Nor would I willingly forget any of those things which administered to our vanity. The hem-stitched bands, and town-made shirts, which some of the most fashionable among us wore; the town-girdles, with buckles of silver, or shining stone; the badges of the sea-boys; the cots, or superior shoe-strings of the monitors; the medals of the markers, (those who were appointed to hear the Bible read in the wards on Sunday morning and evening,) which bore on their obverse in silver, as certain parts of our garments carried in meaner metal, the countenance of our Founder, that godly and royal child, King Edward the Sixth, the flower of the Tudor name--the young flower that was untimely cropt as it began to fill our land with its early odours--the boy patron of boys--the serious and holy child who walked with Cranmer and Ridley--fit associate, in those tender years, for the bishops and future martyrs of our Church, to receive, or (as occasion sometimes proved,) to give instruction. "But, ah! what means the silent tear? Why, e'en mid joy, my bosom heave? Ye long-lost scenes, enchantments dear! Lo! now I linger o'er your grave. ----Fly, then, ye hours of rosy hue, And bear away the bloom of years! And quick succeed, ye sickly crew Of doubts and sorrows, pains and fears! Still will I ponder Fate's unalter'd plan, Nor, tracing back the child, forget that I am man."[30] [30] Lines meditated in the cloisters of Christ's Hospital, in the "Poetics" of Mr. George Dyer. TABLE-TALK IN _THE EXAMINER_ I.--REYNOLDS AND LEONARDO DA VINCI (1813)