Uncouth assemblage was it, where no fear

Had changed their functions; some plebeian cards
Which fate, beyond the promise of their birth,
Had dignified, and called to represent

The persons of departed potentates.

Oh, with what echos on the board they fell!
Ironic diamonds,-clubs, hearts, diamonds, spades,-
A congregation piteously akin!

Cheap matter offered they for boyish wit,

Those sooty knaves, precipitated down,

With scoffs and taunts, like Vulcan out of heaven :

The paramount ace, a moon in her eclipse,
Queens gleaming thro' their splendour's last decay,
And monarchs surly at the wrongs sustained
By royal visages. Meanwhile, abroad
Incessant rain was falling, or the frost
Raged bitterly, with keen and silent work;
And, interrupting oft that eager game,
From under Esthwaits' splitting scenes of ice
The pent up air, struggling to free itself,
Gave out, to meadow grounds and hills, a loud
Protracted yelling; like the noise of wolves,
Howling, in troops, along the Bothnic main."

And, then, as a specimen of the out-door sports, and exercises of his youth, whilst dwelling with his good old dame, he says:

"And in the frosty season, when the sun Was set, and visible for many a mile

The cottage windows blazed thro' twilight gloom, 1 heeded not their summons: happy time

It was, indeed, for all of us-for me,

It was a time of rapture!

Clear and loud,

The village clock struck six-I wheeled about,
Proud and exulting, like an untired horse,

That cares not for his home. All shod with steel
We hissed along the polished ice in games
Confederate, imitative of the chase,

And woodland pleasures the resounding horn,
The pack loud chiming, and the hunted hare.
So thro' the darkness and the cold we flew,
And not a voice was idle; with the din
Smitten, the precipices rang aloud;
The leafless trees, and every icy crag,
Tinkled like iron; while far distant hills
Into the tumult sent an awful sound

Of melancholy not unnoticed, while the stars
Eastward were sparkling clear, and in the west
The orange sky of evening died away.
Not seldom from the uproar I retired
Into a silent bay, or sportively

Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng
To cut across the reflex of a star,

That fled, and flying still before me, gleamed

Upon the glassy plain; and oftentimes,
When we had given our bodies to the wind,
And all the shadowy banks on either side
Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still
The rapid line of motion, then at once

Have I, reclining back upon my heels

Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs
Wheeled by me, even as if the earth had rolled,
With visible motion, her diurnal round!
Behind me did they stretch in solemn train,
Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched,

Till all was tranquil as a dreamless sleep."

And with this famous finest realization of the

skating passage-the kind in poetry, I will

conclude this outline of the poet's school-days and mental history.

CAMBRIDGE.

It was in October, 1787, that Wordsworth was sent to St. John's College, Cambridge, by his uncles, Richard Wordsworth, and Christopher Crackanthorpe, under whose care his three brothers and his sister were placed on the death of their father, in 1795. The orphans were at this time nearly, if not entirely, dependent upon their relatives, in consequence of the stubborn refusal of the wilful, if not mad, Sir James Lowther, to settle the claims of their father upon his estate.

The impressions which Wordsworth received of Cambridge, on his arrival, and during his subsequent residence in that university, are vividly pictured in the "Prelude." The "long-roofed chapel of King's College," lifting its "turrets and pinnacles in answering files," high above the

E

dusky grove of trees which surrounded it, was the first object which met his eye, as he approached the town. Then came the students, " eager of air and exercise," taking their constitution walks; and the old Castle, built in the time of the Conqueror; and finally Magdalene bridge, and the glimpse of the Cam caught in passing over it, and the far-famed and much-loved Hoop Hotel.

"My spirit was up, my thoughts were full of hope;
Some friends I had, acquaintances who there

Seemed friends, poor simple school-boys, now hung round
With honour and importance; in a world
Of welcome faces up and down I roved;
Questions, directions, warnings, and advice
Flowed in upon me from all sides; fresh day
Of pride and pleasure, to myself I seemed
A man of business and expense, and went
From shop to shop about my own affairs,
To tutor or to tailor, as befel,

From street to street, with loose and careless mind."

The University seemed like a dream to him:

"I was the dreamer, they the dream; I roamed Delighted thro' the motley spectacle ;

Gowns-grave or gaudy-doctors, students, streets, Courts, cloisters, flocks of churches, gateways, towers;