his age, like Byron. But such as he is 1 accept him, and am thankful-a poet, ever simple, earnest and natural, combining purity of thought with unrivalled beauty of expression, always appealing to our higher feelings, often giving to old and thread-bare truths a new charm-the very poet to rob old age of its cares, and soften the keenness of sorrow-the very poet he himself describes as the one "Whose songs gushed from his heart, As showers from the clouds of Summer, Or tears from the eyelids start. Who through long days of labor, Still heard in his soul the music Of wonderful melodies." BILHATH.-Yet there is no doubt his reputation will rest upon his shorter pieces. MISHKAN. That may be very true, without being any argument against what I claim for him. Have you ever noticed, that short poems are a peculiarity of the present age? The minor poems in our language from the earliest period of English literature, down to the time of the French Revolution, offer no comparison, either as regards number or beauty, with what has been produced since that event. There are a few splendid exceptions, it is true; but only a few. Of how many American poets can it be said, that their reputation rests upon any long poem. It is the same in England. Look at Tennyson. Two of his larger works,-In Memoriam and Maudare nothing but a collection of different poems, bound together by the unity of a common design, and by the fact of pointing to a particular result. SHANDY.-What do you suppose is the cause of such a change? SHAHGHAI-Poets may perhaps be more modest in our age. GAHAGAN. Mr. Tupper is a brilliant example-a man, who had a poem translated into one hundred and fifty languages, which wasn't fit to appear in one. BILHATH. It is an old maxim, that modesty is the glory of a woman, but the ruin of a man, and I believe it. Where you see a self-conceited person, you generally see a successful person. There is nothing like conceit to give character and energy to the individual, and in nine cases out of ten, the superiority of one man to another is owing chiefly to the greater amount possessed of that quality. To be sure, I don't want any one to be constantly showing it, and sticking it into my face; it is the heat which drives the machinery of the mind, but it ought always to exist in a latent state, and not be wasted by being forever converted into steam. SHANGHAI.-You confound self-confidence with self-conceit. BILHATH.-That is the old way of smoothing over the matter. The fact is, what your friends call the former, that same quality your enemies call the latter. Who'll undertake to point out that line which divides self-confidence from self-conceit? I tell you selfconceit is the glory of the man, the beauty of our early life: it gives to youth all the energy, the earnestness of purpose, and the chivalric daring, which render it superior to age. SHANGHAI.-Do you remember the passage of D'lsraeli's novel, where Sidonia speaks to young Coningsby those words which make such an impression upon him. "Do not suppose that I hold that youth is genius; all that I say is, that genius, when young, is divine." BILHATH.-Well, and I am sure that not one man in ten appreciates his youth, until it has gone forever. Now, that I'm getting old, I'm half-way through Senior year, nearly,-I can look back and estimate it more rightly, and I tell every member of the lower classes to thank heaven daily that he is yet young. Cling to your youth; love it, honor it, cherish it, before the evil days come, when for you no more shall there be work or device, or knowledge, or wisdom. O, there is no cant in this world more false and more hollow than the cant of age and its experience! It is as senseless, most of it, as the vapors of a sick man, the very stuff of which dreams are made. I, for one, am no believer in age, with its cold calculating conservatism, its self complacent maxims upon the folly of youth, its vaunting pretensions to superior wisdom. Age is so much honored, can so often overbalance youth by forever dragging upon the scales the dead weight of its experience, because no one is disposed to condemn a period in life at which he hopes to arrive. But I tell you there is nothing more useless, nothing in fact to many more injurious, than this boasted experience. No man of common sense needs experience, who uses his common sense aright. History will prove it. Show me one grand result achieved, one noble victory for the right gained, one successful effort for human progress made by men not young, not inexperienced in the usual sense of the word, then will I be willing to admit the wisdom of age, and its vaunted claims to superiority. Notices of Publications. The Lithograph of the "Burial of Euclid" is, if possible, superior even to that of "Initiation." Both, while they are true to the "Institutions" which they represent, will, it is hoped, invest their original with so much of romance as shall transform disgraceful facts into beautiful fictions. The stone tablets on which they are carved should soon be "sacred to the memory" of customs that are dead. The success of these two ought to encourage the designer to supply two other wants of College,-Stage-scenes at Spoon Exhibition,—and the Circle when the parting hand-grasp is given on Presentation day. The lithographs can be obtained at the College Bookstore, as can, also, all the publications of the day-books, periodicals, pictures. We are glad to see that the Printers to the Lit. are fast becoming " Printers to the University." If clearness and beauty in type,-if taste, skill and correctness (as far as these depend upon the compositor) are desirable in printing, why our advice is, get your printing done where we do, at MOREHOUSE & TAYLOR'S Office, No. 97 Chapel street. Memorabilia Valeusia. Officers of the Societies. Election took place in Linonia and the Brothers in Unity, at the last regular meeting of last term, Dec. 15, 1858. At a meeting of the Senior Class, Jan. 19, to elect the Valedictory Orator and Poet, for Presentation day, the following were chosen. Edward Carrington, Geo. W. Fisher, Class Orator. Prize Debates. The Senior Prize Debates took place in Linonia and the Brothers in Unity, on the evening of Wednesday Jan. 12, and Saturday Jan. 15, respectively. The Sophomore Prize Debate took place in the Brothers' Society, on Monday evening, Jan. 17. First Prize.-S. E. Baldwin. Second Prize.-J. L. Harmar. The Bishop Prize Debate in Linonia took place Wednesday afternoon and evening Jan. 19. First Prize. Second Prize. Third Prize. J. C. Tyler, Class of '61. F. McVeagh, Class of '62. G. M. Towle, Class of '61 D. H. Chamberlain, Class of '62. Junior Appointments. JOHN M. MORRIS. Latin Oration, WILLIAM W. MARTIN. Greek Oration, Philosophical Orations. Edward Boltwood, A. B. Ball, H. E. Barnes, D. Denison, W. E. Bradley, H. Champion, F. Beach, E. R. Barnes, High Orations. T. H. White. D. C. Eaton, Dissertations. F. H. Colton, First Disputes. G. H. Griffin, Second Disputes. Geo. Engs, Third Disputes. W. McAlpin, First Colloquies. C. E. Dutton, Second Colloquies. R. B. Brown, Editor's Table. SANCTUM, January, 1859. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY NINE ! THE student changes his name from Freshman to Sophomore, from Sophomore to Junior, from Junior to Senior, with something of that increasing eagerness, with which the youth in his teens changes his date as he approaches his majority. But when the year arrives which dates his graduation, his enthusiasm is subdued into a more sober and more healthly hue by the shadow of present or approaching responsibility. Senior year, and especially that part of it upon which we have now enteredthe part of it which has been looked forward to as the beginning of the year of years-is at once the close of our Collegiate career and the opening of that longer LIFE for which we have been fitting. It is here that the two lives overlie and overlap each other. It is here, too, that all the past and all the future seem to be compressed into the present. While we stand upon "The slender isthmus on the changing verge Of two vast seas, whose waters stretch away and think that there we have just moored our memory, and that here we must soon launch our hope, we realize something of that rush of turmultuous feeling which the emigrant experiences on leaving the Old world for the New. For us there is but one more vacation; and then comes that long LIFE-TERM. The Class are obtaining their pictures, one by one, in view of the parting that is fast approaching; and the room of W. H. ANDERSON, the Chairman of the Committee on Pictures, is already transformed into a gallery of steel-engravings. To quote the words of "The long flowing BEARD," the BARD of St. Johnsbury: But first we remark, parenthetically, that the effusion we are about to quote is another evidence of the time-honored truth expressed in the couplet: And beard and bard, I'll bet you my boots, Are derived from the same original roots. I was going to say to those who have not yet got their engravings, in the words slightly altered of "& so forth & so on." "Then take our advice, ye pictureless tribe! Good advice as we know on; With some "rocks" in your pockets, go forth from your room; Just go forth and go on, Nor stop till you reach Mr. Moulthrop's Saloon, With a good healthy glow on, & so forth & so on. "And e'en though the weather be cloudy or fair, And e'en though the tempest should rise in its power He'll take you a picture, you 'll not be ashamed When you go forth & go on, |