FELLOW-FEELING.

WE are now at the close of perhaps the severest season this country has experienced during the nineteenth century. Many an anecdote respecting the intense cold of the winter 1860-61 will be told round the blazing yulelog on future Christmas Eves. It has been accompanied with unusual suffering among the poorer classes-such inclement weather following upon a bad harvest has brought famine and starvation for the first time to many a threshold. Political events too have not been without their influence in producing this state of things. The Commercial Treaty concluded with France has brought ruin upon more than one branch of our home trade. Thousands of honest workpeople have, for the moment, been thrown out of employment, and the distress of the Coventry weavers will henceforth take its place in history. The bright feature amid all this gloominess is, that the widespread evil has awakened an amount of public sympathy never perhaps equalled in any previous age. English hearts and hands are as open as ever to relieve the sufferings of their fellows, and it has only been necessary to mention cases of distress to call forth adequate assistance. The feeling has been universal-" Is he not a man and a brother?" It is this fellow-feeling that I propose to investigate, not indeed tracing its origin and growth in the soul of man-a task that may more strictly fall within the province of the Moralist-but endeavouring to offer some few remarks that may be practically useful to us in our intercourse with one another.

What do I mean then by fellow-feeling? Is it not synonymous with sympathy? Not exactly. Sympathy is included in the idea, but will be found to fall very far short of it. Like its Latin equivalent, it has been confined to a fellow-feeling with actual human suffering, and has

reference merely to grief, whether silent or expressed. We sympathize with the wretched when we can enter into their sorrows and make them our own. We extend our compassion, when we feel the workings of our human nature, and yearn to relieve their distress. But we can hardly be said to sympathize in our friend's joy, and he certainly is not a proper object of our compassion. There is in fact no single word to express a sympathy in joy-and I suppose it is because this emotion is more rarely excited, that the idea of sympathy has been confined to a fellow-feeling with suffering. We are glad to hear of Smith getting the Craven, but are apt to imagine that Smith's cup of exultation is not large enough for two, and we had better let him drain it himself. We do go up to his rooms to congratulate him, and then we think we have done enough. But congratulation is a bare form of words, and expresses no real feeling on our part. It may as often be accompanied by envy or regret, as proceed from a true fellow-feeling. Who is that shaking hands with the Senior Wrangler? "Oh! that's Jones-he was second." Poor fellow! one fancies there is just a quiver on his lip, as he comes up to his friend in the Senate-House, and yet he has himself tried hard to believe his own congratulations sincere. But though, in nine cases out of ten, another's joy awakens no sympathetic response in our heart, there surely are seasons when a friend's happiness does strike deep root into our own soul. I do not for a moment deny the existence of a sympathy in joyit is perhaps a surer test of true friendship than sympathy in distress.

Is there then a distinction between friendship and fellow-feeling? Decidedly. Friendship is limited, a fellowfeeling is universal; the circle of friendship is circumscribed, a fellow-feeling can feel with all the world. A man can never possess more than two or three friends, in the truest holiest sense of the word-he may have hundreds of acquaintances with whose troubles he is ever ready to sympathize, and at the same time he may feel with all his fellows. Perhaps he too has passed through suffering and temptation, but his heart has not been thereby rendered callous-he has a wider sympathy for those who suffer and are temptedhis large soul yearns towards erring sinful man.

Such must have been the spirit of those who founded the glorious institutions on the banks of the Isis and the Cam. A nobler idea was perhaps never conceived than that of establishing these holy brotherhoods, to work to

gether with one heart and soul for the good of their fellows. Here was fellow-feeling characteristically displayed, uniting at once internal friendship among the members of the University themselves, and large-hearted sympathy with those without. Fellow-feeling to some extent is a necessary part of our existence here. What a soul the man must have who is utterly destitute of all pride in his College! the happy scenes which surround him cannot fail to make a deep impression on his mind-and it is with a fond regret that he leaves his beloved University to go forth into the world-he carries with him a memory teeming with bright associations, and whether it be our Emigrant in New Zealand, or our Civilian in Bengal, he is always looking forward to hear how the Old College is getting on-aye!and where the boats are on the river. What gratitude must we feel then towards those noble benefactors, who have bequeathed to us these ancient courts and their broad acres, and who planted these gardens, where, apart from the world, we may-if we will-train ourselves for afterconflict with the world!

But how are we echoing the sentiments which they entertained? Are we striving to keep up the fellow-feeling they intended us to exhibit towards one another and towards the rest of the world? Alas! the civilization of societyas it has progressed from one century to another—has left evident traces of its artificial footsteps on these glorious institutions and the absurdities of University etiquette at present only tend to deaden our sympathy and estrange our hearts from one another. Can we not for instance see great danger arising from the mighty gulf that is fixed between the Fellow and the Undergraduate? That there should be such a gulf is well; that it cannot be too wide, I emphatically deny. If it is-even if no positive harm ensue, what advantages to both are lost! The inexperienced youth is allowed to pass the most critical years of his existence, without a word of advice from one who is well calculated to afford it, as having sailed in the same track before, and discovered where the shoals and quicksands lie, and perhaps many a one makes shipwreck when a seasonable word from a skilful pilot might have warned him of the sunken rock. What errors in speculation, what errors in practice, he might thus have escaped while his mind was drinking in strength and vigour from intercourse with a maturer and more experienced mind! And would the other be a loser, if the gulf were bridged over? I think

not. Besides a youthful freshness, which many would be sure to catch, how his heart would be enlarged and his sympathies extended as he watched with keen interest the progress of some young friend through the snares and temptations of a University life. There are among us men of this sort-men ready to feel and sympathize with all, and silently, it may be, watching the course of many.

Such an one was he who has lately been taken from the midst of us, and whose loss is deplored by every Undergraduate in the College. A man of large sympathy-with a kind word and a fellow-feeling for everyone-our Captain and the hearty sharer of all our pursuits-in the sunshine of whose genial presence we forgot the difference of Academical rank. What a treasure he was to the College, we knew not till we missed him, and there is not a Johnian but will carry the memory of that warm-hearted man down to his own grave.

The great difference between a large and a small College, and one of the many advantages of the former over the latter, consists in the choice of associates. In a large College like this, where it is impossible for any man to have even a bare acquaintance with all his fellow-students, he naturally falls into a particular set. In a small College this choice does not exist-he must go along with the stream. But absolutely necessary as it seems that there should be numerous sets among us, it is to be deplored that they tend to weaken and destroy all fellow-feeling.

Look at that man rushing along the cloisters with shoestrings flying loose and a coat somewhat the worse for wear. On he hastens, a victim to Mathesis; apparently caring for nothing else, if only he may obtain the object of his ambition and win his Fellowship. Yet I would affirm that under that rusty garb there beats a heart as true to his College, and as fully bent on working for good, as beneath that elaborate Noah's ark! what an exquisite! in the very pink of fashion! watch those lavender kids dandling the tag end of a cigar! Who would imagine he cared for his College, so tightly buttoned up as he is in himself? But come to me at two o'clock, and I will shew him to you on the river-he will have doffed that gorgeous apparel, and you will see him display an English pluck and hardihood you may think incredible under that effeminate exterior. His pulse will beat as quickly and his arms work as vigorous, as his seven comrades of the oar, while they pull the old boat over the course in just 8' 15". "Well! you've taken

pretty extremes-but I know which I should go to, if I were in a pickle." So do I-but they're both good fellows at the bottom, and both working for their College, though so differently!

It may seem hard then, with so many sets and cliques, to keep alive a mutual goodwill and fellow-feeling-but surely not impossible-if we would only bear in mind that pride in our College which is equally at work, though perhaps not in an equal degree, in the hearts of all. Why cannot we forget individual peculiarities and sectarian differences? If there must be two boat-clubs, let us remember that the same ribbon is the badge of both, and for heaven's sake! don't let us carry our party-spirit into everything else. We must take men as we find them, without criticising them too severely. Let us pull a steady stroke, all together. Why should not the old College be again as it has been of yore, first on the Piece, first on the River, yea! and first in the Tripos, be it January or March?