PREFACE.

READER, carry back your imagination three hundred years, and look at Plymouth as it was then. It is a bright day, and there is more than usual bustle about the-shall I say wharf? there were no docks in those times. They are about to launch a ship; see! they loose the ropes; she moves; another moment, and she is launched upon the waters, never to return to dry land again, though soon, may be, to sink and be forgotten. She is the property of a few Plymouth men, who have long burned to explore the lately-discovered South America; the tales of whose wonders were more like exaggerated dreams than anything else, yet the sceptic would have been as much laughed at then as the believer now. There was a good deal of difficulty in building the "Enterprise"; and the Enterprizers —for so we will name her owners-at one time almost gave her up in despair; but the broad heaving deep that lay invitingly before them, as it fanned them with its buoyant breeze, soon rekindled within them the flame of their dying hopes; and, in greater beauty than ever, rose to their imagination the cherished outline of the bark that was to carry them and their fellowtownsmen to the golden mountains of the West. So they persevered, and as they laboured, one by one difficulties yielded, till at length the good ship was built; and there she lies, seaworthy enough, but short of hands: and unless the Enterprizers can get their fellow-townsmen to sail with them, knit together in one common interest, their labour will be fruitless. Will their fellow-townsmen help them or not? Schoolfellows,-You must have penetrated our meaning by this time. Come back to the nineteenth century again, and to King's School, Sherborne, and

answer us, Will you join in our enterprise, or not? Will you support the SHIRBURNIAN? We have not begun this publication under the idea that we are any cleverer than our peers: on the contrary, we are quite certain that, unless you take it up, it is next to impossible to continue it, but we have begun because we thought a favourable opportunity was afforded us for giving to the School an outlet for its wit, and also an easy means of printing all its News, both as regards those of us who are here and those who have left-(as to the latter, one of our Oxford friends has promised to send us in all Boating and Cricket news in which any of our fellows may have played a conspicuous part, and there are others of us up there who will send us in their contributions.) We are glad to be able to state that we have Mr. Harper's full approval of our design, without which we should have let the matter fall to the ground. When we first broached the subject to him we confess not without misgivings-he listened to and entered into our plans with as much ardour as if he had been one of ourselves. However, to return to the subject, we once more ask you to support this publication. The SHIRBURNIAN comes out monthly, so there will be plenty of time, at any rate, to give a good many of you the chance of contributing to each number. Moreover, in the Cricket season the Captains of the different elevens could send us in accounts of their Matches (the Captain of the games has kindly promised to send us in accounts of the first Eleven Matches, Athletic Sports, and Football Games). We now feel we have said enough, if not too much, by way of preface, and conclude with the question, "Will you write?" which we hope will be satisfactorily answered in the affirmative, before our next number, by showers of contributions.

THE SHIRBURNIAN.

No. I.

MARCH, 1859.

EUTHANASIA.

It was a sick man's chamber, and there lay,
In broken slumber breathing out his life,
The noblest son of Hellas, Pericles.

He had seen the people falling thick around him
Plague stricken, yet unmurmuring; till at length
Grief conquered better nature, and they cursed
Him whose smooth tongue had lured them step by step
To pestilence and famine. He had seen

His youngest born and dearest Paralus
Fall like a flower untimely, yet he stood

Unmoved through all, and locked within his breast
His sorrow and his anger, for he saw

Bright sunbeams gleaming through the thunder-cloud,
And joy for Athens, even as earth and sea
Smile sweeter for the beatings of the storm.—

So he had made his prayer to the Gods,
If haply he might see with his own eyes
The glorious Athens which his soul foreknew;
But either fate is more than Zeus himself
Or the Gods take no heed for mortal man,

For now, when he was old, his turn was come

To die, while yet the clouds were dark and lowering,
Before one ray of hope had dawned upon him.

Athene to die thus was hard indeed

Yet he lay very quiet, ebbing out

Day after day, well knowing that the end
Drew nearer slowly, not without a hope

That he, who loved his country more than life,
And honour more than her, might yet be deemed
Worthy to tread Olympus, and to see

The shining faces of the Eternal Gods.-
So one day, when the fountains of his life
Were nearly dry, came many sorrowing friends
With kindly lies of comfort; some to tell
News of successful battle, how the state
Was rising from despair, or how the plague
Was vanished from among them; knowing well
That this to him was more than life itself-
The safety of his Athens. Then one spake
Kind words of hope and prayer-that the Gods
Would spare him to his city, still to be
Her champion and preserver. He spake not,
But pointed smiling to the amulets

Which woman's blinder faith had hung around him,

As if to steal from death a dying man.

That smile was full of meaning, for it said

"Think ye

that I, who have lived all my life

An earnest, humble seeker after truth

I who have sat and heard the sages tell

Of life and death and God's unerring will—

But that my frame were weak, would suffer this?'
And then he closed his eyes, as if to sleep,

And each man knew within his inner soul
That death was hard upon him. As they gazed
On that tall, wasted figure stretched before them,
They seemed to look on Athens. So their souls
Were kindled, and they spake in gloomy words
Of all his valiant deeds by land and sea;
And they bethought them of the eloquent tongue
Which then was mute before them, how he loved
The people dearly, yet would never stoop
To flatter them for favour, but stood forth
With words of manly chiding, how his honour