which he works, or as you stand in your comfortable room with your coat-tails under your arms warming yourself before the coal which he has cut;-there may be something to learn even from a collier.

As you have allowed me to lead you down a coal-pit, it is necessary that I should say a few words concerning the manner in which they are ventilated, as this is perhaps the most important subject connected with their management. We know that it is not always the easiest thing in the world to keep the air pure in workshops and factories above ground, and the difficulty is of course much increased at a distance of perhaps two or three hundred yards below the surface, especially when we consider the gas exuding from the coal, which, unless it be driven off by an artificial current of air, will soon make its presence felt by one of those fearful explosions of which we occasionally hear. It may seem to the uninitiated almost impossible to establish this artificial current at so great a depth: the way in which the object is attained is as follows. The shafts of a colliery are divided into two classes, upcast and downcast shafts, and at the bottom of each of the upcast shafts a furnace is kept constantly burning. This of course heats the air, and causes it to ascend; the cold air rushes down the corresponding downcast shaft to fill up the vacuum, and thus produces the required current; the expedient is an old one, having been used in mines in the 16th century; and with due care it answers very well. If, however, there be any neglect or carelessness, the foul air immediately accumulates and explodes on contact with a naked light. This is especially the case in the old workings; one of those to which we came on this occasion my friend suspected might contain gas, and having taken the precaution of putting the tops on our Davy lamps we went in to examine it. The result shewed that he was right, and on elevating the lamp we had the satisfaction of seeing that it was only owing to the invention of Sir Humphry Davy that we were not blown off to infinity. Of course I expressed, as in duty bound, a profound admiration for the glorious triumph of science, and mildly suggested the advisability of moving a little further off. It is satisfactory, no doubt, to place your head under a steam-hammer which descends with terrific force and is stopped to a nicety at about the extremity

See Rodolphus Agricola de Re Metallicâ.

of your whiskers, but I think it is far more satisfactory to take it away again.

There are many other interesting things connected with a coal-pit to which I have not yet alluded; but a due regard to the patience of my readers will, I fear, prevent me from enlarging upon them: I trust that I have said enough to awaken their curiosity upon the subject: should this be the case, I can only, in conclusion, recommend them to descend a pit upon their first opportunity, and examine it for themselves. I can promise them that when after a few hours spent underground they emerge once more, wet and dirty, into the light of day, they will not regret the time which they have spent in the Birth Place of the Black Diamond.

"ENOD."

FANCY.

I rode across the hills

1.

When the summer-morn was fair,

And came and saw from the breezy ridge
Her valley beneath me there :—

Her valley, and all beyond

Mountain and meadow and valley and wood

Rolling wave-like in glory from where I stood
To the line of the moorlands bare.

2.

And there were the village roofs,
And over them rose the spire,
Gleaming up in the morning sun

Like a heavenward flame of fire;
And my blood ran fuller and faster
In all its ebbings and swells,
As Fancy caught a glimmer of white,
And the clash of bridal bells.

UNIVERSITY ENGLISH.

"I MAY read," said the afflicted Dean of Christ Church as he vainly sought for rest on his sick couch, "my physician says I may read light literature." One of Scott's novels was handed him. "Pshaw, what stuff for a sick man! I want light reading! give me a Greek Lexicon!"

Perhaps, reader, I need not tell you that the story is a true one. You may be one of Alma Mater's most promising sons; your mind may be already so saturated with Mathematics or Greek dialects, and so regardless of all other subjects and objects as to have closely assimilated to that of the learned Dean. Perhaps you are one to whom the story seems too strange for belief, and you will say that if it be true, the Dean must have been either more or less than man.

But by far the greatest probability is that you will not class under either of these heads. You may indeed be a happy D SENIOR, or a high Double First, yet you will not consider the Dean's state of mind to be that to which all learned minds should approximate: and on the other hand you may be, at present at least, guiltless of having misunderstandings with Newton, or of mutilating Homer's remains, and yet you will neither discredit the story nor denounce the worthy Dean as inhuman.

Let us step back a little in our history and take a view of our Heads of Houses and Fellows as they existed some dozen generations ago, and try if by any stretch of imagination we can connect them with the Masters and Seniors of our time. I fancy they differed even in form from our "Dons." Square built, thick-set men with graceless gait and heavy tread, whose every movement seemed regulated by the slow stroke of St. Mary's clock, men with "beard of formal cut," that cut being such as would make a modern moustache stand on its end, men who spoke barbarous Latin with a still more barbarous provincial brogue, who grinned.

from ear to ear at the most wretched pun or abortive attempt at a "quaint conceit" but never, never gave loose to a lighthearted fit of ringing laughter;—such seem to me to be the men who were spoken of as "Ye Fellowes of Cantebrigge, learned in Latine and Logicke."

Our Latin improved when bluff Harry endeavoured to establish his rule over men's intellects, and under Elizabeth we overcame our dread of "heretical Greek," but English was left to itself. Hear a combination-room discourse, when the pedantic Scot swayed the badly united sceptres of St. Andrew and St. George, as his favourite prototype Solomon did those of Israel and Judah.

"As I walked out this morning, Master Farmer, about five of the clocke, I lighted on two younge men near Trompingtone coming to Cambridge. The one was mounted on a sorry horse, and his fellowe did trudge beside him in clouted brogues. Now, as ye wot, our Master hath changed the time to break-faste from half-past five to half-past six, I hasted not to returne, and thus I spake the striplings, Good morrow, sirs, young clerkes as I suppose'; and they said 'yea'; right glad that they were cleped clerkes. And you are from the North,' said I to him that rode, 'your speech saieth so'; he answered, Sir, ye say sooth, I much admire your cunning.' Then said he that strode, and I am a Welshman fro Comberlande; it chanced to us to joint-lodge in one taverne three nights agone and we have joint-travailled from then; my fellowe carrieth my wallet on the horse, and would grant to me to ride behind, but there is to the beaste need of strengthe, poor jade, scant can he carry himself.' Then did I admire and said, 'Sir, there be that in your wordes and utterance, which agreeth not with our speeche in these partes.'

6

"After a while I turned to him that rode, 'Sir, your bridle is of straunge device, it is of hempe, even that part which is in the beaste's mouth.' I trow not of another ilk,' quothe he, 'howbeit it is ycleped a haulter.' 'Nay,' quoth the forayne, 'now do you mis-stand each other. There be two fashions, the bridle, whereof the part in the horse's head is iron, and the collar, whereof no part doth go through the beaste's head, but goeth round the head or neck only, wherewith to lead the beast, and differeth from the drag-collar wherewith the beaste doth draw draftes.'

"This have I said Master Farmer, to do you to wit what a tonge of Babel our English tonge be, insomuch that the speeche of one parte is not understanded in another. Were

it not well if a doctor should discourse of English in the schools as we now do of Latine?"

To this Master Farmer responds with becoming indignation, "Opus dignissimum sane, ad verba puerulorum dirigenda descendere! Ad hoc putasne domus nostras fundatas esse, ad docendos rusticos quomodo inter se elegantissime loquerentur, et quomodo equis canibusque perspicacissime jubeant? Nonne est Latina lingua thesaurus opimus theologiæ, et historiæ, et artium, et scientiarum omnium? Est ars longa, vita brevis ; visne igitur vitam decurtare artes vilissimas discendo? Et de hoc ipso quod adducis, de intelligenter loquendo, nonne facilius est unam linguam quam quadraginta dialectus discere? Et quis hoc officio fungeretur, vel ad quam normam conformares linguam nostram? Num ad tuam, qui mecum loquens his vocibus usus es "clouted brogues" quarum nec significatio nec sonus mihi est notus? Desine, satis est lingua Anglicana ad usum tabernariorum et rusticorum, nos vero universalem linguam et artes immortales discere oportet."

The juniors look wondering applause, at this thunderburst of Latine and Logicke and sage erudition, and the castigated sufferer mentally vows that he will never again introduce the subject.

Master Farmer's estimate of the relative values of Latin and English outlived his time, perhaps there are some who still maintain it. It certainly was not defunct when our friend the Christ Church Dean was an infant prodigy. He was fed no doubt with unadulterated Homer, Pindar and Anacreon, moistened now and then with a dissertation on the prepositions, and when he was of an age at which most boys would be plucked if required to distinguish veal from venison, his delicate palate would be disgusted if a dish of Greek were seasoned with a compound of Tept, instead of appi. Looking back as he did with scorn on the coarse Roman roots adulterated with the barbarous garbage of the monks whereon his scholastic progenitors battened, he felt that he was feeding on the true manna and nectar, which would raise him to a god-like stature and strength.

With him, English was the speech to express the wants of his lower nature, the medium of communication with his servants; Greek was the language of his heart and intellect. English was a serviceable surtout and top-boots, good for wet weather and walking over the farm; Greek was the neat, easy-fitting evening dress, in Greek he chatted and laughed, in Greek he danced and sang, in Greek he sat down to "the