crowned by a First, or even a Second. True; the pace was too good for
some of the half-bred ones, and such as could not stand the training,
who departed, to fade away rapidly in the old house at home, or to pine,
slowly, but very surely, in remote curacies.

Some of these, I fancy, must have sympathized with Madame de Staël's
consumptive niece, who answered to the question, "Why she was weeping
all alone?" "_Je me regrette._" When, resting in their daily walk,
shortened till it became a toil to reach the shady seat under the elms
at the garden's end, they watched the stalwart plowmen and drovers go
striding by, without a trouble behind their tanned foreheads except the
thought that wages might fall a shilling a week, was there no envy, I
wonder, as they looked down on the wan hands lying so listless across
their knees? Would they not have given their First, and their fellowship
in embryo to boot, to have had the morning appetite of Tom Chauntrell,
the horse-breaker, after twelve pipes overnight, with gin and water to
match, or to have been able, like Joe Springett, the under keeper, to
breast the steepest brae in Cumberland with never a sob or a painful
breath? Did they never murmur while thinking how brightly the blade
might have flashed, how deftly have been wielded, if the worthless
scabbard had only lasted out till, on some grand field-day, the word was
given, "Draw swords?" Some felt this, doubtless; but the most part, I
imagine, were possessed with a comfortable assurance that their short
life had been useful, if not ornamental; and so, to a certain extent,
they had their reward. At any rate, their ending was to the full as
glorious as that of some other friends of ours, who crawl away from the
battle-ground of the _Viveurs_ to die, or to linger on helpless
hypochondriacs.

If I have spoken depreciatingly or unfairly of the mass of my college