Commemoration Day at Oxford was remarkable for the honorary degrees
conferred on Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes and Mr. Bright, both of them worthy of honour in even a Utopian Republic, though for very different reasons,—Dr. Holmes for bringing distinction to the first really great Republic of the modern world,—Mr. Bright for diffusing much of the breadth and popular energy of a Republic through an ancient realm whose throne he has strengthened, rather than shaken, in the process. The Newdigate prize poem on " Savonarola," gained by Mr. R. L. Gales, of Lincoln College, and recited on the occasion, seems, too, to have been one of unusual promise. It is, indeed, not entirely destitute of ponderous and prosaic lines, but for a poem of some four hundred lines in length, they are singularly few.
Savonarola is a great subject, and Mr. Gales has not forgotten to render a graceful tribute to that great writer who in "Romola" drew Savonarola with so vigorous a hand. The young poet's own picture, both of pleasure-loving and of penitential Florence, is a vivid one. It is not easy, of course, for a beginner to deal with
such a subject as the martyrdom with adequate force. But the closing lines have great dignity and pathos :—
And so he passed to joy through bitter woe, As some great galleon through the dark may go Where no star glimmers, and the storm-wind wails, Until the rose of Morning touch her sails."
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