“We follow’d up the river as we rode, And rode till midnight, when the college lights Began to glitter firefly-like in copse And linden alley: then we past an arch, Whereon a woman-statue rose with wings From four wing’d horses dark against the stars; And some inscription ran along the front, But deep in shadow: further on we gained A little street, half garden and half house; But scarce could hear each other speak for noise Of clock and chimes, like silver hammers falling On silver anvils, and the splash and stir Of fountains spouted up and showering down In meshes of the jasmine and the rose: And all about us peal’d the nightingale, Rapt in her song and careless of the snare.” The only thing wrong in this nice bit of description, as Dr. S. E. Dawson has pointed out in his study of “The Princess,” is in reference to the song of the nightingale. It is only the male bird which sings. Scientifically, therefore, Tennyson is wrong, though historically and poetically he is correct, for, according to the Greek myth, Philomela was a princess who was turned into a nightingale which sang. Lady Psyche having discovered that her three visiting friends are men, not women, the Prince and his two companions, upon promising a speedy departure, prevail upon the fair professor to conceal their real identity. Disguised as women, and keeping their hoods about their faces, the three young men stroll through the lecture-rooms and listen to the “violet-hooded doctors” descant on the ancient glories of Greece and Rome, now reciting some scrap of thunderous epic, now lilting off some throbbing ode, now dipping into the science of star and bird and shell and flower, electric, chemic laws and all the rest, and whatsoever can be taught and known—with what result? We will let the Prince tell: “Till like three horses that have broken fence, And glutted all night long breast-deep in corn, We issued gorged with knowledge.” Cyril, however, is not pleased with the condition of things, and thinks that violence is done to woman’s nature in this isolated institution. This plain-spoken fellow evidently regards the heart and its affections in woman as of much more importance than the intellect, for how otherwise are we to interpret his opinion, as expressed to Florian: “A thousand hearts lie fallow in these halls, And round these halls a thousand baby loves Fly, twanging headless arrows at the hearts, Whence follows many a vacant pang.”