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CLARIAN'S PICTURE.
A LEGEND OF NASSAU HALL.
"Turbine raptus ingenii."--SCALIGER.
Mac and I dined together yesterday,--as we are used to do at least once or
twice every year, for the sake of our ever-mellowing friendship, and those
good old times in which it began. Like all who are ripe enough to have
memories, we delight to recall the period of our vernal equinox, and to
moralize, with gentle sadness and many wise wags of our frosty polls, upon
the events in which that period was prolific; and so, when the cloth was
removed yesterday, and we sat toying with our cigars and our Sherry, our
talk insensibly drifted back to those merry college-days when we not
infrequently "heard the chimes at midnight."
"Ah, old fellow," quoth I to my chum, "those good old days are gone by,
now, and Israel worships strange gods. Old Nassau will never be what she
was before the fire of '55. Those precious heirlooms of our day are sunk
from sight forever, dear and mossy as they were,--swept down, like cobwebs,
before the flame-besom. _'Fuit Ilium!'_ The old bell will never again ring
out the gay 'larums of a 'Third Entry' barring-out. Homer's head no longer
perches owl-like and wise over the central door-way. _'Ai, Adonai!'_ No
more wilt proud fingers point to the spot whereat entered--not like
'Casca's envious dagger'--that well-aimed cannon-ball which pierced the
picture-gallery, punched 'Georgius Res' on the head, and frightened away
forever the Hessians that were stabled there, fouling the nest of stout old
John Witherspoon.
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