indeed a beautiful place. When a puny sickly infant I was taken there, and the air and sea-bathing restored me to health and life. Well, perhaps it would have been a better and happier thing to have died then; still, somehow, we do not feel inclined to quarrel with that which has saved our life. People now began to get fidgety, and strange dissipated caps were exchanged for sober, prosaic hats; gentlemen were hunting for umbrellas and walkingsticks; and ladies for shawls, and those mysterious bags which, from the variety and number of articles produced from them, seem to possess some of the qualities of the enchanted saddle-bags of the Thousand and one Nights. Owing to the tide's not being mcre than half in, the vessel was not able to get close up to the pier; but they did not keep us long waiting, for a large boat had immediately put off to receive the passengers and luggage, in which I took my place along with the rest, and was followed by my heavy book-box which was flung down after me-not on me, or I should not be writing this now-with such emphasis, that when the cord was removed, I was not at all surprised to find it placed hors de combat. A minute's row, during which I had just time to wonder how the men, strong and muscular as they seemed to be, could make such a heavy boat, especially with such an awful load in it, move at all through the water, and we were at the landing-place and scrambling up the steps, arrived at the top of which we had to force our way as best we could through the crowd of bawling porters and clamorous flymen.

Our voyage is now over, and we must courteously thank those kind readers who have honestly read through this effusion of ours to the end; and hope they will not think we mean merely to flatter, when we assure them that if it has been our good fortune to impart to them but one quarter of the pleasure which this night voyage and the thoughts it gave birth to have to us, notwithstanding the tinge of melancholy pervading them, its memory will then in coming years have pleasanter associations still than it has now; and we shall feel that all the trouble we have been at in writing and correcting has been well and satisfactorily laid out, and may

even be tempted to trespass further on their kindness in the next SHIRBURNIAN.

And the mist floats o'er the seas,
Wafted by the evening breeze,
All alone:

Singing by the murmuring waves
On the shore;

While from the darksome ocean-caves
Clouds of shadows dimly soar,

Till starlit the sky above thee;
Singing, singing "How I love thee!"

Evermore.

NORMA,

TALE OF A CHINAMAN.

I AM no teetotaller, neither do I mean to be, yet I am endebted to Souchong and Bohea for many of my youthful enjoyments. Not that Tea in itself has ever filled me with Epicurean delight, but that social gatherings round the festive tea-table or the ambulating tea-tray have been hitherto to me great sources of sentimental pleasures. It may be true that Tea, viewed as a meal, is a sham, but viewed as a promoter of friendly feeling it is a thousand times better than roast beef and treble X. What a gross, vulgar thing society must have been before Tea was known to be the real thing which Emollit mores nec sinit esse feros.

In the Life of Whitfield (I have been told,) it is stated that, in his fasting humours at Oxford, "he ate nothing but sage tea without sugar, and coarse bread." The great folks of England could alone afford at that time to drink the genuine article imported from China, and it only came thence in very small quantities (there were no "Dakins" or "Philips & Co." in those days). In 1664 the English East India Company considered it a rare gift to present the Queen of England with two pounds of tea. It must have been about this period of the world's history that the cook of a rich house in the West-end boiled a pound of tea, and, throwing away the water, served up the leaves as vegetables. This was not such

a foolish plan after all, if we can believe what chemists say about the nourishing properties of the tea leaf. The mistake was in throwing away the tea water. There is a similar story, if my memory is right, in that amusing article, "A Sherbornian Abroad," in Part 3 of THE SHIRBURNIAN. It is a curious fact that a beverage, which was all but unknown two centuries ago, should have become so very universal in Great Britain, that it constitutes nearly two-thirds of the liquids we imbibe, and that it gives its name to abstemious societies who profess (?) to confine themselves to it (using their motto) as "the liquor that cheers but not inebriates"-(vide Temperance placards). Its advantages are great. No other beverage could stimulate, at so trifling a cost, the gossiping faculties of old maids and spinsters not yet come out; it promotes friendly sympathies and ripens many an affaire du cœur.

The heavy dinner-parties of a grosser age have made way for the lighter tea-fights and muffin-scrambles of modern times. Tea has banished the hard eating and still harder drinking which characterised the rude hospitality of former times, and substituted a species of mild conviviality which brings man more in contact with the gentle sex, and humanises society more than the drunken gaieties of our forefathers. We may have lost much of their proverbial generous open-heartedness, but we have gained much in refinement. Though we cannot assert that this change has been effected solely by the introduction of Tea into our country, yet we may fairly assume that the kettle and the teapot have exercised a great influence in that direction.

T. Radford

EROTYLON.

Hence, gloomy Care, while that we yet are young;
To thee we wish not to have aught to say;
While yet our hearts are warm, our nerves are strung
With health and vigour, keep thee still away.

Approach not till the winter of old age,
When these exuberant locks are thin and grey:
While life as yet is in its summer day,

The sparkling wine cup and the joyous song,

And that sweet war which men with women wage,
Should our affections, our free souls, engage.

The glance of loving eyes, the witching smile,

The blush, the trembling, and the bosom's swell,
The half-concealed, half-apparent wile,

The various graces we can feel, not tell;

The charm of manner, the soft siren tone,

Oh! these could make a paradise of hell :

Who would without them wish in heaven to dwell?

Ah! let us, therefore, while we may, beguile

Our life with pleasures, for when youth is gone

Joy dwells in memories of the past alone.

Let us live, therefore, while live yet we can,

Soothed by soft music from distracting thought,
And those sweet gifts which woman offers man,
And the rare magic of the viny draught.

Yes, if these even from our years should take,
What matter, the brief hours that must be bought

With pain and sadness-they deserve it not.

Should we not count it rather loss than gain,

If for at best a few short autumns' sake,

From everything we fly that life could joyous make?

EPSILON.

THE BRETONS.

“A pater and an ave" (for every one who came in late,) was shouted out by the burly priest from the altar, as I entered a village church in Brittany. Two procrastinating peasants who had come in with me hung down their heads in silent contrition, just as I might do if told to write two books of Homer by to