THE LAST PLAGUE.

Within the painted palace of the King,
Secure and free for every royal whim,

With doors safe kept by mighty cherubim,
Hath stolen, unseen, a gray and shuddering thing:
Nought in his hands did that fell phantom bring,

Nought visible took, but snatched with gestures dim The first-born's soul, yet scathed not any limb. . . . On heaven's Nile-pools that soul is wandering.

As if he saw not, Pharaoh's eyes gaze on,

In stony numbness. Lies upon his knees

The pallid corpse, now cold enough to freeze
The mother's cheek and heart. With forehead prone
In fruitless prayer the slaves themselves abase;
No gifts to God bring life to the dead face.

SPIRIT OF THE UNIVERSITIES.

EXETER COLLege, Oxford,

April 24, 1880.

THE Summer Term has begun well, as far as gaiety can be considered a good thing. Scarcely had we come up, before Oxford was all astir with the visit of Prince Leopold, who came to lay the foundation stone of the new High School for boys. The function was an interesting one, if only for the sight of the Vice-Chancellor and the Mayor, representatives of the civil corporations which govern Oxford, marching amicably side by side. The occasion gave an opportunity to the Prince of making a couple of those neat little speeches for which he is so justly famous, and he seemed to be genuinely pleased at visiting his old haunts and his old friends once more, albeit the weather was only too typical of Oxford. The High School will certainly be a great advantage to the worthy citizens of Oxford, this city having hitherto been dependent on the schools attached to Magdalen and Christ Church, both of which were originally intended simply and solely for choristers, but which have had, perforce, to extend themselves.

We have also been entertaining M. Renan, who expressed himself highly charmed with Oxford. He was lionised over the colleges, fêted in most of them, and taken to a Bampton lecture. There was some talk of giving him an honorary degree, but the fact that there would certainly be some considerable opposition to the proposal was sufficient to stifle the idea, for it was generally felt that an honour grudgingly given as the result of a party triumph would hardly be worth the great scholar's acceptance. Yet another visitor in the person of Mr. Bret Harte, the American humourist, who is announced to lecture to-night. I have not heard whether he is to be the fortunate recipient of the Honorary

D.C.L.

The announcement that Mr. Bywater has resigned the sub-librarianship of the Bodleian, to which he was appointed recently, will be unwelcome news to all true scholars. But the fact is that, under the present arrangement, Bodley's sub-librarians have anything but a "good time." The work is enormous and increases every year, and the staff is miserably small. It is to be hoped that the commission will at all events effect some improvement here. The suggestion of Mr. Robarts that some of the idle fellows of All Souls shall be utilised in the Bodleian seems to be practical enough, and might be carried out, one would think, without interfering unduly with that bugbear of reformers --vested interests.

The election storm is over, and, before settling down under the new régime, we naturally ask what will the Liberal Government do for or to Oxford? Probably very little. The Commission has already decided