out all day alone, and back
Too often late for dinner.

What could I do? His walks and rows
All led to one conclusion;
I could not read; our work, heaven knows,
Was nothing but confusion.

Like Jack I went about alone,
Saw Wordsworth's writing-table,
And made the higher by a stone
The "man" upon Great Gable.

At last there came a sudden pause
To all his wanderings _solus_,
He learned what writers on the laws
Of Rome had meant by _dolus_.

The Suffolk (was it Surrey?) flirt
Without a pang threw over
Poor Jack and all his works like dirt,
And caught a richer lover.

We read one morning more to say
We had not been quite idle,
And then to end the arduous day
Enjoyed a swim in Rydal.

Next day the hundredweight of books
Was packed once more in cases,
We left the lakes and hills and brooks
And southward turned our faces.

Three months, and then the Oxford Schools;
Our unbelieving college
Saw better than ourselves what fools
Pretend sometimes to knowledge.

Curst questions! Jack did only one,
He gave as his opinion
That of the Roman jurists none
Had lived before Justinian.

I answered two, but all I did
Was lacking in discretion,
I reckoned guardianship amid
The _vitia_ of possession.

My second shot was wider still,
I held that _commodata_
Could not attest a praetor's will
Because of _culpa lata_.

We waited fruitlessly that night,
There came no blue _testamur_,[A]
Nor was Jack's heavy heart made light
By that sweet word _Amamur_.

[A] Since the above was written, the _testamur_, like many other
institutions dear to the old order of Oxford men, has been superseded.

A Vision of Legal Shadows

A case at chambers left for my opinion
Had taxed my brain until the noon of night,
I read old law, and loathed the long dominion
Of fiction over right.

I had consulted Coke and Cruise and Chitty,
The works where ancient learning reigns supreme,
Until exhausted nature, moved with pity,
Sent me a bookman's dream.

Six figures, all gigantic as Gargantua,
Floated before my eyes, and all the six
Were shades like those that once the bard of Mantua
Saw by the shore of Styx.