And round the pillars one by one,
Returning where my walk begun,
Avoiding only, as I trod,

My brothers' graves without a sod;
For if I thought with heedless tread
My step profaned their lowly bed,
My breath came gaspingly and thick,
And my crush'd heart fell blind and sick.

XII.

I made a footing in the wall,

It was not therefrom to escape,

For I had buried one and all

Who loved me in a human shape;

And the whole earth would henceforth be

A wider prison unto me:

No child-no sire-no kin had I,

No partner in my misery;

I thought of this, and I was glad,

For thought of them had made me mad;
But I was curious to ascend

To my barr'd windows, and to bend
Once more upon the mountains high
The quiet of a loving eye.

XIII.

I saw them and they were the same,
They were not changed like me in frame;
I saw their thousand years of snow
On high-their wide long lake below,
And the blue Rhone 10 in fullest flow;
I heard the torrents leap and gush
O'er channell'd rock and broken bush;

I saw the white-wall'd distant town,
And whiter sails go skimming down;
And then there was a little isle,11
Which in my very face did smile,
The only one in view;

A small green isle, it seem'd no more,
Scarce broader than my dungeon floor,
But in it there were three tall trees,
And o'er it blew the mountain breeze,
And by it there were waters flowing,
And on it there were young flowers growing,
Of gentle breath and hue.

The fish swam by the castle wall,
And they seem'd joyous each and all;
The eagle rode the rising blast,
Methought he never flew so fast
As then to me he seemed to fly;
And then new tears came in my eye,
And I felt troubled-and would fain
I had not left my recent chain;
And, when I did descend again,
The darkness of my dim abode
Fell on me as a heavy load ;
It was as is a new-dug grave,
Closing o'er one we sought to save,-
And yet my glance, too much opprest,
Had almost need of such a rest.

XIV.

It might be months, or years, or days,
I kept no count-I took no note,

I had no hope my eyes to raise

And clear them of their dreary mote;

!

At last men came to set me free;

I ask'd nor why, and reck'd not where; It was at length the same to me, Fetter'd or fetterless to be,

I learn'd to love despair.

And thus when they appear'd at last,.
And all my bonds aside were cast,
These heavy walls to me had grown
A hermitage and all my own!
And half I felt as they were come
To tear me from a second home:
With spiders I had friendship made,
And watch'd them in their sullen trade,
Had seen the mice by moonlight play,
And why should I feel less than they?
We were all inmates of one place,
And I, the monarch of each race,
Had power to kill-yet, strange to tell!
In quiet we had learn'd to dwell—
My very chains and I grew friends,
So much a long communion tends
To make us what we are:-even I
Regain'd my freedom with a sigh.

Byron.

XXVII.

BOYHOOD OF THE BLACK PRINCE.*

WE always like to know where a famous man was educated; and here we know the place, and also see the reason why it was chosen. Any of you who have been at Oxford will remember the long line of buildings which overlook the beautiful curve of High Street, the buildings of "Queen's College," the College of the Queen.

At the time of which I speak, that college was the greatest,-two others only in any regular collegiate form existed in Oxford. It had but just been founded by the chaplain of Queen Philippa, and took its name from her. There it was that, according to tradition, the Prince of Wales, her son, as in the next generation, Henry V., was brought up. [1342.]

If we look at the events which followed, he could hardly have been twelve years old when he went. But there were then no schools in England, and their place was almost entirely supplied by the Universities.1 Queen's College is much altered in every way since the little Prince went there; but they still keep an engraving of the vaulted room which he is said to have occupied ;2 and though most of the old customs which prevailed in the college, and which made it a very peculiar place

* From Historical Memorials of Canterbury.

even then, have long since disappeared, some which are mentioned by the founder, and which therefore must have been in use when the Prince was there, still continue. You may still hear the students summoned to dinner, as he was, by the sound of a trumpet; and, in the hall, you may still see, as he saw, the Fellows3 sitting all on one side of the table, with the Head of the College in the centre, in imitation of the "Last Supper," as it is commonly represented in pictures,

The very names of the Head and the twelve Fellows (the number first appointed by the founder, in likeness of our Lord and the Apostles), who were presiding over the College when the Prince was there, are known to us. He must have seen what has long since vanished away, the thirteen beggars, deaf, dumb, maimed, or blind, daily brought into the Hall, to receive their dole of bread, beer, potage, and fish. He must have seen the seventy poor scholars, instituted after example of the seventy disciples, and learning from their two chaplains to chant the service. He must have heard the mill within or hard by the College walls grinding the Fellows' bread. He must have seen the porter of the College going round the rooms betimes in the morning to shave the beards, and wash the heads of the Fellows. In these, and many other curious particulars, we can tell exactly what the customs and appearance of the College were when the Prince was there.

It is more difficult to answer another question, which we always wish to know about famous men

L