—although I am bound to say that he never
spat at me— but I do not on that account
consider myself justified in making an inventory
of his spots and printing a catalogue of
his imperfections. Still less should I dream
of enclosing him in stone or brick, as though
he were a nun who had mistaken her profession,
and burying him alive (without the
bread and water) just to gratify my own
morbid curiosity to see how long he would
live under those almost unexampled
circumstances.The scientific experimentalist would
be doubtless horrified at the notion of
distending the poor creature by means of a
broken tobacco-pipe, balancing him at one
end of a small plank, and then launching him
into space by means of a sharp blow at the
other end, as wicked schoolboys do; but, if
we had the toad's own opinion upon the
subject— and he ought to know— the man of
science would appear the crueller of the two.

Detestable to me is the tardy and
inadequate reparation of spirits of wine and bottle
accommodation which such are wont to offer
to their murdered victims, or that of the bed
of camphor upon which they lay their
favorites after having transfixed them with a pin.

My investigations of natural history have
been unattended with either prying or cruelty,
while my observation has been directed to
higher subjects. I am a student of the human
chrysalis— of the embryo state of man. As a
fellow of one of the largest colleges in England,
I may be supposed to have had some
opportunities for this pursuit, and I have availed
myself of them largely. The undergraduate
world has been laid bare before me as a colony
of unconscious bees is laid bare through their
glass hive to the spectator. Honesty compels
me to admit that the parallel there ceases.
In our hive there is no queen, a considerable
number of drones, and very few busy bees.
But— as I anticipated when I injudiciously
ventured to borrow a figure from science— I
have already entangled myself in a metaphor.
The bee is, I understand, born a bee as the
poet is born a poet, and I was about to speak
of chrysales only— embryo conditions.

How interesting it would be to narrate— I
do not say to read— the innumerable
diversities, as manifested at the university, of the
early stage of the lawyer, of the statesman,
of the physician, of the soldier, of the divine,
and of the irreclaimable scamp. It may be
imagined perhaps that these things must be
pretty evident from the context; that the
unfledged barrister is always striving to fly
at his learned young friends, forensically, and
to overwhelm them with crude but specious
argument; that the sucking statesman
delights to give his ideas upon " the glorious
constitution of the country, sir," to the Union
debating society, whether it will or no; that
the son of Æsculapius is always purchasing,
or procuring by less justifiable means,
deceased cats, dogs, and donkeys, as
interesting subjects; that the boy-warrior devotes
himself less to study than to the cultivation
of his moustachios; that the adolescent divine
is a serious young man with views and
peculiar waistcoat, and that the growing scamp
has got Insolvent Court already stamped
upon his youthful brow. Now these suppositions,
however natural, are by no means
correct. The boy (at college) is not very
often the father to the man; his future
profession has been generally chosen for him,
independent of his own wishes; but his
university career is run, on the other hand,
according to his natural disposition.

This subject is a far too extensive one to
be treated at length, in a short paper such as
the present, and I must content myself with
speaking of one class only, and of one
example of it.

Wonderful as the development is from grub
to butterfly in the insect, there is a still more
striking change which is constantly taking
place in the human— namely, that from
butterfly to grub. The transformation of the
gorgeously apparelled and bejewelled
undergraduate into the respectable, black-and-
white, golosh-wearing, umbrella-carrying
divine.

From their matriculation to their degree
these are oftentimes the most gorgeous
ephemerae that glitter upon the surface of
university life:

     "——plumed insects swift and free,
        Like golden boats on a sunny sea;"

dragon-flies, green and golden—

                                          " that pass
       Over the gleam of the living grass,"

in the courts of their respective colleges.
Between their degree and their voluntary
theological examination, the shadow of
respectability begins to creep at least as high
as their legs. They no longer wear bright
blue trousers with a stripe; their boots are
thicker soled, and cease to be made of
polished leather. After this short purgatory
they are ordained, grow sombre, and bury
themselves in Welsh or Cornish curacies.

I have known scores of inverted chrysales
of this description, and I know many still.

Jack— what am I saying ?— the Reverend
John Williams, curate of Betty-something in
Caernarvonshire, was a notable instance of
this. He drove the neatest dog-carts, wore
the completest cutaways, carried the most
elegant green umbrella— it was like a fairy's
wand— of any man of his time. If a tablet
had been put to Jack's virtues while at the
University, I think the best we could have
said of him would have been, " He was a
capital good fellow, and never missed a
double at pool."  Now, the enthusiastic
reader may here imagine that a capital good
fellow is not the sort of material out of which
a divine should be made. I have my own
opinion on that subject likewise, but at
present my business is only with the matter