What have we got now, after proceeding thus far in our imperfect analysis? Simply a roguish, healthful fellow, with no brilliant parts, and a dull scholar. Is this our model-our boy-hero? Is this our character, that we have to lift up our eyes to-he seems so far above us-and then imagine that we only dimly comprehend? Where, then, does lie the wonderful charm of Tom Brown's character. We may be at fault in answering this question, but we venture our belief. We remember those simple words of his father, when he left him; "Tell the truth; keep a brave, kind heart, and never listen to, or say anything you wouldn't have your mother and sister hear, and you'll never feel ashamed to come home, or we to see you." Beautiful precepts, because they came with such living power to the heart. Beautiful precepts, because they made their appeal to those feelings that grow dull the last, and never wholly die. Beautiful precepts, because they were possessed of such utter simplicity, and yet reached out so far as to lie at the very gateways of religion. That he kept these words so fresh in his mind, and wandered from them so little, we believe is the reason of our just enthusiasm for his character. The soul of honor; brave as it was possible for a boy to be, and yet watching over Arthur as carefully as his own mother; hating cowardice with a perfect hatred, but hating meanness with an intense hatred; making friends not quickly but binding them to himself with close bonds, and withal, of naturally deep religious sensibilities-such is our idea of Tom Brown, and yet we are forced to believe that if such as this were among us, and the slow, plodding thinker and dull scholar that he was, he could never win our hearty admiration, as he does in the book. Our veneration for the more marked abilities warps our judgment. We reverence a splendid intellect more than we do a great heart. Where lies the fault, that we cannot do full honor to a realized Tom Brown? Partly, because he was destitute of the more shining qualities of intellect that are so especially fascinating to us. Partly, because his nobleness is so clearly set forth that we cannot but reverence it. But we think we can show a more profound reason than these, why, if a Tom Brown did dwell among us, he would not be valued rightly. The dying words of Schiller were, "many things are becoming plain and clear to me." The dawning light,-partly coming, perhaps, from the New Life, but more, we believe, because years had wrought their perfect work in setting reason free from the trammels of the feelings, and the feelings from the trammels of reason,-had driven away doubts and darkness, and given certainty to trembling hopes, and faith to halfbelieved promises. Thus, not to profane these beautiful words of the

dying poet, is it with us. We need years to dissipate the false colorings we give to character, and set it in its true light, and we even know that the few years of College, work amazing changes in our estimation of our fellows. This may be an excessively common-place fact, but we question whether we give it its true value.

What, then, is the guiding principle of Tom Brown's character, which we claim is so easily overlooked? We believe that when we enunciate this, we paint his whole character in a single word. A great seriousness was the overshadowing thing in his life. He threw his whole soul into whatever he was engaged in. Every question he touched became a serious question. He was most emphatically a type of an earnest man. What a poor, misconceived word earnest is! It is dragged into so much cant, and so tortured and twisted about, that it has at last got little significance with us, or if it means anything, it means a sort of Puritanic character, with all the gloom and shadow, and none of the bright parts of the picture. We believe an earnest man to be one who, from day to day, acts honestly by himself and fellows. Nothing, to take a superficial glance, appears very hard about this, and yet it requires fearlessness, and a depth of sincerity that we little imagine. It is a continual heroism to act honestly by your fellows, and who can stand the test?

Such we believe Tom Brown to have been. They always knew that what he said was his understanding of the truth, and when he took sides for or against an associate, he did it with an entire fearlessness, because he thought it right. Still, with all this, we are compelled to the belief, that a realized Tom Brown would be known among us worshippers of intellect and muscle, more as an expert oarsman and a good boxer, than because he was leading a more sincere life than the rest of us. So the question, without impropriety, may assume this form. "Have we an earnest man among us?" Can you point one out? At rare intervals you see one, but where do you find him? Is he among those honored ones? Is he among those who wear garlands on their heads,-symbols of triumph? Not so, but you will find him lower down--a quiet man, who always greets you cordially, and with such a pleasant smile. He is the most earnest man we have, and comes nearer than any to our Tom Brown standard. Even then, it is generally only by some sudden revelation, some accidental unveiling, that we catch a glance of inner nobleness.

With these hasty thoughts touching the question with which we started, and these few hints about Tom Brown's character, we end this sketch. We are conscious that our attempt at its analysis is essentially

weak, and that many vital points are left without a word. As we close, there press up before us a multitude of other questions, that spring from what we have written, and demand answers. Can we cultivate honest, earnest men, like Tom Brown? Must our social system undergo a revolution before we can do this? How can those who hunger and thirst for better things be filled and satisfied? These, and other searching questions, come thronging around us, but we are compelled reluctantly to put them aside without attempting answers.

We watch, almost with solicitude, Tom's career at Oxford. We torture ourselves with doubts as to whether he will still be the brave, honest Rugby boy, only more manly and more dignified, or will degenerate into the Oxford swell and rowdy. Will the deep, religious sensibilities of his school-days be deadened or blotted out by these later scenes? Above all, will the man be ashamed to carry with him to College those same beautiful precepts that the boy carried with him to school?

H. S. B.

Symptoms.

I have a friend who is ailing,

And what can the matter be?
His appetite fast is failing,

And he dines upon toast and tea;
His cheeks are thinning and paling
To the hue of the pod of a pea.

He mopes through the recitation,
Till he's called upon to speak,
When he muddles his mensuration,
And murders his Latin and Greek.

The tutor looks up from his pages
To see what the man can mean,-
For when asked what the Golden Age is,
He stammers, "She's just eighteen."

He takes no thought for his linen,
He towzles his flowing hair,

And I really think he's beginning
To be careless, with wonderful care.

He takes no pains with his neck-tie,

And must be demented, alas! For yesterday I suspect I

Caught him before the glass;

And why should he stand there and simper
When he comes away again,
Looking neglected and limper
Than a rooster in the rain.

He has bought "Aids to Composition,"
For the synonymes he said,—
But the edge has a dark partition,

Which shows 'tis the rhymes that are read.

While poring away like a Hindoo

On his book, he will make a break Over table and chairs for the window, At the risk of his precious neck.

I look in vain for the reason,—
No hand-organ draweth nigh,
Not a circus has passed this season,
Where that maiden is tripping by.

He slouches his hat like a bandit,
Deep scowls his forehead mar;
He takes long walks in the moonlight,
And lessons upon the guitar.

He never attempts to be funny,
As he used to do of yore;
He doesn't borrow your money,
And yet he's a terrible bore;

For he comes to your room of an evening
And reads you about the "glades,"
And all his "dove"-ing and "love"-ing,
Till you curse the "Parker's Aids."

He has taken to reading Byron,
And hating his fellow-man,
(Tho' I doubt if his fellow-women
Would all come under the ban,)
And he inarks the lines to a Siren,
And places in Don Juan.

One day I ventured to ask him,
When he seemed to be in pain,

If he did'nt think 't was his stomach,-
I don't think I'll ask again!

His cheeks will never be fatter,
Nor turn from their pea-pod hue,
Nor the scowls from his forehead scatter,
Till we can discover the clue

To what in the world is the matter,-
I can't imagine, can you?

The Myths of England.

"O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,

And thinner, clearer, further going;

O sweet and far, from cliff and scar,

The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!"-Tennyson.

YES, my friend, drop your graver studies for awhile, suspend your relations social and political, and visit with me an old world land, which, like memory, knows no present. Let no taint of your matterof-fact life cleave to you, for we go into the border country between Nature and the realm of spirits. A sort of No-man's land is it, where human right and wrong are not; and our world gliding down its track of physical laws comes not near thereto. Plainly, reality, as men judge of reality, has no place here, where the mists of centuries dim our view of the nearest hills, and the shadow of that higher world, under whose verge the land lies, hangs over the whole landscape. Yet I ask you, my friend, whose every care is for the work of to day, to come hither with me. It may be that we shall bring some elfin gift of wisdom from out the mythical realm, and we may come out more empty-handed than we went in. Both fates have awaited adventurers in this region.

Are you with me? Then here we are in the greenest and deepest dingle of all England. Here, if anywhere, may we look for an apocalypse of the faëry world: for around us the oaks under which Guinevere was won, and Merlin wove his enchantments, stretch their