There too may be seen the accomplished and the gay youth labouring for
pleasure at the healthful oar, while with experienced skill the expert
helmsman directs through all thy fragrant windings the trim bark to
victory. The race determined, the bright star of eve, outrivalled by the
pyrotechnic _artiste_, hides his diminished head. Now sallies forth the
gay Oxonian from the Christopher, ripe with the rare Falernian of mine
host, to have his frolic gambol with old friends. Pale Luna, through her
misty veil, smiles at these harmless pleasantries, and lends the merry
group her aid to smuggle signs, alter names, and play off a thousand
fantastic vagaries; while the Eton Townsman, robed in
* The grand aquatic gala, which terminates the week's festi-
vities at Eton, and concludes the water excursions for the
season, was originally fixed in honour of his late majesty's
birthday, and would have been altered to the period of his
successor's, but the time would not accord, the twelfth day
of August being vacation.
~50~~
peaceful slumber, dreams not of the change his house has undergone,
and wakes to find a double transformation; his _Angel_ vanished, or
exchanged for the rude semblance of an Oxford _Bear_, with a cognomen
thereto appended, as foreign to his family nomenclature "as he to
Hercules.
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