e of Long and of his amiable qualities,
until he could no longer hide his tears.

In the month of October, 1805, Lord Byron left Harrow for Trinity
College, Cambridge, and in 1821 he thus described himself, and his own
feelings on leaving his beloved Ida for a new scene of life:--

"When I went to college it was for me a most painful event. I left
Harrow against my wish, and so took it to heart, that before I left I
never slept for counting the days which I had still to spend there. In
the second place, I wished to go to Oxford and not to Cambridge; and, in
the third place, I found myself so isolated in this new world, that my
mind was perfectly depressed by it.

"Not that my companions were not sociable: quite the contrary; they were
particularly lively, hospitable, rich, noble, and much more gay than
myself. I mixed, dined, and supped with them; but, I don't know why, the
most painful and galling sensation of life was that of feeling I was no
longer a child."

His grief was such that he fell ill, and it was during that illness that
he wrote and partly dictated the poem "Recollections of Childhood," in
which he mentions and describes all his dear comrades of Harrow, with
that particular charm of expression and thought which the heart alone
can inspire.

It was again under the same impression that he wrote the most melancholy
lines in the "Hours of Idleness," where the regret of the past
delightful days of his childhood, spent at his dear Ida, ever comes
prominently forward.

"I would I were a careless child,"

he exclaims in one poem, and finishes the same by the lines,--

"Oh that to me the wings were given
Which bear the turtle to her nest!
Then would I cleave the vault of Heaven
To flee away, and be at rest."

Life at Harrow appears to have been for him then the ideal of happiness.
At times the distant view of the village and college of Harrow, inspires
his muse, at others a visit to the college itself, and an hour spent
under the shade of an elm in the church-yard. His whole soul is so
revealed in these two poems, that I can not forbear quoting them _in
extenso_:--

ON A DISTANT VIEW OF THE VILLAGE AND SCHOOL OF HARROW-ON-THE-HILL.

"Oh! mihi praeteritos referat si Jupiter annos."--VIRGIL.

Ye scenes of my childhood, whose loved recollection
Embitters the present, compared with the past;
Where science first dawn'd on the powers of reflection,
And friendships were f