in Chine, Bonchurch, the
Needle Rocks--Descriptive Poetry--Morning, Noon, and Night--
The Regatta--The Pilot's Review--The Race Ball--Adieu to
Vectis.

The Oxford commemoration was just over, and the Newdigate laurels graced
the brow of the victor; the ~l4l~~last concert which brings together
the scattered forces of _alma mater_, on the eve of a long vacation, had
passed off like the note of the cygnet; the rural shades of Christchurch
Meadows were abandoned by the classic gownsmen, and the aquatic sons
of Brazen-nose and Jesus had been compelled to yield the palm of marine
superiority to their more powerful opponents, the athletic men of
Exeter. The flowery banks of Isis no longer presented the attractive
evening scene, when all that is beautiful and enchanting among the
female graces of Oxford sport like the houris upon its velvet shores, to
watch the prowess of the college youth: The regatta had terminated with
the term; even the High Street, the usually well-frequented resort of
prosing dons, and dignitaries, and gossiping masters of arts, bore a
desolate appearance. Now and then, indeed, the figure of a solitary
gownsman glanced upon the eye, but it was at such long and fearful
intervals, and then, vision-like, of such short duration, that, with the
closed oaks of the tradesmen, and the woe-begone faces of the starving
_scouts and bed-makers_, a stranger might have imagined some ruthless
plague had swept away, "at one fell swoop," two-thirds of the population
of Rhedycina. It was at this dull period of time, that a poor student,
having passed successfully the Scylla and Charybdis of an Oxonian's
fears, the great go and little go, and exhausted by long and persevering
efforts to obtain his degree, had just succeeded in adding the important
academical letters to his name, when he received a kind invitation from
an old brother Etonian to spend a few weeks with him in the Isle of
Wight, "the flowery seat of the Muses," said Horace Eglantine, (the
inviter), "and the grove of Hygeia; the delightful spot, above all
others, best calculated to rub off the rust of college melancholy,
engendered by hard reading, invigorate the studious mind, and divest
the hypochrondriac of _la maladie ~142~~imaginaire!_'" "And where," said
Bernard Blackmantle, reasoning within himself, "is the student who could
withstand such an attractive summons? Friendship, health, sports, and
pleasures, all combined in the prospective; a v