Of Our Own Universities Other Good Things May Be Said, But That One Special Good Thing Cannot Always Be Said.

Cambridge boasts itself as the residence of four or five men well known to fame on the American and also on the European side of the ocean.

President Felton's* name is very familiar to us; and wherever Greek scholarship is held in repute, that is known. So also is the name of Professor Agassiz, of whom I have spoken. Russell Lowell is one of the professors of the college - that Russell Lowell who sang of Birdofredum Sawin, and whose Biglow Papers were edited with such an ardor of love by our Tom Brown, Birdofredum is worthy of all the ardor. Mr. Dana is also a Cambridge man - he who was "two years before the mast," and who since that has written to us of Cuba. But Mr. Dana, though residing at Cambridge, is not of Cambridge; and, though a literary man, he does not belong to literature. He is - could he help it? - a "special attorney." I must not, however, degrade him; for in the States barristers and attorneys are all one. I cannot but think that he could help it, and that he should not give up to law what was meant for mankind. I fear, however, that successful Law has caught him in her intolerant clutches, and that Literature, who surely would be the nobler mistress, must wear the willow. Last and greatest is the poet-laureate of the West, for Mr. Longfellow also lives at Cambridge.

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