departed successions. Who on seeing New College
does not recall William of Wykeham? and then, what
a roll of proud names own this renowned university
for their Alma Mater. The very stones "prate of the
whereabout" of things connected with the development
of great minds, and while we look without fatigue at
the gorgeous mass of buildings in this university, we
feel we are contemplating what carries an intimate
connexion, in object at least, with that all of man which
marches in the track of eternity. It is not mere antiquity,
therefore, on which our reverence for a great
seminary of learning is founded. Priority of existence
has no solid claims to our regard, except for that verde
antique which covers it, as it covers all things past.
good or indifferent; it is the connexion of the foundation
with the history of man--with the names that, like
the flowers called "immortals," bloom amid the wrecks
and desolateness with which the flood of ages strew the
rearway of humankind.

Of late there has been small response to feelings
such as these in the great world, for we have not been
looking much toward what is above us, nor discriminating
from meaner things those which approach to
heroic natures. We must abandon Mammon, politics,
and polemics, when we would approach the threshold
of elevated meditation--when we dwell on the illustrious
names of the past, and tread over the stones which they
trod. I never wandered along the banks of the sedgy
Cam, at that lone, twilight hour, when the dimness of