external objects tends most to concentrate the faculties
upon the immediate object of contemplation, but I
have fancied the shades of Bacon, Milton, or Locke,
to be near me, as the Indian fancies the shades of his
fathers haunt the old hunting-grounds of his race. I
know that these are heterodox feelings in the present
day. I know that he who speaks of Homer or Milton,
for example, is continually answered by the question,
"Who reads them now?" The truth being, perhaps,
that we are getting too far below them to relish their
superior standard in sterling merit. But there are still
in our universities, if not elsewhere, some who are
content to be the last of the Goths in the estimation
of the multitude, who cannot see the Isis, or Cherwell,
or the reedy Cam, without feelings of which the crowd
knows nothing; who can dream away an hour in the
avenue of Christ Church, and almost conjure spirits
from the depths of the grave to realize the pictures of
imagination, which are there always invested with purity
and holiness, so much do external things impress their
character on our imaginings. This is the true poetry
of life, neither found in the haunts of fashion, nor
among the denizens of Cornhill or St. Giles'. The good
and deep things of the mind, the search into the secrets
of nature, the sublimest truth, the purest philosophy of
which man has to boast, has proceeded from those who
were inhabitants of such seats of learning. It is
impossible to state the precise amount of assistance which
genius and learning may derive from the ease and peace
enjoyed in such a university. They are inestimable to