Mr. Noyes has mastered his technique. What might pass for rhetoric and facility in another's hands, becomes at his touch a felicity. It reminds of Swinburne. At least Mr. Noyes has learned, like Swinburne, how to value in each word the vibrating pulse of sound that is inaudible until woven together by the poet's magic. Mere repetition, indeed, helps the memory and defines the picture.

Come down to Kew in lilac-time, in lilac-time, in lilac-time,

Come down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London !)

And you shall wander hand in hand with Love in summer's wonderland,
Come down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London !)

Or again:

When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
A highwayman comes riding—

A highwayman comes riding up to the old inn-door.

This quality of resonance in which a singer perpetuates the imagery of his line, as the fleeting meaning is saved and carried forward on the wings of the succeeding line, is a device at once happy and artless. It presents values of atmosphere wherein the expressions come to their due perfection. The line sings itself along, and perforce the reader follows. But while Mr. Noyes knows how to utilize the sound of his words in support of his meaning, he has a danger in copiousness. This has precluded much of his finer and maturer work from being collected. But we are glad to have pieces like "Earth-bound," "A Night at St. Helena" and "The Barrel Organ." They are little masterpieces; and even if we must constantly realize that they are humanly earthbound, we can, at least, find continual delight in their exquisite melodies.

How sweet the strange recall

From vast antiphonies of joy and pain
Beyond the grave, to these old books again,
That cosy lamp, those pictures on the wall.

Home Home! The old desire!
We would shut out the innumerable skies
Draw close the curtains, then with patient eyes
Bend o'er the hearth; laugh at our memories,
Or watch them crumbling in the crimson fire.

W. G. Tinckom-Fernandez.

ILLUSION.

When Spring was come over the lonely hills,

I thought of one who was not come with the Spring.

I said, "I will rise and seek her, following

Where the heart wills.

"Surely I know love is a joyous thing,

Therefore will she not come to me when she wills,

Dancing along the meadows, skipping upon the hills, And laugh and sing?"

There is nothing lying beyond the hills,

No sweet lost land, or love, or anything;

Only the wind cries and the flowers spring Along the rills.

"Give me back the things that the heart wills!
Give me back the land where the stars sing!"
I wander over the meadows murmuring,
Crying beyond the hills.

John Hall Wheelock.

THE REVOLUTIONARY DRAMA IN THE COLLEGE
RECORDS.

It was my privilege not long ago to spend a day over a volume of the Corporation Records of Harvard College dealing with the transactions of the years just preceding and during the Revolutionary War. The book consisted of a heap of large sheets of thick paper, yellow with age, and unruled, crossed and recrossed by the small, neat characters of the various presidents in whose handwriting the records had been kept. The squeaking quill of the dignitary had faithfully recorded all the concerns which were discussed at their meetings "at the President's House."

In the stately and solemn rhetoric of the votes one catches glimpses of the company which gathered round the fireplace in the president's study. There was Dr. Appleton, of whom it might be said that the records usually open with the memorandum, "Dr. Appleton prayed"; there was John Hancock, Esquire, familiarly known as Colonel Hancock, and the president, and at least two of the tutors. These sober-garmented persons laid their cloaks and bell-crowned hats on the table among volumes of the Hebrew rabbis belonging to the president, and toasted their bright shoe-buckles at his andirons, while they talked in low tones of the unrest of the Colony, for walls had ears-particularly colonial walls, and one of the party, at least, did not know at what hour he might be summoned to Philadelphia. If any one cares to know what these men looked like, he may consult the grave austerity of the portraits which hang on the walls of Memorial Hall. There have been companies less heavy of wit, more agreeable for the swift passing of an hour, but the grim mouths of these men, and their deep, steady eyes, acquired that look which only broods on the faces of men whose purposes are pregnant with empire.

Indeed, the absence of humor from these pages is itself humorous. They are played over by a genuine Puritan näiveté, if such an expres

sion is not a contradiction in terms. The deadly seriousness of the items often gives them a tone of child-like ingenuousness.

The record of one meeting will begin with the brief item,

"The President prayed," followed by

"That Mr. William Winthrop is hereby empowered to let a certain shoemaker's shop in Cambridge belonging to the College upon the best terms he shall be able to make," or, as in another place,

"That the President be desired to write the Rev. Mr. Adams of Lunenburg, informing him that the Corporation are ready to dispose of the College Lands in that town for the sum of 120 pounds cashand no less."

That exactly one month later on the winter solstice, one Bellows, "appearing personally," professed himself contented with these terms, would lend some colour to the remark of Macaulay that the Puritan was able to rise from his knees and drive a close bargain.

The votes concern themselves with matters of the broadest policy of the college and the minutest details of internal management.

The same year that Burgoyne's captured officers were marched into Cambridge from Saratoga, and shut up in Apthorpe House, the following measure occurs in the records:

"Whereas, by the Law it is provided that there shall always be Chocolate, Tea, Coffee and Milk for breakfast at the College Commons, with bread or biscuit with butter; and whereas these foreign articles are not now to be procured without great difficulty and at a very exorbitant price, therefore, that the Charge of Commons may be kept as low as possible, voted: That the Steward shall provide only Biscuit or Bread and Milk for breakfast, and if any of the Scholars choose Tea or Coffee, they shall procure those articles for themselves."

That the college commons was not a popular eating-place with the tutors and instructors would appear from their actions after this vote. One comes across the following memoranda :

"That Mr. Wadsworth's Commons be remitted from July 19th, 1776, to the Summer vacation," and elsewhere,

"That the Librarian be out of Commons in future for supper, as the tutors are."

Certain items keep recurring year after year, for instance:

"That Eames be allowed 40 shillings for taking care of the college clock this year."

"That Heywood be allowed the same amount for care of the college engine."

The clock was the one in end of Massachusetts Hall of which only the ground of the dial remains, a wooden pediment on two fluted Corinthian pilasters; the engine referred to was some kind of a fire extinguisher. A few pages beyond is a memorandum,

"That Master James Furnivall's account of 4 pounds 14 shillings for mending and cleaning the clock be allowed."

When everything else failed to restore the college finances, the last resource was always to curtail the vacations. These vacations were always being tampered with on one pretext or another, and it seems as if the boy who went to Harvard College in black shorts and ruffled shirts never was quite certain that there would be a vacation at all. In 1776 the Corporation decrees:

"As wood is likely to be scarce and dear during the ensuing winter, that there be no fall vacation, and that the winter vacation begin one week sooner."

There are recurring votes of thanks to Thomas Hollis of Lincoln's Inn, London, for chests of books which kept arriving as gifts to the library, as well as to "Dr. Franklin, for having presented to our library a French Translation of his Philosophical Works in vols. 4to." Then, as one turns the pages, he comes upon wars and rumors of wars. In February of 1775, while Boston town was a ferment of mutiny, the following entry occurs:

"The Managers of the College Lottery have made application to this Board, representing that they cannot go on with said Lottery, unless the College will engage to take off a number of Tickets which remain unsold.