"All full-to the brim," cried the vice-president of the party. "Daylight has departed from our glasses."

'Well, then," said Julio, "my toast is, ' A bishopric to the Dean, lousy prebends in distant cathedrals to all the canons, a north-country living to the censor, and Botany Bay to the tutors; and so we shall be well rid of the whole lot.""

"Hurrah!-hurrah!-ah-ah!"

"I, for one," said Capel, putting down his glass, "will not drink a toast so full of malice and vulgarity. A few months since, and you, Julio, would have perished ere you had given such a toast."

"Well, do as you will, Capel, you will not offend me. A few months since I was too much absorbed in Aristotle and Plato to think of other matters. I believed, then, that the study of the classics was worth pursuing that the studious would be properly rewarded for their exertions-but now my eyes are opened, and I find that all is humbug and deceit."

"How mean you?" said Capel. "You ought to be the last to complain. Your exertions have met with success beyond your warmest expectations, and your success has been fully appreciated and rewarded by the very men whom you now abuse."

"Ay, to gain their own private ends-to get up the name of their college or house, as they in their pedantry call it, in order that they may fill their rooms, and so fill their pockets. Bah!-I see through it all," said Julio, as he again filled his glass. "Come, bumpers again! Capel, give us a toast in which we can join you."

"I will," said Capel; "I will fill to the brim, and see that our friends there do the same. Are you ready?"

"All-all!"

"Then here is to the health of the cleverest man of his day, and may he resume his reason in time enough to take the best class of the year. Julio Smithson! to you I drink-may I not be disappointed in my hopes!"

"Hip! hip! hip-hurrah-ah-ah!"

"Thanks, many thanks," said Julio, rising, "to you, Capel, in particular, and to you, gentlemen, generally, but I do not mean to try for a class-I shall go up for a pass, and take up the lowest books which the statutes admit of. I shall do it to annoy the universitymore especially my own college. But they shall not triumph over me by pretending that I could not succeed, for I will assuredly try foray, and gain the Latin verse and the essay. But thanks to you for your good wishes, though I do not gain my class."

"But why not get your class?" was the general inquiry.

"Why not?-do you ask?" said Julio; how is merit rewarded by the university? Do they endeavour to promote the views of their most successful scholars in after life? No. They publish their fame in all the papers because, as I said before, it fills their colleges and halls, and in consequence, their pockets; but they leave the worn-out victim to the chances of his own ulterior exertions. The most they ever did, was to recommend him as tutor in some family, where, by cringing and fawning on the father of his hopeful pupil, he may get a family living of 3001. per annum; or, if the governor be a ministerialist, a deanery; and in rare, very rare cases, a bishopric. Look at of where is he? Editing a magazine, to enable him to gain his way to

the bar. Where again is our friend - of? A curate in a country village, at 701. a year. Where are many of the best men of our own day? Where?-can any one answer me? No. It is a just reproach upon our universities that, beyond their own aggrandizement, they care not whether their men succeed or not."

"Shame-shame," said Capel. "You see things through a distorted medium now-why, I cannot tell."

"I have come to this determination," said Julio, smiling, "that there are only three things worth living for."

"What are they?" inquired the guests.

"Wine, women, and the power of abusing our sleek-faced rulers in this humdrum university," said Julio. "Fill to wine and women, and confusion to all dons and tutors."

The guests, excepting Capel, who took up his gown and cap and left the room, filled their glasses, and quaffed their claret to the toast, amidst shouts and screams of laughter.

In the absence of Capel, who exercised a salutary influence over him, though that influence was growing daily less, Julio advanced many opinions and sentiments still more outrageous than any he had ventured to give vent to in the early part of the evening. His friends, filled with the juice of goodly Bordeaux, laughed at his sallies, and applauded his satirical remarks. They swore over the bottle to follow the example of their host. They agreed to disappoint the hopes of their friends and of their respective colleges; to leave off reading, and to take their degrees in a way which would bring disgrace on themselves, and crush their hopes of fame in the university. They were determined, as they expressed it, to floor the dons and damage the examinations.

Bottle followed bottle while these laudable resolutions were proposed and seconded, and the evening ended in a debauch, which produced the usual consequences-sick headachs, foul tongues, heated brains, and loss of appetite.

The examinations commenced, and Julio, who had been severely reprimanded by his college on several occasions, was as good as his word. He took up the lowest books allowed by the statutes, and answered in a most impertinent manner the questions that were put to him by the examiners. In his divinity, particularly, he behaved in so rude a manner, by thrusting his tongue into his cheek, and winking at the men with whom the gallery was crammed to suffocation, that one of the examiners addressed him, and told him, "That in spite of the credit he had conferred on the university by his previous successes, he should feel it his duty to refuse to proceed with his examination if he did not behave in a more gentlemanly manner."

This threat, which if it had been carried into effect, would have produced consequences equivalent to a pluck, produced the desired change in his behaviour. His examination was soon over, and the examiners

there were four in those days-rose in a body, and the senior of them told him, "He might leave the schools, as they were satisfied with what he had done; but they begged publicly to express their regret and sorrow that he had not done as his abilities would have allowed him -taken the highest honours in the university."

"Is that all you have to say?" inquired Julio, looking at the examiners with a look of mock respect on his countenance.

"That is all," replied the one who had addressed him.

"Then I will not waste your valuable time longer," said Julio, leaving the table, tearing off his bands, and throwing his soph's hood at old Dodd, who stood near the schools' door.

The gallery was immediately cleared of undergraduates, who rushed into the schools' quad to congratulate "plucky Smithson" on having effectually floored the examiners.

This example, set by one so well known and popular in the university, did a serious injury among the young men, who thought it a very plucky thing to imitate the cleverest man of the day. They went up unprepared for their examinations, behaved themselves with great insolence in the schools, and were deservedly plucked, and in many instances sent away from college without bene discessit or liceat migrare. As the army and navy were closed against them, they who could not gain access to Dublin, or make interest with the Bishop of N for ordination as literates, were ruined for life, or forced to seekmeans of livelihood annoying to themselves, and degrading to their aristocratic friends and relatives.

Nor was this the only injury-mischief, s Addison calls it-that Julio Smithson inflicted on his acquaintances. He professed to be an unbeliever, not a deist, but a downright atheist. He set up a school of his own, and gained many disciples among men who thought it grand to follow in the wake of such a first-rater as the Pride of Oxford -by which name Julio had long been known. To explain what his sentiments were, would not be fitting in the pages of a magazine— suffice it to say, he called religion priestcraft, and its ministers designing rogues.

Only two excuses can be alleged in Julio's favour-he was not yet nineteen years of age, and he had formed an intimacy with a mana member of a minor college-whose father, a philosopher and lecturer in the sciences, had early instilled into him a contempt for every thing that could not be proved by mathematical demonstration.

Capel used his best endeavours, by precept and example, to rescue his friend from the deplorable state into which he had fallen, or been misled if you will. He found all arguments fruitless-all exertions vain. His solicitations only provoked a smile; his steadiness of principle and perseverance in good conduct and attention to his duties, were openly scoffed at and derided. Reluctantly, to save his own character from suspicion, he relinquished the society of his schoolfellow and early friend.

Amidst all the scenes of rioting and debauchery in which Julio revelled, he steadfastly adhered to his purpose of trying for and winning the prize essay and the Latin verse. After a night of drinking, he rose early, took a dose of some strong stimulus, and closing his oak, read and wrote for ten or twelve hours without cessation. No one dared to interrupt him, for he had proved upon one occasion that he was a dangerous man when thwarted.

One of his companions, by means of the scout's key, gained access to his rooms while he was busy writing. He brought with him a fine brace of pointers, which he had just purchased of Tom Webb, and begged him to come out with him and try them.

"I am busy," said Julio, "and will not go."

"Nonsense! old fellow-come, come along," said his friend, shaking him by the arm.

"I will not go, I tell you," shouted Julio.

"You shall," said his friend, trying to raise him from his readingchair.

66

By Heaven! this is too much! I will not stand this. I give you fair warning, that if you do not leave my rooms this moment, and take your accursed beasts with you, I will throw them out of window first, and you after them."

Julio rose as he said this, and looked as if he meant to do it. His friend burst out laughing, and before his laugh was over, the pointers Jay struggling in the quadrangle in the agonies of death. He advanced to fulfil his threat by throwing their owner after them, but he, seeing that he was in earnest, wisely left the room as quickly as he could.

After this deed, which soon got wind, Julio was never annoyed while his oak was sported. He wrote hard, and he wrote successfully. The prizes were awarded to him-but instead of accepting the prizes and reading his compositions in the theatre at the commemoration, he wrote a most insolent letter to the Dean and to the Vice-chancellor, telling them he was quite satisfied with showing them that he could win the prizes if he chose, but that they might give the rewards to the second best; that he despised them as much as he did the university that had the power of conferring them.

The Vice-chancellor and the Dean were both determined to visit this insolence with expulsion. They sent for him, but he had left Oxford: and taken his name from the books of his college-an example that was soon followed by all of his "school" who could afford to do so, or were reckless of consequences.

With his aunts in Bristol he did not remain long. In the few weeks he was with them, he contrived to alarm and disgust them by the freedom of his manners, and the sentiments to which he gave utterance. He sought refuge in London, where he soon met with some "kindred souls." He became a contributor to the most violent and vile publications of the day. These at length discarded him, as they dreaded a prosecution from the government whom he abused, and a loss of sale from the blasphemies which he wished to be inserted.

Thus thrown upon himself, he established a magazine, and put himself at the head of a small, but wicked set of men, who formed a conspiracy against the minister of the day, whom they intended to murder. The design was frustrated by the vigilance of the police, and several of the conspirators were seized and hanged. Julio escaped in the dress of a Quaker, aboard a vessel bound for America. He did not long survive to indulge in his open abuse of the mothercountry and his lavish praises of a democratic form of government, but was killed in a duel by an English officer whom he had offended, by calling him "a base sycophant and a paltry truckler to those set in authority over him."

Thus terininated the career of one who might have been an honour to his friends and to his country. Such were the results of " TALENTS MISAPPLIED."

THE POETRY OF LAW AND THE LAW OF POETRY.

Go, the rich chariot instantly prepare;
My Queen, the LAW, will take the air.
Unruly Fancy with strong Judgment trace;
Put in nimble-footed Wit,

Smooth-paced Eloquence join with it ;
Sound Memory with young Invention place,
Harness all the winged race.

Let the postilion Fiction mount, and let
The coachman Art be set;

And let the airy footmen, running all beside,
Make a long row of goodly pride.

Figures, Conceits, Presumptions, Sentences
In a well-worded dress;

And pleasant Truths and useful Lies,
In all their gaudy liveries.

COWLEY'S Muse.

THE Connexion between poetry and law is as ancient as it is intimate. The earliest lawgivers in all nations were the bards. That Orpheus fiddled with law, we are assured by Horace, and the same great authority informs us that Amphion-" Thebanæ conditor arcis"-was a legislator as well as lyrist

Fuit hæc sapientia quondam,

Publica privatis secernere, sacra profanis ;
Oppida moliri, leges incidere ligno:

Sic honor et nomen divinis vatibus atque
Carminibus venit.

It is evident from this original identity of lawyers and poets, that the common reading of the lines

Pictoribus atque poetis

Quidlibet audendi semper fuit æqua potestas,*

is erroneous, and that the true reading is this:

We are also to correct a familiar passage of Shakspeare, who indubitably wrote

The lunatic, the lawyer, and the poet,

Are of IMAGINATION all compact, &c.

"Lover" for "lawyer" was a mistake easily made by the copyists, but its absurdity is obvious; for our great poet would never have committed such a violation of logical division as, after naming lunatics, to specify lovers, a species of the genus" lunatic."

A Pegasus is the crest of the ancient and honourable society of the Inner Temple, and no more appropriate device could have been se

"Æqua potestas" admits of the most literal translation-an "equitable power." Poets and lawyers have and exercise an equitable power "quidlibet audendi"-of daring or presuming any thing.

+ The word bar is probably derived from the Hebrew bara-to create. Thus Barrister means creator, which is also the original signification of the word Poet. May.-VOL. LXV. NO. CCLVII.

F