and knocked him down with it. Ah! she has set her eye on you now. Don't be alarmed! I'll bring you off in safety. But don't speak to, or even look at her, and be very grave!"

"Ha! my lads," said the heroine of Sackville-Street, "come back to the fair, and treat me to a dance." "We have no time to spare this evening," replied Tom, as we endeavoured to pass,-" to-morrow, Bet." "Nay," said she, return, and I'll treat you both.-I like this modest little fellow's air, and he shall dance a jig with me in O'Connell's tent.' "Impossible!" replied Tom, "we have a particular engagement that calls us home." "I tell you," said Bet, "I won't be disappointed! I fancy this pretty sober-sides; and you may go to the devil if you like, but you sha'n't take him from me! Possession is nine points of the law out of ten!" and so saying, she seized me with the grasp of a vice!

"Unfortunate, abandoned wretch!" said Tom, indignantly, "lost to all sense of religion and decency,-do you not see to whom you speak? Would you tempt a priest into the path of sin, whose sacred duties have led him to visit a death-bed in the midst of this scene of iniquity? Begone!"

way

I was dressed in black, and am naturally reserved; and now kept my countenance very well. The girl seemed shocked at her impiety, relinquished her hold, and hastily walked away with her companion. When we had got a little from them,66 "Now," said Tom, are you in wind for a race?" Yes," said I, "I'll run with you for a wager!" " Very well; the penalty shall be, as we used to say at school, 'for the last man a kick and a box,' and Bet Bouncer shall give them both. Just turn round, and assume the attitude of a swell :-your hat on one side of your head:-your legs astride;-there!—and your arms a kimbo, with your cane stuck out thus !-Now just stand so! Hollo! Bet!" (she turned hastily) "The next time you go to confession, don't forget to acknowledge your scandalous mistake of a dandy for a priest!" Holy Father of Heaven!" cried the virago, catching up a stone in sudden fury, "I'll brain them both!"

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"Whip!-spur!-and away!" cried Tom.

We fled like the wind; she pursued like the whirlwind, and we heard her thunderbolt rattling at our heels. Turning round to see if her rage was spent with the blow, we found her gaining on us rapidly, till she entered a slippery track, that had lately delayed us. Here, blind with passion, she fell prostrate in the puddle, and rising, presented us with her full front, black with mire and wrath. Our laughter recalled her attention to the chase, and clutching up another stone, she pursued us furiously; as if, like Antæus, she had imbibed fresh vigour and vengeance from the contact of her mother mud." Run for your life!" exclaimed Tom. We did so, remembering that

"They who fight and run away,

May live to fight another day."

And, fortunately, the feet of fear were in this case fleeter than those of rage. To tell the truth, we never looked behind us again, till we made a descent on a jaunting car at Ball's Bridge, going to town at the rate of six miles an hour, which speedily whirled us out of sight, and sound, and reach of Bet Bouncer, and Donnybrook Fair.

[53]

REMARKS ON THE MODE OF AWARDING THE HONOURS IN THE GENERAL CLASSES.

To the Editor of the London University Magazine.

I OBSERVED in your first number some observations on the mode of assigning the prizes in the medical classes of the University, and I now venture to suggest to your notice a few remarks on that adopted in the classes of Latin, Greek, and Mathematics. You probably know, that each of these classes is divided into two parts, called the junior and senior divisions; that the candidates for honours in each are examined distinctly, and that to each part, honours are awarded. To this plan there are several serious objections. Let us first consider the object of prizes given by Universities they surely are intended, not so much to reward mere industry, as to inform the world at large of the acquirements of the individual obtaining them. They are designed to be testimonials, which their possessors may use in obtaining professional or other situations: and in this they differ most materially from prizes given at schools; where, as the rank of a pupil does not procure him any immediate advantage, it is expedient to hold out marked rewards sufficient to urge him to exertion. Now, it is evidently a thing of the greatest importance, that the value of University honours should be kept as high as possible; to effect which, all possibility of error with regard to that value should be removed.

Here arises my first objection to the plan pursued at the University; the value of the honours given there is exceedingly liable to be mistaken; for when a young man says, that he obtained a prize at the University of London, few would think of inquiring whether he was in the first or second class. I need not trouble my readers with a detailed account of the injury that such mistakes would cause to those who really gained prizes in the first class, or to the reputation of the University. The former would be degraded to a level with those far beneath them, the latter would sink in estimation as a place of instruction.

But this is not the only way in which a mistake can arise. Allow that the individual admits he was in the second class :—his friend, turning to the account of the honours for that session, finds thirteen granted in the first class; he at once naturally concludes, that the first prizeman in the second is fourteenth in the University: for who would imagine, that there is in the first class a number of students who do not obtain certificates? Every one must conclude, that all in the first class rank before all in the second, that no inferior student is rewarded, while one superior to him, who would have beat him in the same contest, but aspired to a higher, is undistinguished. Yet the latter is actually the case, and the mischief produced by its being so is evident.

Nor is this all look more closely at the certificate itself; what does it declare? I have one by me at this moment, which announces that, “At the examination of the third,* (or highest) Latin class, was placed

in the second class." Do you understand this, indulgent reader? Is not that, 66 or highest," a most explanatory phrase? I will not render it less intelligible by attempting to explain it.

* Last session each class was divided into three parts.

My second objection to the plan pursued by the University, is, that it is unjust to the unsuccessful candidates in the first class: for any student among them must be presumed to be superior to any one in the second. Why then is he not distinguished before the junior? Because, say you, he has not exerted himself so much, and has not obtained so high a rank relatively to his compeers. To which I reply, this is a University and not a school; acquirement is to be rewarded, and not mere exertion.

That I may not be accused of attacking one system, without suggesting another, I will propose one for consideration. Let the students of the two classes be thrown together at the examination; let the same questions be proposed to each division, and let these questions comprise the subjects discussed in both divisions: there is no hardship in this; for the students of the senior class ought to be acquainted with the proceedings of the junior, and if any individual of the junior class feel himself able to compete with the senior, he will have a fair opportunity of so doing. Then let certificates be granted to as many students as may be considered deserving of them, and let each certificate merely state the number of superiors, which the student possessing it, had. This plan has the merit of simplicity, at least,-I think that of justice also.

At

As I imagine, however, that it has but a very small chance of being adopted, I will suggest one trifling alteration in the present plan, which would diminish the probability of error to a considerable extent. present, books are given as prizes to the two highest students in each class; and if, instead of them, medals were given in the first class, a marked distinction would be made between the senior and junior prizes ; I can see no objection to this arrangement, and it would certainly be advantageous.

I cannot conclude these remarks better than by applying to the general classes, the words which Professor Amos used in announcing the successful candidates in his class. "This University ought to be scrupulous in the extreme about conferring legal fame on any individual who has not exceeded, in a striking manner, the ordinary standard of legal proficiency; we owe this to the public; we owe this to ourselves."

A GENERAL STUDENT.

REVIEW OF BOOKS.

THE KEEPSAKE, FOR 1830.

(Hurst, Chance, and Co.)

In our last number we complained that the class of publications of which this stands at the head, was fast introducing into the country a style of literature distinguished more for elegance and polish than spirit or originality, and ventured to complain of the sameness and mediocrity apparent in all their articles, and more especially in their poetry. The editor of the Keepsake has practised what we preached; he has deserted the beaten track of his cotemporaries, and produced a volume perfectly

unique in its kind; an annual whose illustrations, beautiful though they be, are its least attractions,-a book whose title should rather be the perennial, since it alone contains contributions worthy of a place among the permanent literature of our nation. This is high praise, and we shall now proceed to establish its justice.

The first article in the volume, and that most likely to attract public attention, is, the "House of Aspen," a tragedy, by Sir Walter Scott. Of all the mysteries which have originated with the Great Unknown, the length of time that this has been withheld from the public, appears to us the greatest. In vigorous conception of character, in vivid delineation of striking events, in lofty sentiment, and heroic thought, it yields not to the proudest production of his pen. In a modest preface he refers to the causes which principally induced him to suppress this drama for so many years; the one that appears to have had most influence was, the overwhelming ridicule poured upon the German theatre by Messrs. Canning and Frere, in the mock tragedy of the Rovers. But this drama belongs not to the class which the satirists banished from the stage; the story is German, but the style and execution is Scottish all over. The story is simple:-Isabella of Aspen, had been forced, in early life, to marry the mortal enemy of her lover; worn out by his tyrannical persecutions she in an evil hour bribes his servant to administer poison to his lord. After his death, she is united to the husband of her first love; two brave boys bless their marriage; they grow up the pride of every heart and the joy of every eye; but hidden guilt preys upon the mother's heart; there is a fire within her soul that, "unconsum'd is still consuming." Penances, beyond the church's worst rigors, she voluntarily endures; works of piety and charity, exceeding all others in frequency and amount, she performs; but all in vain ; the worm of conscience dies not, the fire of memory burns unquenched. In a skirmish between her sons and a feudal baron, their foe, the menial, who had been the agent of her guilt, is wounded, and deeming himself at the point of death, reveals the secret to her son George, and immediately after to his bitter foe, whom, in the agony of pain, he mistakes for his master-both are members of that awful body, "the secret tribunal;" whose mysterious power in the detection and punishment of guilt causes an involuntary shudder, when even in fiction we read of their fearful agency. The struggle between filial affection, detestation of guilt, and the obligations of his judicial oath, in the mind of the hapless son, are depicted with a vigour and strength that harrow up the soul. The mother and the son fall beneath the daggers of the secret avengers; but the enemy who had hurried on their ruin meets with merited punishment. Such is the brief outline of this powerful drama, which, in the interest it excites, strongly resembles the Edipus Tyrannus, that noblest relic of Grecian tragedy. From the beginning we foresee that the termination must be calamitous: but the process is gradual; horror is dealt out to us, drop by drop, and at length the cup of misery is full to the brim. "No man, says an old critic, ever read the Edipus and forgot it;" no man will ever even carelessly peruse the "House of Aspen," without carrying the recollection of it to his grave. We had marked some passages for extrac

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tion, but must omit them in order to leave room for our remarks on some other portions of the volume.

That strange enchantress, the author of Frankenstein, has contributed two tales, combining all her powers of mingling the softest feelings of affection with all that is dark and gloomy in the mental world. Her writings are always intellectual phenomena; the mind of the reader finds itself melted by the sweetest traits of kindly feeling, at the same time that it is repelled by darker and gloomier shades. We feel as if during a thunderstorm, we at the same moment admired the brilliancy of the forky flashes, and shuddered at the desolation which it was about to spread around. "The Evil Eye," more especially, illustrates this strange characteristic of the author's mind. The Arnaout, whose heart has been seared by misfortune, his feelings blighted and his affections crushed,-stalking over the earth with hands died in slaughter, striking terror into every soul by his malicious glance, lending readily his aid to the perpetration of every crime that may communicate to others the sufferings which he himself feels, is, one would suppose, a being with whom no one could sympathize; and yet we love while we fear him; affection mingles with our horror,-for traces of former moral loveliness haunt the ruined temple of his soul. How it is, we know not, but the fact is so the author, without the slightest expression that would direct attention to the native goodness of the Arnaout's heart, still contrives to show that the purest and best feelings of our nature linger in his soul.

We pass on to the "Delusion of Three Days," by R. Bernal, M. P., and after contemplating the picture of the lady whose influence lasted during that mystic period, we must say, that the hero was a consummate coxcomb, to quarrel with his lady-love for so slight a cause as that he has assigned. The narrative is so exquisitely whimsical, that we dare vouch for its reality; not because it is like truth, but because it is so unlike truth, that we would give no human being credit for the invention.

Lord Nugent has contributed several pieces, and among the rest, an Irish Tale, written in the broad Munster dialect, and full of that richness of feeling, and quaint vigour of expression, for which the Southern Irish are so remarkable. If his lordship has not Irish blood in his veins, if he has not a strongly developed organ for eating potatoes and drinking whiskey, then is there no truth in the theory of national peculiarities, then are Gall and Spurzheim a precious pair of blockheads. Seriously, we have not, since the days of Miss Edgeworth, seen any production, so characteristic of the raciness that distinguishes the dialect of the Munster peasantry.

The articles furnished by Banim and Morier are worthy of their fame; though we meet them both on ground where they were little expected. Who would ever have dreamed of the author of the "O'Hara Tales" taking a gallop through the deserts with a detachment of Arab Scheiks? We should hardly have been more surprised had we heard of Lady Hester Stanhope's writing a novel whose locality was the golden vale of Tipperary.

The last piece we shall notice is an historical sketch, called the "Prophet of St. Paul's," written by Lord Normanby; the judicious intermixture of fable with historic truth in this article, is managed with consummate skill; but the event itself scarcely needed any adventitious ornament to make it interesting. The old French chronicler, Mezeray, is animated almost with a poetic spirit, while he details that "burial of the heart," the sacrifice of a lovely princess to the demon of political expediency.