moration with him; to come down, in point of fact, ten days before the Commemoration began, and to stay till it was over. The brother has got two very pretty sitting-rooms, overlooking the old quadrangle of Boniface, and he obtained the tutor's leave that one of them should be appropriated to myself. The tutor was ready to oblige an old pupil who kept his name on the books; but, with a vindictive recollection of my having screwed him up on a certain occasion, he gave utterance to some disparaging remarks on my bygone university career.

So I suddenly dropped from the clouds: and this is literally true, for I had a top story in the Temple, and found myself with brother Tom and his set. Previous to leaving town on this lengthened visit, I fastened a card on my door, which had often done duty before, bearing on it the unhistoric statement that I should be back in a quarter of an hour. The legal visitors who resorted to me were chiefly of an unpleasant kind, and I hoped that if they waited till the end of that indefinite fifteen minutes, they might endure a state of penal exasperation. I very much enjoyed finding myself with Tom and Blades and Gushington, and the rest of that lot. Tom had just gone in for Mods. (the little beast got a first), and Gushington, brother to the Honourable Impulsia, had just been ploughed. Blades had taken a brace of Firsts; but as his principles were not at all well established, and his conduct coincided with his principles, I took it upon me to inform Mr. Blades that the sharpest blades must cut their stick; to which he responded, that it was necessary that the authorities should first get a handle. Blades had given a famous answer to a noxious little examiner who had rather got his berth by a fluke, who had himself taken a weak degree, and acted weakly ever since. The little examiner had asked Blades some question which he had got out of Donaldson's 'Varronianus,' and put it in such a shady way, that he showed that he had failed to master Donaldson's idea. Blades transfixed the unhappy man with a stern ex

pression of countenance, and mildly observed, 'I beg your pardon, sir, but I rather think that what you wished to ask me was something in this way;' and then propounded the question in its correct form. Didn't poor little Gush only wish he could do things in that style! But Gush, as I said, was ploughed, although we vehemently incited him to glory by the example of Adolphus Smalls, who triumphantly took his degree at Boniface a few years ago. This is a famous lyric, after Macaulay, well known at Boniface and other colleges; and as it has not travelled much beyond, I had better confer on it a little 'temporary immortality."

'Adolphus Smalls of Boniface
By the nine gods he swore

That as he had been ploughed three times
He would be ploughed no more.
By the nine gods he swore it,

And put on coaches three;
And many a livelong night he read
With sported oak and towelled head
To get him his degree.

Now every hall and college
Has seen the awful list
Of candidates to pass their Greats,
Which Smalls so oft has missed.
Shame on the undergraduate

Who trembles for a plough,
When even Smalls of Boniface

Expects that he'll get through.

'Now towards the schools the gownsmen
Are pacing one and all,
From many a classic college,

From many a humble hall,
From many a lonely lodging,

Which, hid in a distant street,
From dons and duns to Oxford sons
Affords a safe retreat;

'From legendary Christ Church,

Where booms the far-famed bell
Reared by the hand of Wolsey,

But when I cannot tell:
From classic quads of Baliol

Where third-floor men descry
The smoky roofs of Worcester

Fringing the western sky;

From the proud halls of Brasenose,

Queen of the Isis wave,

Who trains her crew on beef and beer
Competitors to brave;

From Pembroke, where the classmen

Are few and far between;
From New Inn Hall, where such a thing
Has never yet been seen.

"And thickly and more thickly

Towards the five order ga1es
In cap and gown, flash through the town
White-chokered candidates.

Slasher of Christ Church ne'er before

In academics seen;

And Nobby of the collars high,

Girt with the scarf none else may tie; Loud trouser'd Bloomer, stripes and all, And whisker'd Tomkins from the hall Of seedy Magdalene.

"There be four select examiners

The classes to decide,

And three by turn and turn about
Are sitting side by side.
Morning and eve the trio

Have turned the papers o'er,

Where gownsmen write in black and white Such questions as they floor.

"Then Mr. Smalls of Boniface

Stood up his fate to meet;

Well known was he to all the three,
And they bade birn take a seat.

Men say that he strange answers made
In his divinity,

And that strange words were in his prose,
Canine to a degree.

'But they called his vivâ voce fair,

And they said his books would do,

And native cheek, where facts were weak,
Got Smalls in triumph through.

So they gave him the testamur
That was a passman's right,
He was more than three examiners
Could plough from morn to night.

'And in each Oxford college,

In the dreary April days,
When undergraduates fresh from hall
Are gathering round the blaze;
When crusted port is opened,

. And the moderator lit;

When the weed grows red in the freshman's mouth,

And makes him turn to spit.

"When goes unlimited are forced

On some unhappy gull,

When victims doomed to mull their pass
Unconscious pass the mull;

With chaffing and with laughing

They still the tale renew,
How Smales of Boniface went in,
And actually got through.'

The only fault that I know of in this parody is that it is too good, too close to the 'Lay of Horatius.' It was rather curious finding myself among all these fellows going in for their several examinations, and having myself no share or interest in the matter. It was a case of the suave mari magno, watching a storm from a rock, smoking a quiet cigar among a lot of unquiet people. It was rather curious, too, finding myself in Oxford after the lapse of a few years, and to observe the rapidity of

those changes which are always going on amid its ancient institutions. Curious also it was to meet little Figg, the jeweller, in the High, and to reflect that probably his legal representative in London might be hammering away at my oak up that five-flight in the Temple. I have always been suffering from what has been well called the prevalent Oxford disease, tic-doloreux. That kind of tic is very dolorous indeed. I had fondly hoped to have brought a blushing bride down to Oxford, when I should pay this Memorial visit to the seat of learning; to have won her sympathetic tear as I pointed out the schools where I was ruthlessly ploughed and her look of elated pride as I should show her that reach of the river where I helped to bump the next Torpid. But she preferred Tompkins, a man of no merit, on the coarse and feeble ground that he was able to offer her an establishment. I hear that Mrs. Tompkins is coming down this Commem., and I contemplate freezing her soul with my cutting politeness. How this last lustrum has changed the old place! The Union is enlarged, and the Broad is altered, and there are a lot of new buildings at Christ Church, and the chapel at Exeter is finished, and that lazy dog Hurst is Public Examiner, and a man who has been, or is going to be, Proctor is telling me about his engagement to his pretty cousin (this surely is an irregularity, and the Vice-Chancellor ought to look into it), and little brother Tommy has got a First at Mods. I dreamt the other night that I was going in for Smalls again, and was in a fearful funk because I could not recollect the second aorists of the irregular verbs. But I shall not bother myself either with troublesome dreams or troublesome realities. Let me take a draught of this familiar Oxford ale, which wise old Warton knew and loved and testified to its blessed effects

Balm of my cares, sweet solace of my toils,
Hail, juice benignant!

I shall not have lived in vain, if I have accumulated wisdom for brother

Tommy, and brother Tommy is cer