the dissonance is, if possible, still greater. According to some, he was a wise, humane, magnanimous hero-others paint him as a monster of cruelty, meanness, and perfidy; some, even of those who are most hostile to him, speak very highly of his political and military abilityothers place him on the very verge of insanity. But, allowing that all this may be due to party prejudice, there is one point to which such an explanation will hardly apply. If there be anything that can be clearly ascertained in history, one would think it must be the personal courage of a military man; yet here we are as much at a loss as ever: at the very same times, and on the same occasions, he is described by different writers as a man of undaunted intrepidity, and as an absolute poltroon. What then are we to believe? If we are disposed to credit all that is told us, we must believe in the existence not only of one, but of two or three Buonapartes: if we admit nothing but what is well authenticated, we shall be compelled to doubt of the existence of any. SENIOR LATIN (COMPOSITION). The Board of Examiners. Translate into Latin prose That sickness was the real cause of the death of Themistocles, we may believe on the distinct statement of Thucydides; who at the same time notices a rumour current in his own time, that Themistocles poisoned himself because the promises he had made could never be performed a farther proof of the general tendency to surround the last years of this distinguished man with impressive adventures, and to dignify his last moments. The report may possibly have been designedly circulated by his friends and relatives, in order to conciliate some tenderness towards his memory; since his sons still continued citizens at Athens, and his daughters were married there. These friends farther stated that they had brought back his bones to Attica at his own express command, and buried them privately without the knowledge of the Athenians; no condemned traitor being permitted to be buried in Attic soil. However, we may affirm with confidence that the inhabitants of Magnesia, when they showed the splendid sepulchral monument erected in honour of Themistocles in their own market-place, were persuaded that his bones were really enclosed within it. ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.— PART I. The Board of Examiners. 1. Explain the following words :-foil, kerns, fond, jade, rehearse, the chopping French, still-breeding thoughts. Why is the spelling "fore-go" not correct? 2. Comment on the following passages:— We shall see (a) Justice design the victor's chivalry. (b) Where will doth mutiny with wits regard. (e) And speaking it, he wistly looked on me. 3. What reasons can be given for classing Richard II. amongst Shakespeare's earlier plays? 4. Shakespeare is never anxious to avoid anachronism, Illustrate this from Midsummer Night's Dream.. 5. Are there any political allusions in Midsummer Night's Dream? Is there any passage in the play in which the poet seems to speak rather than the particular character? 6. Explain the meaning of-aby, mew'd, collied, rere-mice, bottle of hay, quern, vixen. Give etymologies, and note the changes in the meaning through which the words have passed. 7. Comment on the style, the wording, or the matter of the following: (1). Were there no omens, no auguries, no dreams to shake thee from thy security? no priest to prophesy? And what pastures are more beautiful than Larissa's ?—(Thetis to Peleus.) (2) These Etrurians measure their courage carefully, and tack it well together before they put it on, but throw it off again with lordly ease. (Hannibal to Marcellus.) (3) While I, sitting in idleness on a cliff of Rhodes, eyed the sun as he swang his golden censer athwart the heavens, or his image as it overstrode the sea.-(Tiberius to Vipsania.) (4) as she sate Before the shepherd on those heights that shade The Hellespont, and brought his kindred woe. (5) The violet, shy of butting cyclamen. What is the force of the epithet? 8. Is Landor fair to Mahomet, Peter the Great, Henry VIII.? 9. Comment on the following, explaining allusions, and pointing out anything characteristic in the style: (1) That majestic art "regere imperio populos" was not better understood by the Romans in the proudest days of their republic. Complete the quotation from Virgil. (2) The work was formed on true mechanical principles, and it was as truly wrought. (3) The genius and energy of one man had supplied the place of forty battalions. (4) War in Spain has, from the days of the Romans, had a character of its own. (5) The impeachment was brought; the doctor was convicted; and the accusers were ruined. 10. Derive and explain the following words:-guerilla, nickname, pinnace, quorum, salt-cellar. 11. Comment on the following quotations from Carlyle : (1) Arabia is at Grenada on this hand, at Delhi on that. (2) Dante's Italians seem to be yet very much where they were. (3) The Russian soldiers marched into the ditch of Schweidnitz fort. (4) Hildebrand wished a Theocracy. (5) Yes, Literature will take care of itself, and of you too, if you do not look to it. 66 (6) The rank is but the guinea-stamp." (7) No man is a hero to his valet-de-chambre. (8) false as a bulletin. 12. Give some specimens of words and expressions .coined by Carlyle. Within what limits is a writer justified in coining? ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.— PART II. The Board of Examiners. 1. Describe the general plan of the Canterbury Tales. 2. Sketch the personal character of Sir Thomas More, and give some account of his literary achieve ments. 3. Form an estimate of what the world lost by the early death of Christopher Marlowe. 4. Explain the following passages from Hamlet :- |