says.  He buys “Hints to Freshmen,” reads it right through, and resolves to eject his sofa from his rooms.[2] He talks of the roof of King’s chapel, walks through the market-place to look at Hobson’s conduit, and quotes Milton’s sonnet on that famous carrier.  He proceeds to Peter House to see Gray’s fire-escape, and to Christ’s to steal a bit of Milton’s mulberry tree.  He borrows all the mathematical MSS. he can procure, and stocks himself with scribbling paper enough for the whole college.  He goes to a wine-party, toasts the university officers, sings sentiments, asks for tongs to sugar his coffee, finds his cap and gown stolen and old ones left in their place.  He never misses St. Mary’s (the University Church) on Sundays, is on his legs directly the psalmody begins, and is laughed at by the other gownsmen.  He reads twelve or thirteen hours a day, and talks of being a wrangler.  He is never on the wrong side of the gates after ten, and his buttery bills are not wound up with a single penny of fines.  He leaves the rooms of a friend in college, rather late perhaps, and after ascending an Atlas-height of stairs, and hugging himself with the anticipation of crawling instanter luxuriously to bed, finds his door broken down, his books in the coal-scuttle and grate, his papers covered with more curves than Newton or Descartes could determine, his bed in the middle of the room, and his surplice on whose original purity he had so prided himself, drenched with ink.  If he is matriculated he laughs at the beasts (those who are not matriculated), and mangles slang:  wranglers, fops, and medalists become quite “household words” to him.  He walks to Trumpington every day before hall to get an appetite for dinner, and never misses grace.  He speaks reverently of masters and tutors, and does not curse even the proctors; he is merciful to his wine-bin, which is chiefly saw-dust, pays his bills, and owes nobody a guinea—­he is a Freshman!—­Monthly Magazine.

    [1] Mr. Simeon’s.  None of our well-beloved renders, we presume,
    are so fresh as not to know this gentleman’s name.

    [2] One of the sage and momentous injunctions of this pastoral charge.

* * * * *

THE NOVELIST.

THE CONFESSION OF SERVENTIUS.

From the Latin of an ancient Paduan Manuscript.

By Miss M.L.  Beevor.

(For the Mirror.)

The hours of my weary existence are fast verging to a close:  already have the dreadful preparations commenced.  Heavily falls the sound of the midnight bell upon my shrinking ear; upon my withered, quailing heart, it is felt in every stroke like a thunder-bolt; and the rude, reckless shout, heard, though far distant, as distinctly as the fearful throbbings of that miserable heart, tells but too eloquently that the faggots have reached their place of destination, and that the fearful