CARMEN CARTHUSIANUM.

WE have more than once had occasion to allude to the many friendly relations into which we have been brought by our connexion with the CARTHUSIAN. Indeed, our only fear has been lest our tripartite head should be turned by the very lofty alliances which we have thereby formed. Certainly, if our triple headpiece has been unmoved, not so our heart, which is but one. It has gratefully responded-and far more steadily than our pen-to the many favours showered upon us from quarters which at our commencement we had neither hope nor right to look to for assistance. To these contributions we may have occasion to allude ere our task is done; but we cannot in the meantime send off the following "CARMEN" to press without our hearty thanks to its respected author, for the urbanity and thorough Carthusianism with which he kindly assented to our pressing request that we might be allowed and enabled to present to his and our Schoolfellows a production, which we know the extreme anxiety of so many Carthusians to possess, and of which, among all who ever heard it, there is but one opinion.-EDS.

CARMEN CARTHUSIANUM.

Hor. (Bentl.)

Scene, HALL. Time, FOUNDER'S DAY, 1837.

Od. 32. Lib. 1. Poscimur.-Come then, the call must not pass us;
Pind. Nem. 3. IIórvia Moioa, come down from your perch on Parnassus;
If in young days benigna, nunc adsis benignior,
Hor. Od. 11. The DAY's jure solennis, there's none lyrâ dignior.

Lib. 4.

Whether basking and blinking beneath the noon sun ray,

Hor. Od. 32. Or more cozily vacui lounging sub umbrâ,

Lib. 1.

Lib. 1.

In the "Shell," or the "Sixth," si quid lusimus tecum,
Now, your longs and shorts, sense and nonsense, I bespeak 'em.

We are called on, I say; and my wish, to be sure, is

For a Song which may live hunc in annum et plures:

Hor. Od. 32. So brush up your Latin,—some Greek you may deign 'emAge, dic, Madam Muse, carmen Carthusianum.

Hor. Od. 1.
Lib. 3.

Twelfth

Night. Act 2.

Juv. Sat. 3.

Hor. Ars
Poet.

Juv. Sat. 11.

Juv. Sat. 3.

Hor.Sat. 7.
Lib. 2.

And you, whose good-will is my rudos and Képos,
Brother Carth. Doms,-altho' no Musarum sacerdos,
Let patience attend me, I pray, haud invita,

While carmina canto non prius audita.

Yes, dame Patience! leave off smirking there on your monument,

And here some of your smiles and your balm and your honey vent ;

"Oh! that rhyme!"-Laugh ye, friends, and so strict my chaff winnow?

Ere I've done, you'll be shaken majore cachinno.

Maculis, tho' not paucis,-and there's the gravamen—I

Yet ask you, old Schoolfellows, ne offendamini;

But, winking at faults quas incuria fudit,

Fancy how plura nitent,—tho' fancy deludit.

If to School brought,-or even to Hall as "Goose-verses'
Little hope for my bantling from such tender mercies;
But you here, who have bowels, in pity adopt her,
If hodie tantum convivia propter.

Et quoniam cœpit of School certain mentio,

Better not pass it over thus slightly, ut sentio;

The smaller fry soothed, Muse of mine, 'twould be folly
Not to canvass the favour majoris abollæ.

Corpus O! Magistrorum, then,-inter labores
Quando hæc Saturnalia voluerunt majores,
Blunders spare of a friend and pristini membri,
And let me profit, too, libertate Decembri.

* What "Gown-boy" but remembers those and other savoury accompaniments of Michaelmas ?

Not to make a false start,-now, then, lest we displease some

men,

Pind. Οlymp. Τίν ̓ ἥρωα, τίνα δ ̓ ἄνδρα, Ο Muse ! κελαδήσομεν ;
Who shall take foremost rank in our motley farrago ?

2.

Hor. Od. 12. Cujus recinet nomen jocosa imago?

Lib. 1.

Hor. Od. 12. Lib. 1.

Hor. Od. 3.
Lib. 3.

Hor. Od. 20.
Lib. 2.

Yet shame to my doubts; for midst FOUNDER'S DAY jollity
Certain laudes have been to Carthusians long solita;
And the question of Flaccus no doubt it will strike 'em,
Solitis laudibus quid prius dicam ?

But tho' here seems a subject quite pat, cut and dry for me,
The muse jibs, flags her wing, and pants out, "It's too high for
me!

"Master mine, that course suits but crack whips, not mere Jarvies!

66

Magna modis tenuare jam desine parvis.”

The jade's right. He who, worthy to sing SUTTON's* praises,
Pennam non usitatam nec tenuem raises,

Nor too dull ner too flighty, too tame nor too noisy,

Sapph. Reliq. Φαίνεταί μοι, I vow, κῆνος ἴσος θεοῖσι.

Juv. Sat. 11.

Such an one has to-day, we know, satis et optime,

Played the part panegyrick, and quite put a stop to me;

"Name! Name!" Well, I'll name-on his claims none have differed

That puerum togatum, the Orator, CLIFFORD.†

Examples are many, and here we have one,

Of dissimilar tastes in father and son ;

To be Lords' Black Rod Usher the Sire 's no objection,
With our black rod's grim usher the Son cuts connexion.

Mystic symbol of order in House of the Peers!
Fearful sign, in our Doмus, of bloodshed and tears!
CLIFFORD hails thee as honour, borne suis majoribus,
As disgrace casts thee off suis posterioribus.

While vultu ingenuo, ingenuoque pudore,

Circumstantibus sociis, he held forth before ye,

What heart but desired the fair promise might stand good,
And the blossoms of youth bear rich fruit in his manhood!

* THOMAS SUTTON founded Charter House, under Royal Charter from KING JAMES THE FIRST, A. D. 1611.

† Son of Sir Augustus Clifford, Bart.

Hor. Sat. 1.
Lib. 1.

King Henry
IV. Part 1.

Who among us but echoed his warm salutation,
His outpouring of loyal and true gratulation,
Praying peace and prosperity, laus, salus, gloria,
May long wait on our young virgin-Sovereign VICTORIA !
Alike must our feelings accord with his own

Towards the honest and kind-hearted MONARCH who's gone;
Nor less be our sympathy frankly and gladly paid

To the widowed, the gracious, and excellent ADELaide.

If, thus mourning lost friends, greeting friends yet before us,
SUTTON still was his main point, 'twas fit and decorous;
And no true-bred Carthusian unquam queretur
Quod liberius Oratio campo in hoc spatietur.

But you, Præses dignissime, Viri gravissimi,
You Alumni of all ranks, you Stewards spectatissimi,
You who form the corona so bright quâquâversum,

CLIFFORD'S doings you've witnessed;-I need not rehearse 'em.

For your plaudits, and eke for your pounds, he is debtor;
To clap sure's a fine thing, but to "tip "'s a still better;
Sibi plaudet, depend on't,—and manu non parcá,-

Simul ac nummos contemplatur in arcð.

Ask of all Schools,-they've somewhat they make a vast fuss by;
There's WESTMINSTER joys in Queen Bess, and old Busby :
And your WINCHESTER chaps twist all topicks you pick 'em
To their avač dvdpwv, famed William of Wykeham.
Honest old Lawrence Sheriff's the something vπéрparov
Whose laudes a RUGBY-man feasts without surfeit on :
And the School which is called by the name of ST. PAUL, it
Magniloqua fit on the theme of Dean Colet.

A School, too, which, not to assume any rash tone,
May vie with the best, has its pet Thomas Ashton;
And of Him, καὶ τῶν λοιπῶν, of brag vents a stock
Any day, "for a long hour by SHREWSBURY clock."
MERCHANT-TAILORS instinctively worship the Nine!
O number creative! O number divine!

While to verse-making sacred that number they woo,
They gratefully hail it as Man-making, too.

A HARROW-man vows that there 's ovdèv ßéλrioV
To be named on this earth than his Founder, John Lyon;
ETON revels in Marquesses, Montem, and Mutton;
And We boast of sound Scholars, King Jamie, and Sutton.

Virg. Æn. 6.

Hor. Od. 37.
Lib. 1.

Ter. Andr.

Eurip. Med.

Oh! welcome to memory each name that recalls
The blithe days of Boyhood within these old walls!

And the muse could long prattle, if time did not grudge her,
Down from SUTTON to Ben Wall,* and Clayton,* and Trudger.*

But to note all the scenes, I should have a tight work on't,
Which e'en now to my view longo ordine surgunt;
Chapel, Cloisters, Hall, School, all in order primordial,
Not to mention O Horse-pond! thy watery ordeal.

Now I taste all the joys of a Verse-free half-School-day;
Now the whims and the tricks of a fine April-fool-day;
As "Watch" some sharp morning now toddle about;
Hear the well-known "All in!" or more fearful " Fag out!"†

Nunc est bibendum,-the tipple but "small"

Nunc pede libero kick the foot-ball;

Nunc pulsanda-not merely, as runs the Ode, tellus

Bear witness your thumps and bumps, poor "Under-fellows!"

"Sixth Form down,"-lo! these Under-imps, two or three

score,

By some Upper-School king "hither" 'd up to School-door;
And his Sophocles Brunck, and his Juvenal Ruperti,

At their heads thrown, with-" Vos istæc intro auferte !”

66

Pulling-in time," ho!-Crowds throng Hall, Green, and
School-στον,

Methought ἔκλυον φωνάν,—hark! ἔκλυον βοάν

The old elms echo murmurs of war and dire schism, ah! Theoc. Idyll. Murmurs, not quite the ȧdú rɩ rò þiðúpioμa.

1.

* Names, all of them, among old Carthusians clara et venerabilia; the first, as that of the Ganymede (truly an ancient one), the second, that of the Pomona (God wot a withered one), and the third, that of the Mercury (albeit a lame one), of the olden time.

† Ναὶ δὴ, δεινὸν ἔπος, in those days !

"Gown-boys " and "Boarders!" "Unders" and "Uppers!" lives not within you the remembrance of those Saturnalian days? Can ye who have erst borne a share in them ever forget the marshalled host of "Unders," the close array of "Sixth" and "Fifth," the barricade, the siege, the assault, and then on open plain "the tug of war?"