A CARTHUSIAN LEGEND.

[WE had long wished that before we closed the pages of the Carthusian we might be enabled to present to our readers a contribution from the elder department of our venerable establishment. We are happy now at the last hour in the accomplishment of our wish. Few of us but can recognize in these verses the production of the octogenarian philo-cricketist, whose wild black eyes sparkling from under his grey shaggy eyebrows at the sight of a "Terracer," half charmed, half frightened our youthful imaginations. In vain we now seek him in his accustomed place. Since the last cricket-season the chapel bell has rung out his heavy dirge, and followed by his tottering brethren he has been carried to his nameless grave: Requiescat in pace.

HONOURED GENTLEMEN,

EDS.]

I received the following lines from an old brother pensioner, lately deceased. There is a wildness about them which shows that the writer laboured under some strong excitement or agitation. As he was strictly temperate, I feel inclined to attribute the effusion to indigestion. He had been in his youth the hero of his village at bowling and batting, and when in his latter days he became a member of our Brotherhood, he loved to post himself in the Cloisters, secure from any stray hit, and watch the fortunes of the game with the eye of a practised cricketer. Sleep no doubt overtook him while thus engaged, and Fancy asserted her accustomed privilege of trampling upon probabilities and of giving

"to airy nothings

A local habitation and a name."

That he partially believed in the reality of what he wrote about, is evident from the confusion of ideas in the concluding lines. He is now dead, and I have therefore no scruple in offering his verses for your acceptance, as many old Carthusians were very fond of conversing with him, especially about his belief in ghosts.

I remain, honoured Gentlemen,

Your humble servant,

I lay me down to sleep

BROTHER TRENCHER.

And dreamt in Middle Briers,

Of monks of olden time

And gray Carthusian friars;
Yet still my eyes were open,

And I looked upon the green,
But oh, how dread the sight,

How changed the well-known scene!

Instead of laughing groups

Of boys around each wicket,
Eleven monks and devils

Played a fearful game of cricket;
And instead of cap and gown

Was the long white robe and cowl,

And each hoary head it glistened
Like a polished silver bowl.
And they played, and they played
For the souls of those that lie
In the bosom of the hill

That rises up hard by ;

And a little azure angel

Stood umpire at the game,
With his sword all gleaming bright,

And wings of heavenly flame.

The devils they were in,

The monks were fagging out,

And Lucifer, the chief of all,

How he knocked the ball about!

How he laughed to see the weary friars Running hard and fast

Beneath the burning sunbeams

And the fell sulphuric blast! And louder still he laughed

When at length he got a run,
And he capered and he hopped
At the diabolic fun.

And again my eyes were opened,
And they pierced the solemn gloom,
Where lay the shivering souls

In fear of deadly doom.

And I saw the swollen bodies

In the cerements of the dead-
While the long slimy worms,
Oh, how merrily they fed

On the green putrid mass

Within the roomy grave, And blessed the blessed plague

Which that feast of dainties gave!

But the prior boldly stood,

That man of holy deeds,—
He bowed his head in prayer
And quickly told his beads;
And he prayed so long and loud
That the angel, who on high
Stood umpire at the game,

Looked down with partial eye
And flashed his beaming wings
With pleasure and delight

Before the demon's eyes,

That were dazzled by the sight.

With heavenly hope inspired,

The prior seized the ball,

Struck off the balanced bales
And broke the wickets all.
Then rose a fearful yell

Of anguish and despair

From that band of baffled fiends
As they vanished in the air.
The earth it shook with horror,
The monks they stood aghast,—

The dreadful conflict o'er,

The weary struggle past;
And the hill it opened wide,
A cavern dark and deep,
Where a spirit o'er each body
Did a solemn vigil keep :
Unearthly music rang around
In gladness from on high,
As the ransom'd spirits rose aloft
And reached the parting sky;
And the glory burst upon my eyes
With an all-resplendent beam,

And I woke and found that all had passed
Before me in a dream.

Yet now whene'er I walk along

The sad funereal hill,

I think upon the souls that lie

In dreadful durance still.

And no man who has ever been,

Or ever yet shall be,

Has dreamt the dream that I then dreamt,

Or seen that I did see.

A SONNET ON SONNETS.

Not much I love the fourteen-lined effusion
Of Poet's brain, so popular and common,
Whether its subject be man, horse, or woman,
Tree, river, mountain, peace, or war's confusion,
Or philosophic subtlety refined,

Which now with chiefest joy Sir Public hails :
Wherein the ruthless rhymster or curtails
Some glowing thought, in Fancy's mint fresh coin'd,
Of half its fair proportions ;—or, with skill
More exquisitely cruel, sparing nought
The hapless reader or the hapless thought,
Racks out its miserable length, until

E'en to this point he strains it :-then upon it
He claps a fourteenth line,—and lo! a Sonnet!

THE TRIUMVIRATE.

HARRY MOUBRAY has departed. The charm of our club, the master-spirit of our mysteries, the grand-tiler of our masonry is no more! Our Sir Roger de Coverley has fled, and with him the light has vanished from our pages: our numbers would now wax heavy and dull. Well, a boy's blessing be with him! We will lay no ponderous slab-stone on his remains, we will raise no cold and marble effigy, nor shall any posthumous numbers drag out the needless Alexandrine of his epitaph. Si monumentum quæris, circumspice. It shall not be said that he left the edifice in marble, and that we continued it in brick. With him our work began; with him shall it finish. The Parthenon of his imagination shall remain