VIII. We mean, in accordance with the spirit of the age, to throw aside all paltry distinctions of sects in religion, and shall distribute our church patronage liberally among all denominations of christians. Titus Oates is to be Archbishop of Canterbury, and George Fox the Quaker "sometime Provost of King's."

These are a few of our leading principles, put down at hazard rather by way of specimen, than as any promulgation of our theory. We feel that we have a great work to perform; but that in that work we shall be supported by the favour of our brother Etonians. This assurance alone would be enough to sustain us under labours more overwhelming than any we are likely to meet with; but at the same time we have no apprehensions that we shall need other aid than that afforded us by the great principle we have been endeavouring to advocate. Surely, facts will be our only opponents; may we not add in the words of the well-known theoriser, 66 so much the worse for the facts!"

We have only further to add that, in the third number of the Eton Bureau, William the Conqueror will ascend the throne of his father Harold, be crowned in Westminster Abbey by Cardinal Wolsey, Lord Bolingbroke being First Lord of the Treasury, and "the heavenly Pym" Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Leader of the House of Commons.

E. M. O.

F

A BALLAD.

1.

The sun is scarcely sunk

In his lov'd Hesperian seas,
And the fitful moaning of the blast
Is heard amid the trees.

But why do Mary's tears o'erflow?
And why so sad her heart?

Her lover ere long to the wars must go ;
'Tis hard so soon to part.

2.

"Tis the breath of early morn
That is wafted on the wind;
Sir Raymond to the wars has gone,
With a blithesome train behind.
But why next to his heart so true
That snow-white scarf so bright?

He has sworn to give it a ruddier hue
In the blood of her recreant knight.

3.

The moon is o'er the hill,

And the wood lark in her nest; 'Mid the dews of eve the nightingale Is soothing her young to rest. But why doth that lute's melodious breath On the gale's soft pinion swell?

'Tis that recreant knight his love beneath His ladye's bower would tell.

4.

Three days have come and gone

Since Sir Raymond went away,

And the tears have flown from his Mary's cheek,
Like the stars at dawn of day.

But why is all that pageant show?

Why do the yeomen ride?

She is going to wed that knight, I trow,
A perjured, faithless, bride.

Folle decet pueros ludere.-MARTIAL.

I had been spending some hours in Mr. Ingalton's back room, now the Ed. E. B.'s studio, reading and criticising tragedies, chronicles, letters, &c., without number, and congratulating myself that I had almost concluded my task, and that No. II. was very good; when, as I dived into the mysterious chest, wherein all our correspondence was deposited, with as much circumspection as the Prince of Morocco did into the fair Portia's, my hand emerged from its entrails, armed with a letter! A letter! Well what's in a letter? O but this letter-It was directed to "the Editor of the Eton Bureau," &c., &c., just as it should be; but there was something in the handwriting that bespoke the inward bitterness of the mind that prompted it.

"The Editor" was written, as if it meant, I wish I was behind him with a brad-awl, or some such other delicate instrument; despondency was evident in " Mr. Ingalton," and the &c., &c., &c., seemed to intimate that the writer had hardly made up his mind whether to drown himself in Barne's-pool, or inflict summary chastisement on unoffending me.

66

Gentle reader, pity me; alas, too well I guessed its contents; I remembered that in No. I. I had inserted a letter from a pseudo-anti-football-player, in which too many of my penetrating readers had discovered sundry cuts" at themselves, and an unpardonable invective against the game. Many are the hints I had heard thrown out during the last month of the different schemes for finding out the author of the offending article, and then punishing him. Many a time had I when amongst a knot of companions before eleven, heard myself cried down, jested upon, and insulted; and, believe me, great has been the struggle to prevent myself from announcing that I was the culprit, and that I was prepared for either defence or punishment. But to return, I burst the seal with the air of a desperate man, threw myself into my arm chair, and commenced its perusal-It ran thus"Mr. Editor,"

Rightly does the author of that spirited letter which appeared in your last number sign himself 'A.S.S."" Here is the Editor of the Eton Bureau dubbed as an ass in the two first lines. He who should be, and, need I say, is the pink of an Etonian, styled an ass by an anonymous correspondent! Was ever any thing like it?

Well, well, to proceed.

"It has always been, and I trust will continue to be, one of Eton's proudest boasts, that no one can compete with her at football: and feeble indeed must be the shins, as well as the spirit of that person, who would not bear a swelling even larger than the egg of a small bird for the participation in so noble a recreation. Where Mr. A. S. S. is the brutality in kicking about a harmless football?" Ah! where indeed?

"Where is the demoralising influence, if by any chance

you should happen to miss the ball and scrape another gentleman's shins?"

On my soul, I know not.

6

"Do you say, where do we find football in daily use except at Eton?

Now I am going to catch it! O ye young aspirants after the fame of authorship, take warning and stick to truth.

"Rather say where do we not find it? Rugby, Harrow, and the public schools play at it daily; and if you consider them below us, what of it? we only enjoy a noble solitude."

A noble solitude, by the Powers! The gentleman goes on to state that a thrill pervaded him when he read A. S. S.'s letter. That is some comfort, it is not every one who can write a letter that will have so great effect on the reader. But what have we here?

"I can certainly say one thing, namely, that the author is original in his ideas, for many a time have I been next the wall, without ever entertaining the malicious intention of pushing it down, or having any desire to shine forth to posterity in the shape of a mummy."

Well! now really that's good! Original in his ideas! he isn't such a bad fellow after all. I wish I knew him. The plot thickens, I must go on.

"The author confesses to have drunk deeply at the Muse's fount; it almost seems as if he had drunk rather too deeply, not of”...

O ye Gods! he thinks I was drunk! The editor of the Eton Bureau drunk when he wrote such an original article!

"Far from wishing to have any more of his poetical ideas, we had much rather be without them if they are to be in the same strain as his first production."