We have such wealth as Rome at her most pride Had not or (having) scattered not so wide; Nor with such arrant prodigality Beneath her any pagan’s foot let lie.... Lo! Diamond that cost some half their days To find and t’other half to bring to blaze: Rubies of every heat, wherethrough we scan The fiercer and more fiery heart of man: Emerald that with the uplifted billow vies, And Sapphires evening remembered skies: Pearl perfect, as immortal tears must show, Bred, in deep waters, of a piercing woe; And tender Turkis, so with charms y-writ, Of woven gold, Time dares not bite on it. Thereafter, in all manners worked and set, Jade, coral, amber, crystal, ivories, jet,-- Showing no more than various fancies, yet, Each a Life’s token or Love’s amulet.... Which things, through timeless arrogance of use, We neither guard nor garner, but abuse; So that our scholars--nay, our children--fling In sport or jest treasure to arm a King; And the gross crowd, at feast or market, hold Traffic perforce with dust of gems and gold! THE PROPAGATION OF KNOWLEDGE The Army Class “English,” which included the Upper Fifth, was trying to keep awake; for “English” (Literature--Augustan epoch--eighteenth century) came at last lesson, and that, on a blazing July afternoon, meant after every one had been bathing. Even Mr. King found it hard to fight against the snore of the tide along the Pebble Ridge, and spurred himself with strong words. Since, said he, the pearls of English Literature existed only to be wrenched from their settings and cast before young swine rooting for marks, it was his loathed business--in anticipation of the Army Preliminary Examination which, as usual, would be held at the term’s end, under the auspices of an official examiner sent down _ad hoc_--to prepare for the Form a General Knowledge test-paper, which he would give them next week. It would cover their studies up to date of the Augustans and _King Lear_, which was the selected--and strictly expurgated--Army Exam. play for that year. Now, English Literature, as he might have told them, was _not_ divided into water-tight compartments, but flowed like a river. For example, Samuel Johnson, glory of the Augustans and no mean commentator of Shakespeare, was but one in a mighty procession which---- At this point Beetle’s nodding brows came down with a grunt on the desk. He had been soaking and sunning himself in the open sea-baths built out on the rocks under the cliffs, from two-fifteen to four-forty.