This comparison of the educator to a falconer, and of the students to young hawks eager to break their jesses seems to an Englishman particularly happy in reference to Eton, from which so many youths pass into the ranks of the army and navy.  The line about bowing, smirking and glozing, refers to the comparative insincerity of the higher society into which so many of the scholars must eventually pass.  “Smirking” suggests insincere smiles, “glozing” implies tolerating or lightly passing over faults or wrongs or serious matters that should not be considered lightly.  Society is essentially insincere and artificial in all countries, but especially so in England.  The old Eton master thinks, however, that he knows the moral character of the boys, the strong principles which make its foundation, and he trusts that they will be able in a general way to do only what is right, in spite of conventions and humbug.

As I told you before, we know very little about the personal life of Cory, who must have been a very reserved man; but a poet puts his heart into his verses as a general rule, and there are many little poems in this book that suggest to us an unhappy love episode.  These are extremely pretty and touching, the writer in most cases confessing himself unworthy of the person who charmed him; but the finest thing of the kind is a composition which he suggestively entitled “A Fable”—­that is to say, a fable in the Greek sense, an emblem or symbol of truth.

  An eager girl, whose father buys
    Some ruined thane’s forsaken hall,
  Explores the new domain and tries
    Before the rest to view it all.

I think you have often noted the fact here related; when a family moves to a new house, it is the child, or the youngest daughter, who is the first to explore all the secrets of the new residence, and whose young eyes discover things which the older folks had not noticed.

  Alone she lifts the latch, and glides,
    Through many a sadly curtained room,
  As daylight through the doorway slides
    And struggles with the muffled gloom.

  With mimicries of dance she wakes
    The lordly gallery’s silent floor,
  And climbing up on tiptoe, makes
    The old-world mirror smile once more.

  With tankards dry she chills her lips,
    With yellowing laces veils the head,
  And leaps in pride of ownership
    Upon the faded marriage bed.

  A harp in some dark nook she sees
    Long left a prey to heat and frost,
  She smites it; can such tinklings please? 
    Is not all worth, all beauty, lost?

  Ah, who’d have thought such sweetness clung
    To loose neglected strings like those? 
  They answered to whate’er was sung,
    And sounded as a lady chose.

  Her pitying finger hurried by
    Each vacant space, each slackened chord;
  Nor would her wayward zeal let die
    The music-spirit she restored.