Burlington free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1827-1865, 1855-07-06

hundred and twenty pictures upon its walls.
These quite put to shame my ignoble ideas
Of college dining halls, as the larders and but
teries did the fare of college commons. These
colleges resemble American institutions in
the fact that they are resorts of students,
that they have corps of tutors and professors.
rooms and dormitores, libraries and halls
but visitor wandering through them in vaca-
tion, would think them literary hotels, as IN
many respects they really are.
| One who has only seen the plain stone of
| American buildings, uncarved and scarcely
chiseled, will be stuck with the carving and
| decorations on one stone. The cornices were
! not wood painted like stone, but stone cured
and carvcd-as if in olden times cutting
stones had been the easiest of all occupa-
tions. Wca accustomed to decorations in
paste, in plaster, in wood We do not think
1T strange to see picture-frames wreathed
| with vines, or furniture sculptured into
flowers and fruits but the time and expense
required for working stone has forbid such
ornaments in America, with the exception of
execrabe carving on lamcntable gravestoncs,
that cannot but keep alive a sense of pain in
in the spectator as long as they last
In Oxford, in all the colleges and other
public buildings uncarved stone would seem
to he accounted as almost unseemly. The
doorways, the window-sills and caps, the
cornices, the capitals. the pediments, are
profusely decorated Grotesque heads, lions
faces, satyrs, distorted human faces, birds,
flowers, leaves, rosettes, seize upon every pro-
lection of the Gothic buildings. Where the
building represented Greek architecture they
were decorated more severely, but with
scarcely less profuson of carving.
was even more delighted with the grounds
and walks than with the twilight seclusion
OF the cloistcred rooms. | sat down in the
recess of the window, in one of the students
rooms, and looked out into an exquisite nook,
| with large mound. not unlike some of our
concal hills in the rolling lands Of the West,
/ planted with shrubs and trees to the very
top. Is there anything more bewtching than
| to look up beneath the branches of trees
! upon the ascent of a hill
The grass was like pile of velvet, thick,
even, deeply green, and with a crisp, succu-
/ lent look, that made you feel that Nebuchad-
nezzar had not SO bad a diet after all The
grounds were laid out with partcrres of
flowers, clumps of trees, gravcllcd walks,
artiully traced to produce the utmost illu
sion, vines, and upon every unsghtly object,
and along the stone fence, that glorious
sheet of ivy that, everywhere in England, in
cases walls and towers emerald. In these de-
lic1ous coverts birds hoped about in litera-
ry seclusion, or chatted with each other in
musical notes, such as Jenny Lind pirh. he
supposed +" ''%a s0 HI' oieep'nS CiauiG Vi tp
! pecluslon. Noise seemed like antediluvian
| legend as | sat and dreamed in the slumberous
| stiffness.
Nor was hattered by the painful contrast
which my memory supplied of American col
leges, with frgid rooms, without gardens or
secluded walks, with grounds undecorated
except by chips, ashes, and the dank and
nodded drorpings of paper, rags and various
fragments Of nocturnal feasts, which may
often be found beneath the windows, among
rank and watery weeds, on the neglected side
of college buildings, where every side is
| neglected But if all the stories told me be
true, or the half of them, costered rooms
are not necessarily productive of profound
study any more than cloistered cells of pro-
found piety.
The Fellows Of the colleges are unmarried
men, who have suites Of rooms ample gusta-
tory provision for the earthly man, and reve-
nues for gentemanly support that they may
give themselves utterly to study. And IN
many cases, study, that makes other men
lean, is blessed to these fellows, even as was
was the simple pulse to the companions of
Daniel.
One can scarcely realize the treasures OF
literature and of art which are gathered into
this city. Beside the libraries of each col
lege, which are large, there is Bodleian
Library, with books and manuscripts enough
to turn the heads Of the whole nation.
Each college has in profusion, besides ar
chitectural treasures busts and statues OF dis
tinguished men, pictures by all the great
masters of art, in great numbers; prints
coins and literary and archaeological curiosi
ties without number, and cabinets of natural
history | stood in the midst of such trea'
sures as helpless and hopeless of ever looking
at them with more individual recognition
as was when first trod a prairie, journey
ing from down till dark through the dwar
floral groves and beheld millions of acres o
flowers. passed by rare treasures without
a look, which, at another time, would have
eagerly occupied hours. The mind wa.
sated with literary riches.
In the same mood | stood before the bust
and portraits of England most ilustriout
names. But n volume would not suffice tC
record the experience Of q single hour, ever
if my memory could compass the blessed illu
sion with words.
Few places affected me more than the libra
res, and especially the Bodleian Library, re
, puted to have half a million printed book
and manuscripts. | walked solemnly an,
reverently among the alcoves and through
the halls, as if in the pyramid of embalme,
!
mind, that they treasured in these book arms
Silent as they are, should all the emotion
that went to their creation have utterance
could the world itself contain the varou
sound
l They lonoed for fame Here it is-t
: stand silently Tor ages, moved only to b
! busted and catalogued valued only as unit
it the ambitious total, and gazed at, occa
e slonally, by men as ignorant as | am, q
h their name, their place, their language an
It their worth Indeed, unless a man can lin
J. his written thoughts with the everlastin
/ wants of men, so that they shall draw iroi
them af from wells, there is no more immol
s tality to the thoughts and feelings of tn
o soul than to the muscles and the bones.
l. library is but the souls burial ground. 1t
:, the land Of shadows.
u Yet one is impressed with the thought tn
- labor and the struggle, represented in th
= vast catacomb of books Who could dream
y by the placid waters that issue from the lev
- mouths of brooks into the lake, all IL
a plunges, the whirls, the divisions and foam
- ing rus shes that had brought them down
% the tranquil exit And who can que
3 through what channels of disturbance an
u experiences of sorrow the heart passed tn;
>, has emptied into this Dead Sea of books
~ 1t seemed to me that | was like one wi
le walked in the forests ofthe tropics, astoundt
le at the gigantic growth. and at their useles
&c ness. Centuries had nursed them to the
y present statue; but not one IN ten thousar
% ofthom will ever be sought for commerce
a for use. Where they stand they will dro
iS iS and where they fall they will decay. 1t
a. "A always so-life striking its roots into h
a a dead, and feeding upon decay
Id -------
EXCITING ADVENTURE WITH BE.R-l
AS encounter of an exciting and dangerous cha
ct acter, with a bear, occurred on the 10
c. inst, near Wellsvillc, in Allegheny Co. NJ
FRANCIS SMITH, young man residing