ess often is the opportunity
occupied with such thoughtful and ungrudging kindness.

We had help in the same kind from the Bishop of St. David's, who put at
our service a field close to the hotel; a rather wild one, but in which
little plots and patches for a practising wicket were discovered by our
experts. The firm sands to the north were reported to yield an excellent
"wicket;" with the serious deduction, however, that the pitch was worn
out and needed to be changed every half-dozen balls.

Among such cares the week rolled away only too speedily, and brought the
day of the school's arrival upon us. If we have failed, as we have, to
convey a true impression of the serious labour and anxieties which
crowded its hours, we will quote the summary of a writer who described it
at the time, and knew what he was describing: "It was like shaking the
alphabet in a bag, and bringing out the letters into words and sentences;
such was the sense of absolute confusion turned into intelligent shape."
{19}

CHAPTER IV.

_Gesta ducis celebro_, _Rutulis qui primus ab oris_
_Cambriae_, _odoratu profugus_, _Borthonia venit_
_Litora_; _multum ille et sanis vexatus et aegris_,
_Vi Superum_, _quibus haud curae gravis aura mephitis_:
_Multa quoque et loculo passus_, _dum conderet urbem_
_Inferretque deos Cymris_.

AN EPIC FRAGMENT.

[Greek text].

The careful general who has completed his disposition without one
discoverable flaw, who has foreseen all emergencies, and anticipated
every possible combination, may await the action with a certain moral
confidence of success. But he would be a man of no human fibre, were he
not to feel some disquiet in his inmost soul when he gets upon horseback
with his enemy in sight, and listens for the boom of the first gun. Not
very different, except for the absence of a like confidence in the
completeness of their dispositions, were the emotions of the masters who
manned the platform of Borth Station, when the gray afternoon of Tuesday,
April 4th, drew sombrely towards its close. The station was crowded with
spectators from Aberystwith and Borth itself, curious to watch the entry
of the boys. Expectation was stimulated by the arrival of a train, which
set all the crowd on tip-toe, and then swept through the station--a mere
goods train. Half an hour's longer waiting, and the right train drew up,
and discharged Uppingham School on the remote Welsh platform. It s