, which

a trot.

66

would have been generally admitted to be disreputable at a canine contest, which turned out to be the printer's. He immediately stated himself to be prepared to devour the remainder of the provisions, wholesale or retail, as the company preferred, and then he should be game for any thing. The reason of this extraordinary conduct was, that for reasons best known to himself he was almost wild with delight, at having discovered that the average price of corn for 1844 was 1s. 9d. higher than that of 1843. Having finished his repast, he proposed that the company should play at some game. "Tell a story shall we?-very well, I'll begin," and he started off-"Once upon a time there was an old gentleman with hooked nose and spectacles"-"That'sPa," interposed Elizabeth Ann, the youngest hope of the Seatons. "Don't interrupt, my dear," said an old aunt, from underneath a thorn-tree, where she had ensconced herself to preserve her complexion, or you'll be sent home to bed, which wont be nice." Elizabeth Ann perfectly acquiesing in the last clause of the sentence, became as dumb as- What shall we say ?-as-a door post will do as well as anything. "This gentleman," continued Mr. Valmor, "had a servant boy, named Tims, of whom he was exceedingly fond, were it not that Tims had one great, very great fault; it was a taste for cats. The multiplicity of cats which he surreptitiously conveyed into the house, at length roused the old gentleman's ire to such a pitch, that one day Tims was kicked out of doors, cat-in-hand, and told to bring it about that few specimens of himself should be found in the neighbourhood, or in other words, to make himself scarce. Lonely, and though his Whittington-like situation might naturally have made him very proud of some future fortune in the back-ground, still not in high spirits, Tims wandered about near the door of his late domicile, remembering that he could not possibly leave the neighbourhood till he had obtained possession of his dear Sparkler, who was still within the mansion. Accordingly, at 10 o'clock, he entered by the well-known larder window, and called for Sparkler in the most affectionate tones. From a deep sleep the old gentleman, his former master, awoke, and fancying that the noise of a dish falling, which

Tims had carelessly knocked down, was a prelude to a murderous attack upon him by countless robbers, began hollowing lustily for Tims. The youth summoned not appearing, he began to reflect on his abrupt dismissal in the early part of the day; while Tims, who was now up to an artful ruse, began making as much noise as he possibly could to keep up the appearance of robbers, which his master's bawling out suggested to him, and then, having obtained Sparkler, retired, leaving the old gentleman to his remorse for having kicked him out in the morning, and thereby deprived himself of all his household, and resolving to seek far and wide the next day, for the ill-treated Tims. Tims, you may be sure was not far off, and was soon re-instated. Simple as this story may appear it contains one great moral—' Calculate the price of wheat without corn-laws before dropping them."" "Thank you," said all the party at once, "very good, very.' should say," said the facetious boy," that it teaches us that a cat is sometimes a great card and no end of trump." Gentle readers, shall we conduct the party home from this happy picnic, or shall we leave them to their happiness, happiness which must have drawn largely for its existence on their good-humour and liveliness of disposition, if they could find amusement in Mr. Valmor's stories. Yes, both I and Time prefer the latter arrangement, so the matter's settled.

ON A MADONNA, (RAPHAEL).

MODEL of all a poet's thought,

Of perfect beauty called to earth, The richest present art has brought

Since ever christian art had birth; The highest present art has given, Since man has dared to picture heaven.

The master-artist moved the hand,

And from the guided pencil came, As following from his soul's command,

Lit with a purer, holier flame Than ever followed stroke of chance, The heavenly moulded countenance.

"I

A mother's lovingness of gaze,
A woman's gentleness of spirit,
The look faith can alone upraise

To more than sons of men inherit,

As meekly glorying in her son,
Blest mother of the Holiest one.
No cloud is on her brow to alloy

The calm peace of her heaven below, She cannot sorrow, for her joy

Is too complete for thought of woe; And well may cherub armies press Around such scene of blessedness! O majesty of love below!

If thought can picture thee, how wed

The thought to form!-We cannot know-
For thou art one with God o'erhead.
Yet in one form we dare, we can,
The pure simplicity of man,

Man's meekest, tenderest age, when nought

Tells of the embryo passions lying

Within the infant spirit, fraught

With soul that needs not Jesu's buying,

Were not man heir to sin, and all
Reapers of sorrow from the fall.

Lord of Humility and Love,

Such was thine earliest earthly home;
And such the spirit they must prove
Who journey towards "thy kingdom come;"
Such fittest form and meetest then
For poet's song or painter's pen.

Heaven spake, "This day a child is born,
A Saviour which is Christ the Lord,"
And the great soul of Art's new dawn
In living letters writ the word,

The mother gazing lovingly

Upon the infant Deity.

SONG OF THE WALHALLA.

I sing to the dying stars,

I sing to the living sun,

For the sun in his strength, in the heavens at length, Is blinding them one by one.