CHRISTOPHER IN HIS SPORTING JACKET 



feet, and having felt on his capacious forehead the 

 approving pressure of our hand, 



" While, like the murnmr of a dream, 

 He hears us breathe his name^'' 



he suddenly flings himself round with a wheel of 

 transport, and in many a widening circle pursues his 

 own uncontrollable ecstasies with whirlwind speed; 

 till, as if utterly joy -exhausted, he brings his snow- 

 white bulk into dignified repose on a knoll, that very 

 moment illuminated by a burst of sunshine ! 



Not now — as fades upon our pen the solemn light 

 of the dying day — shall we dare to decide, whether 

 or not Nature — O most matchless creature of thy 

 kind! — gave thee, or gave thee not, the gift of an 

 immortal soul! — Better such creed — fond and foolish 

 though it may be — yet scarcely unscriptural, for in 

 each word of scripture there are many meanings, even 

 when each sacred syllable is darkest to be read, — 

 better such creed than that of the atheist or sceptic, 

 distracted ever in his seemingly sullen apathy, by the 

 dim, dark doom of dust. Better that Fro should live, 

 than that Newton should die — for ever. What though 

 the benevolent Howard devoted his days to visit the 

 dungeon's gloom, and by intercession with princes, to 

 set the prisoners free from the low damp-dripping 

 stone roof of the deep-dug cell beneath the founda- 

 [ 73 ] 



