The Richmond College Messenger, though not one of the most pretentious, is one of the most substantial of our many exchanges. The article "Aunt Winnie," is pathetic and appreciative. The author knows how to elaborate and bring out by appropriateness of expression little touches of feeling. We are wholly unable to account for Aunt Winnie's death. She was no doubt subject to apoplexy, which the author forgot to mention. De Cimice is better than the average parody, but otherwise vile. What influence can be at work upon college students, that has already created, and is still increasing, the mania for holding up to laughter and ridicule all that has hitherto been held meritorious and worthy of respect? Their efforts in this direction often serve to show their unskillfulness and lack of appreciation of that which is essentially valuable. All will admit that there is very little room for the exercise of talent in writing a parody. It has become the last refuge of stale humor and diseased wit. A man that can do nothing else can write a parody. A better name for it would be catody or hesody. No doubt the first parody that was ever written was entertaining, but don't poke straw all day to a well-fed horse. Will college editors give us a rest on this miserable, pointless hesody? The essays in the Virginia University Magazine are rather pretentious; but we beg to be excused from the task of reading forty pages of such matter. The editors "seriously and emphatically object to being cussed out, as is often the case, by every ass that takes it upon himself," &c. Such language shows desperation, and we suppose that the editor's digestion was bad, or at least that he had the gripes in his stomach, caused by the "hairy, stale, tough, indigestible grub," brought forward in so pathetic a manner on the next page. We have no doubt that the editor will cease to be "cussed out," for we think that it would be quite ungentlemanly in "every ass not to discontinue under the circumstances. A little further on we find: "Why is the University now like the hills about the Sabine farm of Horace? Because it is full of goats." We beg pardon for not understanding the allusion, but we thought the answer was going to be: "Because it is full of sheep." The remarks of the editor at the beginning of the exchange department confirm the opinion before expressed of his extreme desperation. Ile picks up the Princetonian; praises its taste for having just "twelve pages of advertisements, and the same number of reading matter." Doubtful what to say next, and still desperate, he extols it for containing a parody of Poe's Raven! Good Heavens! to. write parody oneself is bad enough, but to hear it praised in another is beyond the limit of human endurance. Ta, ta. BOOT essentially reliable. It is hardly fair to the COLLEGIAN, however, as it makes no allowance for our progress in the last two years, but still describes us as we were in the session of '77-'8. The book is published by Geo. P. Rowell & Co., New York, cloth $5.00. Happy Songs, published by Thomas Kane & Co., Chicago, is a small book containing a number of beautiful songs for the school room and family circle. It is something which is of continual use and is well calculated to perform the functions allotted to it. The Western Farmer of America is sent to us by Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co., from London. It seems to have been written by one of the Cobden Club, and of course advocates free trade as the true interest of the Western farmer. The American farmer must feel flattered by the missionary zeal displayed in his behalf by members of the Cobden Club. The book no doubt contains some sound doctrine. Grave and Gay. It is said that a certain professor of chemistry, who is accustomed to make annual experiments for his classes on a jet of burning hydrogen, introduced successively into glass tubes of various shapes and sizes, has come at last to believe that each tube gives out not one only but many separate notes, varying in both compass and quality. The explanation is this: The members of his different classes have not, for years, failed to imitate, each in his own manner, the sound given out by each tube; so that it has always appeared to the professor, who is a little deaf, that several sounds issued simultaneously from the burning gas. Moral: There are many things in heaven and earth, Johnnie, that are not dreamt of in your philosophy. Scene in Chapel during the Sermon.-Dr: "I'm in" (Dreaming Junior interrupting :) "Cost yer five more to draw cards."-Ex. A friend tells us that a gentleman connected with the telephone office, down town, kneeled down to say his prayers one night and, in a fit of absentmindedness, commenced: "Halloo! Halloo, there! Halloo-o-o-oh!!—Messenger. A juvenile's version of a familiar passage in history: "Queen Candas was inverted to christianity and and all her objects followed suit." LAMENT OF MORAL: "We know not if we know we know, We know not if we be, Then surely we can never know About Psychology."--Review. Talkative young lady to tourist who had been reading in public an account of some of his travels: Mr. II., there were times in your reading when I found myself quite unable to hear. (Mr. H. slightly nettled :) I heard you however very distinctly all the way through. THE HAMMOCK. In a hammock, 'neath the maples, From the nature of a hammock Light they waved as on his shoulder And the soughing of the breezes Ilalf concealed the words they said. But I thought I heard him whisper 66 Harry, you've been drinking beer." Columbia Spectator. A LUTE UNSWEPT AND A HARP WITHOUT STRINGS." "This song of soul I struggle to outbear Through portals of the sense, sublime and whole, And utter all myself into the air; But if I did it-as the thunder roll Breaks its own cloud-my flesh would perish there Before the dread apocalypse of soul."- MRS. BROWNING. Let me be silent till heaven-taught, I purge the baseness of a sin, That would with words but freeze a thought, I blush to say that could I tell, 165824A |