would long ago have sacrificed that last possession; but the demand

for literature, which is so marked a feature in some parts of the South

Seas, extends not so far as the dead tongues; and the Virgil, which he

could not exchange against a meal, had often consoled him in his hunger.

He would study it, as he lay with tightened belt on the floor of the

old calaboose, seeking favourite passages and finding new ones only less

beautiful because they lacked the consecration of remembrance. Or he

would pause on random country walks; sit on the path side, gazing over

the sea on the mountains of Eimeo; and dip into the Aeneid, seeking

sortes. And if the oracle (as is the way of oracles) replied with no

very certain nor encouraging voice, visions of England at least

would throng upon the exile's memory: the busy schoolroom, the green

playing-fields, holidays at home, and the perennial roar of London, and

the fireside, and the white head of his father. For it is the destiny of

those grave, restrained and classic writers, with whom we make enforced

and often painful acquaintanceship at school, to pass into the blood and

become native in the memory; so that a phrase of Virgil speaks not so

much of Mantua or Augustus, but of English places and the student's own

irrevocable youth.

Robert Herrick was the son of an intelligent, active, and ambitious man,

small partner in a considerable London house. Hopes were conceived

of the boy; he was sent to a good school, gained there an Oxford

scholarship, and proceeded in course to the Western University. With all

his talent and taste (and he had much of both) Robert was deficient

in consistency and intellectual manhood, wandered in bypaths of study,

worked at music or at metaphysics when he should have been at Greek, and

The Ebb-Tide