(iilP: 
 
 mm
 
 J
 
 THE BOOK 
 
 OF THE 
 
 CAMBRIDGE REVIEW
 
 Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN 
 
 THE BOOK OF 
 THE CAMBRIDGE REVIEW 
 
 1879 1897 
 
 CAMBRIDGE: MACMILLAN AND 
 HOWES 1898
 
 CAMBKIDGE 
 
 PRINTFD liY JONATHAN PALMER 
 
 ALEXANDRA STREET
 
 as 
 
 
 TO 
 W. CUNNINGHAM, D D-
 
 ' To expect neither too much nor too little is what we 
 would ask of our readers. Not too much, for amongst 
 the many claims of busy Cambridge life the editing of 
 this journal will be a serious and a difficult task ; not too 
 little, for it rests with our readers themselves to make 
 the Review what it should be a fair representative of 
 the life and thought of the University.' C Ji. VoL I 
 No. I Oct. 15 1879.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 It is not our purpose to give here a history of the 
 Cambridge Review; indeed there is little to chronicle. 
 A first meeting was held in Mr, J. G. Frazer's rooms 
 in the Old Court of Trinity (Letter E) on a broiling 
 day in the Vacation of 1879, the Rev, F, Wallis, 
 M.A., of Caius College, now Bishop of Wellington, 
 in the Chair : 
 
 'For two or three hours,' writes one who was 
 present, ' some forty men discussed some thirty pro- 
 posed titles. The one chosen at last I brought 
 forward myself for a friend (Mr. Arthur Strachey, 
 of the Hall, now a judge in Bombay), who was kept 
 away. Some rejected rivals were The Gogmagogs 
 and Tertn-Time. We voted in the American way, 
 rejecting one name at every round." 
 
 All journals start in the face of more or less over- 
 whelming obstacles. This has been no exception to 
 
 Letter by the Rev. J. P. Whitney, M.A., rector of Milton. 
 C. R. Feb. i8 1897.
 
 Vlll 
 
 the rule. The fact that we have survived for a longer 
 period than any other periodical connected with the 
 University will tell its own tale. Yet it would be 
 possible to write, and indeed a former editor achieved, 
 an account of dies parvi, when the sole plant was 
 
 * a small hand-press on which only two pages could be 
 printed at a time,' and the printing office used to be 
 
 * somewhere down in Barnwell.' 
 
 A list of the officers and editors is here sub- 
 joined : 
 
 
 
 President. 
 
 Editors. 
 
 1879. 
 
 Oct. . 
 
 .J. P. Postgate 
 
 ...E. V. Arnold, Trin.i 
 
 
 
 Trinity 
 
 A. W. W. Dale, Trin. Hall. 
 W. Hillhouse, Trin.2 
 
 1880, 
 
 Tan. 
 
 > 
 
 G. Nugent-Bankes, King's. t 
 
 
 Oct. 
 
 >> 
 
 A. W. W. Dale. 
 
 G. M. Edwards, Trin. 
 
 E. Impey, King's.* 
 
 1881. 
 
 Feb. 
 
 " 
 
 A. W. W. Dale. 
 G. M. Edwards. 
 H. Le Roy, Trin.* 
 
 
 Mar. 
 
 >> 
 
 G. M. Edwards. 
 
 F. B. Westcott, Trin. 
 
 H. Le Roy.* 
 
 
 Oct. . 
 
 ..A. F. Torry ... 
 
 ..,F. B. Westcott. 
 
 
 
 St. John's 
 
 A. W. W. Dale. 
 H. Le Roy. 
 
 1882. 
 
 Feb. 
 
 1) 
 
 A. W. W. Dale. 
 
 E. M. Sympson, Caius. 
 
 C. Strachey, King's. 
 
 
 May 
 
 
 
 E. M. Sympson. 
 
 C. Strachey. 
 
 H. A. Newton, Magd. 
 
 * Undergraduate Editor. + Press Editor. 
 
 1 Professor of Latin, University College, North Wales. 
 - Professor of Botany, Mason College, Birmingham.
 
 IX 
 
 President, Editors. 
 
 1883. Jan. ...A, F. Torry E, M. Sympson. 
 
 St. John's H. A. Newton. 
 
 H. B. Smith, Trin. 
 Oct W. A. Raleigh, King's. ^ 
 
 A. Gerstenberg, Trin. 
 J. Fearnley, St. John's. t 
 
 1884. Oct. H. B. Smith. 2 
 
 W. A. Raleigh. 
 T. M orison, Trin. 
 
 E. Jenks, King's,^ + 
 
 1885. May H. B. Smith. 
 
 A. Gerstenberg. 
 
 C. F. Clay, Trin. 
 
 W. A. J. Archbold, Pet.t 
 Oct. ...G. M. Edwards ...C. F. Clay. 
 
 Sidney F. C. Holland, Trin. 
 
 H. F. W. Tatham, Trin. 
 
 1886. Mar. ,, C. F. Clay. 
 
 S. M. Leathes, Trin. 
 
 D. N. Pollock, King's. 
 
 F. G. T. Rowcroft, Non.ColI.t 
 Oct. ,, G. Nugent- Bankes.t 
 
 W. G. Headlam, King's. 
 A. B. Cane, Trin. 
 I. Gollancz, Christ's. 
 
 1887. Oct ,, I. Gollancz. 
 
 J. A. C. Tilley, King's. 
 
 G. Townsend-Warner, Jesus. 
 
 1888. Oct J. A. C. Tilley. 
 
 G. Townsend-Wamer. 
 W. J. Corbett, King's. 
 
 1889. Oct, J. A. C. Tilley. 
 
 G. Townsend-Warner. 
 C. .Stevenson, King's. 
 W. J. Lias, Jesus. t 
 
 1890. Oct. G. W. Grant-Wilson, Trin. 
 
 E. M. Todhunter, King's. 
 R. P. Mahaffy, King's. 
 
 t Press Editor. 
 
 J Professor of Kn^lish Literature, Univ. Coll., Liverpool. 
 
 - Private Secretary to Lord P>lgin, Governor General of India. 
 
 ^ University Reader of English Law, Oxford.
 
 1892. 
 
 Mar. 
 
 
 Oct. 
 
 1893. 
 
 Jan. 
 
 
 May 
 
 
 Oct 
 
 i894. 
 
 Oct. 
 
 1895. 
 
 May 
 
 1897. 
 
 Oct. 
 
 President, Editors, 
 
 1891. Oct. ...W. Cunningham. ..G. A. Davies, Trin.' 
 
 Trinity J. H. B. Masterman, St John's. 
 
 ,, A. B. Cook, Trin. 
 
 R. E. Childers, Trin. 
 
 ,, E. C. Marchant, Pet. 
 
 J. E. McTaggart, Trin. 
 
 W. J. Conybeare, Trin. 
 ,, J. H. B. Masterman. 
 
 F. B. Malim, Trin. 
 
 H. J. Edwards, Trin. 
 
 J. N. Figgis, Cath. 
 
 At the cost of sacrificing, perhaps to a serious 
 degree, the representative character of the present 
 volume, we have thought fit to exclude from it pieces 
 which have found a permanent home elsewhere. But, 
 while it was felt that it would be unfair to otu- readers 
 to present them with what in another form they had 
 already on their shelves, on the other hand much 
 remained which, in the opinion of some, deserved to 
 be made accessible by republication. The task of jus- 
 tifying this belief must be left to the following pages. 
 
 November 1898. 
 
 1 Professor of Greek, University College, Liverpool.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 GENERAL ARTICLES : 
 
 Rowing in the Greek Triremes. By Sir Patrick Col- 
 
 quhoun... 
 The Esmonds of Castlewood and the Warringtons of 
 
 Suffolk. By R. F. S 
 
 Notes by a Constant Reader. By J. K. S. 
 
 On Bluffing 
 
 On some Passages in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. 
 
 By Dr. A. W. Verrall 
 
 How to Commentate. By V. H. R. 
 
 A Letter to Freshmen, By ' Chesterfield ' 
 
 American Universities 
 
 Oxide of Milton ... 
 
 Aristotle on the East Coast. By A. H. T. 
 
 History repeats Itself. By * Observer '.. . 
 
 VERSE : 
 
 Occasions ... 
 
 Near and Far. By B. 
 
 To incepting M.A.'s 
 
 Academus ... 
 
 Ballade of Reviewers. By J. D. B. 
 
 Song. By C. E. ... 
 
 Ona*Bohn' 
 
 Bill Asplen ... 
 
 iJefietur mors Palinuri 
 
 A Roundel. By J. K. S.. 
 
 In Memoriam J. K. S, By W. H. 
 
 II 
 
 15 
 26 
 
 31 
 
 42 
 48 
 53 
 75 
 77 
 87 
 
 93 
 95 
 96 
 
 97 
 102 
 104 
 105 
 106 
 107 
 108 
 109
 
 Xll 
 
 Verse continued. 
 
 The Fountain of Youth. By E. E. D. 
 
 Sails. ByA. J. B 
 
 Caledonia Postgraduata. By R. H. F. 
 The Lover's Melancholy. By A. H. T. 
 Hymn of St. Pancras. By A. H. T. . 
 
 Ballade. By A. H. T 
 
 Ballade of Degrees. By Lyndore 
 Herrick on the Trumpington Road. By 'P. 
 KTHN OP0OAOHO2. By Kvvny6s 
 Night. By F. M. C 
 
 CAMBRIDGE : 
 
 Our Old Trees. By John Willis Clark 
 Undergraduate Life at Cambridge in 1794-1800. By 
 
 H. A. Newton 
 
 Ugly Cambridge. By J. D. D 
 
 Cambridge Archaeology. By T. McKenny Hughes .. 
 
 The Expansion of the Union 
 
 A Commonplace Book of 200 years ago. By G. C. M. S 
 
 Thackeray at Cambridge ... 
 
 The Gogmagogs. By W. W. Skeat 
 
 Letters to Lecturers 
 
 To Dr. Verrall ... 
 
 To Professor Jebb 
 
 To Professor Stanford 
 
 To Professor Macalister 
 
 To Professor Sidgwick 
 A Private Oration ... 
 Archbishop Benson. By A. J. M. 
 Epilogue ...
 
 GENERAL ARTICLES
 
 ROWING IN THE GREEK TRIREMES 
 
 [March 17, 1880] 
 
 As one who, in his day, was allowed to know the 
 right from the wrong end of an oar, I may be permitted 
 to offer for the judgment of the Athletic and Classical 
 members of my old University, the following remarks 
 on the above subject. If their correctness be not 
 admitted, they will, at least, provoke such discussion 
 as may elicit the truth. The subject is one of which 
 a mere Classic is no competent judge; and a mere 
 Oarsman as little so. Practical experience has to be 
 reconciled with classical authority, for which task 
 none are so competent as University men ; for Senior 
 Wranglers and Senior Classics have carried off the 
 palm of University oarsmanship. 
 
 When I was last at Athens, in 1874, for the purpose 
 of again visiting tlie living Finlay and the dead City, 
 my attention was attracted on the Parthenon hill by 
 a fragment of marble set up against the ruins of 
 tlic l'>echthcium, which had theretofore escaped my 
 observation, and around which some native gentlemen
 
 were grouped. On my expressing my delight at the 
 sight of this fragment in the original, (for it is depicted 
 in Jal's work,) to the utterly illiterate guardian, I was 
 asked to explain the nature of the fragment in the 
 vernacular. This I did, somewhat to the astonishment 
 of the guardian, who at once dubbed me Kvpie 
 Kadrj'pfTa, ov Mr. Professor, and treated me as an 
 honorary member of the Society of Antiquaries of 
 Athens, with becoming reverence. 
 
 I subsequently had a cast made of this fragment 
 under my own superintendence, which matrix I brought 
 to England, and forwarded casts from it to the two 
 English Universities, the British Museum, and other 
 public bodies. As it exists in the University Library 
 it is needless to describe it further in this place. 
 
 According to local tradition there was another 
 portion ; but whether the fore or afterpart of the 
 trireme I could not ascertain ; and simply, " that it 
 had been stolen by an American traveller /' and, since 
 its weight must have been considerable, this could 
 not have been effected without the complicity of the 
 guardians, who attach greater value to gold than to 
 marble. It represents the midship portion of a trireme, 
 and goes under the popular name of the Trireme of 
 Archimedes. It evidently formed a portion of some 
 frieze of a local temple. The number of the rowers 
 must remain uncertain. The bas-relief shows nine ; 
 and, if it be assumed that this be one-third of the 
 entire length of the vessel, and that one-half that
 
 5 
 
 number is deducted for the other two portions, on 
 account of the tapering of the two extremities, the 
 calculations would stand 3x9x2 = 54, or 108 oars 
 on both boards, so that there would not have been 
 less than 100 oars in both, or 50 on each board ; and, 
 as it is an admitted classical fact that there was but 
 one man to an oar, as appears also in the bas-relief, 
 the minimum number of the rowers would be loc; 
 adding to this, 50 for relief and casualties, makes up 
 the total to 150. Now, if these men used their oars 
 as we do, in an eight-oared or other boat, at an obtuse 
 angle to the water, the lower tier would have handled 
 their oars without any difficulty ; not so, the second 
 tier ; and tor the upper tier the task would have been 
 impossible by reason of the length required to clear 
 the lower tiers. 
 
 This difficulty the bas-relief apparently solves, as 
 I interpret it. The gallery was constructed very much 
 in the likeness of a " monkey boat," called by barge- 
 men a " Wusser," and to be seen on all canals, except 
 that it was built up higher. The top sides were 
 probably upright, on, but slightly " tumbled out," and 
 carlins built into it at various distances above the 
 water line, extending respectively two, three, and 
 four feet beyond the sides. On these a gallery was 
 constructed, extending, as stated, beyond the side, 
 furnished with thwarts and stretchers, as in our boats; 
 the rowlock, however, was not on the gunwale some- 
 what below the level of the elbow, as with us, but
 
 near the outside of the stretcher, so that the rower 
 rather paddled than rowed ; that is, he rowed perpen- 
 dicularly, the consequence of which would necessarily 
 be, that he would grasp his oar with the fingers on 
 opposite sides of the handle, and by dropping the 
 loom slightly inwards, would clear the oar of the water 
 at the end of the stroke, and carry it forward for 
 the next. The oars would increase in length in the 
 successive tiers, but the upper oars would not be 
 longer than those of our eight-oared racing boats. 
 Height would also be saved by so placing the thwart, 
 (to?xo^ or tcivXiov), that the head of the lower tiersman 
 would come under the knees of the second tiersman, 
 and so on. The lower oars would necessarily be very 
 short, say 9, 12, and 15 feet respectively, thus allowing 
 3 feet for the loom, 18 inches between each tier, and 
 30 inches for immersion. 
 
 It will therefore be observed that the galleries 
 could all be carried away if run aboard, which was 
 the principal tactic in Greek naval warfare, without 
 affecting the integrity of the hull. In fact, the galleries 
 would be entirely out-rigged ; and the whole hold of 
 the vessel available for relief men and stores. The 
 soldiers were notoriously on deck, as well as the 
 passengers ; one of whom is seen lying at length in 
 the bas-relief, on the quarter deck, as lay Ulysses on 
 leaving Korkyra. 
 
 The upper tiersmen, termed O/jn^iuirai, were of a 
 more skilled class, the ^v-i'i-ut came next, and the
 
 OaXafxirai last, and were paid in proportion. The 
 vessel was steered by a long oar, over or under the 
 tafifrail, and sometimes by or on either quarter. This 
 7rt]Bd\iou was not hung like our rudder, which word in 
 Dutch means the same as kwttt], an oar. This device 
 enabled the stem or Trpv^ivrj to be rowed round. The 
 oar was kept in its place by a thauel, or pin, (XKnXfios; 
 to which a thong of raw hide was attached, called 
 -rpoTTOf or Tf)07ru)7r']p, and the oar must have had a 
 shoulder, to prevent its running out ; like the present 
 oars of a Turkish caik, which work more smoothly 
 and pleasantly than our rowlocks. 
 
 The thramnites are described as occupying a more 
 dangerous position, being exposed to the darts of the 
 enemy, while, if the vessel got beaked, the thalamites 
 were drowned. Archimedes of Syracuse is reported 
 to have invented the trireme, and must therefore be 
 considered as the first Greek naval architect. 
 
 The trireme seldom sailed but with a fair wind. 
 When it was in battle array no sails were used. There 
 were two decks, Kmaa-rpwfLa-ra, the upper one wider 
 than the lower by the width of the upper gallery, say 
 8 feet ; the lower deck was within the hull of the 
 vessel, and the upper deck would, by this calculation, 
 be 9 feet above the line of floatation. We read of 
 quinqueremes and even decaremes, but how these 
 were arranged it is not clear, since, even by the above 
 suggested contrivance, the upper tier oars would be 
 of inordinate length. The merchant vessels, mpo^/r^vXoi
 
 8 
 
 i/z/es, on the contrary, seldom "swept," but always 
 sailed, usually with a pretty fair wind, for it does not 
 appear they " beat." 
 
 The crew of a trireme by this calculation, must 
 have been nearly as follows : 
 
 Rowers ... 
 
 Relief 
 
 Soldiers ... 
 Officers and Slaves 
 
 All told 
 
 lOO 
 
 50 
 
 100 
 
 50 
 300 
 
 At the average weight of 12 stone to a man, with 
 his arms, this would give about 22 tons, to which 
 adding 3 tons for provisions and water, would make a 
 total of 25, though, it more probably amounted to 30 
 tons. 
 
 On entering into an engagement, they struck the 
 masts and cleared the deck for action. 
 
 The two principal tactics were one, to run along- 
 side the enemies' vessel, at an angle, and cripple the 
 oars on the one side, and board her by the soldiers ; 
 the other, to run into the enemy at right angles, and 
 sink her by beaking, in which case they backed hard 
 after the contact, for we learn that the Rhodian 
 vessels, unable to effect this, were dragged down 
 head first by the sinking vessels. There are many other 
 manoeuvres imaginable, which were doubtless called
 
 into requisition, such as running into a vessel's stem, 
 etc. The attacking squadron was usually arranged in 
 a wedge-like form, led by the Admiral, ^avapxo^ or 
 Vlavdpxov vavv, and received by the enemy in an 
 inverted wedge, so as to enable them to close round, 
 and take their opponents in rear. Much depended 
 on the TrrjtaXiovxo^, who ranked as an officer ; indeed, 
 the word Pilot appears to have been another word 
 for naval officer. 
 
 It will be observed in the frieze, that no two men 
 sit to their work alike, and most of them in very bad 
 form, with crooked backs, whence it may be inferred 
 that the representation was taken from nature. It is 
 well known to our university oarsmen, how difficult it 
 is to get even eight men to sit in the same form, and 
 row together, exerting their strength simultaneously ; 
 at all events I have never seen it effected in fifty years' 
 experience ; while any crew which could accomplish 
 this would be certain of victory. 
 
 It will also be observed that the men used short 
 stretchers, and sat with their knees well up, and that 
 they rowed naked. 
 
 The Egyptians, according to their monuments, 
 are for the most part represented as standing up to 
 row in open boats. 
 
 It is not my intention to write a treatise on the 
 rowing of the Greeks and Romans, which can be 
 better done by one who is still in the full swing of 
 classical study ; but to draw attention to the possible
 
 10 
 
 solution of a problem which has puzzled scholars and 
 oarsmen for many centuries, and which sums itself up 
 in this ; that the ancient Greeks did not row^ but 
 paddled their triremes ; to which the action of a 
 steamer's paddle-wheel bears the nearest mechanical 
 resemblance. 
 
 P. COLQUHOUN.
 
 THE ESMONDS OF CASTLEWOOD 
 
 AND THE 
 
 WARRINGTONS OF SUFFOLK 
 
 [June 13, 1889] 
 
 In Time for April appears an article by Mr. E. C. 
 K. Conner on Thackeray's genealogies. Mr. Conner 
 gives the genealogies of the Warringtons, of the New- 
 comes, the Fokers, and the Floracs, but curiously 
 enough omits the genealogy of the Esmonds, over 
 which Mr. Thackeray was so careful. 
 
 I have always felt a deep interest in my dear 
 and honoured friend, Colonel Esmond, and all that 
 concerned him. I have read and re-read his stately 
 history, I know not how many times. I have made 
 pilgrimages to the rooms in Trinity which are believed 
 to have been his " in the great court close by the 
 gate, and near to the famous Mr. Newton's lodgings.'' 
 I have mused by the side of the torn!) of Beatrix's 
 boyish lover in King's Chapel.
 
 12 
 
 Some years ago I endeavoured to reconstruct that 
 family tree, which we know Colonel Esmond prepared 
 in his later years, representing " the family springing 
 from the Emperor Charlemagne on the one hand, 
 who was drawn in plate-armour, with his imperial 
 mantle and diadem, and on the other from Queen 
 Boadicea, whom the Colonel insisted upon painting 
 in the light costume of an ancient British queen, with 
 a prodigious gilded crown, a trifling mantle of furs, 
 and a lovely symmetrical person, tastefully tattooed 
 with figures of a brilliant blue tint." 
 
 Oh ! why did George Warrington (of Lamb Court, 
 Upper Temple) neglect to give us this, while editing 
 the memoirs of his relatives? Had he done so, he 
 must have supplemented it by a pedigree of the 
 Warringtons and then we should have been saved 
 much perplexity. 
 
 His grandfather, Sir George Warrington (of Virginia 
 and Warrington Manor) is a most irritating person. 
 It will be seen from the family tree accompanying 
 this article that I disagree with Mr. Conner as to 
 several of Sir George's children. The fact is Sir 
 George is so wrapped up in himself, that it is only 
 while he is moralising over his troubles that we 
 incidentally hear of his family. There is a mysterious 
 child " who died in infancy," a " Mary " who suffered 
 from fever but apparently recovered, a "Henry" 
 whom I have ventured to identify with "a learned 
 collegian." Mr, Conner, I think, identifies the
 
 
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 14 
 
 collegian with George and makes him take holy orders 
 for which I know of no authority. Then Major 
 Pendennis served with another unidentified son in 
 India and New South Wales. Surely, "Stunning" 
 Warrington knew his uncles and his aunts? Even 
 the good Colonel is rather hazy at times. Who 
 shall tell us authoritatively whether it was Edward 
 or Francis Esmond who died defending Castlewood 
 against the forces of the Parliament ? 
 
 R. F. S.
 
 NOTES BY A CONSTANT READER 
 
 [October 22, 1891] 
 
 I was told, the other day, by an experienced and 
 judicious person, that it was most desirable to form 
 the habit of reading novels : because, in periods of 
 worry, distress, illness or enforced rest, no possible 
 resource was so valuable. I hugged myself on hearing 
 this : for I do not often form good habits, and since 
 I have certainly formed the habit of reading novels, 
 though I did not form it until rather late certainly 
 long after I took my degree I venture to hope that, 
 for once, I have discovered in myself an unsuspected 
 merit. The discoveries one makes about oneself are 
 generally of an exactly opposite character. 
 
 The habit of reading novels is a phrase which 
 means more than appears at first sight. A person 
 cannot really be a habitual novel-reader, unless he 
 take pleasure in reading bad novels as well as good. 
 The number of good novels which the world contains
 
 i6 
 
 is not enough to supply the wants of an habitual 
 reader, unless he has a faculty for reading things over 
 and over again so abnormally developed as to render 
 him an exception, not worth considering by a person 
 engaged in the study of general principles. Ninety- 
 nine habitual novel-readers out of a hundred are 
 readers of bad novels as well as of good ; and the 
 man who sees no good in wasting on admittedly bad 
 novels the time so sparingly doled out to him by that 
 destiny which has also bestowed upon him capacities 
 far exceeding the measure of his opportunities, such 
 a man and I speak with feeling, for I was such a 
 man myself for many years is not, and would scorn 
 to be, an habitual novel-reader. I am glad to know 
 that the habit which this important and valuable 
 section of the human race does not possess, is a good 
 habit : for I had sometimes felt a feeling of regret, if 
 not of remorse, at having ceased to belong to that 
 section myself 
 
 Now a person who reads bad novels is likely also 
 to read other bad books. But an habitual novel- 
 reader, as we have seen, almost always reads bad 
 novels. Therefore an habitual novel-reader is likely 
 also to read other bad books. The fact that a man 
 is likely to read other bad books as well as bad novels, 
 makes the habit of novel-reading even more interesting 
 and important than I have hitherto shown it to be. 
 For the man who reads only good books may know 
 as little of the world which is made up of books, as a
 
 17 
 
 man who met only good people would know of the 
 world which is made up of people. It would certainly 
 be dull, and probably be demoralizing, to know no 
 bad people : and a constant and exclusive perusal of 
 volumes likely to be included in authorised versions 
 of the Hundred Best Books might well produce unde- 
 sirable results. 
 
 I say that the habitual novel-reader is likely to 
 read bad books ot all sorts, but I would by no means 
 suggest that he is certain to do so, or that he is nearly 
 as likely to do so as he is to read bad novels. All 
 that can be established about him for certain is that 
 one of the reasons which deters men from reading 
 bad books a determination to read nothing that is 
 not first-rate, does not exist for him; since, if it did, 
 he would not be an habitual novel-reader. But it is 
 perfectly possible that the habitual novel-reader may 
 read absolutely nothing except novels. The habit of 
 novel-reading may be due to that congenital laziness 
 which inclines a person at any moment to do that 
 which costs the least eflfort ; or to that inherent 
 perversity which inclines him always to do that which 
 there is the least apparent fitness in doing at the 
 moment. In the former case the same laziness which 
 causes a person to read novels may prevent him (or 
 her) from ever doing anything else except such duties 
 as are necessary to be done in order to keep out of 
 the workhouse, the gaol, or the lunatic asylum. This 
 is a bad state of things for almost anybody. I will 
 
 2
 
 I8 
 
 go so far as to say, that if the habit of novel-reading is 
 the only habit a person has, it is hardly a good habit 
 at all. The second case which I have supposed is 
 less fraught with disaster and less conducive to intel- 
 lectual decay than the first. The inherent perversity 
 which makes a person read novels at times when it is 
 obviously improper and absurd to read novels may 
 possibly lead them to read philosophy, poetry, science, 
 and theology at times when the study of these subjects 
 is evidently out of place ; and such times abound in 
 the life-time of every man. Nevertheless, there are 
 always many things which it is improper to do at a 
 given moment, besides a larger and constant number 
 of things which it is improper to do at any moment 
 whatever. It is therefore impossible to rely upon the 
 inherently perverse. The outlets of perversity are 
 innumerable, and you cannot be certain that the most 
 perverse of men will ever read Voltaire or Shakespeare; 
 not because it is not certain (for it is) that he will 
 have many opportunities of reading them perversely 
 (in church, for instance, or during a football match), 
 but because these pursuits will have to compete con- 
 tinuously with many other pursuits, some of them 
 essentially seductive to the inherently perverse. 
 
 But when a novel-reader is not inordinately lazy 
 and not extravagantly perverse, nor yet so feeble in 
 intellect as to be unable to read serious books, nor 
 so hopelessly ignorant as not to know anything of 
 the topics to which books refer, nor so passionately
 
 19 
 
 devoted to out-door life as never to go into a library, 
 nor so continuously occupied with commercial, pro- 
 fessional or social pursuits as barely to find time even 
 for his (or her) novel-reading; when, in short, the 
 novel-reader is not subject to any of the ordinary 
 disabilities which prevent the great majority of human 
 beings from reading more than a very few books after 
 they settle down in life ; when, to put it more shortly, 
 the novel-reader is also a "general reader," he will 
 probably be a reader of bad books as well as of good 
 books. Of those who habitually read books a small 
 but not wholly contemptible class there are two 
 kinds. First there are those who read books which 
 their friends tell them they "ought to read," and 
 books which they think it will be good for them to 
 read, and books which they are ashamed of having to 
 say that they have not read, or, by the help of a lie, 
 that they have read ; " good books," in short, not of 
 course in the worst and vilest sense of the word, but 
 in the sense in which Shakespeare, and Molit;re, and 
 Scott, and Dickens, and Newman, and Meredith are 
 good, and in which Martin Tupper, and Mr. G. R. 
 Sims, and *' Hugh Conway " are bad. Secondly, there 
 are those who read a book when it comes their way 
 because it happens to be a book, and not for any 
 other reason. Let us for convenience sake call this 
 second class by the name of constant readers. Let 
 me say that of general readers some are readers of the 
 Hundred Best Books, and others are constant readers.
 
 20 
 
 I sum up what has gone before by declaring, 
 that if a general reader is an habitual novel-reader, 
 he is pretty sure to be a constant reader, and not a 
 reader of the Hundred Best Books ; and I introduce 
 what is to come by observing that ^ am a constant 
 reader myself. 
 
 II 
 
 [November 5, 1891] 
 
 I have not exhausted the advantages of being 
 a novel-reader, and therefore, in all probability, a 
 constant reader, A man who enjoys this privilege is 
 not only a reader of bad books as well as of good : 
 he is also a reader of old books as well as of new ; 
 or, as the case may be, of new books as well as of old. 
 Either of these results is advantageous : but the latter 
 is, in one way at least, a more valuable boon than 
 the former. It is no doubt well for a man who reads 
 all the new books to read old books too, because 
 there are not enough new books to satisfy him. But 
 the man who reads new books by choice and old 
 books only by necessity is not likely to be a general 
 reader of the most valuable kind : and his recourse to 
 old books is not likely to be nearly so useful to him 
 as it is to the reader of old books by choice, and of 
 new books by accident. The former is the lowest 
 kind of general reader. He has a perilous affinity 
 with the reader of the Hundred Best Books : the reader
 
 21 
 
 who reads what he will benefit by, or what it may 
 be a social disadvantage not to have read. Reading 
 devoted primarily and essentially to the perusal of 
 new books, and to knowing what the reviewers know, 
 and talking as the reviewers talk, is only rescued from 
 the lowest rank, and entitled to be called constant 
 reading at all, because it extends even to such new 
 books as are not mentioned by the reviewers, and 
 because, if the new books fall short, it will be extended 
 so as to include a portion of the old. But one who 
 reads an old book solely because there is no new 
 book at hand to read, is very unlikely to read old 
 books to the best possible advantage. 
 
 Therefore I say that the latter of the two classes 
 is the more important and the more favoured, and 
 that (paradoxical as the statement may appear to 
 those who are not so careless as to think it insignifi- 
 cant) the reading of new books as well as of old is a 
 greater boon than the reading of old books as well 
 as new. There are men who ordinarily, in leisure 
 moments, pick up an old book ; and who wait to read 
 the books which arouse the enthusiasm of journalists 
 and feed the chatterers at social gatherings, until they 
 have become old, and been forgotten by the superficial 
 critic. Those men are more likely to read to good 
 purpose than those whose first aim is to get the 
 newest publication. It is therefore more important 
 that they should obtain a small opportunity of which 
 they will make good use, than that their inferiors
 
 23 
 
 should obtain a great opportunity of which they will 
 make small use. It is well that the reader of Voltaire, 
 Swift, Defoe, Howel, Marlowe and Brantome, should 
 have a look at " Robert Elsmere " and the " Wages 
 of Sin " before they have become practically obsolete. 
 It will be good for him, and it will be good for the 
 cause of sound criticism. His natural inclination is 
 to neglect these works so long as they are the cause 
 of wide-spread loquacity, and not to take them up 
 until they have become books wholly dependent on 
 their intrinsic qualities for literary eminence, and 
 interesting as evidence of the sort of thing that was 
 written and read at a period sufficiently remote for 
 dispassionate analysis. The fact, therefore, that a 
 constant reader is likely to read almost anything in 
 the way of a book which he happens to find under 
 his hand, is a fortunate circumstance, among other 
 reasons, because it forces people with a strong prefer- 
 ence for old books not entirely to neglect the new. 
 
 Moreover it is a characteristic of the genuine 
 constant reader that he will read foreign books as 
 well as native books. A book is none the less a 
 book because it is written in a foreign language, 
 however unintelligible or undesirable. The constant 
 reader will of course encounter some works written 
 in a language wholly incomprehensible, and printed 
 perhaps in type which he cannot decipher. Even 
 these volumes he will recognise for books. One of 
 them may keep him employed for a leisure quarter of
 
 23 
 
 an hour. He will make what he can of the title 
 page. He will see whether the general character of 
 the type, and the method of printing more nearly 
 resemble one or another of the typographical styles 
 with which he is acquainted. He will try to trace 
 and identify a constantly recurring word : an " I," a 
 "he," an "and," or a "for." He will study the 
 punctuation, the breaking up of the sentences, the 
 length of the words, the variability of roots and fre- 
 quency of inflections. If he has handled a book 
 in the same language before, reminiscences will be 
 awakened, and possibly new light will be thrown on 
 baffling problems of minute bibliosophy. To study a 
 book in Russian or Arabic, or even in Spanish or 
 Welsh, without any knowledge whatever of the lan- 
 guage in question, is not a specially interesting or an 
 eminently fruitful occupation : but the ideal constant 
 reader will do it all the same, and will enjoy doing it. 
 If a wholly unintelligible book is better than no 
 book at all to a constant reader, there is no doubt 
 that he will make every effort to meet with as few 
 unintelligible books as possible. He will be a student 
 of languages all his life, and will make every eftbrt 
 to retain and extend such knowledge of languages, 
 whether ancient or modern, as his education, or 
 youthful experiences, may chance to have conferred 
 upon him. By reading, unscrupulously and auda- 
 ciously, without the aid of a dictionary, books wiiuen 
 in languages which he has no right to say that he
 
 24 
 
 knows, he will convert a slight and elementary know- 
 ledge of particular languages into sound and practically 
 useful knowledge. Indeed, a constant reader comes 
 to read books in a way wholly different from that of 
 a person whose idea of reading is reading aloud, or 
 being read to aloud, in a circle of persons who think 
 that an hour or two every day ought to be devoted to 
 conscientiously and accurately traversing the exact 
 course which the writer of a book has laid down for 
 them. To read for a given time every day, and to 
 make sure that you have not "skipped," are the 
 attributes of persons most remote in methods and 
 tastes from true constant readers. Some of these 
 persons join societies, bind themselves by vows, and 
 expose themselves to pecuniary liabilities in case of 
 default, in order to make themselves certain of doing 
 their duty by the books which the world contains. 
 But a constant reader joins no society, takes no oaths 
 and pays no fines. He reads when he can, and 
 where he can, and as long as he feels inclined. He 
 does not use "book-markers." He does not copy 
 out edifying passages. He does not keep a methodical 
 record of his reading. He has no conscientious 
 scruple about skipping. He reads as much or as 
 little of a book as he feels disposed. He will spend 
 an hour one day in tearing the heart out of a big book ; 
 an hour next day in dwelling on the minutest shades 
 of style and meaning in half a dozen pages which he 
 almost knows by heart. His own pleasure is his
 
 25 
 
 only guide in reading. Sometimes it pleases him to 
 find out as quickly as possible what an author had to 
 say ; sometimes to realise as fully as possible how he 
 chose to say a thing ; sometimes to find the interesting 
 passages in a dull book; sometimes to sound the 
 depth of dulness in the stupid parts of an interesting 
 book. Books are at once his tools and playthings; 
 he can use them, apply them, criticise them, realise 
 them, or lose himself in them ; he can feel as if he 
 had written them, as if he had answered them, as if 
 he were worshipping the writer, or as if he were about 
 to horsewhip him. To all the uses he makes of 
 books in collecting apply the name " to read " ; but 
 "reading" in the sense of a person who belongs to 
 an "hour a day" club is a very small part of the 
 collection of processes to which the name " to read " 
 applies. 
 
 J. K S.
 
 ON BLUFFING 
 
 [February i8, 1892] 
 
 Bluffing as a deliberate artifice is of recent growth 
 in our literature. It seems to spring from two dif- 
 ferent causes from a legitimate desire to secure 
 respectful consideration for genuine wares, and again 
 from a dishonest wish to obtain readers on false 
 pretences. In the former kind Anthony Trollope 
 was a past master. In later life he frankly admitted 
 that he had made it his practice to construct a phrase, 
 a sentence, or a long passage, two or three times in a 
 volume, which should awe the ignorant and bewilder 
 the learned. His readers were to look up to him, as 
 to a brilliant speaker on a platform, not as superior 
 folk in the boxes look down on the toiling comedian. 
 If we may judge from the complacency with which 
 Trollope unfolds this stratagem, it must have answered 
 his purpose more than enough. Nor is there repre- 
 hensible dishonesty in bluffing that deals only in 
 bombast and eighteen-inch words. 
 
 But there are authors who bluff in another and a 
 more cruel fashion. Their method is to carry the
 
 27 
 
 reader bodily into an enchanted maze, and there leave 
 him to wander in blissful pain until death or ennui 
 relieves him. Perhaps this trick of weaving a plot for 
 the reader to finish was suggested by history (though 
 history more commonly mimics fiction, from Lost Sir 
 Massingberd upwards) ; for the best of the " half-told 
 tales " are historical. There are many in Herodotus, 
 some of them stories whose end he seems never to 
 have heard, some of them with solutions which with 
 characteristic malice he knows but prefers not to say. 
 Yet much may be forgiven him, in that he gives us 
 the complete story of the Nasamonians, who went 
 across the marshes to a race of pigmy sorcerers, and 
 stayed in their town (was it Timbuctoo ?) beside a big 
 river full of crocodiles. Here was a grand opening 
 for bluff, but the simple conclusion that they all came 
 safely home is very much more satisfactory than that 
 of a very tantalising story told with much detail by 
 Strabo, of the man from Cyzicus, who, after two unsuc- 
 cessful attempts to circumnavigate Africa, for each of 
 which he was heavily fined at Alexandria, at last got 
 fairly started southwards from the Pillars of Hercules. 
 The rest of the facts, says Strabo, rubbing his hands 
 at our disappointment, I really do not know; but 
 inquiries in the neighbourhood of Cadiz might elicit 
 something! The historian, or for that matter the 
 novelist, who leaves us such locks as these to pick, 
 deserves as little mercy " as the Examiners who 
 set problems that will never come out" Probably
 
 28 
 
 Mr. Frank Stockton made for himself more enemies 
 than friends by writing The Lady and the Tiger ^ which, 
 however, is hardly an instance of dishonest bluffing, 
 for the three preliminary pages contain enough of 
 clever work for most three-volume novels. It is even 
 safe to suppose that the author has been impaled on 
 the horns of his own dilemma, and is now working 
 out his own solution in rage and misery. 
 
 But of all recent offenders the most hardy and 
 unashamed is Mr. Rudyard Kipling. When he was 
 a very young man and wrote in the Pioneer and the 
 Civil and Military Gazette, he used to bluff so crudely 
 that people laughed, and the phrase, "There was a 
 cooly-woman once, but that is another story," became 
 a proverb in India. But time has brought his revenges, 
 and to-day *' the young man from Lahore who got on 
 in life by standing drinks," as a civilian jealously once 
 described him, plays the game of literary poker as 
 well as any whose name is known in Fleet Street. It 
 is a vulgar game, but a subtle one too; and this is 
 how he plays it. He assumes the part of an omniscient 
 philosopher. No fact is too small for him, no gene- 
 ralisation too wide ; with a single adjective he justifies 
 a policy or condemns a continent To keep up this 
 assumed knowledge of things dicenda et tacenda^ he 
 gives you sudden glimpses of what he could tell you 
 if he pleased : here a masterly aposiopesis, there a 
 careless allusion, everywhere the trenchant tones that 
 defy contradiction. It is impossible to disbelieve
 
 29 
 
 Mr. Kipling ; it is possible to blame him for not put- 
 ting our credulity to severe tests. Over his more 
 interesting revelations he draws a veil of mystery, just 
 to baffle the curiosity which the whole context was 
 designed to whet. But it is time he took warning. 
 The British public will not stand this literary bluffing 
 for ever. Indeed, if I were a tyrant with a tyrant's 
 taste for good literature hot and hot, I would clap 
 Mr. Kipling into my dungeons and make him show 
 his cards. I would learn at last whom he meant by 
 the Biggest Liar in Asia; perhaps a pretty bit of 
 autobiography might be extracted under threats of the 
 bastinado. I would make him tell me what two 
 words breathed into the stables of what cavalry regi- 
 ment will bring out the men with mops and belts and 
 bad language ; and whether he knows their virtue by 
 experiment or only by hearsay. He should describe 
 to me the image that Spurstow's camera showed in 
 the dead man's eyes ; and what evidence there is for 
 that gruesome bit of pseudo-science. For his English 
 characters and their daintiness or violence, as the case 
 may be, I care little. 
 
 I have often wondered, but I should not ask, 
 where Mrs. Hauksbee learned that astonishing habit 
 of passing the lash of her riding-whip through her 
 lips when she was thinking ; or what the Three 
 Men did to Peythroppe at her request, that night 
 when the long foot-rest chair was broken, and the 
 trot of camels was heard in the compound, and they
 
 30 
 
 four disappeared for six weeks. Sometimes I suspect 
 that Mr. Kipling first invents and then answers his 
 own riddles, in which case he is the prince of them 
 that bluff. What, for instance, can have become of 
 the Crown of Kafiristan ? What happens if you shout 
 to the grey wolf through the gate at even, " Badl khas 
 is dead " ? How was the man at Rawal Pindi sobered 
 by being made a fool of? Who dance the Ndlli-hukh, 
 who and where and when? What did the Englishman 
 say when he conferred with the Sub-judge till that 
 excellent official turned green? What became of the 
 Little Fish in the silver box, which was an unfailing 
 love charm, and what was the nature of the only other 
 regular working amulet in the world, which "was in 
 the possession of a trooper of the Nizam's Horse " ? 
 These are but a few of the loose ends which Mr. 
 Kipling will have to knot up some day. It may be 
 that his sleeve is "stuffed full of aces and bowers, 
 and the same with intent to deceive," in which case 
 he had better take ship for India. Personally, I still 
 believe that there are answers to these questions ; but 
 it will go hard with Mr. Kipling if he strains our faith 
 much longer.
 
 ON SOME PASSAGES IN 
 JANE AUSTEN'S MANSFIELD PARK 
 
 I 
 
 [November 30, 1893] 
 
 Some time ago, when the edition of Jane Austen's 
 novels by Mr. R, B. Johnson was noticed in the 
 Cambridge Review^ attention was called to some of 
 the more or less obvious errors of printing, which, as 
 is well known, are in most or all of her works un- 
 happily frequent. It may be worth while to resume 
 the subject, for the purpose of pointing out twc^ 
 curious cases of an exceptional kind, which forcibly 
 illustrate the difficulties and dangers of such investiga- 
 tions, and the ease with which the " corruptions " may 
 be propagated and the truth irremediably obscured. 
 
 The passages in question are both to be found in 
 Mansfield Park, and in the same scene that in which 
 Mr. Rushworth's mother pays a visit at Mansfield and 
 gives her invitations for the famous visit to Sotherton 
 (Chap. 8 : Vol. I. pp. 7782, ed. R. B. J.). In each 
 case there is an established text, produced by altera-
 
 32 
 
 tions, plausible and apparently certain, of what was 
 allowed to stand in both the editions passed by the 
 author herself. And in each the alteration is eno- 
 neous, while the original sentences, although, with a 
 little more professional skill than Miss Austen hap- 
 pened to possess, they might perhaps have been 
 better exhibited in type, are not only right in sub- 
 stance but very interesting and characteristic of her 
 mind. 
 
 It will be remembered that the party present on 
 the occasion includes Mrs. Rushworth, the usual 
 Bertram group (with the exception, in the first in- 
 stance, of Edmund), and. as visitors from the par- 
 sonage, Mrs. Grant and Mary Crawford, who have 
 dropped in at the Park by accident. Mrs. Rushworth, 
 "a well-meaning, civil, prosing, pompous woman, who 
 thought nothing of consequence but as it related to 
 her own and her son's concerns ", is dealing all round 
 invitations for a proposed excursion to her great house. 
 The plan, as originally made, was to include Mrs. 
 Norris, the two Misses Bertram, and Mr. Crawford. 
 It has been further settled, after some humorous little 
 performances, that Lady Bertram will not be at the 
 trouble of going, and that Lady Bertram cannot spare 
 Fanny Price. We then read, or rather should read, 
 if we possessed either of the author's own editions, as 
 follows : 
 
 " Mrs. Rushworth proceeded next, under the convic- 
 tion that everybody must be wanting to see Sotherton, to
 
 33 
 
 include Miss Crawford in the invitation ; and though 
 Miss Grant, who had not been at the trouble of visiting 
 Mrs. Rushworth on her coming into the neighbourhood, 
 civilly declined it on her own account, she was glad to 
 secure any pleasure for her sister ; and Mary, properly 
 pressed and persuaded, was not long in accepting her 
 share of the civility." 
 
 The eye and ear of the reader stumble of course at 
 the name of " Miss Grant " ; there is no such person 
 in the book. Almost equally as a matter ot course, 
 the re-prints simply substitute " Mrs. " for " Miss ", 
 mostly without observation, Mr. Johnson with a foot- 
 note recording the original ; and in this shape the 
 sentence slips quietly through. The present writer, 
 for instance, must have read it so at least a dozen 
 times. 
 
 This, however, is but one among many frequent 
 proofs, how little activity of the mind may go to the 
 amusement which we dignify by the name of reading. 
 Very little consideration will show that the "corrected" 
 text is nothing better than nonsense. " Mrs. Grant " 
 we are told according to this version " civilly declined 
 the invitation on her own account." Did she indeed ? 
 What invitation did she civilly decline ? Mrs. Rush- 
 worth meets at Lady Bertram's an intimate of the 
 house, Miss Crawford, with whom she is herself un- 
 acf[uainted, and asks Miss Crawford to visit her. 
 Thereupon Mrs. Grant, another stranger, civilly de- 
 clines the invitation on her own account. How very 
 
 3
 
 34 
 
 civil ! But how easy, and how much more civil, for 
 Mrs. Grant to wait until she was asked ! And the 
 sequel is more wonderful still. Mrs. Grant, though 
 so ready with her own refusal, " was glad to secure 
 any pleasure for her sister" Miss Crawford. Then 
 why does she intercept the invitation addressed to 
 her sister, instead of leaving her sister to accept it? 
 Miss Crawford's pleasure was already secure, if Mrs. 
 Grant would but allow her to speak ; how then should 
 Mrs. Grant " secure " it by thrusting herself forward 
 unasked ? Miss Crawford, a very independent young 
 lady, is for the time being resident with Mrs. Grant, 
 and for this reason she might, or might not, consult 
 her before accepting. Yet for this again Mrs. Grant 
 might with more civility have waited. Mrs. Grant in 
 short, as the affair is represented in the emended text, 
 had nothing whatever to do with the proposal ; and 
 the emendation therefore is absurd. To reach upon 
 this tack the semblance of sense, we should have to 
 write thus : " Mrs. Rushworth proceeded next ... to 
 include Miss Crawford in the invitation, and Mrs. 
 Grant ; and though Mrs. Grant " etc. This would at 
 least give Mrs. Grant an invitation to decline ; but it 
 would still remain a mystery what she need do, or 
 could do, to " secure the pleasure " for her sister. 
 Moreover this would be, in the language of the 
 commentators, rather to re-write than to correct. 
 
 No such improvement is wanted. The original 
 words are right, and add an excellent touch to the
 
 35 
 
 general purport of the scene. The humour of the 
 situation turns upon Mrs. Rushworth's beHef that 
 ** everybody must be wanting to see Sotherton ", and 
 the way in which she asks and presses everybody in 
 turn, without reserve and without discrimination. The 
 procedure, as conceived by the author, was this. Mrs. 
 Rushworth, having invited all the people whom she 
 knew, and also Fanny Price, whom she hardly knew, 
 was going on to invite the two callers, beginning with 
 Miss Crawford. But having no knowledge of either, 
 beyond the two names as given in a rapid, formal 
 introduction, she made the sort of mistake which we 
 have all seen made under similar circumstances ; while 
 naming " Miss Crawford" she addressed herself to Mrs. 
 Grant. Under these circumstances, and only under 
 these circumstances, it was natural that Mrs. Grant, 
 in order to pass the matter off without an awkward 
 hitch, should answer the equivocal invitation on behalf 
 of both, *' she could not have the pleasure herself, but 
 perhaps her sister . , , ." and so on, thus " securing " 
 the gratification for Mary, while declining it on her 
 own account. The author, wishing to bring in this 
 bit of by-play, and yet not to cumber the story with 
 detail, puts it tersely and suggestively thus : 
 
 Mrs. Rushworth proceeded next, under the conviction 
 that everybody must be wanting to see Sotherton, to in- 
 clude "Miss Crawford" in the invitation; and though 
 " Miss " Grant, who had not been at the trouble of visiting 
 Mrs. Rushworth on her coming into the neighbourhood.
 
 36 
 
 civilly declined it on her own account, she was glad to 
 secure any pleasure for her sister ; and Mary, properly 
 pressed and persuaded, was not long in accepting her 
 share of the civility. 
 
 The unappropriated description " Miss " Grant is 
 purposely used as a brief equivalent for " the person 
 addressed as Miss, whose true name happened to be 
 not Miss Crawford but Mrs. Grant." The latter part 
 of the paragraph, as well as the former, depends upon 
 this equivocation for its point and sense. It is be- 
 cause the invitation, though worded for Miss Crawford, 
 was not unmistakably intended for her, that she re- 
 quires to be " properly pressed and persuaded " before 
 accepting it; and she is said to accept not " the civility " 
 but "her share of the civility", because, such and so 
 far civil as it was, it was actually divided between two. 
 
 That the author wrote the sentences as above 
 printed, with the desirable inverted co7nmas, I would 
 not assert. It is likely enough that she wrote exactly 
 what her printer printed and she in two revisions 
 allowed. Her literary training was unprofessional, 
 and her books are full of evidence that her command 
 of typography was far from complete. But the words 
 which she meant to write, and wrote, did in this in- 
 stance get through the press, and though chargeable 
 perhaps with excessive brevity, they are highly signifi- 
 cant both of her minute recollection of social tricks, 
 and her fastidious anxiety at all events not to be too 
 diffuse or too emphatic.
 
 37 
 II 
 
 [December 7, 1893] 
 
 Guided by this example, we can also see our way 
 through another, similar and similarly spoilt, in the 
 same scene. When Fanny Price, as we saw above, is 
 invited to join the excursion, her two aunts, in their 
 respective styles, promptly decline on her behalf. But 
 Edmund, who appears just in time to learn what has 
 been settled and to attend Mrs. Rushworth to her 
 carriage, proposes on his return that his favourite 
 Cousin Fanny shall nevertheless go, he himself re- 
 maining instead as companion for his mother. Lady 
 Bertram. Mrs. Xorris, who of course opposes Fanny's 
 interest, objects that Mrs. Rushworth will be offended 
 if Fanny goes, after her going has been pronounced 
 impossible. Since Mrs. Rushworth has made it super- 
 fluously clear that for her purposes one admirer of 
 Sotherton is as good as another, and has particularly 
 regretted the misfortune of not receiving Miss Price, 
 Mrs. Morris's apprehension is altogether baseless, and 
 does not for a moment pass as sincere. But Edmund 
 is provided with an additional refutation. Mrs. Norris, 
 he says, 
 
 " . . . . need not distress herself on Mrs. Rush- 
 worth's account, because he had taken the opportunity, 
 as he walked with her through the hall, of mentionir;.: 
 Miss Price as one who would probably be of the part}-, 
 and had directly received a very sufficient invitation for 
 her cousin."
 
 38 
 
 *' A very sufficient invitation " say the re-prints, not 
 "for her cousin" but "for his cousin", that is to say 
 for Fanny. And in this case it must be admitted 
 that, if the re-prints were the sole evidence and the 
 author's editions were lost, it would be scarcely pos- 
 sible by the most attentive scrutiny to conceive a 
 suspicion against the particular word his. But a sus- 
 picion, that something was wrong somewhere in the 
 sentence, might easily be conceived by anyone versed 
 in the author. For as given in the re-prints it is alto- 
 gether unlike her and unworthy of her. Miss Austen 
 did not make English like a penny-a-liner's. Miss 
 Austen did not spin out lines about things of no 
 significance, or pad them with needless equivalents 
 and false epithets. If she had meant no more than 
 that Edmund, on mentioning Fanny, "had received 
 an invitation for her", this and no more she would 
 have written. It is impossible in the circumstances 
 that Mrs. Rushworth should have given to Edmund 
 anything which could reasonably be described as 
 *' a very sufficient invitation " for Fanny. She had 
 given her before, in the drawing-room, an invitation 
 much more than sufficient, an invitation as plain and 
 pressing as could be. The aunts had declared it 
 impossible that Fanny should go. If Mrs. Rushworth 
 had understood Edmund to say, as he escorted her 
 out, that Fanny could and would go, she could do 
 neither less nor more than assure him that, if it 
 proved so, she should be very glad. But that is not
 
 39 
 
 a " very sufficient " invitation. It is idle to describe 
 a thing as " sufficient " if its sufficiency cannot con- 
 ceivably be called in question; and no good writer 
 would describe anything as ^^very sufficient", unless 
 to mark some quality so peculiar as to require and 
 justify the use of a forced and improper expression.* 
 
 The truth is that here, as in the former example, 
 the author, wanting to make a fine little point, and 
 fearing to make too much of it, has scarcely allowed 
 herself words enough for her meaning. When Edmund 
 "mentioned Miss Price as one who would probably 
 be of the party ", Mrs. Rushworth did not very well 
 understand to whom he referred. How could she? 
 She had just been emphatically assured, by the ladies 
 who ruled the family, that Fanny, the "Miss Price" 
 in the drawing-room, could not possibly be of the 
 party. How could she suppose that a young man 
 like Mr. Edmund Bertram pretended to contradict 
 Lady Bertram and Mrs. Norris upon such a point? 
 But knowing in fact hardly anything of the house and 
 its frequenters, she was quite ready to suppose, and 
 naturally did suppose, that this " Miss Price " who 
 " would probably be of the party " was some other 
 Miss Price, a cousin perhaps (Edmund in his hasty 
 hint would almost inevitably use the word " cousin ") 
 
 * In Pride and Prejudice, XV. (Vol. I., p. 71, ed. Johnson), 
 the phrase "very sufficient income" belongs to the mind of 
 Mr. Collins, who naturally would not be content to describe his 
 income as sufficient, even when that was what he meant.
 
 40 
 
 of the Fanny Price whom she had seen and had 
 invited in vain. She would as willingly exhibit Sother- 
 ton to this hypothetical Miss Price as to everybody 
 else, and therefore at once gave Mr. Bertram an 
 invitation for " Miss Price's cousin ". This is that 
 invitation which is exactly and wittily described as 
 " a very sufficient invitation ". As applied to Fanny 
 herself, it is certainly something less than a plain 
 invitation ; but it is an invitation '* sufficient " for her, 
 because in the circumstances it would be sufficient for 
 any lady whom the Bertrams chose to take, and also 
 because Fanny did not really need any further invita- 
 tion at all. Mrs. Norris's objections do not deserve, 
 and do not receive, a serious answer. And further, 
 this invitation may well be called ''very sufficient", 
 although these are words without proper meaning. 
 There is something excessive in the sufficiency of an 
 invitation transferable to anybody, a compliment pay- 
 able, as it were, to bearer. And such is the character 
 of Mrs. Rushworth's civilities, the essentially humorous 
 element in this scene. 
 
 Here, as in the other case, type might have done 
 something to ease the brevity of the wording. It 
 would have drawn attention to the point designed if 
 the sentence had been printed thus : 
 
 She need not distress herself on Mrs. Rushworth's 
 account, because he had taken the opportunity, as he 
 walked with her through the hall, of mentioning " Miss
 
 41 
 
 Price " as one who would probably be of the party, and 
 had directly received a very sufficient invitation for her 
 cousin / 
 
 This would have been more clear; but it would 
 also have been less delicate; and here, as in many 
 another place, the author, economical of such arts, or 
 careless, or perhaps partly both, has left the hint to 
 find or to miss its way according to the alertness of 
 the recipient. But what chance would there have 
 been, in either of the two passages which we have 
 considered, of recovering or establishing the original 
 words, if we had nothing to work from but the re- 
 prints, documents much better and nearer to the 
 source than those with which a critic must often 
 be content? 
 
 A. W. Verrall. 
 
 [Note. I take this opportunity of mentioning, that the 
 corxecixon say iox stay {Mansfield Park, Chap. IX. Vol. I. p. lo6, 
 ed. Johnson), given in the review above cited, vv^as suggested to 
 me in conversation by Dr. Henry Jackson, as I ought to have 
 remembered. A. \V. V.]
 
 HOW TO COMMENTATE 
 [May 23, 1895] 
 
 One who has suffered many things from many 
 commentators on Greek poetry in the last two years 
 ventures to give some idea of their methods of pro- 
 cedure by imagining two stanzas ot an English classic 
 found as fragments two centuries later, and put under 
 their treatment. 
 
 Wordsworth has been claimed by Max Miiller 
 (" Science of Language ") as essentially ancient in 
 feeling; so the first and third stanzas of one of 
 his best known poems have been taken for the 
 purpose. There is no exaggeration of tone in this 
 specimen ; it is impossible to caricature the confidence 
 of the ordinary commentator, and his preference, 
 especially if he be a German, for his own original 
 poetry rather than that of the author before him. 
 With a minimum of poetical feeling, he never fails to 
 claim the poetical licence quidlibd audere. The 
 usual symbols and signs have been employed.
 
 43 
 WORDSWORDS. 
 
 Frag. 126 (Nockemorf. 129 a.) ed. Jabez. 
 
 I. A simple child tdear brother Jemf 
 That lightly draws its breath, 
 And feels its life in every limb, 
 What should it know of death ? 
 
 (5) 7 She had a rustic woodland air, 
 
 6 And she was * mildly glad* 
 
 5 Her eyes were *fine and very fair, 
 
 8 Her beauty made me *sad. 
 
 "WORDSWORDS." So I read: previous edd. 
 Wordsworth, but " Wordswords," a reduplicated form 
 of "words," found in Byron ("a literary eclogue") is 
 clearly correct, and intimates that these and similar 
 pieces are fragmenta adespota a collection of words 
 or possibly volkslieder ; see Schreckmann. Beitrage 
 zur. vorm. Poes : 20th Ed. p. 1006. 
 
 I. Nockemorf omits all the first stanza as corrupt, 
 and Rheinwein the whole frag, except the last line. 
 " A little child" some copies, and so Wackford, who 
 compares Hymns A. & M. 473, stanza 2, 1. 2. " Dear 
 brother Jim" or "Jem" (MSS.) is hopelessly corrupt. 
 Sleimsoeth following Wackford's idea conj. " so runs 
 the hymn " ; "I said to him," Mammageorgius ; " I 
 spoke to him," Hotmann ; "A curious whim !" Pfloppe; 
 I am inclined to read my own conj. ''' long-legged Jim ^^
 
 44 
 
 see comm. and cf. Bret Harte, Poems : " why, you 
 limb ! I you ornery derned old long-legged Jim ! " 
 
 2. Buncke reads "his" for "its" in i and 2 and 
 " he " for " it " in 4, and believes the first four lines to 
 refer solely to " Jim." 
 
 5. 6. 7. 8. Following Pflugge I have transposed 
 these lines, see comm. MSS, read " fair and very 
 fair," which cannot be right. I read " fine and very 
 fair," as Diidelsack ; " blue and very fair," Bellman ; 
 which Nockemorf improves to " blue and fairly fair." 
 
 6. " Wildly clad," MSS. ; " mildly glad," Buncke, 
 and " sad " for " glad " (MSS.) in 8, whom I follow ; 
 see comm. 
 
 7. "Woodland air," MSS.; "woodland hair," 
 Buncke ; but this is hardly possible with the verb 
 *' had " and the indefinite article preceding. 
 
 8. Condemned by Boscher as unmetrical. 
 
 I. These beautiful verses represent a rustic maiden 
 of graceful mien but disordered mind presenting her- 
 self before the poet as a vagrant asking alms ; though 
 not apparent on the surface, this is clearly the sense 
 of the passage. 
 
 I. "Simple" is clearly not used in the ordinary 
 sense, but implies idiotic, as the Greek evr]6t}9 (cf.
 
 45 
 
 O. E. seely; German selig; Engl, silly). I have no 
 doubt that Wordswords speaks of a vagrant child of a 
 harmless type of idiocy ; idiots were always a favourite 
 subject with him. Touches such as these underlying 
 apparent simplicities of diction render the work of a 
 commentator on these Fragments a particularly exact- 
 ing task. I have retained " its " in 2 and 3 and " it " 
 in 4, as the sex of the child need not be specified, 
 though I think that the child of the first four lines is 
 further described in the second stanza, and addresses 
 *' long-legged Jim," perhaps her brother, in the first 
 line ; an apparently violent sudden turn to the vocative 
 is a well-known feature in poetry. As to my conj. 
 " long-legged Jim," proper names are particularly 
 liable to corruption cf. Tennyson (Lyrics-Princess) : 
 all copies extant read " R.osc a nurse of ninety years, | 
 placed his child upon her knee," but what is now taken 
 as a verb is doubtless a proper name, and the passage 
 should run, " Rose, a nurse of ninety years, | placed. 
 ..." A contemporary hand no doubt changed Jim 
 to Jem, and inserted the " dear brother " as a marginal 
 comment, which has now found its way into the text. 
 
 4. Hockewoke objects that the idea of death is 
 innate in all human beings, and cf Hartlesen, " Der 
 Mensch in der Religionsgeschichte," Vol. 10, p. 34, 
 ed. 10, but this objection is met by my view that the 
 child is an idiot, and therefore not so fully gifted as 
 the ordinary human being.
 
 46 
 
 5 8. I have transposed these lines, following 
 Pflugge; they are sensible and admissible as they 
 stand, but I prefer the other order. 
 
 7 (5). The MSS. " fair and very fair " gives a weak 
 and impossible tautology. I read "fine and very fair" 
 in the sense of course of "fair" as opposed to "dark": 
 " fine " is very near " fair " in MSS. writing, and better 
 than ' blue " which only repeats " fair " ; the view that 
 " fair and very fair " means " beautiful and very beauti- 
 ful " hardly needs a mention ; it is undeniably weak. 
 NockemorPs "blue and fairly fair" gives a vulgar and 
 commonplace tone to this elevated passage. 
 
 6. I follow Buncke in reading " mildly glad " and 
 " sad " in 8. The alteration of letters is so very small 
 that his brilliant suggestion can hardly be called a 
 conjecture ; it is quite certain ; the copyist took the 
 second " glad " from two lines above, a common error. 
 The MSS. reading will not do : an idiot girl, especially 
 if "wildly clad," would not awaken joy in a poet's 
 breast. Sadness is a particularly appropriate feeling ; 
 the poet, no doubt, moralises on the weakness of the 
 Socratic doctrine that "beauty of face indicates beauty 
 of mind" (Bruce : Athenseum artic. on Ancient Beauty). 
 A mild gladness on the part of the girl is a different 
 thing, and we may notice that with the poet gladness 
 not per se, but tempered with mildness, was a congenial 
 frame of mind recognised by him in many objects; 
 but here the hope of the vagrant that she will receive
 
 47 
 
 a small sum in alms from the poet is finely hinted at, 
 and I have no doubt that the rustic maiden was the 
 recipient of the poet's generosity. His frame of mind 
 was not always, I conjecture, that of his poem Frag. 
 183 (2006, a. Nockemorf). "Thus did he cry, and 
 thus did pray, | and what he meant was, * Keep away, | 
 and leave me to myself!'" though here the poet 
 himself need not be speaking, as Boscher supposes. 
 We may compare his attitude here to that of his friend, 
 C. Lamb, in the essay on the " Decay of Beggars," but 
 the Vagrancy Act at this time was strict (see Brassen- 
 kettle, Leg. Ann. Dig. 2, 19). I cannot agree with 
 Smarttork, who sees a veiled reference to the Reform 
 Bill and Napoleonic invasion in this passage, 
 
 V. H. R.
 
 A LETTER TO FRESHMEN 
 
 [October 24, 1895] 
 
 (From the Unpublished Papers of the late Right Hon. Philip 
 Dormer, fourth Earl of Chesterfield. ) 
 
 Spa, Oct. xvth. 
 
 Dear Boys, It is now some years since I entered 
 the University of which you are the Latest Members, 
 but if you refer to the Encyclopaedia which, I make no 
 doubt, each of you possesses, you will find that my 
 Career was not without some Distinction, and that, 
 while paying Due attention to the Studies so necessary 
 to a Diplomatic Education, I acquired a Grace of 
 Manners and a Civility which has since favoured my 
 Progress through the Courts of Europe. I was no 
 mere Beau: as became a Gentleman of Family, I 
 joined the fashionable Clubs of the University, but, 
 in consorting with their Members, kept a strict Regard 
 to Econo?ny in Expenditure, and avoided that Appear- 
 ance of Means which is the surest test of Vulgarity. 
 Thus I think that there can be no Person better suited 
 than Myself to Advise you in this early Stage of your
 
 49 
 
 Experience, and if (as alas ! I have known it happen 
 in my Nearest Relations) my Admonition is sown upon 
 an Ungrateful Soil, the Fault is not mine. And first 
 (to make no further Freambk) I would have you 
 Respect those Humane Laws which the University 
 so justly imposes on you. Your Tutors, with that 
 generosity which is so Signal a Recommendation of 
 their Class, have Presented you with a little Book, in 
 which are Described the Rules she enjoins and the 
 Advantages she offers to your Obedience. I have 
 known a Man who, with a Superior Contempt of those 
 Regulations, would scarcely be Prevailed upon to wear 
 a Cap and Gown, who would neglect the Dccoriwi of 
 the Study and Lecture Room for a Country Ride, and 
 would drive landefn, as we say, on Sundays ; who 
 Spent his Days at the Race-Course, and his Nights in 
 the Watch-House; who, despising these Advantages, 
 would never frequent the University Sermon, though 
 Dr. South himself should be the Preacher, and not 
 only had never seen the Penetralia of the University's 
 Library, but hardly knew that there was such a Place. 
 On the other hand, I knew one Student who was so 
 Enamour'd of the Statutes as to be clothed perpetually 
 in a Sad-coloured Coat, and, even in his Chambers, 
 always wore his Academic Costume after sunset. At 
 Break of Day, he would repair (after a hasty Toilette) 
 to the Library, and was never out at the Sermon. 
 Now, I would have you Avoid either of these Extremes, 
 the first of which is unmannerly, and the second 
 
 4
 
 so 
 
 Laughable. A Civil Youth will know where to place 
 the Mean. He will break no Rules save those whose 
 Infringement is unhindered by Detection; he will 
 show a Sufficient Gratitude for those Advantages by a 
 Courteous Inspection of the one, and a limited Irregu^ 
 larity of Attendance at the other. And, if he is 
 something Uncultured and Rude, and hath not yet 
 learned his Manners at Eaton or Winton Colleges, 
 now is the Time for his Improvement. 
 
 But there are some, who, altho' they have all the 
 Characters of a Gentleman of Ton, still Suffer from an 
 InfeUcity of Diction which it is hard to uproot. They 
 talk a Language of their own, so Barbarian and Un- 
 couth that it can only be Matched by those Tongues 
 which the Genius of my late Friend, the Dean of Saint 
 Patricks Discover'd in his Matchless Piece of Gulliver. 
 These will Speak of the Commonest Things by most 
 Recondite Titles, so that it is Difficult even for a well- 
 bred Man to Fathom the Arcana of their Conversation, 
 which they will Carry, by continual Use, into the 
 Politest Company. I do not say that this is Criminal, 
 but it is a Defect of Manners hard to be Remedied, 
 and much to be Deplor'd. The Ungrammatical Per- 
 son will always excite Ridicule in a huge degree : this 
 sort of Man, open to no other Reproach of Behaviour, 
 will, by his Pedantry (for I can call this Jangling Talk 
 by no Name else), open the Fountains of Pity in those 
 who are perhaps his Inferiors, if not by Birth, at least 
 in Talent and Education. But a worse Fault than
 
 51 
 
 this is that Extravagance which the Philosopher rightly 
 condemns -as an excess. A lavish Expense too often 
 Denotes a lowness of Mind and Principle. If you will 
 give Dinners, avoid a too Sumptuous Appearance : 
 this is Specious enough for an Alderman, but is an 
 Abuse of your Gentility. If you will procure Dogs 
 and Horses, consult your Relatives, for, at your time 
 of life, you will scarce yet know one Horse or Dog 
 from another, and will be as knowing in the Purchase 
 of a Lion or a Tyger ; nor can you so Early afford to 
 Amuse the Wise. You will be Beset by Touls with 
 Promises of Gorgeous Apparel and Illustrated editions 
 of the Immortal Shakespeare at a long Credit. Your 
 Refusals, if they are Impartial, will be well-judg'd, for 
 a Heap of Debts will do no small Harm to your depu- 
 tation. But, in this careful Nurture of your behaviour 
 and Conduct, I would have you pay a Strict Devotion 
 to Literatiire. The Buying a Library will give you 
 some Fame as a Confioisseur : the Reading of it will 
 make your Presence everywhere Acceptable, if joined 
 with the Indispensable Grace of a Courtly Demeanour. 
 I cannot repress my Pity when I think that Dr. Samuel 
 Johnson, a man of the widest Culture, would have 
 Shone in any Court, had he possessed but Agreeable- 
 ness of Manner and studied the Care of his Person. 
 His Reflexions on my Correspondence you doubtless 
 remember : they are expressed with the greatest Terse- 
 ness, but the coarsest Ferocity of Language. I have 
 in my Bureau a letter addressed from him to me in
 
 52 
 
 Return for a kindness I offered him, which shows an 
 Ingratitude rivalled only by its Indelicacy of Expres- 
 sion. This is the Result of an Extreme which is most 
 Deplorable and Ruinous. Preserve a mean course : 
 avoid falling into Habits, however pleasing : let your 
 Routine of Work and Reading be varied by Social 
 Recreation. Keep yourselves Acquainted with the 
 Actions of the Day. Your Bookseller will provide you 
 with a daily Newsletter, and if you wish for instruction 
 and learned Comment, a weekly Purchase of that 
 Palatable Journal, the Cambridge Review^ will supply 
 your Wants. Your own judgment, if it can be 
 Depended upon, will doubtless Invite you to Public 
 Lectures, which you should now and then attend, 
 more especially if your Tutor is the Lecturer j for the 
 Partiality of a Tutor, if it hinders your Popularity 
 among your Comrades, is a sure Step to your future 
 Advancement. Let me, in conclusion. Assure you 
 that your Compliance with these valuable Maxims is 
 not the least Compliment that you can Pay to one so 
 highly Esteemed for his Perfect Knowledge of the 
 World as 
 
 Chesterfield.
 
 AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES 
 I 
 
 [November 7, 1895] 
 
 To most Englishmen the names Harvard and 
 Yale are perfectly familiar ; but except for the vague 
 impression, on the whole not incorrect, that they are 
 the Oxford and Cambridge of America, a very real 
 and general ignorance exists on this side of the 
 Atlantic with regard to not only the academic organi- 
 sation of either of them, but also the life of the men 
 who are being educated there to-day. This ignorance 
 may be in part attributed to the disinclination shown 
 by Europeans for travelling westwards, but is probably 
 more largely due to the non-existence in the past of 
 any mechanism by which an interchange of educa- 
 tional advantages could be effected between the older 
 Universities of Great Britain and those of America. 
 But the reproach implied here, and which is so much 
 more strongly expressed in the yearly migration of 
 American graduate students through England, past 
 Oxford and Cambridge, towards the German Univer- 
 sities, seems now to be on a fair way towards removal.
 
 54 
 
 The relations, too, between the younger members of 
 the great English and American Universities, which 
 have been always cordial, if ill-defined, have shown of 
 late marked signs of change. Oxford and Yale, Yale 
 and Cambridge, have already met in athletic rivalry, 
 and there are signs that these contests are only the 
 beginning of an extended series. But far more signi- 
 ficant than these have been occurrences incidental to 
 the latest of these meetings* above all, the introduc- 
 tion of Cambridge students to both Harvard and Yale, 
 not as tourists and sightseers, nor, we can believe, 
 simply as members of an athletic team, but as the 
 friends and guests of the undergraduates themselves 
 of those Universities. If any proof were needed of 
 the essential unity of the two great divisions of the 
 English-speaking races in their University youth at 
 least, it might be found in the welcome given to 
 Cambridge men at Harvard and at Yale a welcome 
 given first because they were of the great University 
 brotherhood a courtesy made perfect by its spon- 
 taneity and fitness. 
 
 It is indeed very surprising that there should be 
 so many points in common between England and 
 America in the general aims and interests of student 
 life at their Universities. For this relationship, im- 
 pressive rather than definable, is everywhere obscured 
 by the results of actual differences of climate, of 
 national history, and of academic constitution. 
 * On October 5th, 1895, at New York.
 
 55 
 
 The men of Harvard and Yale are not drawn 
 from so narrow a class as those of Oxford and Cam- 
 bridge. Attracting students from all classes and all 
 parts of a huge continent, these American Universities 
 occupy a position intermediate in a sense between the 
 older English Universities and those of Scotland. 
 Like the latter, they primarily represent what is 
 simply a phase in the education of their members ; 
 but like the former, they are also to be regarded as 
 extending special privileges other than those of in- 
 creased scholarship. These relative positions can be 
 illustrated in another way. A student at Edinburgh 
 is subject to little restraint, either in the lecture-room 
 or in the street. At Harvard or Yale he is rigorously 
 supervised in his studies, while his habit of life may 
 be his own. By a strange inversion an undergraduate 
 with us may be " costumed, disciplined, and drilled 
 by Proctors," but he certainly has the complete option 
 of idleness or study. 
 
 At the largest American Universities the actual 
 university life includes a large part of what in England 
 is confined to the great Schools. The American Col- 
 lege may be said to be represented in England by the 
 upper forms of the Schools (our "Public" Schools) 
 together with the University, although, at the same 
 time, the average age of entering the University is 
 the same in both countries. From such schools in 
 America ("preparatory" schools) boys pass from the 
 Fifth Form direct to the University. Those not con-
 
 56 
 
 templating such an extension of education enter the 
 Fifth Form, and are able to earn a diploma there in 
 many cases. Perhaps, as a result of this, the relation 
 of School to University is affected. In England, school 
 spirit, especially in athletic fields, predominates even 
 in the Universities ; there are cases within recent his- 
 tory where school spirit has had the moulding of 
 athletic policy in certain colleges. But in America 
 the College (now the " University ") spirit, so fierce 
 in itself, even penetrates to the schools ; as if a boy 
 destined for Harvard should treat a future member of 
 Yale to a foretaste of " Harvard indifference." 
 
 The fundamental distinction between either Har- 
 vard or Yale as a University comprising faculties, and 
 Oxford or Cambridge as each a group of little univer- 
 sities combined in one, important as it is for good or 
 evil to the Universities concerned, cannot be said to 
 affect the character of the student life in any of them, 
 except in so far as the college system in England pro- 
 ^^des a large additional field for athletic rivalry. 
 
 But in at least one conspicuous case the letter of 
 the academic scheme has moulded the spirit of the 
 undergraduate life. This is the sharp division of the 
 men in American Universities into classes, resulting 
 as it does in the class feehng so characteristic of them, 
 A freshman, joining the freshman class at the outset 
 of his career, belongs for all time to that class so long 
 as he can contrive to keep pace within sufficiently 
 broad limits with a certain roughly prescribed advance
 
 57 
 
 in learning as tested by periodical examinations. His 
 rejection from the class, from the men that is of his 
 own year, may occur at any time during his four 
 years at the University, should he be sufficiently 
 stupid or lazy. The class the freshman class of four 
 years ago finally emerges from its last examinations 
 a body of graduates. Each class is denoted by the 
 numerals of the year in which its graduation is accom- 
 plished. So that we may have a series from freshman 
 (class of '99), sophomores, juniors, to seniors (class 
 of '96). It is only where studies are concerned 
 that the class distinction is maintained by academic 
 authority. By undergraduate practice, however, the 
 distinction becomes almost one of caste. 
 
 In the history it appears of all Anglo-Saxon youth 
 there has been at all times a necessity for the ad- 
 ministration of correction, at one period or another, 
 to the " bumptious " junior. In England this problem 
 is slowly worked out in the public schools to the 
 salvation of many. With Americans, however, the 
 process, dangerously postponed, comes into play at a 
 time when the passions, further from the surface, can 
 only be manifested in volcanic fashion, and at an age 
 when the correction of a man by his one year's senior 
 is too unnatural to be anything but arbitrary. 
 
 The sophomore class in an American University 
 is the police brigade of the undergraduate community. 
 It is not only the inevitable and jealous rival of the 
 freshman class, but, supported by an etiquette stronger
 
 58 
 
 than law, is its actual and frequent oppressor. Civilisa- 
 tion has within recent years modified this oppression 
 to a large degree, the feeling of a sophomore to a 
 freshman being now perhaps only four or five times 
 stronger than that of mild superiority expressed in 
 the bearing of a second year man at Cambridge to 
 his junior. The most startling barbarities, however, 
 are related by not very old graduates of Harvard and 
 Yale, as having been practised in their day by sopho- 
 mores upon freshmen during the process termed the 
 "hazing" of the latter. No indignity was too in- 
 sufferable in those days to be borne by a freshman, 
 no cruelty too great for sophomore to inflict. 
 
 In the smaller colleges these barbarities still linger. 
 In the JVor/d* newspaper not a month ago there 
 appeared an account of what the large headline 
 declared to be a " clever prank by Sophs." These 
 ingenious gentlemen had managed, it seems, to upset 
 a freshman from his bicycle, and, after taking his 
 money, had left him gagged and tied to a tree, from 
 which he escaped several hours after. The " hazing " 
 process has happily, at the larger Universities, prac- 
 tically degenerated to a not quite passive contempt 
 for freshmen in general, and to certain rudiments of 
 persecution which are perpetuated as interesting 
 customs. 
 
 The rivalry between the sophomore and freshman 
 classes is emphasized at the outset of the academic 
 * The New York JVorld.
 
 59 
 
 year by contests of champions from either class in 
 the well-known "cane sprees," "freshmen rushes," 
 &c. The " freshman rush " at Yale has now become 
 a wrestling match in which three freshmen meet 
 three sophomore champions. This takes place at 
 night on a piece of waste ground, after a torchlight 
 procession round the town. To one whose career at 
 Cambridge was inaugurated in the smiling Com 
 Exchange there must seem something savage in that 
 scene a scene which gives to many Yale freshmen 
 probably their first strong impression of college life. 
 The bronzed, half-naked figures struggling in the ring, 
 surrounded by the steep banks of faces rising from 
 those kneeling in front ; the whole illuminated by the 
 swinging torches held by the seniors. Then comes 
 the sudden fall and struggle on the sandy ground, and 
 the fierce long shout from the class whose champion 
 has won. 
 
 Many minor restrictions are imposed upon fresh- 
 men. None may use a walking cane until after 
 Washington's birthday (Feb. 22nd) in his first year, 
 nor wear a silk hat until the same day in his sophomore 
 year. A freshman may not smoke a pipe in the 
 streets, and is barred from certain of the best restaur- 
 ants in the town. It is not long since the historic 
 Yale fence was destroyed, and many of its functions 
 have now to be performed by the fence remaining on 
 the Campus. All undergraduates except freshmen, 
 and all graduates who cared to claim it, had the right
 
 6o 
 
 of seating themselves upon the two-railed wooden 
 fence to indulge in talk or song. At the end of the 
 academic year the sophomore class assembled upon 
 their section of the fence and yielded it to their 
 freshman successors. This was done in due form of 
 speech by the sophomore "fence orator" an elective 
 office eagerly coveted. When the freshmen's " fence 
 orator " had suitably accepted the boon, the freshmen 
 sat upon the fence for the first time. The cession of 
 the fence occurs earlier in the term if the freshman 
 baseball team or boat crew have defeated the Harvard 
 freshmen in that year. 
 
 The traditional hatred of sophomore to freshman 
 results in a curious alternation of hostilities among 
 the classes. The junior class in some sort is the 
 natural protector of the freshmen against the sopho- 
 mores their old victims. The seniors, in a less 
 defined way, are expected to sympathise with the 
 sophomores against the juniors. In a sense, perhaps 
 a narrow one, the class feeling of American Universities 
 finds some equivalents in the college feeling with us. 
 " A man of my class " occurs instead of " a man of 
 my college," "good athletic class" for a "good 
 athletic college " ; and it is in proportion as class 
 feeling waxes fierce that the members of each class 
 are welded more firmly together against their common 
 rivals. 
 
 The main feature of English undergraduate life, 
 that which adds so much charm to residence at
 
 6i 
 
 Oxford or Cambridge, is entirely wanting at the 
 American Universities. This is the general social 
 life, the general intercourse from breakfast in the 
 morning till the last pipe at night, which may be 
 shared by all members of the community to a greater 
 or less degree. At Yale or Harvard, what actually 
 social life there is exists only among the numerous 
 sets into which the community is divided. The 
 reason of this seems perfectly obvious. The social 
 life of any community must rest on a material basis of 
 food, and to this rule those of Oxford and Cambridge 
 form no exception. The members of every college 
 dine together in Hall, certainly under the letter of 
 compulsion, but on the whole not unwillingly, and, to 
 make the thing complete, every man has all his other 
 meals and performs almost every other function in 
 his own rooms or in those of a friend. 
 
 At Harvard or Yale it is not so. There is in 
 each case a dining hall, in which those who wish may 
 be served with their meals for approximately cost 
 price, at so much a week. At Yale it is as a rule 
 only the poorer students who employ these advantages, 
 and indeed the dining hall only accommodates 450 
 students altogether ; at Harvard most students make 
 a point of joining Memorial Hall, for a time at least. 
 But here any attempt at a general society ends. No 
 meals can be served in the rooms of a man in college; 
 there are no gyp-rooms, and in the unfortunate absence 
 of the afternoon-tea habit, which does so much for
 
 62 
 
 other societies, no cake habitually occupies his cup- 
 board. The bulk of the men at either University 
 belong to various small dining clubs, and take their 
 meals with the rest of their "club" at a public 
 restaurant or in a private club-building. The effect 
 of all this upon the general social life seems to an 
 Oxford or Cambridge man disastrous. There is a 
 complete absence of the entertainment of one man by 
 another, and, perhaps more important, of the junior 
 by his senior, which is such a feature of our daily life. 
 The mainspring of Oxford or Cambridge life is that 
 we live to eat, and to eat together. 
 
 The exclusiveness naturally engendered by this 
 system of separate eating clubs is not diminished by 
 the existence in the American Colleges of "secret 
 societies." Of these there are Greek letter societies 
 common to many of the colleges, while there are 
 others peculiar to each college, the extent to which 
 secrecy is preserved touching the latter, varying widely. 
 
 At Harvard the societies are shrouded in no more 
 mystery than surrounds exclusive clubs in EngHsh 
 communities. The Porcellian occupies very much 
 the position of the Athenaeum or the BuUingdon 
 possessing, however, at the same time a very much 
 more extensive and luxurious "material installation," 
 including it must be remarked a large and well-chosen 
 library. The Hasty Pudding Club is very similar in 
 aim and arrangement to the A.D.C., which is half a 
 century its junior. All the clubs have special club-
 
 houses or club-rooms ; the exceptional comfort and 
 luxury ot these corresponds with the conspicuous part 
 they play in the social life of the Universit3\ 
 
 Where the secret societies of Yale secret in more 
 than name are concerned, on the other hand, the 
 etiquette of reserve is more strictly maintained, and 
 the writer must be careful of his manners. At New 
 Haven the club-buildings are a prominent architec- 
 tural feature of the University. Each has a character 
 of its own, many are beautiful in design. At the head 
 of all, in age and in dignity, stand the three Senior 
 Societies the Skull and Bones, the Scroll and Keys, 
 and the Wolf's Head which at the end of every 
 academical year elect about fifteen new members 
 from the class about to enter its senior year. 
 
 Hardly a greater mark of distinction can be 
 bestowed on a man during his career at Yale than his 
 election to one of these Senior Societies. Whilst the 
 election of members is going on in each of the clubs, 
 the agitation of all the Junior year for all are 
 eligible becomes intense. All are assembled with 
 transparent mystery upon the Campus. On the elec- 
 tion by one of the societies of a new member, an 
 ambassador from the society's building, finding the 
 successful candidate among the crowd, claps him on 
 the shoulder and sends him to his room. The 
 excitement increases as each disappearance renders 
 the chances of the remainder less liopeful. But from 
 the moment of his election as a member of a secret
 
 64 
 
 body, a man's lips are sealed upon the subject of 
 his society. A reference to his membership is an 
 impertinence to be rewarded by the cut direct. A 
 conspicuous personal ornament is the badge of one of 
 the senior societies, and this is never suffered to leave 
 the dress oi its wearer, be it a bathing costume or the 
 shroud. 
 
 It is, perhaps, as frequent for a man to go to Yale 
 with the deliberate ambition of "making his Senior 
 Society" as it is for an Englishman to enter Oxford 
 or Cambridge intent upon earning his " Blue " : and 
 it is said that men have left Yale at the end of their 
 Junior year on failing to accomplish what has been 
 their object for three years. 
 
 In the face of such competition and desire, it is 
 infinitely creditable to those electing bodies that the 
 election should proceed, as is universally admitted to 
 be the case, on the most honourable and dismterested 
 lines. It is their patent design to distinguish, not 
 pure athleticism nor good fellowship alone, but sterling 
 character, and those qualities which make for honour 
 and success in life when the University career is at 
 an end. 
 
 II 
 
 [November 14, 1895] 
 
 A considerable controversy, recently aroused upon 
 the subject of the rehgion of the Cambridge under-
 
 65 
 
 graduate,* has shown the futility of any attempt to base 
 a judgment of the theological tendencies of a body of 
 young men upon even an intimate knowledge of indi- 
 viduals during one period. It may be said, however, 
 that at the American Universities the evidences of an 
 active religious life among a proportion of the students 
 are very much more upon the surface than is the case 
 at Oxford or Cambridge. So far as "compulsory 
 chapel" is concerned, Yale resembles most Oxford 
 and Cambridge Colleges. The Battell Chapel, situa- 
 ted upon a corner of the Campus, is the church of 
 Yale University. It is a regular church organization 
 of the Congregational denomination, of which the 
 President of the University acts as pastor. The 
 students are expected to attend the prayers held 
 every morning at 8 a.m., and to be present at the 
 service on Sundays. 
 
 On the other side of the Campus is the large 
 Dwight Hall, which represents the purely voluntary 
 side of the College religious activity. In the Hall are 
 a large reception room, a reading room, and a library 
 containing a large collection of theological works. 
 Surrounding these are rooms set apart for devotional 
 and other exercises, one for each class, and above them 
 all a large lecture room suited for general meetings and 
 religious lectures. The chief organizations finding a 
 home here are the Young Men's Christian Association 
 
 * See The Nineteenth Century, Vol. xxxvni., \)\). 673, 856 
 S69, fj87 (Oct. Dec. 1895).
 
 66 
 
 and the Berkeley Association of Episcopalian students. 
 In Dwight Hall we have a striking monument to the 
 religious activity of at least a proportion of the under- 
 graduates. From this, as a centre, spring the various 
 organizations for special mission work among the 
 poorer districts of the large town of New Haven. 
 Without a fuller, more intimate knowledge of Yale 
 life, it would be impertinent to form an opinion as 
 to the importance and reality of the position taken 
 by Dwight Hall and its offshoots in the college life 
 in general. There is, it is true, a slang, half-oppro- 
 brious expression, " Dwight Hall heeler," used by the 
 more frivolous, perhaps, of the undergraduates, and 
 the importance of current slang in the revelation of 
 actual local feeling must not be under-estimated. But 
 the most superficial observer cannot fail to notice that 
 the home of the religious organizations of the under- 
 graduates of Yale themselves, instead of occupying an 
 obscure position in a minor street, takes its place upon 
 the Campus as one of the whole group of the buildings 
 of the University. 
 
 The conditions under which the various branches 
 of athletic sports are pursued at Harvard and Yale 
 are very different from those which obtain at Oxford 
 or Cambridge. The very ideal of amateurism set up 
 in the Universities of the two nations differs at the 
 present time to the most significant degree. Indeed, 
 with regard to this point of amateurism it must be said
 
 at once, in all seriousness, that the amateur status of 
 the American Universities as a whole could not in this 
 country be considered as holding good. Almost all 
 the more obscure Universities, all in fact who, not 
 enjoying the same prestige as Harvard or Yale, are 
 in the greater need of advertisement, make a general, 
 if not an open, practice of looking out for brilliant or 
 promising athletes of the various kinds, and of making 
 it worth their while to become formally connected with 
 the University, expecting them at the same time to 
 uphold the athletic renown of their Alma Mater. Of 
 such devices Harvard and Yale are in a sense inde- 
 pendent ; but however innocent they may be of any 
 sort of system of free education for athletes or even of 
 free training tables, they do meet as equals and rivals 
 a less purely amateur set of athletic representatives 
 than themselves, and are fortunate indeed if they 
 escajK- all infection from such a widespread system 
 of veiled professionalism. 
 
 Wiiliin Harvard and Yale themselves the pursuit 
 of athletic sport is taken up in a spirit quite new to 
 an Oxford or Cambridge man in a spirit to which 
 at first sight there is a temjjtation to attach the term 
 "unsportsmanlike." To explain the undoubtedly real 
 differences between the athletic habits of the two 
 countries recourse must again be had to the differ- 
 ences in climate. The greyness of our skies and 
 the dampness of our air ha\e rendered it necessary 
 for I'.nglishmen at all times to indulge in frequent and
 
 68 
 
 active bodily recreation for the continuance of both 
 bodily and mental health, while at the same time the 
 equable nature of our climate has usually permitted 
 an unbroken yearly round of these exercises. In this 
 way the growth of all kinds of athletics at our univer- 
 sities has been perfectly natural and spontaneous ; its 
 organization always simple and unfettering. Athletic 
 rivalry, inter-collegiate and inter-University contests 
 have been indirect and quite secondary developments 
 of this universal and necessary physical activity. 
 Hence arises our idea of "sport" in the abstract 
 health, strength, and the passion of strife first of all ; 
 the pen-and-paper records of champions, performances, 
 and scores afterwards and least important. To be 
 sportsmanlike, according to our English conceptions, 
 is to have sufficient sense of humour to conceal an 
 anxiety to win by a philosophical indifference to the 
 result, or, in other fields, to regard the pleasures of the 
 chase themselves as more valuable than the number 
 of the slain. 
 
 But in the climate of the United States a universal 
 and continual necessity for bodily exercise does not 
 exist. The dry bracing air, however favourable to 
 activity, does not demand it, and the existence in 
 large numbers of well exercised men is not as in 
 England a geographical postulate. More than this, 
 the inequality of the seasons in America renders the 
 indulgence in the various kinds of athletics in a natural 
 form all the year round an impossibility. The severe
 
 69 
 
 winter prohibits the outdoor practice of the sports 
 which properly belong to our climate, and the ex- 
 cellence in them which the Americans have attained 
 is only to be earned by arduous labour under purely 
 artificial conditions. The extraordinary elaboration 
 of training methods in America, which seems to imply 
 to an Englishman an excessive and "unsportsmanlike" 
 desire to conquer a rival rather than a natural indul- 
 gence in grateful past-times, is in reality, then, largely 
 the direct result of climatic conditions and of the 
 unhealthy introduction into one country of the games 
 naturally belonging to another. 
 
 At Harvard and Yale there cannot be said to exist 
 any general practice of athletics by all the members 
 of the University. If a man be considered worthy of 
 a place in any of the University teams he can have 
 exercise enough and to spare. The common run of 
 men, however, have no share in daily exercise and 
 daily sport, for none exists apart from the practice of 
 the University teams. Every team or crew is under 
 the control of a professional trainer or coach, who 
 stands in the same relation to the men as in England 
 a trainer does to a racehorse. For boat crews there 
 is the galley slavery of the winter rowing tanks, the 
 whole period of actual strict training for the Harvard 
 and Yale boat-race extending over six months. All 
 varieties of indoor exercise are employed by football 
 players and by "track" and "field" athletes, as a 
 preliminary to their real practice and training in the
 
 70 
 
 open months. The track athletes are in training, 
 with slight intermission, for the whole of the college 
 year. 
 
 A University team at Cambridge is not formed for 
 the purpose of lowering the pride of Oxford nor of 
 adding to the glory of Cambridge, but because it is a 
 fitting thing that we should measure against similar 
 specimens from Oxford the results of the general and 
 daily physical exercise taken by Cambridge men as a 
 whole. No one can deny that the relations between 
 Oxford and Cambridge in matters of sport are those of 
 the most cordial and friendly rivalry ; but it is difficult 
 to believe that between Harvard and Yale matters are 
 on the same footing. Each has its " trophy room," 
 hung with flags and filled with other emblems repre- 
 senting victories wrested from the other; each sends 
 representatives to meet those ot the other, trained and 
 exercised for that and no other purpose, to come back 
 covered with glory, or to return defeated and there- 
 fore disgraced. 
 
 A most regrettable result of these too eager, busi- 
 ness-like methods of pursuing sport is to be found in 
 the recent painful disagreement between the athletic 
 departments of Harvard and Yale. For some imagined 
 newspaper insult all contests for the year betwee.'i these 
 Universities are cancelled, and at present the postpone- 
 ment of them is s'uic die. 
 
 Returning to the American undergraduate himself,
 
 71 
 
 it is noticeable that he has very much the same opinions 
 on the relations of study to athletics as prevail with us, 
 A man of good mental powers is admired perhaps more 
 frankly and universally at Yale than at Cambridge. A 
 man, on the other hand, who neglects the duties he 
 owes to the community and to himself by too rigid a 
 confinement to his own room and to his books is 
 subject to the epithet of " greasy grind," a term which 
 seems to be the precise equivalent for '' smug." 
 
 It is impossible here to describe in any detail the 
 plan of work laid down in the academic course at 
 Yale. At the beginning of the Junior year the classi- 
 fied list of those students entitled to honours is read 
 out, under the name of the Junior Appointment List. 
 This is arranged in eight groups or classes. The first 
 class contains the " Philosophical Orations," and is 
 followed by two lower classes of " Orations." Next 
 in order come a class of " Dissertations," two classes 
 of "Disputes," and two of "Colloquies." Those in 
 the highest two classes are usually voted into the Phi 
 Beta Kappa Society, one of the three junior secret 
 societies of the academic department. In the Senior, 
 graduating, class the same classification is made of 
 the students by their position in general scholarship. 
 In certain courses of study special " one-year " or 
 "two-year" honours are bestowed at the close of the 
 Senior year. The position which a man takes upon 
 his graduation does not depend upon his perform- 
 ances in one final examination alone, but upon the
 
 72 
 
 average position he has maintained in class and in 
 successive examinations during his whole career at 
 college. 
 
 The ordinary routine of undergraduate life at both 
 Harvard and Yale is interrupted at certain seasons by 
 the invasion of the University precincts by an army of 
 the opposite sex, and by a general indulgence in the 
 more frivolous amusements. Two such opportunities 
 occur during each academic year at Yale. The Junior 
 Class in the early part of January give a " Junior Pro- 
 menade Concert," which is held in a large Armoury 
 Hall in the town. Round this function, familiarly 
 known as the Junior " Prom.," and which has come to 
 take the form of a large ball, cluster a group of lesser 
 festivities filling up the rest of the so-called " Prom. 
 Week." To those who know May Week at Cambridge 
 it is superfluous to describe the changes wrought in 
 Yale life by the presence of old graduates and of female 
 relatives in the town of New Haven during the week. 
 The Hall in which the Prom, takes place undergoes a 
 transformation as complete as that seen here in the 
 Corn Exchange every June. The University "light 
 ship " is suspended from the roof as a trophy of the 
 now apparently invariable victory of Yale over Harvard 
 in the annual boat-race at New London, on the Thames 
 river. 
 
 In the Senior year a very similar series of festivities 
 occurs, but at a different time and under different cir- 
 cumstances. The Senior " Prom." is given in the
 
 73 
 
 Alumni Hall a fine building upon the Campus used 
 for gatherings of alumni and for University exami- 
 nations upon the evening of Class Day, which is 
 the first day of the last week of the academic year. 
 Another incursion of friends and relatives, male and 
 female, occurs accordingly at this time, and the general 
 gaiety prevalent during these days derives additional 
 piquancy from its close association in point of time 
 with the disappointments or triumphs of examinations, 
 and with the approaching academic death of the Senior 
 class. For Class Day marks at once the climax and 
 the conclusion of the college life of all the Senior 
 graduating class. During four years of intimate com- 
 panionship the men of one "class" are more to one 
 another than men who are merely of the same "year," 
 and it is on Class Day that this companionship, when 
 on the point of permanent dissolution, finds its most 
 public expression. On the afternoon of this day the 
 Seniors, seated on the Campus in cap and gown (a 
 costume now worn on state occasions by the Seniors), 
 and surrounded by a gathering of their friends and 
 relatives, listen to the reading of their Class History 
 a humorous account of their doings as a class written 
 by one of its wittiest members. After this the whole 
 class marches in a procession to one of the University 
 buildings, against the wall of which they plant their 
 Class Ivy, commemorative of their time, singing at the 
 same time an Ivy Ode composed by a member of the 
 class.
 
 74 
 
 It is under circumstances such as these that men 
 of Yale say farewell to their college and to their 
 college friends. At an American University the 
 annual departure of a quarter of the students is even 
 a gloomier thing to contemplate than the "going 
 down " of Cambridge men in June. America affords 
 a larger area of dispersal than England, while the ties 
 between classmate and classmate are closer than the 
 relation between an English undergraduate and his 
 contemporaries. For an American student the time 
 of severance of these ties must form the saddest 
 moments of his life, the sadness of which a wise 
 forethought has enabled him to drown in the hurried 
 gaiety of his last days at college.
 
 OXIDE OF MILTON 
 
 [November 14, 1895] 
 
 We have received an elegant little book, entitled 
 Paradigger Regagger, the first Volicme of the Okker 
 Fenny Fo^ins, and bearing a dedication to " the 
 Steader and the Spookbags of J. Miltogger." The 
 compiler, who calls himself A. C. T. F., gives us a 
 short but convincing critical preface. He informs us 
 that his series is the first attempt of Oxford students 
 to Oxidise the English poets. Hitherto, his beloved 
 dialect has gone through an early oral stage : now it 
 is resolved to communicate it to literature. His 
 explanation of the enchanting patois is a Calais- 
 Douvres (as Mrs. Malaprop would put it) of ingenious 
 criticism. His authorities are numerous and their 
 testimony is far from obscure. A single instance will 
 suffice. " For the reduplicated ' k ' in the anomalous 
 place-name Okker, compare the Daily Nuggins, col. 
 23, p. 2065, Jan. 30th, 1876. Chug-Tiiggins, Leader i. 
 2 I St Xivose, An. xxvi. S. Ignags;er, passim^
 
 76 
 
 We will add a few quotations : 
 
 Look once more ere we leave this speggins muggins 
 Wugward, much nearer by South-wuggins, behold 
 Where on the Aegagger Shugger a city stands 
 Built nobly, puggins the uggins, and light the sogger ; 
 Agger, the igger of Gregger, mother of arts 
 And eioquagger. 
 
 Or again, this : 
 
 See there the olive groggins of Acadagger, 
 Plagger^s retigger, where the Attic bird-bags 
 Trills her thug-warbled noggins the summer luggins ; 
 Lysagger there and paggered Stoggins next. 
 
 And what better specimen of this charming provincial 
 dialect can we have than this ? 
 
 Blind Melesigbags, thence Homuggins called 
 Whose poggers Phuggins challenged for his uggins. 
 
 We recommend this little book to our readers^ 
 attention as a careful and brilliant attempt to give a 
 literary form to a language whose versatile uniformity 
 of expression has perhaps never found an equal. We 
 are glad to see that the next enterprise of these 
 translators will be " The Adonagger, a new translagger 
 from the vulgar original by the Sheller." If it has 
 any of the care and bright limpidity of its predecessor, 
 it will be a credit to its compiler.
 
 ARISTOTLE ON THE EAST COAST 
 
 [June io, 1896] 
 
 The world divides sea-side places into three kinds 
 East Coast, South Coast and West Coast. There 
 ought to be a North Coast for the sake of symmetry, 
 but there isn't much North Coast, and what there is 
 is cold and boisterous, which ruins its chances, so 
 that it will never have its turn until the Precession of 
 the Equinoxes makes us all Esquimaux which God 
 forbid ! So that we have three kinds, and they indeed 
 are three too many, if we consider their relation to the 
 ideal sea-side place of which Plato speaks. For that 
 rests upon the knees ot the gods, and has but a faint 
 image below, for, applying the doctrine of the mean, 
 we shall find that every sea-side place lies at an ex- 
 tremity, and is therefore an extreme, when it should 
 lie in the middle of everything and be a mean from 
 which we may infer that it should be situate in the 
 Midlands, and therefore that Birmingham is the ideal 
 sea-side place, that is, comes nearest to the ideal, and 
 is a quintessence of Brighton, Scarborough, and Black- 
 pool, not to speak of Margate. This brings us nearer
 
 78 
 
 the Eleatic Hen, which, as Pindar says in his bold 
 last-century manner, " is a shy cock," but that egg has 
 been exploded long ago, and the natural result of our 
 deductions is to prove what a shabby theory the doc- 
 trine of ideas becomes in practice, or that there is no 
 ideal sea-side place, which, if we go to Heaven, we 
 shall know some day, but cannot say now. This 
 enquiry should be an inducement to a virtuous life, 
 but does not belong to the present subject, since there 
 are many who live in pursuance of strict virtue without 
 ever going to a sea-side place, and the vicious man can 
 be as vicious at the sea-side as at home ; while, again, 
 there are many who follow virtue at the sea-side with- 
 out ever going inland which is very fascinating, but 
 we must keep to the point. 
 
 The main head of our discussion is the question, 
 What is the chief end of man ? Epicurus said. 
 Pleasure, and the materialists affirmed that it was 
 either his silk hat or his boots, and that it depended 
 on which cost most. However, I have explained in 
 a former book that Happiness is his chief end, to be 
 attained through means which can be easily enu- 
 merated after begging the question properly according 
 to the just rules of the game, of which this is the first 
 and only principle. Now, how far is the sea-side place 
 a means to that end ? For, if we abandon that ideal 
 paradox, we shall see that a sea-side place is a mean 
 between two extremes, the land and the sea, which 
 are extremes because the land is all land and the sea
 
 79 
 
 is all water, which, as Pindar again says, is best, so- 
 that one extreme at any rate is better than the mean, 
 viewed in this light. But Pindar is perhaps a liar, for 
 Pears' Soap lays claim to the same pre-eminence, and 
 physicians and surgeons alike agree in saying that the 
 sea-side is the best, with which I agree, because you 
 can, if you like, combine soap and water anywhere, 
 and with greater advantage on the sea-side than any- 
 where else, which is the best multiplied by three, like 
 a B B B pipe. So that the sea-side, like charity, is 
 the best of the three, and may be regarded as a mean, 
 if you do not look too closely into the composition of 
 the soil and other matters which are mere phenomena, 
 such as drinking-water and cooking-apples. And the 
 next question is, seeing that all sea-side places are a 
 mean, which is the best mean of all the three kinds ? 
 Now, historical investigation tells us that George III. 
 sang hymns at Weymouth, and the First Gentleman 
 in Europe sang ribald songs at the Brighton Pavilion, 
 and that Napoleon admired Torquay, while we know 
 that the Prince of Wales lives near Hunstanton, that 
 the German Empress stayed at Felixstowe, and that 
 Julius Caesar landed at Deal, which isn't exactly the 
 East Coast, but is very like it. Now we can judge 
 royalty according to several methods, by its magnifi- 
 cence, its piety, its length of life, the size of its brain, 
 its drinking capacities, its slothfulness, its artistic taste, 
 its literary power, its State train, or its favourite dish, 
 but we do not see how this can do the question in
 
 80 
 
 hand any good. For all these categories hold good 
 at Windsor as well as at Southend : so that we can 
 judge the relative value of sea-side places in this con- 
 nexion by totting up all the categories together, and 
 acknowledging that coast to be first whose patrons 
 get the most marks. But this would be unfair, for it 
 would be to localise character and characterise locality 
 at one and the same time, and you might just as well 
 carry coals to Newcastle or ask a Pythagorean to a 
 bean-feast as do anything of that sort. 
 
 So, since the standard of royalty fails, let us try 
 that dear old system of begging the question to which 
 I have alluded, for it is much nicer to find one's way 
 out of a maze than to find one's way in, and let us 
 at once declare the East Coast to have the best sea- 
 side place, and therefore to be the best of all. Now, 
 judging from photographs in railway carriages and 
 lithographs on station walls (for my personal ex- 
 perience in this matter is very abstract), everything 
 is in moderation on the East Coast. For every sea- 
 side place there has three parts, a moderate beach, a 
 moderate cliff, and a moderate first-floor, which name 
 we use for want of a better, and all by courtesy. For 
 the beach is no actual beach, but is composed in equal 
 parts of grass and potsherds ; nor is the cliff really a 
 cliff, for you can run up and down the most precipitous 
 parts ; and you can get to the first-floor without going 
 up hill, if you pursue a path circuitous enough. Which 
 is all moderation with a vengeance, and comes very
 
 8i 
 
 near the ideal, whose chief province is to be as unlike 
 reality as possible. But perhaps words are the real 
 cause of the difficulty. And, further, the houses and 
 the church, as a rule, are built of red brick. Now, 
 whether red brick is a means to happiness, is a difficult 
 matter to decide, and we should enquire whether those 
 who build red-brick houses are the phortic and acolast, 
 or the beautiful and good. Which would be impossible 
 to decide, even for a census officer or an itinerant phren- 
 ologist, although we might gain some information from 
 their tradesmen. But even then we should only know 
 " the part that is less than the whole," as Eucleides 
 sings, and it is certain that good people have lived in 
 red-brick houses, and the only thing we can determine 
 is that red-brick is inferior to one substance, and that 
 is a judicious combination uf gopher-wood and pitch, 
 which is the just and proper material for a house-boat 
 and hardly applies to a sea-side house. So that we 
 are just as far off the end as we were at the beginning, 
 which was a humorous marginal note, but some intelli- 
 gent scribe copied it into the text. 
 
 In the second place, the East Coast borders on 
 the German Ocean, but it does not follow that the 
 German Ocean is a means to happiness, for some find 
 it so and others not so, as, for instance, the sea-sick, 
 whose wails rise to Heaven off Harwich. But the 
 ordinary man wlio does not fear the sea says that it is 
 very nice ind(*cd, and talks about his sea-legs, which 
 are legs hovering between the ideal and the real. But
 
 82 
 
 he would probably like any other ocean just as well if 
 you asked him, which gives us another slap in the face. 
 In a similar manner the bathing machine is an artificial 
 means to the enjoyment of the Ocean, but whether this 
 is an Uranian or Pandemic happiness we should not 
 like to say; and, after all, you find bathing machines 
 at San Francisco and Cape Town, not to mention 
 Aberystwyth, none of which have got anything to do 
 with the German Ocean and the East Coast. Or, if 
 you like your sea to be cold, you will find the German 
 Ocean singularly bountiful in that particular; but, if 
 not, you had better go to Florida or Penzance, where 
 the sea is hot enough to shave in. And, judging the 
 matter purely in the abstract, we do not know whether 
 hot or cold water produces the greater Happiness, but 
 should say that a mean did the trick, which would be 
 lukewarm, and that the extremes should be left to 
 private judgment in spite of the Pope. The ancient 
 mythologists forgot to tell us whether the sea was 
 warm or cold when it cast up Venus, or we might 
 derive some satisfaction from that valuable piece of 
 jetsam ; because the gods may be supposed to have 
 the best of everything, and in that case hot or cold 
 water would be a mean, but between what extremes is 
 another matter, and we must really get on to the next 
 point, and I shall not forget, if I remember, to turn 
 back to this in the tenth volume of this system of 
 ethics, which are really only lecture notes, and have 
 none of the strict coherence of Mr. Herbert Spencer.
 
 83 
 
 It is an important fact that the East Coast faces 
 eastwards, a natural state of things which is highly 
 commendable. The map, of course, with a pig- 
 headed perversity, makes some of it point north, 
 but we mustn't always believe the map, unless it 
 is made in Heaven, which seldom happens, unless 
 Charing Cross is Heaven, and that I decline to 
 believe. And, if our senses tell us, by walking or 
 driving, or other casual locomotion, such as falling 
 over an unexpected precipice, in which case our 
 senses would probably be idealised, or, if the tide 
 were up, would pass into the constitution of a red 
 herring, that some of the East Coast faced north- 
 wards, then we must disbelieve our senses and re- 
 member that there is such a thing as the phenomenal, 
 of which we must beware, if it shows us contradictions 
 in terms. For the mean cannot lie, and, if the East 
 Coast, as we have said, is a mean, it must face East 
 and therefore what appears to be North must be East. 
 This settles the question. And now let us consider 
 whether an eastward position is a means to the end 
 of Happiness. For, in the Church, some people say 
 that it is essential to happiness, and others deny it, 
 which has caused great strife and bickerings, and 
 would be a great blow to the eastward position, if 
 we knew whose fault the whole thing was. But we 
 don't, and we don't give any opmion, so that this goes 
 for nothing. Again, the East wind blows towards the 
 East Coast, which is a great advantage in many ways,
 
 84 
 
 and especially when no other wind can be got, although 
 this has been disputed by the Aeolists and other me- 
 teorologists, and the Pythia at Delphi once said that 
 an East wind was like an arm-chair in a pig-sty, which 
 would imply a certain aioiria, but might mean a lot of 
 other things, which I leave to others, never being good 
 at oracles myself. And I have sometimes thought that 
 the East Coast was valuable, as bringing us a little 
 nearer to the Eastern Question that is to say, if we 
 came from the west, for it would not benefit us to 
 cross over from Hamburg or the Hook for this pur- 
 pose. But the man who, from deliberate choice or 
 heresy, should settle on the East Coast, should con- 
 sider the matter very deeply. 
 
 The Eastcoastity of the East Coast, then, depends 
 on these considerations and others which I should 
 like to mention, but cannot waste time over them 
 now. But I should like to say a few words of the 
 Eastcoaster, as very often we may judge a quality by 
 examining a character which seems to exhibit it. But 
 a difficulty arises in the first place, for I have often said 
 before that to trust to the evidence of the senses is 
 bad policy, and I have no evidence other than this of 
 having seen this Oriental. For how often can we say 
 of a man at a sea-side place, to which men come from 
 the ends of the earth for the sake of trade or other 
 purposes, that he was born there or that his parents 
 lived there ? To take an analogy. I have often 
 bought tobacco on the East Coast, which generally
 
 85 
 
 comes from Virginia to Bristol or London, where 
 Wills and Lambert and Butler pack it up. And, 
 where tobacco is bought, there must be a vendor to 
 occupy the mean place in the transaction, and how 
 do I know that he has not come with the tobacco 
 from Virginia? And, even if I ask him, I cannot 
 believe him, for I may not trust my ears, which 
 belong to the category of sense, and may lead me 
 therefore into dangerous fallacies. And even if I am 
 so credulous and unphilosophical as to believe him, I 
 cannot go so far as to say that I have seen him, for 
 seeing is usually done with the eyes, and my eyes, for 
 similar reasons, are as untrustworthy as ears, unless I 
 see with the eyes of the soul, which, if well trained, 
 can indeed picture only the ideal East Coaster, for 
 which purpose the person whom my eyes can see or 
 think they see and my ears can hear or think they 
 hear is positively useless. And this case is not limited 
 to tobacconists, but applies equally to clergymen, 
 bankers, jurymen, and the rest. So that to describe 
 the East Coaster is quite impracticable. 
 
 We are thus driven to the conclusion that the East 
 Coast may be a mere non-existent phenomenon, and 
 this brings us to the question of being, which is very 
 diffK;ult, and has afforded endless speculation to phil- 
 osophers, and has given great custom to the dealers in 
 sand-ploughs. And so we are at the root of everything, 
 which is a very natural and proper conclusion to this 
 priceless meditation, which will probably be my last
 
 Z6 
 
 for some time to come, as far as I can see, for I am 
 going to abandon philosophy, and take to drinking in 
 my old age. And, if anybody wants to know more 
 about the East Coast, there are valuable guide books, 
 and the Great Eastern Railway issues very cheap ex- 
 cursion tickets, which are of the nature of a phenome- 
 non, and do not include cab-fares. But this is not 
 intended as an advertisement, and you will probably 
 find it all word for word, with one important exception, 
 in my treatise on the West and South Coasts. Which 
 wHl prove very interesting to commentators. 
 
 A. H. T.
 
 HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF 
 
 [June io, 1896] 
 
 Dear Sir, Amid the splendid festivities of the 
 Russian Coronation* I have noticed one curious detail, 
 which to the student of manners may perhaps be not 
 the least interesting of its incidents. Since a careless 
 eye, distracted with pomp, is but too likely to pass 
 over it, I ask your permission to set it in the proper 
 light. The papers of Friday, June 5, contained a hst 
 of the illustrious guests who dined at the Coronation 
 Banquet given by the British Ambassador ; Dukes, 
 Grand and otherwise, with Duchesses to match. 
 Princes and Princesses, Baron and Madame, Mr. and 
 Mrs., couples^ in short, of every noble degree, and 
 among them "Count and Countess Woronzoff, Countess 
 Strogonoff, Count and Countess Pahlen," &c., to our 
 great edifica'tion and delight But to those who look 
 beneath the surface, that narrative must suggest one 
 question not easily to be dismissed. Why, in this 
 admirably j^aired assembly, should the Countess 
 Strogonoff have appeared alone, and "where, if not at 
 
 Tsar Nicolas II. was crowned May 26, 1896.
 
 88 
 
 the table, was the corresponding Count ? Where, 
 Sir, I repeat, was Count Strogonoffl It is a question 
 to be asked ; and happily it is a question that can be 
 answered. 
 
 We possess, it will be remembered, an account, 
 exceptionally picturesque and complete, of the Banquet 
 which celebrated the Coronation of our own august 
 Sovereign. It was written (in verse, as it happens) 
 by the (presumably) late Mr. Barney Maguire, and is 
 preserved among the inestimable records, somewhat 
 inaptly described as Legends, which bear the name of 
 Mr. Thomas Ingoldsby. The author is particular 
 about the position and advantages of the nobleman 
 who on that occasion represented the Russian family 
 with which we are concerned, an ancestor doubtless 
 of the very man, respecting whom the journals of 
 Friday last were so significantly silent. We may rest 
 content ; he was not forgotten nor unprovided for. 
 But there is a custom in that house, apparently 
 hereditary, and of a very pecuhar kind. To the male 
 representative of Strogonoff, the table, at these feasts 
 of ceremony, does not offer an adequate security of 
 satisfaction ; and he has the right to be elseii<here. I 
 cite, without necessarily subscribing to every expressio?i, 
 the authentic statement of Mr. Maguire, an eye witness 
 of the feast at Westminster : 
 
 "Then the crames and custard, and the beef and mustard, 
 All on the tomb-stones like a poultherer's shop ; 
 
 With lobster and whitebaits, and other swatemates. 
 And wine and nagus, and Imperial Pop !
 
 89 
 
 There was cakes and apples in all the chapels, 
 With fine polonies, and rich mellow pears, 
 
 Och ! The Count von Strogonoff, sure he got prog 
 enough. 
 
 The sly ould divil, undernathe the Stairs" 
 
 Further comment seems superfluous. I cannot 
 but think that there is something singularly strikmg 
 to the imagination, as well as mstrudive to the reason, 
 in this atavistic parallel, this tenacity in the retention 
 of a posture and practice, by which vanity and osten- 
 tation are postponed to substance. Such a family, we 
 may say truly, is fitted to mdicre. 
 
 I am, Sir, 
 
 Your obedient, 
 
 Observer.
 
 II 
 
 VERSE
 
 93 
 
 OCCASIONS 
 
 [November 26, 1884] 
 
 The days that in the folded past 
 Are beautiful, God made them so; 
 
 It was no hand of ours that cast 
 The tender seed and bade it blow. 
 
 That day when soaring hope was crowned- 
 Was crowned beyond her best desire, 
 
 The happy spirit searching found 
 
 But ashes where she dreamed of fire. 
 
 The hours we plotted long and late 
 To cleanse from all unworthy fears, 
 
 And cram with pleasures, weeping sate. 
 And would not lift their head for tears. 
 
 But thrilling memory still recalls 
 How once unwillingly we came 
 
 From dim delights of studious halls 
 Half petulant and half in shame ;
 
 94 
 
 And passed through many a village bower 
 Of autumn, red with russet blooms, 
 
 Till underneath the sombre tower 
 That overhangs the place of tombs, 
 
 We heard high up the hoarse chime tell 
 The hour; and dost remember, friend. 
 
 How sober-suited evening fell 
 
 About the woods of Audley End?
 
 95 
 
 NEAR AND FAR 
 
 [May 5, 1886] 
 
 Dear, when you are far away, 
 I can see you all the while, 
 Listening with unchanging smile 
 
 To my music as I play, 
 
 Or the tender words I say ; 
 Land and ocean, mile on mile, 
 All the walls that men can pile 
 
 Cannot hide you, night or day. 
 
 Dear, when you are near at hand, 
 But a step from door to door 
 And I reach your dwelling-place 
 
 Oh, what viewless barriers stand 
 Built between us evermore, 
 Till I cannot see your face ! 
 
 B.
 
 96 
 
 TO INCEPTING M.A.'s 
 
 [May 12, 1886] 
 
 Let not thy soul towards Syndicates be soaring, 
 A place on Boards is scarcely worth the winning; 
 For Boards of Studies are more bored than boring, 
 And Syndicates more sinned against than sinning.
 
 97 
 
 ACADEMUS 
 [June 9, 1886] 
 
 Within the grey encircling walls 
 The sun leads on another day, 
 
 Where quiet leisure hourly calls 
 Her votary from the world away. 
 
 Philosophy shall lap us round 
 
 To dream of spheres where all is well, 
 Not troubled by the uncertain sound 
 
 Of those that prate of heaven and hell. 
 
 Grave history shall ply her arts, 
 To show us, from the storied page, 
 
 That Science cannot harden hearts. 
 Nor stay the heavenward pilgrimage. 
 
 No Muse shall be that shall not lend 
 Her soaring impulse to the soul. 
 
 Discern the lover in the friend. 
 Or point the falling to the goal :
 
 98 
 
 Staid Clio, queen of human speech, 
 
 Urania of the starlit eye. 
 And the sweet maiden that shall teach 
 
 The cheek to blush, the heart to sigh. 
 
 Neither shall Music be denied, 
 
 To wing the heart that pants to see 
 
 The shrine of beauty, half descried, 
 Half slighted by the things that be. 
 
 The sunlight falls on level lawn, 
 
 And wooded knoll with kindlier gleam, 
 
 And statelier palaces adorn 
 
 The reaches of the brimming stream. 
 
 The lazy water laps the wall, 
 
 Skirting the terraced walks, that go 
 
 By storied tower and cool dim hall 
 And gardens where the roses blow. 
 
 High frown the gabled roofs, and higher 
 
 The huddled elms aerial slope ; 
 And peering over all, the spire 
 
 That points a finger up in hope. 
 
 These all about me : far below 
 
 A solemn fountain hourly drips, 
 \Miere bronze-wreathed dolphins plunge and throw 
 
 Cool water from their green-fringed lips.
 
 99 
 
 And on the lawn with restless feet, 
 And nodding necks of changing shine, 
 
 Pigeons patrol, when suns are sweet, 
 Westward or eastward, all in line. 
 
 And in the dark elms half the day 
 
 Or white-spired chestnut, light the doves ; 
 
 Too mild to work, too fond to play, 
 And crooning half-a-hundred loves. 
 
 Heaven lies about us ; could we lay 
 Our hands upon it, it were well. 
 
 But oh ! how slight a failing may 
 Turn paradise to dreary hell. 
 
 The sordid spirit, and the brute 
 
 Impulse, that most, when hearts beat high. 
 Tugs at his chains, with throes that shoot 
 
 And quiver, bidding the good thought'^die. 
 
 And only when the soul is dull 
 With terror of the looming years. 
 
 And scorn of self, he deigns to lull 
 The sting that cost us toil and tears. 
 
 All these ; and sullen discontent 
 
 That chides the smiling suns of May 
 
 For burning, yet can find a vent 
 
 For humours when the skies are grey.
 
 ICX) 
 
 There are our foes ; and we will live 
 As though we may not wholly slay 
 
 The cares that prick us on to strive, 
 The fears that prompt us when to pray. 
 
 Like men that watch, for some great king, 
 A barren frontier, where the sky 
 
 Stoops to the distance, vanishing 
 In dimness, and the land is dry. 
 
 Sometimes the red sand-pillars stalk 
 Out of the desert, or the wastes, 
 
 Wan like a level water, baulk 
 
 The thirsty soul that thither hastes. 
 
 Sometimes a thin voice seems to float 
 Out of the stillness, crying faint; 
 
 Or the dull seacrow's dismal note 
 
 Sounds, or the bittern's measured plaint. 
 
 So long, they know not if they be 
 
 Men, or mere phantoms of the night ; 
 
 Like the pale lights that flicker and flee 
 In marshlands, where the rush blows white. 
 
 Only that northward, when the wind 
 
 Draws from the land that once was theirs, 
 
 Bells from the city echo, and bind 
 Sweet music on the wandering airs.
 
 lOI 
 
 And once they saw a sight so sweet 
 
 They scarce could trust their wondering eyes; 
 
 The snowbound mountains, at whose feet 
 Their king's imperial palace lies. 
 
 His 7vord, they said, bade the high tower 
 
 Rock to the music of the bells ; 
 His eye, they whispered, hour by hour 
 
 Upon those happy mountains dwells. 
 
 UN:
 
 102 
 
 BALLADE OF REVIEWERS 
 
 [October 27, 1886] 
 
 Your Essay es cladde in brave Attyre 
 Your Playes and Novelles I did reade, 
 
 And ponder wel, and eke admyre, 
 And sought to Prayse in verie Dede : 
 Remember mee in my sore neede, 
 
 I humbly pray on bended knee, 
 
 And swete Seyncte Katharine be your speede- 
 
 When that ye schal reviewen mee ! 
 
 Knowe wel I didde my levelle Beste, 
 A kyndlie Crityque for to coke, 
 
 Now of alle Souks unhappiest 
 
 I wayte ye dredde Reviewer's stroke : 
 Seyncte Hierom in ye Desart loke 
 
 And recompense, yf juste ye bee, 
 Bee kynde unto my lytel Boke 
 
 When that ye schal reviewen mee !
 
 103 
 
 Hee that showed Mercie soe they say 
 Toe felow Menne, schal Mercie fynde ; 
 
 Bee not more Pitylesse, I praye, 
 Than Salvages and Menne of l7id: 
 Fayre Clerkes at Cafitebrigge that grynde, 
 
 For sake of swete Seyncte Charitie^ 
 Untoe my lytel Boke be kynde, 
 
 When that ye schal reviewen mee ! 
 
 Envoi. 
 
 I pray you now, wyth earneste Myjide, 
 
 Good peple a/lc, tuhoe^er ye bee, 
 Untoe my lytel Boke he kynde, 
 
 When that ye ^chal reviewen juee ! 
 
 J. D. B.
 
 102 
 
 BALLADE OF REVIEWERS 
 
 [October 27, 1886] 
 
 Your Essay es cladde in brave Attyre 
 Your Playes and Novelles I did reade, 
 
 And ponder wel, and eke admyre, 
 And sought to Prayse in verie Dede : 
 Remember mee in my sore neede, 
 
 I humbly pray on bended knee, 
 
 And swete Seyncte Katharine be your speede- 
 
 When that ye schal reviewen mee ! 
 
 Knowe wel I didde my levelle Beste, 
 A kyndlie Crityqiie for to coke, 
 
 Now of alle Soules unhappiest 
 
 I wayte ye dredde Revietuer's stroke : 
 Seyncte Hierom in ye Desart loke 
 
 And recompense, yf juste ye bee, 
 Bee kynde unto my lytel Boke 
 
 When that ye schal reviewen mee !
 
 105 
 
 ON A "BOHN" 
 
 [June 6, 1889] 
 
 Euripides, when I behold 
 
 Your work with Buckley's mated, 
 I pity Enoch, who of old 
 
 Died not, but was translated.
 
 io6 
 
 BILL ASPLEN* 
 [May 29, 1890] 
 
 So many years the old familiar name 
 A by-word stood for zeal and loyalty, 
 
 And there was none so jealous for our fame, 
 So stout in loss, so glad in victory. 
 
 And it is fitting that they laid him near 
 His native river's well-beloved shores, 
 
 That, with the slanting sun, he still should hear 
 The waters rippling and the plash of oars. 
 
 * University Boatman for thirty years ; died May 22, 1890. 
 He is buried in Chesterton churchyard.
 
 10/ 
 
 DEFLETUR MORS PALINURI 
 
 [June 5, 1890] 
 
 Nominis umbra jaces, multos bene note per annos ; 
 
 Fide comes fidis, ter, Palinure, vale. 
 Fortis in adversis, idem victoribus ipsis 
 
 Laetior, heu famae quam studiosus eras ! 
 Nonne decebat apud natales fluminis oras 
 
 Remigis impavidi condere relliquias? 
 Forsitan hue olim, Phocbo vergente, feratur 
 
 Remorum pulsu vox trepidantis aquae.
 
 io8 
 
 A ROUNDEL 
 {Purely a fancy sketch) 
 
 [May 7, 1891] 
 
 Provost of Kings ! who art admittedly 
 
 The very roof and crown of earthly things : 
 Serene, exalted, as some spreading tree, 
 Provost of King's ! 
 
 We work : the painter paints, the poet sings, 
 
 The sculptor sculps, the student studies : we 
 Are eaten up with vain imaginings : 
 
 But thou existest, passionless and free, 
 A hoary cherub with upfolded wings, 
 Profound, immeasurable, like the sea, 
 Provost of King's. 
 
 J. K.S.
 
 I09 
 IN MEMORIAM J. K. S. 
 
 [February ii, 1892] 
 
 Hardly half a year gone by, 
 Past the end of June 
 Wandered here two friends and /, 
 While a large half-moon 
 Mounted in a sober sky : 
 
 Now, when scarce afresh we see 
 
 Flowers upon the earth, 
 
 Two are mourners of the three ; 
 
 Blasted ere their birth 
 
 Are the flowers that were to be. 
 
 But for others be the praise 
 Of the matchless tongue, 
 While for me one memory stays 
 Cherished most among 
 My remembered garden-days. 
 
 Feb. 5. W. H.
 
 no 
 
 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 
 [March 9, 1893] 
 
 In the great court of Trinity I waited, 
 
 And watched the fountain play, 
 And mused upon that land the Spaniard sighted 
 
 On Easter Day. 
 
 Deep in that Land of Flowers there springs a fountain 
 
 De Leon sought it long 
 Whose living waters keep the tribes beside it 
 
 For ever young. 
 
 'Twas Ponce de Leon, the Spanish leader, 
 
 Sought that enchanted ground* 
 Far inland with his savage guides he wandered 
 
 But never found. 
 
 Beside the English fountain as I waited, 
 
 And watched the passing throng, 
 The generations past rose up before me 
 
 And all were young. 
 
 E. E. D.
 
 Ill 
 
 SAILS 
 
 [May 4, 1893] 
 
 Swift white sails by two and by three 
 Between mid-heaven and blithe mid-sea, 
 Like lily flowers in a bed of blue 
 
 When the song of Summer well begins ; 
 Frail sere ghosts afar, anigh, 
 Between mid-winter and still mid-sky, 
 
 Like lily flowers with the sun seen through 
 When Spring is weary and Summer wins. 
 
 And past all sense of the yellowing land 
 The waves take hold of the broad noon's hand, 
 (Grey and red and white o' the ships, 
 Full of rose where the dawn hath been) : 
 Summer wins and the weary Spring 
 Hath never a heart for wayfaring. 
 But whoso loveth the Summer's lips 
 Findeth only a song between.
 
 112 
 
 Whence come hither the sweet sails, brought 
 In a mist of light as a dream is wrought, 
 (Bloom o' the sun on the iron main, 
 Burning blossom and water-wold)? 
 Out of the land of love, perhaps. 
 With never a sound but the bright brief lapse? 
 Of wings of doves with a Cyprian stain, 
 Tenderest red and memorial gold. 
 
 They are bound for the land of death, perchance, 
 Where grey Time reels in a sleepy dance, 
 Girt with poppies about his head, 
 
 And flower of the lotus-fields, may be : 
 Ah, no, no; for they drive but down 
 To the warm red roofs and the dull grey town, 
 Driven not thus to the land of the dead; 
 Only sails on a sighing sea. 
 
 A. J. B.
 
 m 
 
 CALEDONIA POSTGRADUATA 
 
 [November i, 1894] 
 
 " Oh maun ye gang awa', Jamie ? 
 Oh maun ye gang awa', 
 Wi' oatmeal sack upon your back, 
 
 And your spare clean kilt an' a', Jamie? 
 Ye'U no come back ava'." 
 
 "To Cambridge maun I gang, Jeanie, 
 To Cambridge maun I gang : 
 And soon, ye'll see, your lad shall be 
 As great as Andrew Lang, Jeanie : 
 Hech ! but the lot I'se bang ! " 
 
 " But O ! what will ye dee, Jamie ? 
 But O ! what will ye dee ? 
 The Cambridge loons gie nae wooden spoons 
 To siccan folk as thee, Jamie, 
 Wha scarce ken A B C." 
 
 S
 
 114 
 
 " Nae wooden spoons for me, Jeanie ; 
 Nae wooden spoons for me ! 
 When I ha' wrote a puir wee note 
 Aboot ae kind o' flea, Jeanie, 
 I'se win a braw degree." 
 
 "Gin that be a' ye'll dee, Jamie, 
 Gin that be a' ye'll dee, 
 Ye'll find, I'll speir, thae beasties here; 
 Then bide and learn wi' me, Jamie, 
 By the bonnie braes o' Dee." 
 
 '' I carena for the fleas, Jeanie, 
 I carena for the fleas. 
 It's no the lore I'm anxious for, 
 But it's yon braw degrees, Jeanie : 
 They'se fetch a wheen bawbees." 
 
 R. H. F.
 
 115 
 
 THE LOVER'S MELANCHOLY 
 
 [June 6, 1895] 
 
 When the rim of the moon is flecked with sorrow, 
 
 When the creamy cow has finished her jump, 
 When the spoon is burnished to serve to-morrow, 
 And the sexton has levelled the last long lump, 
 \Vhen the sun shines copper in brilliant blue, 
 And the Sassenach simmers in Timbuctoo 
 With a sweat that none may assuage or borrow, 
 I think of your lips, and my heart goes thump ! 
 
 Of you and your lips, and I long to sever 
 
 The chains that trammel, the bonds that bind. 
 
 The links that are linked in one for ever. 
 
 That man may not see, nor search, nor find ; 
 
 For the Gods have rest, and the Nymphs'have peace. 
 
 The Sibyl is soothed of her sentences. 
 
 And man has striven in vain endeavour ; 
 He lives his life and is dumbly blind.
 
 ii6 
 
 Oh ! Love that lurked in the rude recesses, 
 
 That sat with Satyrs and fawned on Fauns, 
 And clasped the Maenad in long caresses, 
 Leaping o'er leaves and lilting on lawns, 
 Oh ! Love of the days that are gone and past, 
 The days that were first in the days that are last, 
 Give me your lips and your torch-red tresses. 
 For the nights are black, and blacker the dawns. 
 
 There lived a beggar in Bath of old, 
 
 A dolorous do-nothing dolt, pardy ! 
 He begged in the sun-sick streets for gold. 
 
 If you gave him silver, his tongue ran free. 
 But the people pitied and did not pay, 
 So he packed his portmanteau for Paraguay, 
 And died in those parts a brigand bold 
 
 You were nothing to him you are all to me. 
 
 I have written vicious and violent verses 
 Till my brain is black and my soul is sick, 
 
 I have screamed and scattered the choicest curses. 
 The lays of a love-lorn lunatic. 
 
 I have prayed for peace, I have stirred the stars, 
 
 I have broken bushels of brazen bars 
 
 And killed my keepers, and knocked my nurses 
 Till their backs ran blood and the blood ran thick. 
 
 Where the poisoned grass and the damp dark shade is, 
 Where the toad twists on with a fevered sigh.
 
 117 
 
 I sit me down, and the lords and ladies 
 
 With mutters and murmurs pass me by. 
 And I wonder if life would be twice as sweet 
 If I clung to your lips and kissed your feet 
 And sang you some psalm of Tate and Brady's, 
 Of you and me, were we you and I. 
 
 {lelegrams: Putney, S.W.) A. H. T.
 
 ii8 
 
 HYMN^^-'OF ST. PANCRAS 
 
 [June io, 1896] 
 
 Qui suam amat patriam, 
 Collaudet et Victoriam ; 
 Ad stationis ostia 
 Emergit maris hostia. 
 
 Te, diva Crux Charingia 
 Laudo te, semper aemula,* 
 Holborni foede viadux, 
 Quem despicit Regalis Crux. 
 
 Eustoniara quoque cano ; 
 Sanctissimo Pancratio 
 Sit data laus ab omnibus 
 In illis regionibus. 
 
 * There is some difficulty in the gender here. Prof. Well- 
 tiefer (of Neuenbrunn) says that it is quite in keeping with the 
 style of Venantius Fortunatus and Adam of St. Victor, the 
 masculine vocative following the feminine attribute being a 
 scholarly and agreeable irapa TrpotrSo/ciac.
 
 119 
 
 Neve oblitus sit Cannoni 
 Vicus, neu Liverpudlii ; 
 Nam ilia parte saepe sunt 
 Qui Newmarketum appetunt. 
 
 Sed quum domum meam peto 
 Cum psaltriis et cantico, 
 Magistro dico carrucae, 
 " Ne desis Paddingtoniae." 
 
 Sit decus Waterlovio. 
 Ponti Metropolitico 
 Ab omnibus sint omnia 
 In seculorum secula ! 
 
 A. H. T.
 
 120 
 
 BALLADE 
 
 QUNE II, 1896] 
 
 A PROPOS DE MONSEIGNEUR LE PRINCE 
 DE MONACO. 
 
 Sur ung tresenorme rocher 
 S'assied mon unique chasteau. 
 L'on peut tous lez jours y pescher 
 Des fenestrailles sans bateau. 
 Jamais n'est trepsor autant beau, 
 Ni Versailles, bijou du Roy, 
 Ni la belle Fontainebleau 
 Que ce palais qui est i moy. 
 
 Je rends justice k I'estranger, 
 Vestu de mon pourpre manteau. 
 S'il a I'argent, je dis rester 
 Telle pesche est h mon hameau. 
 Je chante, gay comme I'oiseau, 
 Mes courtisans sifflent. Ma foy ! 
 La terre n'a rien mieux ni I'eau 
 Que ce palais qui est h moy.
 
 121 
 
 Le gros brave Francois premier, 
 Le grand Doge avec son anneau 
 Qui veult h. la mer s'dpouser; 
 Charlemagne dont le tombeau 
 Se trouve aux estroits Roncesvaux, 
 Tous ont palais, chascun pour soy, 
 Aucun n'est si bon, si nouveau 
 Que ce palais qui est k moy. 
 
 L'Envoy. 
 
 Prince je suys. Ni grand fardeau 
 Mon royaume ne scayt ni loy. 
 Quel bienheureux petit bureau 
 Que ce palais qui est k moy ! 
 
 A. H. T. 
 
 La Ballade escript ci-dessus s'est modele sur les chansons de 
 feu Maistre Fran9ois Villon.
 
 122 
 
 BALLADE OF DEGREES 
 
 [June ii, 1896] 
 
 'Twas Woman, scarce a Sabbath old, 
 In Paradise confusion made, 
 'Twas Woman, beautiful and bold, 
 Arm'd Hellas to revenge a raid. 
 No tyro of the martial trade, 
 Resolv'd to tame this horrid town, 
 She trumpets forth a new crusade 
 For silken hood and sable gown. 
 
 From cycle-loving Girton's fold, 
 Camillas, emulous in aid, 
 This way and that, prophetic soul'd. 
 Dividing the swift skirt, parade. 
 Now shame befall thee, renegade. 
 Who durst not pledge in cocoa brown 
 A victory, far too long delay'd. 
 For silken hood and sable gown !
 
 123 
 
 Good girls, what is't you seek? To scold 
 A scholar's midnight escapade, 
 Dandle the pious Mace, or mould 
 The Senate, or the Church invade? 
 Don't let your fairest laurels fade 
 The social unassuming crown 
 Your nature and your sex degrade 
 For silken hood and sable gown. 
 
 Envoi. 
 
 Her judges, Phryne, artful jade, 
 By dint of reason bore not down, 
 And me might one fond smile persuade 
 For silken hood and sable gown. 
 
 Lyndore.
 
 124 
 
 HERRICK ON THE TRUMPINGTON 
 ROAD 
 
 [December, 3, 1896] 
 
 Whenas on wheels my Julia goes, 
 
 Then, then (methinks) how sweetly shows 
 
 That piston-action of her toes. 
 
 Next, when I cast mine eyes and see 
 That brave vibration each way free, 
 O how that waggling taketh me ! 
 
 T.
 
 125 
 
 KTflN OPeOAOaOS 
 
 [February i8, 1897] 
 
 Professor Ryle, perhaps you'll smile 
 
 At what I shall repeat here 
 An instance of a brain docile 
 
 In the despised dumb creature. 
 On Friday, when you came and taught 
 
 Our young and dim theology 
 The Hist'ry of the Jews (a sort 
 
 Of Christian embryology), 
 A dog was there, ('twas very odd) 
 
 Resolved to come and try a 
 Discourse upon the period 
 
 That starts from Nehcmiah. 
 He'd heard that crowds your words devour'd 
 
 And he too wished to hear 'cm ; 
 Perhaps he'd doubts on Jonah's gourd 
 
 And wanted you to clear 'em. 
 Alas ! his hopes were vain : his doom 
 
 Was sealed at once ; the downward
 
 126 
 
 Extended thumb said, " Leave the room ! " 
 
 And sad he wandered townward. 
 But how renowned your name must be, 
 
 (And may it ne'er be less, Sir !) 
 When dogs forsake their rats to see 
 
 The Hulsean Professor. 
 The very animals attest 
 
 Your genius : for the dog see ? 
 Felt sure you were the one to best 
 
 Confirm his orthodoxy. 
 
 K 
 
 vu7j<yo<i.
 
 127 
 
 NIGHT 
 
 (After Alcmati) 
 [October 21, 1897] 
 
 Sleep the mountain-peaks and caverns, 
 Glen and promontory sleep ; 
 
 Sleep the dark earth's children, 
 Leaves and things that creep : 
 
 Bees and wild hill-creatures, 
 Sea-beasts in the purple deep, 
 
 Birds, their drooping feathers folded, 
 Sleep. 
 
 F. M. C.
 
 Ill 
 
 CAMBRIDGE
 
 OUR OLD TREES 
 [October 26, 1881] 
 
 The destruction of so many patriarchal trees by 
 the gale of the 14th October* naturally suggests an 
 inquiry into their probable age. To do so effectually, 
 however, we must first briefly investigate the history 
 of the college grounds and gardens on the west bank 
 of the river Cam. 
 
 There is a legend that the course of the river was 
 once very different from what it is at present. How 
 this legend arose I have not been able to discover ; 
 but I believe that there is no foundation in fact for it. 
 There was once an island, called " Garret Hostel 
 Green," where Trinity College Library, and the ground 
 in front of it, now are ; but the eastern boundary of 
 this was a stream of little importance, which gradually 
 dried up. It left the river at Garret Hostel Bridge, 
 and fell into it again opposite to the north end of the 
 Library. There were also streams which bounded 
 the old avenue of King's College on the north and 
 south ; and perhaps one or two others of minor 
 
 By this storm thirty trees were blown down in the Backs, 
 
 including ' the two sisters' at St. John's.
 
 132 
 
 importance ; but, with these exceptions, " Camus 
 reverend sire " and his tributaries have trudged along 
 the same road from the very earHest times to the 
 present day. 
 
 In the fifteenth century the land along the west 
 bank was an unenclosed common belonging to the 
 town of Cambridge. It was called generally The 
 West Field. Part of Trinity College " quarters " 
 was called Long Green ; and the Wilderness of St. 
 John's College was in ' Cambridge Carmefield.' This 
 ground gradually became the property of the Colleges 
 opposite to it. Queens' College purchased their 
 gardens in 1475 for 40 marks; in 1447 Henry the 
 Sixth gave to King's College the ground, afterwards 
 called Butt Close, extending from the ditch which 
 ran then, as now, along the south border of the College 
 as far as Garret Hostel Lane, a distance of 8 1 o feet ; 
 Trinity College obtained their "quarters" from the 
 Town in 161 1 in exchange for the open ground called 
 from a former tenant "Parker's Piece"; and St. John's 
 College purchased their Wilderness partly from 
 the Town, partly from Corpus Christi College, in 
 1 610 II. The meadow between this ground and 
 the river had belonged to the Hospital which preceded 
 the College, and the date of its acquisition by the 
 brethren is unknown. It should be added that Clare 
 Hall obtained the ground now occupied by their 
 Avenue and Fellows' Garden from King's College in 
 1637, after a most amusing controversy with their
 
 133 
 
 powerful neighbour, into which we have not space to 
 enter at present. 
 
 Some time elapsed before any of these grounds 
 were laid out for recreation. Queens' College had a 
 walled kitchen-garden from the earliest times, of nearly, 
 if not quite, the same extent as at present. Beyond 
 this there was a grove along the river-bank, planted 
 in 1630 34, when the purchase of 72 ash-trees, and 
 of 28 elm-trees, is recorded in the Bursar's Accounts. 
 Some of these elms are probably those still standing, 
 and two were blown down in the late gale. The 
 purchase of 40 lime-trees, recorded in 1732, probably 
 marks the planting of the row still standing along the 
 river-bank ; but the gravel-walk was not made till 
 1749, between which year and 1752 the walks were 
 re-arranged. The walk called " Erasmus' Walk," 
 which runs westward across the Common from the 
 north end of Queens' College Walks, was planted in 
 December 1684. The name was given to it for the 
 sake of jjcrpetuating the connection of the great 
 scholar with the College. There is every reason for 
 believing that the trees now standing are those then 
 planted ; and they afford valuable evidence of the size 
 that can be attained by a tree nearly two hundred 
 years old. 
 
 The grounds of King's College were arranged as 
 at present in 18 18, when the existing bridge was 
 built. Up to that time the river had been crossed 
 by a bridge nearly in the centre of what is now the
 
 134 
 
 great lawn between the Fellows' Building and the 
 river ; and a high causeway, planted with trees, crossed 
 the ground west of the river. This avenue is shewn 
 in Loggan's print, taken in 1688; but there is no 
 evidence to shew when it was first planted. When 
 the bridge was rebuilt in its present position, at the 
 suggestion, and partly through the munificence, of 
 Mr. Simeon, the avenue was broken into clumps, one 
 of which still remains. 
 
 I have not as yet succeeded in discovering when 
 the elms on the open ground behind King's College, 
 Clare Hall, and Trinity College, which is the property 
 of King's College, were planted. To judge by their 
 size only, they are of nearly the same age as those in 
 Erasmus' Walk; and it appears probable that the 
 formation of that avenue was part of a general scheme 
 for planting the ground between the Colleges and the 
 public road. 
 
 In Trinity College the bridge appears to have 
 been always in the same position ; and the walks 
 were laid out even before the actual acquisition of the 
 ground, as above related, but we do not know how 
 they were arranged. The avenue of limes between 
 the bridge and the "field-gate," which, it may be 
 remarked, is the stone gateway built by Dr. Nevile, 
 now used as the entrance to the College from Trinity 
 Lane was planted in 1674 5; and the portion 
 between the College and the bridge in February 1717. 
 The rows of limes along the south and west border
 
 135 
 
 of the walks were planted at the same time. The 
 present bridge is one of the numerous works of 
 "the ingenious Mr. Essex," built between 1763 and 
 
 1765- 
 
 At St. John's College the Bowling Green was 
 planted with elm and sycamore in 1625; and the 
 'New Walks,' by which those in the older College 
 ground east of the Wilderness are evidently meant, 
 were laid out and planted in 1630, 1631, and subse- 
 quent years. In 1629 30 "86 trees, and 600 setts" 
 were bought. In 1684 "ten young Elmes to set in 
 y High walks " were bought from the gardener of 
 King's College ; a purchase which affords evidence 
 that King's College was engaged in planting at that 
 time. It is possible that the trees were left over when 
 the planting behind the College had been completed. 
 Loggan's print of St. John's College, taken about 
 1688, shews two or three old trees near the river, and 
 some others near the Tennis court, which then stood 
 on the west side of the Cam just north of the bridge ; 
 but all the other trees appear to be of no great age. 
 It is possible therefore that the two largest trees 
 blown down, those namel}' which grew at the south- 
 west corner of the walks, may have been planted in 
 1630, and were therefore 250 years old. They 
 measured i o feet in girth near the ground, and were 
 at least 120 feet high. They were measured with a 
 tape as they lay, and, as the topmost branches were 
 much broken, this measurement probably does not
 
 136 
 
 give their true height, which as they grew would 
 probably be fully 130 feet. 
 
 The elms in front of Catharine Hall are compara- 
 tively young. The houses which intervened between 
 the College and the street were not pulled down till 
 the beginning of 1757, in which year the Ramsden 
 Building, which forms the south side of the court, 
 was begun. On its completion the iron railing was 
 put up, and the ground laid out as we see it now. It 
 is manifest, therefore, that the trees could not have 
 been planted before that time. 
 
 The mulberry-tree in the Fellows' Garden of 
 Christ's College, which tradition has associated with 
 Milton, is probably not more closely connected with 
 him than the walk near Queens' College with Eras- 
 mus. The College Accounts record the purchase of 
 300 mulberry-plants in 1608 9, in obedience to the 
 Proclamation issued by King James the First in 1608, 
 recommending tlie general cultivation of that tree in 
 England, with the view of effecting the acclimatization 
 of the silk-worm ; and this ancient tree is probably 
 one of those. 
 
 John Willis Clark.
 
 UNDERGRADUATE LIFE AT 
 CAMBRIDGE IN 1794 1800 
 
 [March i, 1882] 
 
 In a Life of the Rei'. Samuel Settle by the 
 Rev. Thomas Hervey, M.A., Rector of Cohner, 
 Hants, printed last year for private circulation, only 
 forty-two copies having been issued, there is one 
 chapter, that bearing the heading of " At College," 
 which contains so much interesting information as 
 regards life at Cambridge at the end of the last century, 
 tliat we hope the liberty we take in noticing an 
 unpublished volume will be excused. 
 
 Taking the book we have just referred to as our 
 guide, we will cursorily touch upon the first few pages 
 before j^aying special attention to those which relate 
 to Samuel Settle's college life. 
 
 Briefly then, the Rev. Samuel was born in 1771 in 
 the parisli of Batley, and in 1794 he, "leaving the 
 noise of tlie mill (Ilallam Mill, where in his youth he 
 held some situation) for the calm of study," was 
 entered at Magdalene College, he having been recom-
 
 138 
 
 mended by the Rev. John Graham, of Barwick in 
 Ehnet, to the consideration of the EUand Society, 
 "an association for educating young men of sound 
 and unaffected Christian piety for the ministry." The 
 official entry of his admission in the college register is 
 as follows : 
 
 "Mar. 24, 1794. Samuel Settle filius Josephi de 
 
 Barwick prope Leeds in comitatu Eboracensi, e schola 
 
 publica de Hull in eodem comitatu, 23 annum agens, 
 
 admissus est Sizator." 
 
 rr ^ u ^ { Gul. Farish. 
 
 Tutonbus magistris j ^.^^ ^^^^ 
 
 This was the eminent Farish who was Senior 
 Wrangler at the early age of nineteen, and held 
 successively the Professorships of Chemistry and 
 Natural Experimental Philosophy. He is still re- 
 membered as Vicar ot St. Giles's parish. 
 
 In his first term Settle was elected to a Scholar- 
 ship : 
 
 " Nov. 19, 1794. Ego Samuel Settle, electus et ad- 
 missus fui discipulus hujus Collegii pro Domino Doctore 
 Duport." 
 
 The above is an extract from the College Register 
 written in Settle's own hand. 
 
 One of Settle's greatest friends was a certain 
 William Dawson, the son of a colliery agent, who in 
 early life " looked no higher than the plough," but in 
 after years was " like a blazing sun, but with a comet- 
 like course." With Dawson Settle was frequently in 
 the habit of corresponding, and such serious and
 
 139 
 
 thoughtful compositions were his letters, that we find 
 
 in one of them the following request, which to him 
 
 appears but reasonable " on account of the various 
 
 changes in human affairs : " " I beg it as a favour of 
 
 you," he writes, "that my letters in your possession 
 
 may be packed up and directed for me." The editor 
 
 in noticing this " very singular request " remarks " that 
 
 letters then were not the few hurried words, with 
 
 which a cheap postage has made us familiar." In 
 
 support of which statement we will quote another 
 
 sentence from the same letter : " I have a letter by 
 
 me, which I should have sent from Hull, but I thought 
 
 it was ?wt 7vorth the. postage.'''' As a proof ot the 
 
 earnest spirit and fervency in which these two friends 
 
 conversed we (^uote from Dawson's own diary the 
 
 following entry : 
 
 "June, 1796. Friend Settle spoke on Matt. v. 13 16, 
 melted while meditating," 
 
 Settle was very anxious that Dawson should be 
 sent to Cambridge by the Elland Society, but the 
 latter's ignorance of Latin seems to have been the 
 chief obstacle to this end. In order that this may be 
 removed we find the undergraduate giving his friend 
 this caution : " Take care of long and short syllables, 
 for they are very much regarded in Latin." And 
 again he writes, " A little grammar can do you no 
 harm, nay, I daresay that dominus, domini, &c., will 
 be of great advantage." However, Settle himself at 
 times seems to have felt that his years at Cambridge
 
 140 
 
 were wasted in pursuit of the wrong subjects; he 
 writes in 1797 nearly at the end of his academical 
 career : 
 
 " Lately, I have been much engaged in the Schools ; 
 and I am surprised that wise men will regard such 
 nonsense. But the fact is, I am tired of Cambridge 
 studies, and I am persuaded 1 shall always consider my 
 time spent in Mathematics the least beneficial of any 
 employed in the whole course of my life. Had I been 
 engaged in searching the Scriptures, in composing ser- 
 mons, and in reading the history of mankind, I should 
 then have possessed some useful knowledge on going 
 forth into the world ; instead of that, I shall have spent 
 three or four years in grammar, and three or four more 
 in again forgetting it. Such is my tale." 
 
 The phrase " in the Schools " sounds strange to 
 our ears in connection with Cambridge and reminds 
 us more of the sister University. 
 
 We now come to that part of the book which has 
 the greatest interest for us. Mr. Hervey gives us 
 some six pages of extracts from a diary kept by his 
 father, Romaine Hervey, while he was at college, 
 which are just enough to rouse our curiosity and 
 tantalize us. AVe only hope that Mr. Hervey will see 
 his way to giving us the whole before long, as, judging 
 from these extracts, such a work would be of a most 
 interesting nature. The diary was written in short- 
 hand accoiding to a system invented by the writer's 
 father, and published in a work called The Writer's 
 Time Redeemed. Romaine Hervey was a year junior 
 to Settle, but, as we shall see, the two were extremely 
 intimate.
 
 141 
 
 Early in the extracts quoted we find one that 
 vividly recalls a scene we witnessed last term : 
 
 " 6 Nov. [1795]. Last night a great wind, trees blown 
 up in the college walks in great numbers." 
 
 Next to the above we notice : 
 
 " 9. At night, attend the lecture with the other 
 freshmen, in Parish's rooms, on College discipline." 
 
 This in our day is no longer continued at Magda- 
 lene we refer to the lecture, be it understood, not 
 college discipline. 
 
 " 14 Jan. [1796]. This and the two following after- 
 noons played at Battledore and Shuttlecock in the hall." 
 
 That the " Battledore and Shuttlecock " were 
 occasionally varied with " foils " and " draughts " we 
 find from : 
 
 "3 April [1797]. Played at foils with Solly, Batley, 
 Settle, and Gilmore." 
 
 And again : 
 
 " 12. Long walk with Cottle and Settle on the St. 
 N cot's road in otir hats, returned by Madingley, played 
 at draughts with Cottle and Burnett, then walked to 
 Parker's Piece, where the volunteers were exercising ; 
 smoking party at Gilmore's." 
 
 The words, " in our hats," strike us at first sight 
 as unnecessary, but in those days it was the custom 
 at all times to walk out in cap and gown, but the 
 Rev. Thomas Hervey adds "old customs were even 
 then dying out." Not only has this old custom quite 
 died out, but the converse seems to be the case, and
 
 142 
 
 " walked out in cap and gown " would indeed be an 
 event to be recorded in the diary of one of the present 
 generation at Magdalene. 
 
 "2 March [1796]. Went to Milton with Foster and 
 Settle. This is the first time I walked out in my Hat 
 since I came to college. [Oct. 1795]." 
 
 This entry clearly shews how seldom the hat took 
 the place of the cap. But again on the 28th Dec, 
 1797, we find that Hervey and Settle, instead of going 
 to chapel, walked out " in their hats," and again on 
 the 15th April of the same year was he guilty of this 
 unusual proceeding. That Gilmore, at whose rooms 
 the smoking party was held, was able on a future 
 occasion to render Hervey a helping hand we learn 
 from : 
 
 "8 Feb. [1798]. Went down the river in Funnies 
 with Solly, Gilmore, and Fawcett, shooting ; I fell into a 
 lock at Chesterton ; Gilmore and Fawcett pulled me out, 
 dined in Fawcett's rooms." 
 
 This same Gilmore on the 19th of the previous 
 month gave a " splendid " supper to the bachelors ; 
 whether they on this occasion made " a most horrid 
 noise" is not related, as we are informed was the 
 case after another convivial gathering. 
 
 On the 6th of April [1796] Hervey informs us 
 
 that he 
 
 "Went with Flavel to Newmarket to breakfast, got 
 back by 12 o'clock; we set out before 5." 
 
 This seems an extraordinary display of energy,
 
 143 
 
 but we find a second visit to Newmarket recorded a 
 little lower down : 
 
 "i6 Jan. [1797]. Trip to Newmarket with Batley 
 and Settle, lunched i?i the Churchyard, dined at the Ram ; 
 got back to Chapel." 
 
 The Flavel alluded to was one of the Elian d 
 Society men, with whom we learn that Hervey had 
 tea and supper on Jan. 21st, that being the first time 
 he was out after gates were shut ! 
 
 " 29 Nov. Sent a Round-Robin to the Fellows' table 
 with two college rolls and two town rolls, that college 
 rolls might be enlarged." 
 
 From this it can be gathered that the colleges 
 were their own bakers in those days, and Mr. J. W. 
 Clark is of opinion that this was actually the case. 
 
 " 10 Dec. Got Settle to cut five inches off my tail." 
 
 By ' tail ' of course we are to understand pigtail ! 
 compare with this : 
 
 "3 Jan. [1797]. Cut Foster's hair and made him a 
 crop." 
 
 Amateur hair-cutting seems to have been a favourite 
 
 amusement. 
 
 "21 Feb. Went with Cottle to Madingley, where 
 wrote some verses on the Maudlin men." 
 
 Mr. Hervey gives us a sample of these " verses." 
 
 " .Sad, sedate and melancholy 
 Moves the form of Mr. Solly." 
 
 The name of Solly is of frequent occurence in 
 these extracts. He was two years junior to Settle.
 
 144 
 
 Of Richard Horsman Solly, Mr. Hervey tell us the 
 following story. In those days no academical dress 
 was complete without bands. The undergraduates, 
 however, set themselves strongly against them, and 
 Solly himself had been remonstrated with for not 
 wearing them, accordingly: 
 
 " The next day he attached to his cravat two handker- 
 chiefs, which came down to his waist, and thus actired 
 went to hall. Mr. Farish, as he passed up the hall, 
 glanced round at the men and saw, as he thought, Solly 
 with a white waist-coat but no bands ; So he said ' Mr. 
 Solly, you have no bands.' Solly with a composure 
 which seems to have been natural to him, replied, ' Yes 
 Sir, I have,' at the same time taking the ends of the 
 handkerchiefs with the tips of his fingers, and holding 
 them up. The Tutor's gravity was quite upset, and he 
 retreated with his hand before his face." 
 
 " 13 Nov. Elegant supper with Batley, which came 
 from London. After supper went up to Hogg and left 
 my door open ; Batley and Settle came to row me by 
 making a most horrid noise which alarmed Farish, who 
 came up and found them in my bed-room by the help of 
 a piece of lighted paper ; he then sought me out in 
 Hogg's rooms ; Batley and Settle were in dreadful 
 funk." 
 
 The " elegant supper " seemed to have been a 
 little too much for Messrs. Batley and Settle. We 
 also notice that in these days a door was a door, not 
 an oak. 
 
 "23 Jan. [1798]. Went with Fawcett to Fisher's 
 where we bought cloth to make a jacket for Gilmore, 
 who with Fawcett took to make it as a Midshipman's."
 
 145 
 
 With reference to this episode Settle forty years 
 
 aftervvards wrote to the editor : 
 
 " Fawcett, your father, and one Cilmore, were close 
 companions ; they jointly bought and made a suit of blue 
 sailor's clothes, to shew what they could do at the snip 
 snap trade all for fun." 
 
 The writer of the diary further informs us that : 
 " 14 March. He saw Settle keep a first opponency.' 
 
 Nothing similar to this exists now-a-days except 
 
 in the Medical Schools. Formerly the keeping of 
 
 acts and opponencies was part of the regular method 
 
 of obtaining a degree. 
 
 " 16 Dec. [1797]. Kept an act in hall ; put up Coates 
 on the cycloid, and Paley on drunkenness ; Cottle v. as 
 my first and Scott my second opponent." 
 
 Strangers were admitted to these "wrangling 
 disputations," in which there was needed the judgmer.t 
 of a " moderator " to keep the opponents within the 
 prescribed bounds. There is a story told that a 
 certain coach instituted a code of symbols with iiis 
 pupils and that by buttoning or unbuttoning his coat 
 and throwing it well back he telegraphed to his pupil 
 in distress the answer he should give. The phrase 
 " optima disputasti " gives us the key to the meaning 
 of the Senior and Junior Optimes. Whether the 
 institution of the wooden spoon is of as early a date 
 as the time of which we are speaking, and hou- it 
 originated, would both be interesting questions, now 
 that the Old Tripos has given way to the New. K it 
 existed in 1799 Hervey had a good try for it, as we 
 
 10
 
 146 
 
 find but two names below his in the Ust of Junior 
 Optimes, who were that year but five in number. 
 
 *'ir Dec. [1797]. A famous row in hall The 
 
 president had the impudence to ask who attended Simeon's 
 Church." 
 
 The president in the year 1797 was Mr. Kerrick. 
 In a life of Dean Milner, brother of Rev. Joseph 
 Milner of Hull, whose pupil Settle was and with 
 whom he read in the long vacation of 1794, we find 
 this passage in one of Dean's letters : 
 
 " This place has obtained more evangelical means 
 since I was here last. There is now Simeon ; and it is 
 to be regretted that his congregation is not so large as 
 were to be wished." 
 
 We are told by the editor that Mr. Simeon used 
 to invite undergraduates to his room for " religious 
 readings," while the undergraduates had among them- 
 selves " Greek Testament " and " Latin Talking " 
 evenings. We are really quite pleased to find that 
 these sober men were occasionally capable of making 
 " a horrid noise." 
 
 ' 28. The new master read prayers in chapel this 
 morning, signed books." 
 
 The new master was Dr. Gretton who in 1797 
 succeeded Dr. Peckard; that the appointment did 
 not meet Avith the approval of Settle and Hervey 
 seems probable from the fact that they did not 
 attend, but walked out and that too in their hats.
 
 147 
 
 " 1 1 Jan. [1798]. Saw chimney on fire in Petty Cury : 
 wine and tea with Grant ; tried to persuade Burnett not 
 to take an ol ttoWoi degree. 
 
 The familiar name Petty Cury is, we believe, a 
 corruption of the French /a petite eciirie. Which of 
 the two Grants this is we cannot tell. The degrees 
 and future careers of these two brothers were most 
 remarkable. In 1801, the third and fourth wranglers 
 were Robert and Charles Grant, while Charles was 
 first Chancellor's medallist and Robert was second in 
 the same examination splendid performances. In 
 after life, Robert became the Rt. Hon. Sir Robert 
 Grant, Governor of Bombay ; his brother, Lord Glenelg, 
 Secretary of State for the Colonies. 
 
 This Burnett was most probably the son of a 
 clergyman, the rector of EUand, the place from which 
 the society to which Settle owed so much, took its 
 name. That Burnett had to put up with a 'poll' 
 degree we learn from a letter from Settle to Dawson : 
 
 " Mr. I) r tt, whom I have often named to you, has 
 in consequence (of ' unfairness and unjust conduct shewn 
 to Magdalene College') taken no honour." 
 
 What ground there was for this serious charge 
 does not appear: had this been prior to 1790 there 
 would have been nothing so surprising in the statement, 
 as high wranglers before that year frequently got their 
 places through being favoured by men of their own 
 colleges. That the Evangelical party was extremely 
 unpopular is certain, but it does not seem probable
 
 148 
 
 that any unfairness would have been shewn towards 
 Magdalene on account of theological opinions. 
 
 It is, however, curious that Burnett and Settle 
 were to have been among the three or four first, 
 whereas the latter was only 14th Senior Optime and 
 the former " took no honour." Well might Settle in 
 his disappointment write "a Maudlin man stands 
 but a chance in the Senate House." There are still 
 some men at Magdalene who stand but a chance in 
 the Senate House. 
 
 It was at this period that Magdalene men were 
 known as the "tea-drinkers." The name continued 
 to stick to them for some time; we find it in Mr. 
 Everett's well known book on Cambridge. In fact 
 Magdalene was then distinguished as a theological 
 College. This statement may surprise our readers, 
 but still the interesting fact remains that " in the 
 first twenty-three years of its foundation, viz., 1781 
 1803, the Norrisian Prize was taken fifteen times by 
 men educated at Magdalene." 
 
 The last extract from the diary is : 
 
 " 28 Feb. [1798]. Went with Settle and Foster to the 
 Rose, whence they started off to London to be ordained." 
 
 Although the inn no longer exists, the name still 
 survives in " Rose Crescent." 
 
 In a letter which Settle writes to Dawson soon 
 after he is ordained, we read : 
 
 " Have you heard any talk about Mr. Foster, the new 
 curate at St. Paul's, Leeds ? Does he please, displease, 
 or neither?"
 
 149 
 
 This is evidently the Foster with whom he went 
 down, and for whom Romaine Hervey made "a crop." 
 
 A few hnes, however, on the subsequent career of 
 the Rev. Samuel Settle may not be out of place. He 
 took his B.A. degree in 1798; he was much dis- 
 appointed with his place, for instead of being a high 
 Wrangler as he expected he was but 14th Senior 
 Optime. After ordination he went immediately to 
 his curacy, that of North and South Clifton near 
 Newark, for which he received about ;^4o a year. 
 In 1 80 1 he becomes M.A., and 15 years after leaves 
 Nottinghamshire for Wiltshire and becomes vicar of 
 Winterborne Stoke. In 18 17 the parish of Berwick 
 was added to the above, his income now being ^250. 
 In Wiltshire he continued till his death, March 12, 
 1847. He was a man of most unbounded liberality 
 when we consider how small were his means. Mr. 
 Hervey tells us that he always had his clothes made 
 too large for him, as the man to whom he gave his 
 old clothes was a bigger man than himself His life 
 was one of the utmost simplicity and frugality, and 
 that he might devote as much as possible to charity, 
 he allowed himself but 10/- a week for his house- 
 keeping expenses. As an instance of his liberality 
 we will but mention the fact that in 182 1 he gave to 
 the Elland Society ^260, more than his income for 
 one year. Finally, we can but repeat the wish we 
 expressed above, that Mr. Hervey will favour us with 
 more of his father's diary from which he has given us
 
 150 
 
 but a few extracts that extend from Oct. 1795 to Jan. 
 28, 1798, on which day Settle who was a year senior 
 to Hervey went down. There remains, therefore, 
 another year at least during which many interesting 
 events must have been duly chronicled. 
 
 H. A. Newton.
 
 UGLY CAMBRIDGE 
 
 [June 6, 1883] 
 
 The poet Gray was not merely a poet. Perhaps 
 this is fortunate for his fame, as we do not set much 
 store on his poetry now-a-days, and are less inclined 
 than Boswell was to quarrel with Johnson's judgment 
 concerning it. Besides the sonorous Ode and Elegy 
 Musas elegosque sonantes out of the quiet rooms in 
 Peterhouse or Pembroke there came many letters on 
 many subjects, letters which have been preserved to 
 us, and which, in the opinion of good judges, rank 
 with those of Cowper as the best compositions of the 
 kind in our language. It is a sentence in one of 
 these letters which shall serve us as text for the 
 briefest and least dogmatic of sermons. Writing to a 
 friend whom he supposes to be living in gayer and 
 more stirring scenes. Gray begs him not to forget the 
 " quiet ugliness of Cambridge." 
 
 Gray died in Pembroke more than a hundred 
 years ago. Recollections of him still linger about 
 the two colleges in which his life was spent. In the 
 window of Peterhouse may still be seen the iron bar
 
 152 
 
 which was intended by the timid poet to assist his 
 descent by a rope ladder in case of fire, and which 
 was the innocent cause of his seeking another college, 
 where he hoped to find practical jokes in less favour. 
 But no one now living, none even of the Nestors and 
 Priams who tottered up to vote at the last election, 
 has ever looked upon the same Cambridge which 
 Gray saw. Is it, then, really true that Cambridge 
 was ugly a hundred years ago ? It so happened that 
 I read Gray's words on one of the loveliest mornings 
 of this lovely spring, and I felt that I for one could 
 ne\'er allow that Cambridge is ugly ; where shall we 
 look for beauty if v/e cannot find it here ? 
 
 Let us stand for a little on King's Bridge : a perfect 
 sky above, the river at our feet, and on either side 
 the grass still fresh and green with the spring showers. 
 Far away to the right sweeps the great lawn of King's, 
 running into a point close under the west window of 
 the chapel ; nor is there a better view of that great 
 building in all Cambridge. "Nothing is more pleasant 
 to the eye than green grass kept finely shorn," says 
 Bacon. And the Fellows of King's seem to be of his 
 opinion : at this moment the daisies are falling thick 
 bjneath their ruthless machine that goes whirring 
 busily along the lawn. At a little distance a pair of 
 starlings are jerking themselves over the grass, whist- 
 ling with indignation at the mowers for disturbing 
 them and at the worms for showing some reluctance 
 to quit their holes among the roots ; just as if it were
 
 153 
 
 not the raison d'etre of a worm to be pulled out of 
 the ground, probably in several pieces, then to make 
 a rapid journey through the air, and finally to be 
 popped down the clamorous throats of the four 
 hungry half-feathered nesthngs who are huddling 
 together in the nest on the ivy-covered walls of Clare. 
 Quite different from the green of the grass is that 
 of the trees : that tender, delicate green of the leaves 
 still crumpled by their close packing in the bud, so 
 unlike any other green, so soon darkened and soiled 
 by the dust and scorching sun of summer. Away to 
 the left, the road leading to Newnham is chequered 
 with the dancing shadows of the green arch overhead, 
 which partly hides and partly shows the dark boles of 
 the limes. Further off, between Clare and the river, 
 towering above the lilacs, rises a great chestnut-tree, 
 looking twice as large as in winter, covered with 
 countless spikes of pink-white blossom rising in endless 
 circles one above another out of a mass of the same 
 green foliage. And the river shall any good thing 
 be said of Cam ? It is not an ideal river, certainly : 
 it is undeniably narrow, sluggish, and even dingy. It 
 has its full share of the national defects lack of 
 largeness and lucidity. But Styx or Acheron itself, 
 set in such a frame, could not be unlovely. Winding 
 along these emerald slopes, spanned by these delicate 
 stone bridges, reflecting the ivy-grown walls or the 
 dainty tassels of tlie willows, the river adds ten-fold 
 to the beauty of the scene.
 
 154 
 
 On the other side of the river the grass has leave 
 to grow as tall as the cattle will let it, and just now 
 the cattle are gathered under the trees doing their 
 best to repulse the flies with flicking ears and swinging 
 tails. Nearer the bank is a photographer. There 
 is no doubt about him ; there he stands, operatus in 
 herlns, an operator on the grass. Not a picturesque 
 object, certainly, the photographer, with his short 
 black pipe, mahogany tripod and mysterious veil. 
 But we shall not quarrel with him for all that. In 
 that wonderful black-hooded box there are pictures 
 which cannot indeed represent the colours, scents and 
 sounds of the May morning, but may serve as a 
 setting to which these more ethereal adjuncts may be 
 supplied by the inner eye of those who once have 
 seen them, and also may suggest to many some idea 
 of a beauty they have never seen. 
 
 No, whatever Cambridge may have been a hundred 
 years ago, it is not ugly now. Perhaps its attractions 
 were of too tame a kind to suit Gray's rather grand 
 tastes. We have no " rocks or nodding groves," and 
 the " roar " of the Cam is not audible at any distance ; 
 it must have taken lessons in the art from Bottom. 
 Perhaps, after all. Gray was writing at some other 
 season than the present, when the clouds were brooding 
 over the earth, when the yellow-black leaves were 
 whirling in the autumn winds, and the trees mere 
 ghosts of their summer selves 
 " Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang."
 
 155 
 
 But surely the poet, above all others, should be 
 able to see even in the gaunt naked boles and withered 
 grass-blades the promise of nature's certain and 
 glorious resurrection, when with the lengthening days 
 the leaves shall again burst and swell and the grass 
 grow once more for the pleasure as well as for the 
 service of men, 
 
 J. D. D.
 
 CAMBRIDGE ARCHEOLOGY* 
 [May 6, 1885] 
 
 Within an easy walk of Cambridge there are many 
 objects of great archaeological interest; some of them 
 have still the charm of mystery as nothing certain is 
 known of the people or the time to which they 
 belong. 
 
 One of these is the great bank that runs for about 
 four and a half miles from the end of Wort's Causeway 
 on the top of the Gogmagogs in a south-westerly direc- 
 tion, past Worsted Lodge, to a point south of Gunner's 
 Hall. 
 
 It is now used as a road which is carried on some 
 three and a half miles further until all traces of it are 
 lost on the hill side called " The Middle of the World," 
 north of Bartlow. It looks like an old drove or drift- 
 way, that is the line along which cattle were driven to 
 
 * ' The so-called Roman Road on the Gogmagogs ' : Being 
 the substance of a paper read before the Cambridge Antiquarian 
 Society, May 26, 1884.
 
 157 
 
 the centres of population from the more remote agri- 
 cultural districts. 
 
 In Wales there were such tracks with rights of 
 road-side pasture commonly used until quite recently. 
 One of these, I remember, ran along the high ground 
 of Epynt, in Carmarthenshire. The turf gets broken, 
 especially when carts begin to use the road ; the rain 
 washes the earth out of the ruts and the roadway gets 
 lowered. An old track becomes a rain course very 
 quickly. Then travellers wander off the road on to 
 the smooth turf, and so it is quite a common thing to 
 see road after road curving further out along a hill 
 side in mountain districts ; and without any design 
 old tracks become perpetuated but the results of 
 these natural operations are easily distinguished from 
 the road-makers' work. 
 
 Now if we trace the so-called Roman road from 
 " The Middle of the World " towards Cambridge, we 
 notice the track curving down the hill east of the 
 Bartlow road, as people tried to get out of the ruts 
 on to the smooth turf West of the Bartlow road we 
 see that the earth has accumulated on the upper side 
 of the track against the hedge ; but this is obviously 
 due to the action of the rain and plough, which has 
 also removed it on the lower side of the track. The 
 bank thus formed is very small as compared for 
 instance with those seen further on along the Hilder- 
 sliam balks, and shows that this part of the ground 
 cannot have been so long under cultivation. There
 
 158 
 
 is no bank like that on the top of the Gogmagogs 
 anywhere along this part of the track. 
 
 There is an artificial bank thrown across the dry 
 valley at the south end of Balsham Wood, but across 
 the miry boulder clay north of Borley Wood the road 
 is not raised. From where it crosses the Balsham 
 road to the top of the next hill the road is a mere 
 flattened track along the side of the slope ; the earth 
 being turned down from the road on the lower side 
 and thrown against the hedge on the upper side by 
 the plough, while the road itself has been cut down 
 by the rain whenever the turf has been broken. The 
 extent to which this wearing down of the road goes 
 on may be estimated in the clunch pit west of Balsham 
 road crossing, for the rain water has been turned into 
 this pit along a deep ditch and the material carried 
 down has formed a large delta at the point where the 
 ditch enters the pit and has also spread all over the 
 bottom. 
 
 The ground on the south of the so-called Roman 
 Road is still so far unenclosed that the only divisions 
 seen are the ancient raines or town lands belonging to 
 the commune of Hildersham. 
 
 Immediately beyond the Balsham-Hildersham road 
 a dry valley is banked across, but the bank ceases at 
 the rise of the hill and we see only what is common in 
 any ordinary occupation road until we arrive opposite 
 Gunner's Hall, where we suddenly come upon the 
 commencement of the great dyke. There seems to
 
 159 
 
 be a kind of finish-off given to it at the south-east end 
 by a turn to the north, but it has evidently been so 
 much modified by nature and art that we cannot feel 
 sure whether a small feature like that may not be due 
 to recent operations. 
 
 From this point to the brow of the hill overlooking 
 Coldham Common a well-marked bank runs con- 
 tinuously. It has evidently long been used as a 
 road ; the top has been flattened out and the ditch 
 is often almost or quite filled up. Where the fosse 
 still exists it is always on the north side. There is 
 often a small ditch along the fence on the south side, 
 but this is only a recent thing connected with the 
 farming operations. 
 
 The depth from the top of the bank to the bottom 
 of the ditch near Gunner's Hall is now about eight 
 feet ; but it must have crumbled down from bank to 
 hollow as is commonly seen in transverse sections 
 across similar earthworks elsewhere, and it is difficult 
 to estimate the original height. Immediately beyond 
 the east end of Wort's Causeway the height from the 
 bottom of the fosse to the top of the agger is now 
 about 7 feet ; tlie breadth of the bank as it stands 
 being 5 1 feet and that of the ditch 36 feet. 
 
 Now what is the evidence that this bank was made 
 as a Roman Road ? 
 
 It is supposed to be in the line of the Via Devana, 
 but if it were produced to the north-west it would miss 
 the Huntingdon road by half a mile.
 
 i6o 
 
 Though in some part of its course it runs in the 
 direction of Colchester, yet if we follow the road which 
 seems to be in continuation of it towards Haverhill, 
 we shall find that it points more nearly to Ipswich 
 than to Colchester. That however does not go for 
 much. If we admit that kind of argument we shall 
 get some curious results from an examination of the 
 dykes further north, for it happens that their general 
 trend is also towards Colchester. 
 
 The bank seems to be curved back to the south- 
 west, as if it were intended to be finished off on the 
 steep slope near the south-east end of Wort's Causeway. 
 If it were carried on in a straight line it would take us 
 over the steep slope near the Cherry Hinton Chalk Pits 
 and across the marshy ground between that and Cam- 
 bridge. So that we should have to believe that the 
 Romans planned a nearly straight road as far as the 
 top of the hill by Wort's Causeway and had to bend 
 it when close to their destination in order to avoid a 
 marsh, whereas they could have taken it a very little 
 further to the south-west by a shorter cut, over good 
 ground all the way. 
 
 And supposing they did find themselves on the 
 margin of the swampy ground of Coldham Common, 
 a bank half a mile long, similar to that which they are 
 supposed to have thrown up along the dry summit of 
 the Chalk Hills, where it was quite unnecessary, would 
 have carried them across the bit of marsh land west 
 of Cherry Hinton.
 
 i6i 
 
 So we have seen that there is a bank across some 
 dry gravel valleys near Hildersham, but not a trace of 
 a raised road over the sticky clay of Borley Wood 
 between them. And that is a district where it is 
 extremely improbable that it can have been destroyed 
 in the progress of agricultural operations. That does 
 not look like the work of Roman engineers. There 
 are no Roman camps along it Wandlebury is certainly 
 not Roman. 
 
 Supposing it were shown to be doubtful whether 
 any of the earthworks on the Castle Hill were Roman, 
 and even an open question whether there was any 
 fortified station at all at Cambridge in Roman times, 
 there would, it seems to me, be no evidence whatever 
 for the existence of a Roman road at the end of Wort's 
 Causeway. 
 
 If then it is extremely improbable that the Romans 
 threw up this bank as part of their road, what can it 
 be? A glance at the map suggests at once that it 
 belongs to the great series of earthworks running 
 parallel to one another from the Fens on the north- 
 west into what must have been the thick Woodlands 
 on the bouth-east. First we have the Devil's Ditch 
 running from the marshes near Burwell across the 
 chalk hills of Newmarket to Wood Ditton (or Ditch 
 Town in the Wood). Next the Fleam Dyke or Bal- 
 sham Ditch crosses the open downs between Fulbourn 
 and Balsham, supported by the short dyke between 
 Fen Ditton (or Ditch Town in the Fens) and (^uy 
 
 II
 
 1 62 
 
 Water. Then a little further south, parallel to these 
 two well-known dykes, crossing the corresponding belt 
 of chalk downs from the fenlands to the woodlands, 
 and extending no further, we find another exactly 
 similar dyke, along the top of which a drift way has 
 been taken in comparatively recent times, and this is 
 the bank which has been generally considered to have 
 been thrown up by the Romans to form part of the 
 Via Devana. 
 
 Fourthly, still further south, between Abington 
 and Pampisford, another short dyke, approximately 
 parallel to those above described, crosses the open 
 ground which lay between the river valley and the 
 continuation of the woodlands of Saffron Walden to 
 the north. I do not propose now to consider the age 
 or object of these dykes, nor discuss the questions 
 arising out of the position of the fosse relative to the 
 agger. My point is that the raised bank and ditch 
 along the top of the Gogmagogs which has commonly 
 been supposed to have been thrown up by the Romans 
 as part of their Via Devana is nothing more than one 
 of the dykes. If it can be proved that it was pre- 
 Roman and that the Romans carried their road along 
 the top of it, well and good, or that the Romans made 
 it as a line of defence analogous to the earthworks 
 assigned to them in North Britain. Nothing has 
 been discovered to set these two hypotheses aside. 
 \^^:en the railway cutting near Swaffham was taken 
 through the Devil's Ditch no Roman remains were
 
 i6^ 
 
 found under it, though pits with Roman pottery 
 occurred close up to it, but a fragment of an am- 
 phora was found below the surface in the upper part 
 of the bank. 
 
 The same explanation may be offered here as was 
 given in the case of Offa's Dyke when Roman remains 
 were found in the bank, namely, that they were thrown 
 up with the earth when the dyke was made in Saxon 
 times, as remains of any age might be found in a 
 railway embankment of our day. 
 
 With the data before us we cannot refer the dykes 
 with any strong probability to pre-Roman or to Roman 
 or to Saxon times, but I think it may have cleared the 
 way for future investigations if I have succeeded in 
 showing that the great bank and ditch on the Gog- 
 magogs is one of these dykes and not a Roman Road, 
 and by calling attention to the subject I hope I may 
 add to the pleasure of many a walk and ride, and 
 perhaps induce some to look for further evidence 
 bearing upon this interesting question. 
 
 Thos McKenny Hughes.
 
 THE EXPANSION OF THE UNION 
 
 I 
 
 [May 27, 1885] 
 
 The room in which the Union Society com- 
 menced its life in 181 5 can hardly have been par- 
 ticularly commodious, for Lord Houghton describes 
 it as "little better than a commercial room." It was 
 situated over a stable at the back of the Red Lion 
 Inn, in Petty Cury. But this apartment could not 
 long contain the growing bulk of the Society, and 
 accordingly we find that several migrations took 
 place : First to the rooms now occupied by the 
 A.D.C. ; then to the old Reform Club in Green 
 Street; and finally in 1866 to the present red-brick 
 mansion beside the Round Church. 
 
 The Union was a heroic infant. It had many 
 serpents to strangle before it could reach a mature 
 age. The great monster which first assailed its rosy 
 slumbers was that academical narrowness which marks 
 off the race of dons which has just departed from 
 those enlightened beings who govern our destinies at
 
 i65 
 
 the present day. It appears that a muddled heap of 
 prejudices against undergraduates interesting them- 
 selves in politics and against discussions generally, 
 as likely to interfere with work, beset the minds of 
 Vice-Chancellors and their myrmidons. Bare per- 
 mission to debate was not too readily granted, and 
 it was hampered by a restriction which confined the 
 discussions to political questions anterior to the 
 century. " But," says Mr. Trevelyan,* " it required 
 less ingenuity than the leaders of the Union had at 
 their command to hit upon a method of dealing with 
 the present under the guise of the past. Motions 
 were framed that reflected upon the existing Govern- 
 ment under cover of a censure on the cabinets of a 
 previous generation. Resolutions which called upon 
 the meeting to declare that the boon of Catholic 
 Emancipation should have been granted in the year 
 1795, or that our commercial policy previous to 1800 
 should have been founded on a basis of Free Trade, 
 were clearly susceptible of great latitude of treatment. 
 And, again, in its character of Reading Club, the 
 Society when assembled for the conduct of private 
 business, was at liberty to review the political creed 
 of the journals of the day in order to decide which of 
 them it should take in and which it should discontinue. 
 The Exiuniner newspaper was the flag of many a 
 hard-fouglu battle ; the Morning Chronicle was voted 
 
 * Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, Vol. I, p. 81.
 
 i66 
 
 in and out of the rooms half-a-dozen times in a 
 twelvemonth ; while a series of impassioned speeches 
 on the burning question of Greek Independence 
 were occasioned by a proposition of Maiden's, ' that 
 i] 'EXXrjviKrj aaX.Tn'y^ do lay upon the table.' " 
 
 At this time the most powerful figure at the 
 Union debates was Charles Austin,* of Jesus, whose 
 mind was filled with the principles of Bentham's 
 philosophy, and on whose lips the defence and praise 
 of Radical institutions were always ready. Praed has 
 a description of him in debate : 
 
 " Then up gets the glory of us and our story. 
 Who does all by Logic and Rule, 
 Who can tell the true difference 'twixt two-pence 
 and three-pence, 
 And prove Adam Smith quite a fool." 
 
 Praed has also described many others of that little 
 band of heroes who fought with and against the great 
 Austin in those days when stable fumes inspired the 
 words of eloquence and fire. Whewell and Macaulay, 
 Moultrie and Maiden, with Monckton Milnes, after- 
 wards Lord Houghton, were all of them figures filling 
 the hearts of autumnal freshmen with awe and pride. 
 The description of Macaulay in Praed's squib is 
 perhaps the best known. The debate may waver to 
 this side or to the other 
 
 " But the favourite comes with his trumpets and drums. 
 And his arms and his metaphors crossed" 
 
 * Afterwards the great parliamentary Counsel.
 
 1 6/ 
 
 and victory forthwith indines to the side which lie 
 favours. At a shghtly later date we have Praed 
 himself, with Lytton, Cockburn, Villiers, and Charles 
 Bnller all taking an eager part in the battle of the 
 Red Lion parlour, which is thus described by the 
 same poet whose words we have already quoted : 
 
 " The Union Club of rhetorical fame 
 
 Was held at the Red Lion Inn ; 
 And there never was lion so perfectly tame, 
 
 Or who made such a musical din. 
 'Tis pleasant to snore at a quarter before, 
 
 When the chairman does nothing in state, 
 But 'tis heaven, 'tis heaven to waken at seven, 
 
 And pray for a noisy debate !" 
 
 It is thought by many persons that this was tlie 
 Golden Age of the Union a Golden Age which has 
 never again returned. We should be very sorry to 
 admit such a sentiment. No doubt, of course, can 
 be held that those years in which Austin, Macaulay, 
 and Praed were the foremost knights mark an era of a 
 brilliancy far beyond the ordinary. For a decade or 
 two we should not expect to see such bright lightning 
 flashes again. But for all that, although with absolute 
 certamty we can never judge, it may be believed that 
 since then there have been periods which may not 
 unjustly be compared with it. But then the fruit of 
 these subsecjuent years has not yet mellowed. AVhen 
 the heroes of the Union have become heroes in a 
 wider field there will no-doubt be a searching of dusty 
 records and cobwebbed memories to prove the glory
 
 i68 
 
 which attended the first eflforts of their eloquence. 
 Meanwhile we need not altogether despair of achieving 
 the height of that time which Praed has sung of 
 
 Gradually the political restrictions of debate seem 
 to have been removed or tacitly ignored, and under- 
 graduates came to face the problems of the day in 
 no antique drapery. In James Payn's Literary 
 Recollections^ we have some pleasant paragraphs 
 which assure us of the disuse of these troublesome 
 checks, for " the debates," he writes, " were almost 
 always upon political subjects, and I remember having 
 had the hardihood on one occasion to place upon 
 the notice board a proposition for the sweeping away 
 of the hereditary aristocracy of our native land, which 
 created no little sensation. There was an immense 
 audience : but those who came to laugh remained, I fear, 
 to carrj- out their intention, since the motion had but 
 eight supporters." It is somewhat difficult to under- 
 stand such excitement at the present time, when the 
 demolition of hereditary legislators and the nationali- 
 sation of their belongings crop up in the motion book 
 with a regularity almost as dreary as the proposals for 
 tlie censure of Her Majesty's Ministers and schemes 
 to ameliorate the lot of deceased wives' sisters. 
 
 There are some interesting records in the shape 
 of suggestion books, giving us scraps of a certam 
 kind of information regarding the end of the 'fifties 
 and beginning of the 'sixties. At that time the 
 present Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster was
 
 169 
 
 the most prominent Union figure, nor were his perfor- 
 mances marked with that sedate wisdom which is 
 popularly supposed to attend the early manhood of a 
 future politician. In these very dirty and tattered 
 old suggestion books there are l}Tical scraps of no 
 very sober character which have been attributed to 
 that distinguished pen. 'WTiether this has been done 
 rightly or wrongly it is dangerous perhaps to deter- 
 mine ; but as there are other snatches and catches in 
 a libellous strain where ' Trevelyan ' is dragged in 
 to rhyme with 'rebellion,' we may conclu'^.e, not 
 unwarrantably, that the author of Horace at Athens 
 may have made some reply. Here is an ode in 
 celebration of some, no doubt, stormy private business 
 campaign, which has now become a dwelling place 
 for spiders : 
 
 " Muse of the moderns, sing how the rebellion. 
 Known by the name of the Great .Servile War. 
 Raike'i-iYAy led by the funny Trevelyan. 
 
 Died with a monster vote stuck in its 'Jaw."" 
 
 In the sam-j volume we find many similar outl-ursts 
 of a generally r.ather feeble metrical consistency. 
 Many of them have little or nothing to do with the 
 Union, or arc written in a sentimentally comic strain 
 ujjon what we may call domestic rather than polemical 
 incidents. Mrs. Hewitt was an old lady to whom 
 belongcil the cleansing and dusting of the rooms, and 
 she, j)oor soul, seems in a weak moment to have 
 yielded to the fierce inroads of the barbarous goddess
 
 170 
 
 of fashion. She donned a crinoline. Such an altera- 
 tion was not to escape notice amid the critics of 
 the Union. Accordingly, requests are made to her, 
 lyrical and otherwise, to remove the obnoxious 
 garment, if so it may be called. These proving of 
 no avail, there appear suggestions for private business 
 meeting motions to accomplish this end. What 
 happened ultimately whether Mrs. Hewitt yielded 
 to a censorious public, or remained ignobly the slave 
 of a tyrannous fashion will probably never be known 
 to posterity. Here, however, is another allusion to 
 the same lady in a less invidious capacity. The time 
 is intended, doubtless, to be the opening bud of term 
 time : 
 
 " There has fallen a splendid tear 
 
 From the Senior Clerk at the gate : 
 ' They are coming, I hear I I hear ! 
 
 They are coming, the men I hate.' 
 Mrs. Hewitt cries, ' They are near ! they are near !' 
 
 The Messenger curses his fate ; 
 The young Clerk whispers, ' I fear ! I fear 
 
 For my annual forty-and-eight !'" 
 
 There is also among other things a touching ballad 
 called ' The Last Pot,' which contains a temperance 
 moral greatly in advance of its time. Our space 
 forbids that we give more than the opening and the 
 closing stanzas, which are as follows : 
 
 " The tippler stood with a full quart jug, 
 That smiled with most rare October, 
 And you saw by a glance at his jovial ' mug' 
 That he seldom or never was sober."
 
 I/I 
 
 The reader may imagine the burden of succeeding 
 stanzas, which would lead up to this melancholy 
 consummation : 
 
 " And there in the drenching storm he lay, 
 Till the peelers sent to borrow 
 A stretcher, and growled as they bore him away, 
 ' He'll be sober enough to-morrow.'" 
 
 One more suggestion we may allude to here, as it 
 serves to show a great modern reform in earliest 
 embryo. In a gawky hand, quite unprophetic of 
 future greatness, the Vice-President's attention is 
 directed to the want of a gallery, into which ladies 
 might be admitted on debate nights, and a request is 
 added, " that this be reserved solely for the use of the 
 lady friends of honourable members." Witness the 
 scorching blast of ridicule which bursts upon this 
 ingenuous youth ! He is attacked on all sides. The 
 terse boating man it doubtless is who annotates with 
 a brief "Oh! you idiot!" Others ask, "Where?" 
 "How is this practicable?" or indignantly assert 
 "Impossible!" Another scoffer points out that the 
 suggestion would entail upon the Society " the expense 
 of a dozen more servants, for the ladies would all 
 have to be carried out fainting from the heat." But 
 this is what clinched it with cynical sledge-hammer, 
 "What; to hear those wretched debates of ours! 
 \Vc fancy ladies, after one night's hearing, would not 
 again honour the gallery with their presence. One 
 debate would satisfy their curiosity for ever." So
 
 172 
 
 finding not a solitary friend, the young orator aban- 
 doned his suggestion with a sigh, and the glory of 
 erecting the ladies' gallery was reserved for a future 
 generation. 
 
 11 
 
 [Junk 3, 1885] 
 
 About 1 866 we have another little knot of interest- 
 ing personages, amongst whom Sir Charles Dilke, of 
 Trinity Hall, was the foremost figure. To him is 
 chiefly (hie the migration from dingy Green Street to 
 the picturesqueness of the present site. In recognition 
 of his services he was elected a second time to the 
 Presidency, an honour which seems never to have 
 been awarded to any one who was merely an orator. 
 As it is at the present time, so undergraduate opinion 
 seems then also to have been overwhelmingly Con- 
 servative. Sir Charles Dilke, whose views at that 
 period were of a sturdy though sedate and almost 
 Whiggish character, is reported to have said that he 
 never voted in a majority except once, "and then I 
 was in the wrong." Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, whom 
 we c onsidcr now-a-days almost as a type of the sober 
 and conventional Whig, seems at the date of his 
 Presidency to have held ]>olitical opinions of a most 
 incendiary character. There is an interesting little
 
 173 
 
 allusion to the Union in a famous skit* entitled The 
 Fall of Prince Florestan of Monaco^ which purports 
 to be written by himself. Rumour, however, asserts 
 that the royal subject of this history never had a more 
 real existence than the famous Mrs. Harris, and persists 
 in attributing the authorship to a person of Cabinet 
 eminence whose name will appear in the following 
 quotation. Prince Florestan went to Eton, and thence 
 to Cambridge, where he endeavoured to saturate his 
 despotic mind in wholesome republican principles. 
 " I had heard at the Union Mr. Seeley defend the 
 Commune, and oppose a motion declaring it innocent 
 because it did not go on to express the * love and 
 affection ' with which that body was regarded by the 
 University. I had supported a young fellow of Trinity 
 when he showed that the surplus funds of tlie Union 
 Society should be applied to the erection of statues of 
 Mazzini in all the small villages of the West of England. 
 A motion which, I believe, was carried, but neutralized 
 by the fact that the Union .Society possessed no sur])lus 
 
 funds I had, by the way, almost forgotten the 
 
 most amusing of all the Union e|)iso(les of my time, 
 which was tlie rising of Mr. Ashton Dilke, of Trinity 
 Hall, Sir Charles Dilke's brother but a man of more 
 real talent than his brother, although, if possible, a still 
 more lugubrious speaker to move that liis brother's 
 I)ortrait, together with that of Lord Edniond Fitz- 
 
 * rublishcd 1S74,
 
 174 
 
 maurice, the Communist brother of a marquis and a 
 congenial spirit, should be suspended in the Com- 
 mittee room, to watch over the deliberations of that 
 body, because, forsooth, they had happened to be 
 president and vice-president of the Society at a 
 moment when the new buildings were begun out of 
 the subscriptions of such very different politicians as 
 the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Devonshire, and 
 Lord Powis. Mr. Dilke and his Radicals were some- 
 times in a majority and sometimes in a minority at 
 the Union, and the portraits of the republican lord 
 and baronet went up on the wall or down under the 
 table accordingly Mr. Willimott, the valued custo- 
 dian of the rooms, carrying out the orders of both 
 sides with absolute impartiality." 
 
 It was some years after the presidency of Sir 
 Charles Dilke that a memorable campaign com- 
 menced concerning the great question whether the 
 Union Society should be open or closed on Sundays. 
 For several years the controversy raged with such 
 fury that old members, settled in London, have been 
 known to come up to Cambridge for the purpose of 
 voting in favour of one side or the other. We have 
 had much difficulty in discovering the various phases 
 through which the contest passed, our difficulty lying 
 not in the scarcity of traditions, but in their amazing 
 heterogeneity. Indeed, had we any pretensions to 
 the proud position of a painstaking historian, our 
 narrative would come to an abrupt conclusion at this
 
 175 
 
 point ; to be continued, perhaps, at this lime two or 
 three years hence, when the multitude of rumours 
 might possibly have been sifted. As we do not, how- 
 ever, aspire to any such invidious eminence, we take 
 a cynical delight in the contradictory assertions of 
 trustworthy authorities. It is agreed that the Union 
 used in the first instance to be open on Sundays. 
 Then, says one report, the Dons became afflicted all 
 of a sudden at the secularising tendencies of novels 
 and newspapers perused in shameless publicity. 
 Accordingly, forces were set at work to move the 
 better feelings of the Union to an act of self-denial 
 in the interests of religion. The attempt seemed 
 likely to succeed, when some astute member pointed 
 out that since the authorities were so eager for this 
 reform the Union had better model itself upon the 
 example of these authorities. " He understood," he 
 said, " that there was an institution in Cambridge* 
 containing a library, and frequented by Dons of un- 
 impeachable piety. Now, were the premises of this 
 Society closed upon the Sabbath Day ? They were, 
 and they were not. In plainer language, one half of 
 the door was shut and one half of the blinds were 
 drawn ; while M.A.'s and the light of the sun were 
 admitted through just half the number of apertures 
 which were open to them upon week days." So the 
 Union Society agreed to make a similar compromise 
 between its conscience and its convenience. 
 * Possibly the Philosophical Society ?
 
 176 
 
 But another report says that the Union premises 
 were actually closed for a time, and that, though 
 motions were carried from term to term for opening 
 them, the required three-fourths majority could never 
 be obtained. At length a sacrilegious Standing 
 Committee, grubbing among ancient minute books, 
 discovered that the original motion which closed the 
 rooms on Sundays was only carried by a bare majority, 
 and not by a three-fourths. With an eager and too- 
 zealous joy they fastened upon the illegality, and gave 
 orders to the clerks to have the rooms opened as 
 usual upon the Seventh Day. This was done. To 
 their horror they discovered too late that, though in 
 the first case the motion for closing had been carried 
 only by a bare majority, it was afterwards ratified on 
 several occasions by the necessary three-fourths. So 
 these profane men had to stand their trial at the bar 
 of the House ; but as a majority of that impartial 
 assembly were themselves steeped to the lips in pro- 
 fanity, they agreed mercifully to condone the arbitrary 
 action of their officers. 
 
 But there is still another report of the method 
 by which the consummation of religious liberty was 
 achieved. Majorities, though large, had never been 
 large enough to override the former decision for 
 Sunday closing. There was danger of civil war and 
 intestine strife ; when, at a certain private business 
 meeting, a member of the society solemnly rose, and, 
 in tones which trembled with indignation against an
 
 177 
 
 unjust violation of the constitution, drew the attention 
 of the President to the following fact : " By such 
 and such a chapter in the Rules, sub-section number 
 so-and-so, he found that the rooms of the society were 
 to be open daily from a certain hour in the morning 
 to a certain hour in the evening. Now, he had come 
 down between the stated hours to the Society's build- 
 ings a few days before in fact, on the previous 
 Sunday and to his surprise he discovered that the 
 doors were closed, and that there was no sign of life 
 in the premises. He went away for an hour or two, 
 but returning later he saw the same state of things. 
 And he wanted to know by whose authority such a 
 breach of the laws was permitted." The President, 
 rising with equal solemnity, replied, " That he was 
 much shocked and surprised to hear of the experience 
 of the honourable member who had just sat down. 
 He would certainly inquire into the matter, and he 
 would also take care that .such a violation of the rules 
 should never occur again." Thus, finally, by wiles 
 and stratagems of an infinite subtlety the secularising 
 tendencies came to exist once more in full force. 
 
 So the turbid current of the Union life flowed 
 on without any important deviation from its course ; 
 without receiving any vast and sudden addition to its 
 volume. But if we may pursue our watery metaphor 
 little tributaries had been flowing in steadily as the 
 years went by. The premises were manifestly grow- 
 ing too small for the comfortable accommodation of
 
 178 
 
 all the members. Accordingly, about the year i8Si, 
 at the instigation of Mr. Harold Cox, of Jesus, the 
 purchase of the "George" estate was satisfactorily 
 accomplished. Then extensive schemes were periodi- 
 cally mooted ; but, unfortunately, such plans as were 
 submitted always failed to please the wanton and 
 capricious fancy of the terrible, but necessary, three- 
 fourths majority. But at length, in the autumn of 
 1883, an enterprising Vice-President Mr. Jebb, of 
 Trinity submitted to his constituents drawings which 
 he had himself constructed. These, after great 
 stiTJggles, in which a certain " autocratic circular " 
 played an important part, were finally accepted by 
 the Society. They were subsequently, of course, 
 committed to the professional care of Mr. Waterhouse, 
 who rendered practicable the bold schemes of the 
 amateur; and in a short time scaffolding and dust 
 testified to the fact that building operations had 
 actually commenced. On the fourth ot June, 1884, 
 the foundation stone was laid with much state and 
 pomp Mrs. Ferrers, the wife of the Vice-Chancellor, 
 performing " the conventionalities of the occasion." 
 A metal box, which Mr. Tanner explained contained 
 a copy of the Union Rules, a list of the officers and 
 committee for the present term, a copy of the Cam- 
 bridge Review^ some coins of modern mintage, copies 
 of the Cambridge newspapers belonging to both 
 political parties, and, he believed, a Roman bone 
 was laid in a prepared recess.
 
 179 
 
 Lord Houghton, who was one of the speakers 
 upon this august occasion, gave some very kindly and 
 appropriate words of encouragement. The debates, 
 as far as he could conjecture, were carried on very 
 much in the old way "on the old party lines, and 
 he did not know that they could do better as long 
 as they abstained from false representations and 
 ridiculous exaggerations, as long as they did not 
 believe, on the one hand, that Mr. Gladstone was 
 a compound of the most heterogeneous evil qualities 
 of dense stupidity and Machiavellian subtlety ; and, 
 on the other hand, did not represent men like Lord 
 Salisbury and Sir Stafford Morthcote as men entirely 
 ignorant of politics, and totally averse to the material 
 and intellectual well-being of the British people." 
 
 So amid many benedictions the Cambridge Union 
 Society stretched its ruddy gables westward towering 
 high above the relic of bold Knights Templar, and 
 glancing down upon it with that benevolent mixture 
 of pity and reverence which we might expect from 
 the proud child of a later time who should contemplate 
 some quaintly dressed contemporary of his great- 
 great-grandfather. 
 
 There has been little of the trumpet blast in the 
 foregoing pages of small talk. Our real ambition, 
 though we concealed it modestly at the beginning, 
 was to act the part of one of those snowy bards of 
 Cymric origin who strike the harp to heroic tones, 
 and, lifting blind eyes to heaven, tell of the great
 
 i8o 
 
 deeds of the departed. Our muse, alas, has chosen 
 to grovel. She has grubbed in musty cupboards, and 
 discussed secret passages of scandalous memory, while 
 the armour stands silent and neglected. But, after all, 
 the gleaming war-gear tells its own tale clearly enough, 
 and does not need a historian. When we gaze upon 
 those portraits which adorn the Union walls, our 
 imagination is fired instinctively to fill in vivid pictures 
 of contests at the Red Lion and in gloomy Green 
 Street, and we believe that the imaginations of other 
 people are truer guides than any words of ours.
 
 A COMMON-PLACE BOOK OF 200 
 YEARS AGO 
 
 I 
 
 [February 24, 1886] 
 
 In an old hook of manuscript, which was ^v^itten 
 by one John Hall, of Kipping, at Thomton-in-Craven, 
 nearly 200 years ago, I have come upon a few pages 
 of a sprightlier and more personal character than the 
 rest. This in itself says little, for most of the book is 
 given up to sermons, sermons by Puritan ministers 
 who had suffered for conscience-sake at " Bartletide," 
 1662, and whose names have many of them been 
 enshrined in the pages of that John Foxe of the cause, 
 Edmund Calamy. Worthy men no doubt they were, 
 who then witnessed a good confession ; but their 
 sermons are hardly inviting food in this dyspeptic 
 age, and he would be a bold man who would dare to 
 administer them in the most innocent guise to a 
 modem public. 
 
 But though theologies may change colour with 
 the years, human nature is not very deeply altered,
 
 l82 
 
 and I have hopes that a few stories which were 
 repeated in college chambers "and in country parson- 
 ages in the seventeenth century may still have power 
 to raise a quiet smile by their quaint and serious wit. 
 
 The stories are headed " Some hystoricall passages 
 out of Mr. W.'s papers." Mr. W. was Mr. Thomas 
 Woodcock, who had himself been ejected from the 
 Church of St. Andrew Undershaft in London.* He 
 put the stories together as he heard them, and Mr. 
 Hall copied them afterwards in a beautiful minute 
 hand, of which every letter is still legible, into one of 
 his many volumes of sermons. 
 
 I will begin with one or two stories which throw 
 a light on Cambridge life under the Stuarts. And 
 first, as in private duty bound, I give one of Mr. 
 Woodcock himself in the character of Proctor. It 
 
 * Palmer, in the Nonconformists' Memorial, gives this 
 account of him: "Mr. Thomas Woodcock, of Kath. Hall, 
 Camb. Born of a genteel family in Rutlandshire. He was a 
 smart disputant and had the universal character of a learned 
 man. He became Fellow of Jesus College and Proctor of the 
 University, which office he managed with great applause, both 
 as to exercises and prudent government. In this college he 
 gave education to more Fellow-commoners than all Jesus College 
 Fellows besides, and rendered it a great and flourishing society. 
 He set up a lecture at Alhallows {i.e., All Saints') Church in 
 Cambridge, where he constantly preached gratis (!) at 4 o'clock 
 on the Lord's-day afternoon, and it was well attended both by 
 scholars and townspeople. After his ejectment, he and Dr. 
 Tuckney lived together in the country ; but, for the sake of his 
 sons, he afterwards went to Leyden. When he returned to 
 England, he settled at Hackney, and first preached in his own 
 house, and afterwards with Dr. Bates, but always gratis, having 
 a good estate. He died in 1695."
 
 i83 
 
 will be seen that both Proctor and Undergraduate 
 of the seventeenth century had characteristics which 
 distinguish them from their representatives of to-day. 
 
 The story is headed, " Of Mr. Woodcock," and is 
 this : " He was much given to prayers, and observed 
 God's answer to y"^ ; when he entered upon y"^ Proctor's 
 office, he prayed with David, ' Turn from me reproach 
 and shame ' ; and y*= Lord answered him. In y- 
 collcdg he had a strange imagination y' there were a 
 company of Rakehells in one Corbet's chamber , he 
 got into his chamber by y*^ bed-maker's key ; Corl^et 
 had drawn his sword, and said he would run him 
 through y' came in ; yet Mr. Woodcock entered ; 
 sent y^ rest to their chambers, and after a little talk 
 Mr. W. bad him take the sword by y*^ point and 
 present him with y hilt on his knees to expiate his 
 affront ; he did so, and ever after reverenced Mr. W., 
 who put him not to publique shame, nor spake harshly 
 to him. How forceable are right words ! " 
 
 Having then heard how Corbet of Jesus encoun- 
 tered the Proctor and .surrendered not his name antl 
 college only but his heart (surely now a very antiijuated 
 jjroceeding), let us hear of the marvellous escape ot 
 Shepherd of Emmanuel. " Mr. Shepherd's eminent 
 delivcranfc. When Mr. Shepherd was at Emnionucl 
 CoUedge he studyed in bed [I believe this custom is 
 quite gone out at Emmanuel], had a wyre candlestick; 
 while he slept y*^ snuff of y'^ candle fell on his ])illow ; 
 burnd and smothred so y' when y<^ bed-maker came
 
 1 84 
 
 in y*^ morning, shee was almost styfled, opened y^ 
 winddow and cryed her master was choaked. This 
 awakened him ; y pillow was burned saveing in y^ 
 places where his head and neck lay, not a hair of his 
 head singed." 
 
 We have seen the undergraduate at play and 
 asleep ; let us take a glimpse at him in the disputations 
 which were so great a part of his life here. Of Mr. 
 Darby, Mr. W. says : "He had y^ best nalurall parts 
 of any pupill he ever had, yet extream idle. [Somehow 
 after this Mr. Darby becomes a very real character to 
 us.] When he was Prevaricator* he was hum'd* at 
 every sentence ; y^ Sophisters caryed him out upon 
 their shoulders, sent him home with six trumpets, &c. 
 [Now our good Proctor thinks it's time for him to 
 intervene.] Mr. W. hasted to him, told him 'Now 
 thou thinks thyself a witt and a brave fellow ; thou'lt 
 be courted to their drunken society and undon.' 
 ' No,' says he, ' I think myself a great deal worse 
 than in y* morning, haveing only showed y'^ I can 
 play y^ fool to please boys,' and he hoped God would 
 keep him from such company. His excelent poem 
 describeing y^ drunken club, printed many years after. 
 
 * The MS. has " Remoraccator " and "hem'd," probably a 
 miscopy of Mr. Woodcock's MS. The Prevaricator pkyed the 
 part of Devil's Advocate in a disputation, suggesting difficulties 
 beyond those put by the opponent of the thesis. A person with 
 a character for ready wit would be selected for the part. The 
 word "hum'd," as I am assured by an excellent authority, was 
 commonly used in the sense "applauded."
 
 i85 
 
 shows how much he abhored y""." But he retained 
 his old wit as the sequel shows : " When Dr. Tillotson 
 left Kedditon to come to London, Mr. W. prevailed 
 with S'' Tho. Barnardiston to present Mr. Darby, 
 where he lives yet. Long since he sent him a letter 
 of thanks, and desired, seeing he had got him a live- 
 ing, he would now get him a wife ; with whome he 
 desired not durty mony, but pure vertue, yet in regard 
 vertue was not infallibly certain, he desired looo 
 pounds caution-mony, for vertue should fail." 
 
 Dr. Thomas Goodwin,* Fellow of Catharine Hall, 
 seems to deserve a place among these representatives 
 of old Cambridge, as an eccentric who apparently 
 combined an extreme of Puritanism with a certain 
 tenderness for his bodily refreshment, and, as is not 
 surprising, was grievously misunderstood. " He 
 prayed," we are told, " with his hat on and sitting. 
 In his travil he caryed blankets, linning, neats-tongiies, 
 claret, &c., in his coach, as Mrs. .A.rrowsmith told Mr. 
 W. when y^ Dr. lay at Trinity College. Then I suj)- 
 pose it was "y' he came to hear Mr. Whitchcot at 
 
 * Made President of Magdalen College, Oxford, by Oliver 
 Cromwell. He died in 1679, and was buried in IJunltill Fields. 
 According to his epitaph 
 
 "His writings already published 
 
 And what are now preparing for publicatir)n 
 
 The noblest monuments of this great man's praise 
 
 Will diffuse his name in a more fragrant odour 
 
 Than that of the richest perfume 
 
 To fiourisli in those far-divtant ages 
 
 When this marble inscribed with his just honours 
 
 .Shall have dropped into dust."
 
 1 86 
 
 Trinity Church, when some waggish scollars said he 
 slept all y^ while ; but himself said he could not for- 
 bear going into his chamber and for a long while 
 bewayling y* infelicyty of y^ University, which had 
 such corrupt preachers and preaching in it." 
 
 We shall turn from these tales of men gone 
 down when we have given to the world, perhaps for 
 the first time, the veracious history of a wrestling 
 match between an Archbishop of Canterbury and a 
 Master of Emmanuel. (Is there really no hope of 
 this sort of thing being revived? Most Reverend 
 Prelate and honoured Master, take this little hint and 
 contribute one fresh sensation to a jaded age.) "Bishop 
 Bancroft was contemporary with Dr. Chaderton, 
 y^ known first Master of Emmanuel Colledge. Cha- 
 derton, having busynes with him when he was at 
 Lambeth, sent in his name. The Bishop dismissed 
 all the company with him, sends for him in, asks him 
 his name if it was Chaderton. He replyed 'Yes.' 
 ' I shall know y' presently,' says he, shuts y doors, 
 puts off his gown. ' If you be Chaderton y" you can 
 wrestle, and I will try one fall ' (as they had oft done 
 at y^ University).* The Doctor flung y Archbishop. 
 ' Now,' says he, ' I know you are Chaderton.' Dis- 
 patches him with handsom kindnes. It was somew' 
 ominous y' y^ Puritan should fling y^ Archbishop." 
 
 * The Vita Laurentii Chaderton tells how in their early 
 days Chaderton saved Bancroft's life in a "town-and-gown. " 
 See Mullinger's History^ v. 2, p. 477 n.
 
 i87 
 
 This both Dr. Tuckney* and Dr. Horton told Mr. 
 W., and said they had it from Dr. Chaderton's own 
 mouth. 
 
 From Cambridge to Oundle is no long journey, 
 and 1 will close this paper with the story of an 
 Oundle physician who seems to have been less of a 
 Puritan than a wit. 
 
 " Of Dr. Bowls, of Oundle. He was sent for to a 
 captain of y<^ Parliament side, y' had tome some Com- 
 mon prayer-books, who was y" sick of a dissentery. 
 He caused some of y*^ leaves to be boyled in milke, 
 gave it to his patient and it cured him. So he preacht 
 to him y^ evil of tearing so medicinall a book. Being 
 told afterwards y^ they heard he had done a miracle, 
 cured a man with y- Common prayer, 'Yes, I have 
 so.' * But, Doctor, would not any other paper with 
 such ink upon it have done as well ? ' ' No,' said he, 
 ' I put in y' prayer for y*' vissitation of y*^ sick.' This 
 D'' in y*= times of Oliver at their healths and merry 
 meetings would take a crum of bread and swallow it, 
 
 * Dr. Tuckney was Master of St. John's from 1653 till the 
 Rcstcjr;ilion, whun he was rciilaccd by (iunniti^. Tlii- story is 
 told of him : "In his elections at St. John's when the President 
 accordinj^ to the cant of the times would call upon him to have 
 regard to the ,:;i'(//j', he an-Avered no one sliould have greater 
 ref;ard to the truly f,'odly than himself; but he was determined 
 to cho(jse none hut sc/w/cirs, adtling ' Tiiey may deceive me iu 
 their godliness, they cannot in their sclujlarsliip.' " I'akcr, the 
 Historian of the College, though he counts Tuckney only as 
 Master de fcuto, speaks warmly of the gnod discipline which he 
 kejit, and of the ingratitude with which he was rewarded.
 
 saying * God send this crura well down.' Yet he 
 gott nothing when y^ king came in." With which 
 woeful instance of royal neglect we come to a pause. 
 
 II 
 
 [March 17, 1886] 
 
 Any one who pretends to possess new historical 
 material is bound by precedent to upset two or three 
 established reputations, or he is nowhere. In this 
 particular I shall not fail : for on the indubitable 
 testimony of Mr, Woodcock's book, the Royal Martyr 
 becomes a common-swearer, and the so-called Merry 
 Monarch the stem critic of lax theology ! En, tibi, 
 lector : 
 
 " Part of Dr. Haraond's Sermon before y^ King at 
 Oxford when his case was low and he had this saying 
 [i.e., was addicted to this language:] 'As long as 
 God-dam-rae's leads y Van, and y^ Devil-Confound- 
 rae's brings up y rear, he must needs be routed in 
 all his enterprizes.' At which the K. wept. Told 
 by Mr. Smith, minister of Wadhouse, who was eye- 
 and-ear-witness of both." But our surprise at these 
 ejaculations of a saintly spirit in difficulties is lessened 
 (or heightened) on hearing that the King's spiritual 
 director was given the same way. This is too evident
 
 1 89 
 
 from the story " Of Bp. Racket and Bp. Laud. 
 Bp. Hacket told Dr. Boylston, one of y^ prebendaries 
 of Litchfield, y^ Bp. Laud would swear notably, but 
 he once tryed tvith him and did out-swear himy This 
 Dr. Boylston told Mr. Woodcock himself. Tantaene 
 animis coelestibus irae? a simple soul might say. 
 But the subject is so little understood that a really 
 scientific memoir on ' Rudimentary Human Nature in 
 Bishops ' would be both piquant and valuable. " On 
 y= same fashion in Darby pulpit, he is reported to 
 have used this phrase, 'The Devil scald you all,' 
 7uhich ivas apprehended to be a curser If not a curse, 
 we must admit it was an uncommon form of benedic- 
 tion, which may well have jjuzzled the good people 
 of Derby. 
 
 How refreshing it is, however, to turn from these 
 martyrs of unclean lips to that bright light and 
 defender of the faith Charles IL ! " King Charles 
 2nd's speech of Mr. Lamb's Sermon. He began his 
 sermon at Windsor before y*= King thus : ' Faith, 
 Truth and Grace are y*= 3 great Impostors of y* world; 
 Reason is y= Empress of y^ Soul, whose conduct 
 through Theoligy, morality, and policy, I am now to 
 shew you.' The King said after all ended, ' Wliat 
 stuff is tliis? Such stuff as they bring from O.xford ? 
 it's better to catechize and answer two (questions, 
 how we might live well and Dye well.' One y' heard 
 Y' King speake it told Dr. Burnet, he Dr. Bates, and 
 he Mr. W."
 
 190 
 
 Mr. Woodcock allows however that this good 
 theologian was not deficient in a certain mundane 
 smartness. Witness the story " Of Seth Ward, Bp. of 
 Sanim. His father was an Attorney at Buntingford 
 in Hartfordshire. He was bred in Sydney College. 
 When K. C. intended to shut up y Exchequer he 
 asked this Bp. if he had no monys there, intending to 
 give him a friendly warning. He said he had none, 
 (fearing y^ King would borrow it). ' But are you 
 sure?' said y^ K. ; 'have you not 30001b.?' 'No,' 
 said he (verba sacerdotis), ' I've not a groat.' The 
 K. knowing it, said, ' Let him goe like a knave and 
 his money with him.' By this he lost his hopes of 
 y^ A.Bp- of Canterbury and 3000 lb. Being chancelor 
 for y^ Knights of Windsor, y K. usually allowed to 
 y^ Chancelor y surplusage of w' he gave for y^ 
 Installments. At 7 years end, ye K. called him for 
 Accompts. He told him he had 30001b. and he 
 would put 2000 more to it and build houses for y 
 poor K's. The K. said * I am a poor K'- I'le have 
 y^ mony myself,' and so he lost 3000 lb. more." 
 
 When the cat is away, the mice seize a temporary 
 advantage, and it is not surprising that with Bishops 
 such as Seth Sarum,' the ' inferior ' clergy were even 
 more inferior than usual. 
 
 " Of Dr. Wells of Aldersgate. He was Chaplin 
 to y* Army in Scotland : conformed. Having bid his 
 friends to his child's Baptizing in Aldersgate parish, 
 at 2 a clock y child was very sick, so he Baptized it.
 
 191 
 
 [The dbiofifnctit follows]. But when 4 of clock came 
 and y friends y* were invited, (being loath to lose y*^ 
 silver spoons) at y same time he rebaptized it, as y 
 Nurse told Mr. W., both times in his own house. 
 What will not these Latitudinarians doe?" What 
 indeed, Mr. Woodcock? It is a question still hard 
 to answer. 
 
 Lest we should fancy however that crime goes 
 always unpunished, it is well to read the sad but 
 salutary story which is entitled " Mr. ErowTi's legacy 
 to 35 ministers. He was a Goldsmith in Cheapside, 
 had no child nor near kinsman to be heir to 40 lb. 
 per annum he had in Walthamstow, than a half 
 brother y^ was very wicked. He gave his father-in- 
 law. Col. Anger of Wiltshire and his mother this 
 estate for their lives and after their disease to be 
 sold and divided to 35 ministers. At y*-' funerall 
 Col. Anger said, ' I pray God be mercyfull to us, 
 we shall not live long who have 35 ministers in- 
 gadged to pray for our Deaths.' This was rashly 
 and uncharitably spoken, but within 9 weeks both 
 he and his wife Dyed." 
 
 The following is also a decidedly edifying anec- 
 dote, as it suggests what is perhaps the supreme 
 advantage of the married state. ""WHicn Mr. Rogers 
 mourned unmeasurably for his wife, some friends 
 chid him and said he had cause to be thankful y' 
 God had taken away such a Thorn in his side as 
 Shee was. ' Oh,' says he, ' shee was a good wife.
 
 192 
 
 shee sent me to God many a time when otherwise I 
 should not have gone.' " 
 
 I have reserved to the end the story which puts 
 the greatest strain on one's creduHty, but when it is 
 seen to rest on the word of an eminent man of science, 
 scepticism would manifestly be out of place. 
 
 " Dr. Godard* of Gresham Colledge had an Ex- 
 quisite pallat for edibils and potabils, yet he said 
 there were 2 vinteners y' was better y hee : who 
 being to taste wine, they both commended it. ' But,' 
 says y^ one, 'it has a little taste of Brass'; says y^ 
 other, ' It tastes a little of leather.' When y vessill 
 was emptyed, there was found at y bottom a leather 
 point with two brass taggs upon it." 
 
 G. C. M. S. 
 
 * John Godard, M.D., was ejected in 1662 from the Warden- 
 ship of Merton College, O.xford. He was Fellow of the College 
 of Physicians, Professor of Physic in Gresham College, and 
 F.R.S. {Nonconformists' .Memorial, v. i. p. 196.)
 
 THACKERAY AT CAMBRIDGE 
 
 [October 19, 1887] 
 
 Thackeray's works contain some allusions to his 
 Cambridge days, but they are not frequent, like his 
 Charterhouse reminiscences. Thus in his Round- 
 about Papers, wherein he loves to recall the memories 
 of his youth, he writes : " I met my college tutor only 
 yesterday. We were travelling, and stopped at the 
 same hotel. He had the very next room to mine. 
 After he had gone into his apartment, having shaken 
 me quite kindly by the hand, I felt inclined to knock 
 at his door and say ' Doctor Bcntley, I beg your par- 
 don, but do you remember, when I was going down 
 at the Easter vacation in 1830, you asked me where 
 I was going to spend my vacation ? And I said, 
 With my friend Slingsby, in Huntingdonshire. Well, 
 sir, I grieve to have to confess that I told you a fib. 
 I had got ^20, and was going for a lark to Paris, 
 where my friend Edwards was staying.' There, it is 
 out. The Doctor will read this, for I did not wake 
 him up after all to make my confession, but protest 
 
 '3
 
 194 
 
 he shall have a copy of this Roundabout sent to him 
 when he returns to his lodge." 
 
 But the most interesting allusions to his old Uni- 
 versity are contained in a letter, written 1850, to Mrs. 
 Brookfield, when he was staying in Cambridge with 
 his friend, the Rev. William Brookfield : 
 
 "Madam, I have only had one opportunity of 
 saying how do you do to-day, on the envelope of a 
 letter which you will have received from another, and 
 even more intimate friend, W. H. B. This is to 
 inform you that I am so utterly and dreadfully miser- 
 able now he has just gone off at one o'clock to Nor- 
 wich by the horrid mail, that I think I can't bear this 
 place beyond to-morrow, and must come back again. 
 
 " We had a very pleasant breakfast at Dr. Henry 
 Maine's and two well-bred young gents of the Univer- 
 sity, just as we remember them 200 years ago 
 
 Well, we brexfested with Mr. and Mrs. Maine, and I 
 thought him a most kind, gentle and lovable sort of 
 man, so to speak, and liked her artlessness and sim- 
 plicity, and then we went to fetch walks over the 
 ground, forgotten, and yet somehow well remembered. 
 .... We went to the Union where we read the 
 papers, then drove to the river where we saw the 
 young fellows in the boats, then amidst the College 
 groves and cetera, and peeped into the various courts 
 and halls, and were not unamused, but bitterly melan- 
 cholious, though I must say William complimented 
 me on my healthy appearance, and he, for his part,
 
 ^95 
 
 looked uncommonly well. I then went to see my 
 relations, old Dr. Thackeray, 75 years of age, per- 
 fectly healthy, handsome, stupid and happy, and lie 
 isn't a bit changed in twenty years, nor is his wife, 
 strange to say. I told him he looked like my grand- 
 father, his uncle, on which he said, ' Your grandfather 
 was by no means the handsomest of the Thackerays,' 
 and so I suppose he prides himself upon his personal 
 beauty. At four we went to dine with Don Thompson 
 in Hall, where the thing to me most striking was 
 the if you please the smell of the dinner, exactly 
 like what I remember aforetime. Savoury odours of 
 youth borne across I don't know what streams and 
 deserts, struggles, passions, poverties, hopes, hopeless 
 loves and useless loves of twenty years ! There is a 
 sentiment suddenly worked out of a number of veal 
 and mutton joints, which surprises me just as much 
 as it astonishes you, but the best or worst of being 
 used to the pen is, that one chatters with it as with 
 the tongue to certain persons, and all things blurt out 
 for good or for bad. 
 
 " I am going out to breakfast to see some of the 
 gallant young blades of the University, and to-night, 
 if I last until then, to the Union to hear a debate. 
 "What a queer thing it is ! I think William is a little 
 disappointed that I have not been made enough a 
 lion of, whereas my timid nature treml^les before such 
 honours, and my vanity would be to go through life 
 as a gentleman as a Major Pendennis you have
 
 196 
 
 hit it. I believe I never do think about ray public 
 character, and certainly didn't see the gyps, waiters 
 and undergraduates whispering in hall as your William 
 did, or thought he did. He was quite happy in some 
 dreary rooms in college, where I should have perished 
 oi ennui thus are we constituted." * 
 
 * Extract from "Unpublished Letters of Thackeray. "- 
 Scriiner's Magazine, July, 1887.
 
 THE GOGMAGOGS 
 
 [October 25, 1888] 
 
 It seems to be generally understood that "the 
 Gogmagogs " is a playful appellation bestowed upon 
 our most gigantic hills by the humour of a past 
 generation of undergraduates. The name may have 
 been suggested by the older name current in Eliza- 
 bethan English, which was Gogtnanshill. There is a 
 mention of this name in A Dialogue, by W. Bullein, 
 printed in 1578, and reprinted for the Early English 
 Text Society in 1888. At p. 113 of the reprint we 
 find : " I am fourtie yeres olde, but I did neuer se 
 the like but once, and that was betwene Godmichester 
 [Godmanchester] and Gogmanshille, a little from Cam- 
 bridge, as I traueilcd to Wolpit faire to buye coltes." 
 Here Wolpit is Woolpit in Suffolk, to the east of Bury. 
 
 Another variation is Hogmagog. Mr. Wm. Worts, 
 in his will, dated 1709, left money "to be applied to 
 the making a calcey or causeway from Emmanuel 
 College to Hogmagog, alias Gogmagog Hills." The 
 Worts Causeway is duly marked in the Ordnance map.
 
 198 
 
 It would hardly occur to a reader of Marmion 
 that the original scene of the encounter, from which 
 Marmion's combat with De Wilton is copied, is no 
 other place than our own Gogmagogs. Yet such 
 is probably the case. Sir Walter Scott tells us that 
 he took the story from Gervase of Tilbury, where 
 the story is told of a baron named Osbert, "in the 
 vicinity of Wandelbury, in the bishoprick of Ely." 
 But Sir Walter does not seem to have been aware 
 that the story occurs in the Gesta RomaJiorum, 
 where it is tale No. 155, which in Swan's translation, 
 begins thus : " There is in England, as Gervase tells 
 us, on the borders of the episcopal see of Ely, a castle 
 called Cathubica ; a little below [i.e. beyond] which is a 
 place distinguished by the appellation of Wandlesbury, 
 because, as they say, the Vandals having laid waste 
 the country and cruelly slaughtered the Christians here 
 pitched their camp. Around a small hillock, where 
 their tents were pitched, was a circular space of level 
 ground, enclosed by ramparts, to which none but one 
 entrance presented itself" The story goes on to re- 
 cord the encounter between a knight named Albert, 
 who repaired to the place, accompanied by his squire, 
 and a demon-warrior. The story in Gervase is just 
 the same, only the knight's name is Osbert. Harrison 
 alludes to the same story in his Description of England, 
 ed. 1587, p. 129, col. I, where, speaking of "Geruase 
 of Tilburia," he says : " What a tale he telleth in his 
 De otio imperiali, of Wandelburie hilles, that lie within
 
 199 
 
 sight and by south of Cambridge . . . and of a spirit 
 that would of custom in a moone-shine night (if he 
 were chalenged and called thereunto) run at tilt and 
 turnie in complet armor with anie knight or gentleman 
 whomsoever, in that place ; and liow one Osbcrt of 
 Bamewell armed himself," etc. 
 
 The ordnance map gives the name " Gogmagog 
 Hills " to all the hills in that neighbourhood ; and 
 marks Wandlebury (miswTitten Vandlebury) just to 
 the left of the highest point over which the Hills 
 Road passes. There seem to be remains there of 
 an old camp. 
 
 It may be doubted whether Wandelhiry is named 
 from the Vandals in the sense in which that word is 
 usually understood. Of course Vandals is due to a 
 Latin spelling of Wandals, or rather IVendels ; and it 
 is rather remarkable that we should take the trouble 
 to consult tlie I^atin language in order to learn hov/ 
 to mispronounce an English word. This IVendel is 
 preserved, not only in tlie A.S. IVcndclsdc, tlie Wcn- 
 del-sea or Vandal-sea, which is our old name for the 
 Mediterranean Sea, but quite correctly in such a name 
 as Wcndlebury (co. Oxford). Wendel is a mere deri- 
 vative of the verb to wend, and is equivalent in sense 
 to " wanderer," which is ultimately from the same 
 root-verb viz., the verb to wind. Wcnddhiry is 
 simply "borough of wanderers," and that is all we 
 are likely to learn of the matter. We should now 
 call such a spot a " camping-out place."
 
 200 
 
 Much more might be said as to the legends of 
 Gog and Magog in connection with the neighbour- 
 hood of Cambridge, but this would lead me too far 
 afield. 
 
 Walter W. Skeat.
 
 LETTERS TO LECTURERS 
 
 I. To DR. VERRALL 
 [October 31, 1889] 
 
 Dear Doctor Verrai.l, 
 
 When I first came np to Cambridge, you were, T 
 believe, practising at the bar, and to us freshmen were 
 known chiefly as one of the immortal bracket, Butcher, 
 Page, Verrall, which gave the highest satisfaction to 
 all, with the possible exception of His Grace the Chan- 
 cellor. But it was not to be ; and what the Woolsack 
 lost, Cambridge m general and myself in particular 
 gained by your return here in 1877 ; for I was among 
 those who had the pleasure of being under you as 
 Composition Lecturer, and thereout, I trust, we sucked 
 no small advantage. It is perhaps a little incongruous 
 in me to write a letter to a lecturer whose regular 
 lectures I never attended. Those were, you remem- 
 ber, the troublous times of Set Subjects, and even one 
 of the greatest advocates of that system admitted that 
 any attempt to improve one's mind before the Tripos 
 was inconsistent with Practical Wisdom. So it was
 
 202 
 
 at other feet than yours that I learned from Plato 
 that I had a soul, and from Lucretius that I had'nt 
 (at least worth bragging about), and from Aristotle 
 that it belonged to 'another enquiry.' 
 
 But let me return from this digression and remind 
 you that you have produced an excellent edition of 
 the Medea, and written a Greek play on the lines 
 of the Choephori with occasional plagiarisms from 
 ^schylus. Your studies in Horace have done much 
 to build up the reputation of that person ; and if 
 Aelius was not a bailiff, may we never live to know 
 what a bailiff is ourselves, the University contribution 
 notwithstanding. You wrote on Horace ; there you 
 had the pull over him ; but Horace, though, it is to 
 be feared, a pagan, was a prophet, and there he had 
 the pull over you. For did he not pen those exquisite 
 lines : 
 
 Splendid Emendax et in omne virgo 
 
 Nobilis aevum .'' 
 
 wliich, in the interests of our scientific friends and 
 others who have no Greek, I would paraphrase as a 
 brilliant editor, a B.A. who will live to see his name 
 in the Ca?nbridge Revie^v. And this brings me to 
 tlie gist of my remarks, for a letter to you which did 
 not touch on your emendations would be like a letter 
 to Hamlet with no allusions to his probable succession 
 to the throne of Denmark. Emendations, as the philo- 
 sopher said of desires, are of three kinds ; natural and 
 necessary ; natural and unnecessary ; unnatural and
 
 203 
 
 unnecessary. You have shone in the first two classes. 
 In the third ? firj r^euono. Still you will pardon my 
 reminding you that you have admitted to me in black 
 and white that our fragile little friend Xixf] is " very 
 very dead." R.I.P. Again, was it kind in you to 
 suggest (iKons in a well-known passage in Pindar? 
 Till then he stood confessed the champion mixer of 
 metaphors in the world. You might have left that 
 sublime poet his greatest charm. But there is in all 
 your emendations, whether we accept them with joy 
 or pass them by in sorrow, a touch of the Fjfifel-tower ; 
 we revel in the newer view when we have recovered 
 from the stupendous climb. 
 
 But a change has come over the spirit of your 
 dream. When we heard that you were sitting down 
 before Ogygian Thebes and adding another to the 
 Weeping Seven, our expectations were raised to the 
 highest pitch. Would you echo the words of the 
 impious Kapaneus, " D.V. or not I will sack the 
 city"? No, you forgot the great formula of your 
 party, "As in 1885," and the result is not to say con- 
 servative Primrose Darncs and the Battering Ram is 
 nearer the mark. While we are on the subject of the 
 St/)icfn, I should like to have your candid opinion of 
 the merits of that play. Do you hold with (I think) 
 Mr. James Pa)Ti that it is arrant rubljisli, or with me 
 that the interest is too i)ainfully thrilh'ng? How one 
 checks off the gates on one's fingers, and trembles to 
 think what some exceedingly boastful person is doing
 
 204 
 
 outside ! And then the intense relief to learn that 
 Justice is leading a God-fearing man to the safe side 
 of the gate, and that the knowing ones are putting 
 their money on Zeus, Typho being offered in vain. 
 
 As an examiner your mark-book is Alpine in its 
 scenery, towering heights alternating with yawning 
 abysses. Nought and a hundred are your favourite 
 symbols. While the good man finds in you a patent 
 elevator, the impostor lights on a nether mill-stone. 
 But, as we know, even the author of parts of the 
 so-called Homeric poems sometimes dozes. And 
 this must, I think, have happened to you some ten 
 years ago, when you assigned marks to four elab- 
 orate historical essays which had not a ghost of a 
 fact concealed about their persons. Let me take 
 this opportunity of apologising. " Make brick," said 
 the Examiners. But if you have no straw, and no 
 time to go a-gleaning, what are you to do ? One is 
 in the delicate position of the Plataeans and the 
 Little Question. " What do you know of the reforms 
 of Cleisthenes ? " To answer the truth is inexpedient 
 (as the Trinity scholar found in the matter of the Pelas- 
 gians), while falsehood brings with it an easy detection. 
 
 Let me further remind you that you have built a 
 house and taken the Litt.D. But neither of these is 
 distinctive now-a-days. I have never seen you in a 
 cope. You are a Home-Ruler and prefer to play 
 whist for love. One of these courses seems to me 
 more commendable than the other. You are not the
 
 205 
 
 typical don of romance ; you have managed to hit the 
 happy mean in being hail-fellow-well-met with under- 
 graduates and seniors alike without forgetting that 
 membership of the Senate of this University is per- 
 haps the highest position attainable by man. You 
 are a pleasant companion, have a keen sense of 
 humour, and are, I am sure, of too kindly a nature 
 to take amiss any apparent flippancy in this letter. 
 You have many friends and no enemies, except your 
 partner for the time being. 
 
 II. To PROFESSOR JEBB 
 [November 14, 1S89] 
 
 Dear Professor Jebb, 
 
 In returning this year to Cambridge you did your 
 old University an honour which it cannot easily repay. 
 The University of Glasgow is literally set on a hill ; 
 but the University of Cambridge is, metaphorically 
 speaking, set on a much higher hill, and the Chair of 
 the Professor of Greek occupies as high a place as 
 any in that University. This perhaps is in itself 
 sufficient reward for you. 
 
 You are probably aware that you have edited three 
 plays of Sophocles, and that your editions of those 
 plays are quite unrivalled. This term, as you know, 
 you are lecturing on the Fhiioctdes, and it is probable
 
 206 
 
 that your edition of that play will soon be ready. 
 Meantime you are known as the finest Greek scholar, 
 I suppose, in the world, and your lectures are worthy 
 of your position. 
 
 But why should you, the Professor of Greek, with 
 an audience such as you can command, choose such 
 an inadequate room in which to deliver your lectures ? 
 Your college hall, the large room of the Guildhall, the 
 Theatre Royal, or the Market Place, with a pulpit 
 erected in the centre, would all be more suitable for 
 your requirements. Indeed the last suggestion merits 
 your attention. What could be more impressive than 
 to see you, our Greek Professor, after the manner of 
 some, no doubt, of those Attic Orators whose works 
 you have edited so well, standing on a /3/;/ia in the 
 open air addressing a multitude of earnest students? 
 At the time of the coronation of the Queen some of 
 the most enthusiastic spectators arrived on the scene 
 of action over-night. The same story applies to your 
 lectures. 
 
 In spite of this the crowd of those who come to 
 gather up the words that fall from your lips is very 
 great, and this 'gathering up' expresses tolerably 
 what happens at your lectures. All will admit that 
 your voice is as clear as anyone can desire ; still you 
 do not give us the impression of a man lecturing to a 
 large audience ; no, you give us the impression of a 
 man lecturing in a loud, clear voice, it is true, but 
 lecturing to himself. Perhaps this is how it happens
 
 207 
 
 that you lecture in the Art Schools ; you have said, 
 or you might have said, " At a certain hour on certain 
 days I shall be reading aloud to myself my edition of 
 the Philoctdcs, so far as it at present goes ; if any 
 members of the University choose to come and look 
 on or listen, they may do so." 
 
 It is possible that half the members of your class 
 would not recognise you if they met you in the street; 
 for they never see your face, unless they catch a 
 glimpse of it as you enter the room. A lecturer to 
 be perfect, should not only be a fine scholar as you 
 are a quality which very few can hope to attain 
 but they should have something of the actor's art as 
 well. An occasional gesture helps on a lecture ; your 
 audience would like to see you move about, to see 
 you speak to them face to face, and not merely 
 reading aloud. You know how much more attractive 
 a sermon is when preached extempore ; and it is the 
 same with a lecture ; the lecturer is so much more in 
 touch wth his audience. Now, if you went to Mr, 
 J. W. Clark, you might pick up some valuable hints, 
 such as he after long experience with the A. D. C. 
 would be sure to be able to give you. You could of 
 course take your lessons in private ; there would be 
 no need for you to compete with Mr. T^eese ; and you 
 woulfl in time, no doubt, find yourself driven to seek 
 a lecture room twice the size of the Arts School. 
 
 But to return to the question of your Greek 
 scholarship : one great charm of your work is its
 
 208 
 
 thoroughness. Your introductions, your comment- 
 aries, your appendices are models of what such work 
 should be; and then, your command of English is 
 equal to your command of Greek what higher praise 
 can be awarded to it ? and your translations of the 
 plays which you have edited would prove you to be a 
 master of the English language, were you not also the 
 first Greek scholar of the day. We must not of course 
 forget that you are not entering for the first time on 
 Cambridge work ; you have been with us before. It 
 will probably interest you little to hear the story of 
 your life ; but it may not be amiss to remind you that 
 you were Public Orator at this University before you 
 went to Glasgow, for that is now thirteen years ago, 
 so that possibly you may have forgotten the fact. 
 And you may have forgotten how appropriately it 
 came to pass that the first celebrity whom you pre- 
 sented for a degree was a Greek Archbishop. In 
 those days, too, you were a Tutor of Trinity, and in 
 1862 you had been senior classic, with Mr. C. E. 
 Graves second, and Dr. Jackson third. Of course, 
 too, you won the Porson Prize and the Scholarship 
 of the same name, and the Craven also. 
 
 Among the latest of the honours that have fallen 
 to your lot, Dr. Verrall has dedicated to you his 
 edition of the Agamemnon which has just been pub- 
 lished, and we cannot do better than here express our 
 concurrence in the respect and welcome which that 
 accomplished scholar offers to you in that dedication.
 
 209 
 
 And now, before closing this letter, I would beg 
 you once more to reflect on the advice which has 
 been offered to you. Leave the Arts School and 
 learn to act. 
 
 III. To PROFESSOR STANFORD 
 [November 21, 1889] 
 
 Dear Professor Stanford, 
 
 Of your genius as a composer we have long been 
 convinced ; with your fame as a leading light of the 
 New Scliool of English Musicians we have long 
 been conversant ; but it is only recently that you 
 have discovered yourself to us in the new rok of a 
 University Lecturer. And there, dear Professor, (we 
 say it witli grief) we cannot accord to you that 
 unqualified praise which our devotion to yourself, 
 and admiration of your music, would fain have us mete 
 out to you. Your lectures are marvels of erudition. 
 Facts, dates, and sound criticism are there in unim- 
 peachable array, but in this very strength lies their 
 only weakness. Their massive solidity overwlielms 
 us. Our poor mental digestion is hardly eijual to 
 disposing, ^nt onu sitting, of the tremendous intellectual 
 meal wliith any one of your lectures so lavishly 
 provides. Be the point never so unimportant, you 
 must needs bring to bear on it the whole of your 
 descriptive and critical artillery. Ijang ! bang ! go 
 
 14
 
 2IO 
 
 your hundred-tonners, loaded to the muzzle with hard 
 fact, critical acumen, or the grape shot of epigram- 
 matic sarcasm ; we listen in awe-struck wonderment, 
 and it is only when the smoke of your broadside has 
 cleared away, that we begin to see how much more 
 serviceable small arms would have proved, and how 
 much your elaboration of details causes us to carry 
 away only a confused and hazy impression of the 
 points which you really wish us to remember. Then 
 your hour is up, with half your story untold, and 
 straightway you cast agonised glances at the blandly 
 smiling clock, as though it were to blame, poor thing. 
 We like, however, the refreshing unconventionality 
 of your diction. Some may possibly think it too 
 colloquial. 'A couple of bangs on E flat' (as we 
 once heard you remark) may be forcible, but it is 
 hardly professorial. Nevertheless, we prefer you 
 thuswise ; in these characteristic utterances we see 
 something of that strong personality which has brought 
 you to the front rank of living musicians. 
 
 And this leads me to another point, in which, not 
 only Cambridge, but England owes you thanks. I 
 allude to your magnificent castigation of that un- 
 speakable entity, the British Musical Critic. You 
 alone have had the courage to cross swords with that 
 aggregation of arrogant dunces who have over-run 
 every branch of musical criticism, and have, till 
 lately, held the fame and reputation of every rising 
 composer at the mercy of their dull stupid pens.
 
 211 
 
 When critics turn librettists also, woe betide the 
 luckless composer who dares to choose his own 
 book of words. Others have succumbed, and written 
 down to the level of these self-constituted and self- 
 styled leaders of musical thought. But, Ajax-like, 
 you have defied them, and the verdict of the British 
 public has been given emphatically in your favour. 
 O the consternation you carried into their camp ! 
 How they ponderously sought to annihilate you, and 
 how they lifted up their voice with one accord, and 
 solemnly brayed in futile wrath, as your caustic retorts 
 went home ! Poor Dvorak's one terrible failure was 
 an attempt to write for the British Critic, and Sf. 
 Ludmila was the dreadful result. The Bohemian has 
 since shaken the dust of England from off his feet, 
 having found out when too late, a fact which you 
 had discovered long ago, that the British musical 
 critics are not the British people. A splendid genius 
 like Mackenzie, has no other choice than to set 
 his music to the gniesome libretti with which they 
 provide him. Small wonder, then, that they should 
 bellow forth their indignation against you, since you 
 have persistently declined to make use of their inane 
 ' books.' 
 
 And then, too, what does Cambridge not owe you 
 for your labours on behalf of musical art in its highest 
 form within her classic walls ? You have succeeded in 
 centralizing scattered musical forces, and as a result, 
 we have the splendid performances of your pet child
 
 212 
 
 and nursling, the C.U.M.S., of which you are so justly 
 proud. True, we sometimes find you uneasily restive 
 when you discover any new musical venture which 
 owes not its birth to the C.U.M.S., or when any 
 existing musical organization assumes proportions 
 which seem to menace the older body. But though 
 you are thus addicted to the discovery of musical 
 mares' nests, and do on such occasions play the 
 part of a tornado in hum, let us say, a frock coat, 
 we like you the more, because we know that these 
 little weaknesses are but a proof of your devotion to 
 the cause of good music here. 
 
 And finally, you have at last induced the Univer- 
 sity to lend its support to the cause of your art. As 
 you truly said, you were the only professor without 
 a fund at his disposal for lectures. You asked the 
 Musical Board for a hundred pounds ; they, however, 
 appraise Cambridge music at half that sum, and have 
 given you js P^'" annum towards the cost of your 
 lectures and concerts. Still, bravely done ; it is some- 
 thing to have roused to action the authorities of a 
 University where, but a generation ago, the tendency 
 among the gravely erudite was to regard music 
 as only fit occupation for fiddlers and foreigners. 
 You, however, have shown the true dignit)-- of your 
 art, and though posterity will chiefly remember you 
 by your fine masculine compositions, they will not 
 \villingly forget your devoted and unsparing labours 
 for the advancement of music in Cambridge.
 
 213 
 
 IV. To PROFESSOR MACALISTER 
 [December 5, 1889] 
 
 Dear Professor Macalister, 
 
 Your pride at being selected to succeed Professor 
 Humphry was somewhat dashed at first by the dis- 
 covery that you had left the shores of the scented 
 Liffey to dwell upon the banks of a smelling Cam. 
 But even Professorships have their drawbacks ; and 
 you are an Ulster man and a philosopher. They miss 
 you in Dublin too : the dear old whiskied city, where 
 rippling humour and racy wit rainbow the tears in the 
 hearts of its clinging people. Those were fine times 
 when a man was not reckoned a member of Trinity 
 until he had paid the costs of the o'er-night freak at 
 the morrow's unfeeling police-court. You were well 
 known there. For was it not yourself tJiat paid the 
 fine for a penitent and penniless pupil ? And in many 
 an Irish doctory (and where beat there warmer and 
 more grateful hearts ?) glasses are drained with Celtic 
 I'lafi at the mention of Sandy Macalister. The parting 
 brought one specially bitter grief to you. It was not 
 the old Chair of Human and Comparative Anatomy : 
 that was filled with a worthy successor. It was the 
 compulsory relinquishment of the honourable post of 
 chief dissector to the Dublin Zoo. And who has not 
 heard of your navigation of the aorta of that whale ; 
 and of the adventurous travels into the interiors of the 
 seven elephants ? This seminary of Sound Learning
 
 214 
 
 whose special colds and sausages have such a national, 
 not to say European reputation, lodges you meanly. 
 It is in the way to make amends. A deal-lined 
 shanty with corrugated top ; the three cracked old 
 stoves that, like veteran gossips, have brought the 
 art of getting much smoke from little fire to five 
 o'clock tea perfection ; the row of basins, the tallowy 
 soap and o'er-hanging taps, flanked by the clammy 
 towels ; the coloured diagrams ; the shelves and 
 boxes ; that high tier of window and the skylights 
 that give copious access to the draughty air ; the 
 skeleton gas-jets in painted array; the stools; and 
 then the stands whereon are laid the dishevelled 
 remains of our unpreened and ungarnished humanity : 
 and we are in the Dissecting Room. Here scalpel in 
 hand you prosect for your lectures and diff"use around 
 an aroma of untiring philanthropy. You labour and 
 teach with the like untrammelled and unresting care. 
 And it is only when sorely pressed that you show the 
 tip of what, were you less good-natured, might be a 
 biting and sarcastic tooth, as you remind us that we 
 are taught not for our own advantage solely, but for 
 the benefit, not to say the safety, of ungrateful and 
 penurious laymen. And your work does not end in 
 teaching us : variations are noted, and abnormalities 
 pickled for the literature and museums of Anatomy. 
 At fifteen minutes to one the first row in the theatre 
 is taken ; at ten minutes to, the second ; at five 
 minutes, the third; and by the time the hour is
 
 215 
 
 reached, every tier is taken and loins are girded for 
 the coming lecture. English has dusted the black- 
 boards, and disposed the specimens in requisite array. 
 The door opens, and you are before us. The trencher 
 is deposited upon the cupboard ; the glance at English's 
 display is taken ; the lips are poised for the flowing 
 speech ; your watch marks time with all the damnable 
 iteration of an endless tick ; the head that disdains to 
 have its obelion pilose is thrown into bold relief; the 
 eye selects that student in the farthest seat ; and soon 
 the high tenor tones a(h)scend with 'clearness to the 
 topmost tier. Nor do we forget the rivetting of im- 
 portant utterance with the short emphatic snort. 
 Hand is almost as busy as the musculature of speech ; 
 and a diagram is outlined with the scraping chalks. 
 Say the jaws, and you lecture on the teeth. They 
 are fitted in with skill and deftness, and you conclude 
 by assuring us that ' the wisdom teeth are usually de- 
 veloped in even numbers from eighteen-and-a-half to 
 twenty-five.' But the gala days are those on wliich 
 you enchain us with your calling's story, and remind 
 us that the anatomy of man is an ancient and ro}al 
 subject of study; that the first book whereof '^oe have 
 any record was on this theme; and that its author was 
 a king. The Egyptian papyri are brought out and 
 read by you. We hear of Nebsecht, who called him- 
 self the Lord of Healing, and flourished full 3000 
 years ago ; and of the potting of that organ that deter- 
 mines the life of the liver. Professor Jebb receives
 
 2l6 
 
 an incidental correction. Antigone stabbed herself 
 through the liver, not the heart : the dark black blood 
 shows that. Moreover the hepatic stab was the 
 fashionable suicide in her time. You make us proud 
 of being in the ranks of a profession that never yet 
 lacked learned and unselfish men, and that numbers 
 amongst its teachers you. And the Healing Art de- 
 serves to have for its first chronicler a writer of regal 
 birth ; for its origin, if not coeval with that of man, is 
 coetaneous with that of humanity. But you are versed 
 in more than Egyptian, and German, and proud 
 Physic's lore. In your youth you have seen smoke- 
 dried and sweet-haired maidens sitting in stone, turf- 
 topped shielings at work with rubbing-stones and 
 querns the rotating stone keeping time to the croon- 
 ing of a Gaelic song. And you can remember the 
 cas-chrom in use where the plough was a foreign 
 luxury. You would none the less be sorry to infer 
 that pottery of a rude unglazed kind with diagonal 
 scoring was invariably Celtic. These things you 
 noted in your youth. What may you not see when 
 dandling Time shall have ripened you into a mellow 
 age? You may see a female Vice-Chancellor ; un- 
 wisdom flee our senatorial councils; and the Union 
 illuminated with the electric light ! One of your 
 fellow Professors summarises your versatility in rid- 
 ding himself of troublesome questioners with the 
 formula ' Go to Professor Macalister, he knows cztery- 
 thing.' You have written on Animal Morphology, on
 
 217 
 
 Evolutioti in Church History, and on The Inscriptions 
 of Aahmes, and in pretty well all the Journals of the 
 Learned Societies. Your just-published Text-book of 
 Anatomy will bring you lasting fame and heaps of 
 curses. An ex-President of the Antiquarian Society, 
 you now preside over the Medical Prayer Union, and 
 have, I am told, been persuaded to preach. The 
 Universities of Cambridge and Dublin count you 
 among their Doctors. The Royal Society has made 
 you one of its Fellows. You are a member of the 
 Senate of the Royal University of Ireland ; of the 
 University of T)ublin ; and of our own Nurse of 
 Learning. A trained intelligence is brought to the 
 Councils of each. The Archaeological, the Biblio- 
 logical, and the Anthropological and the Anatomical 
 Societies award you high places. Why tell you this ? 
 Because you would never tell it of yourself As an 
 Examiner you are more respected than popular : your 
 standard is apt to be inconveniently high for the 
 slothful and the superficial, and in particular for those, 
 who with open-crawed effrontery challenge a trial on 
 no surer base and underpropping than debilitated tips. 
 And herein you do the State some service. I .shall 
 not tell you with what feelings your pupils regard you, 
 lest like the writer of the Letter to Professor Humphry* 
 I be charged by those who do not know you with 
 what a Cumbrian would call beflatchment, and find 
 that I have l)ut worn my heart upon my sleeve for 
 * Not reijrintcd.
 
 2l8 
 
 daws to peck at. In insular politics you are a 
 Unionist; in Imperial, a Federationist. As a critic 
 you give, in my judgment, too lenient and too long a 
 shrift to the pedantic maunderings of the shallow 
 sciolists that cling like barnacles to learning's keel. 
 And of the two you are the scholar, and I the scara- 
 beus, that would have you scrape the bottom. When 
 St. John's made you a Professorial Fellow they did 
 more than make you a sharer in their feasts for the 
 body and their flowings of the soul ; they lustred their 
 Foundation and they honoured you. Near-by you 
 have taken a substantial root. You have built for 
 yourself a commodious dwelling (and would a canny 
 Scot do other ?), a house that has been declared by an 
 architectural authority to be more fitted for the Italian 
 than the English clime. I am told that where you 
 came from the rainfall registers 122; here it is a 
 hundred less. So perhaps our Cambridge air has 
 something of an Italian balminess for you. ' Torris- 
 dale,' however, is undisturbed by the outer skies ; it 
 glows with the warmth of two sunny natures. 
 
 P.S. Why do you lecture at such a horrid time as 
 I p.m. ? The brain is jaded with the morning's work ; 
 the blood is impoverished by the like cause ; and the 
 stomach is achingly empty. Men should come to 
 such lectures as yours with minds fresh and brains 
 alert (they'll need to have them so) in the earlier 
 stages of the working day. Without fairly recent 
 substantial provender your hearers are physically in-
 
 219 
 
 capable of doing either themselves or your lectures 
 justice. Nor can ears be kept by the hour a-stretch 
 when the soul is yearning for luncheon. When I was 
 one of your demonstrators, and the recollection of 
 that association is one of the few oases in a hitherto 
 sandy and befretted life, your younger pupils often 
 asked me if I thought it was really necessary for them 
 to attend your lectures. They understood so little, 
 and they remembered less. And I knew why, and 
 felt sorry for them. I knew they hungered for the 
 flesh-pots. I believe they suffered tortures. I had 
 myself to take sundry snacks of chocolate to keep the 
 wolf away. But I told them to attend, for they would 
 find that, like bread cast upon the waters, something 
 would return again to them. This really is a serious 
 matter. Your pupils are gro7aiiig men. I cannot but 
 think that the fact of the theatre being a borrowed 
 one is accountable for much. I know you to be a 
 humane, considerate and kindly man. When you get 
 into your new quarters bear in mind what I have said. 
 Subject your pupils to no heedless torture. Lecture 
 earlier in the day.* 
 
 V.-To PROFESSOR SIDGWICK 
 [January 23, 1890] 
 De.\r Professor Sidgwick, 
 
 ' There is no learned class in England,' said the 
 German Professor complacently, and a trifle didacti- 
 
 * Professor Macalister lectures now at 12. Eu. C. A'.
 
 220 
 
 cally, as he lighted another cigar. ' Pardon me, Herr 
 Professor,' replied his companion. ' We have such a 
 class, and they are known as Prigs!' It was unkind 
 of you, Dr. Sidgwick, so to mystify the worthy man, 
 while you smiled to yourself at the gentle many-sided 
 malice of your remark. And you would have been 
 fitly punished, had you been involved with imperfect 
 German in an hour-long explanation (the dreariest 
 duty of mankind) of the term you had used, and the 
 Nature of the Prig, You would never have got your 
 German to understand. But stop, was it you after 
 all ? In the face of all inner probability I have heard 
 it denied. But until I have the disavowal from your 
 own lips, I shall continue to believe that the humour, 
 the tolerance, the impersonal delight in criticising 
 yourself, your profession, your country and your 
 adversary, all in one breath, the implied condemna- 
 tion alike of all false, arrogant, or misplaced learning, 
 and of PhiHstines who know not false from true, all 
 this must be yours, and yours alone. 
 
 Your humour is well known to your friends, and 
 is not the least nor the only charm of your conversa- 
 tion. With all honour to the others, I must hold you 
 to be the best host in Cambridge. And even in your 
 books and your lectures, those who know you will find 
 the same qualities, though partly suppressed, and care- 
 fiilly subordinated to your main purpose. Human 
 nature compels me to ask. Why so careful to suppress 
 it? For you know, none better, that we average
 
 221 
 
 mortals are apt to find this matter of Moral Phrilo- 
 sophy a tritle dull. It is strong meat for babes. We 
 listen, and we reverence, but sometimes yawn. The 
 epigrams, and the homely illustrations, which you so 
 sparingly allow us, come like sunshine in spring, or a 
 fine day in summer, and leave us with a sense, that 
 but for some perversity in causes which we do not 
 understand sunshine and fine weather might always be 
 there. But though they seldom come, they wished-for 
 come, and such things are best left on the knees of 
 the gods, who know what is for our good. 
 
 But humour is only the salt of Moral Philosopliy. 
 Your excellence as a Philosopher is best described as 
 an infinite capacity for seeing both sides of the ques- 
 tion. When some (juestion of women's degrees, or 
 what not, was coming to the front, I heard you de- 
 scribe yourself as seated upon the rail. But tliis 
 expressive vulgarism is not nearly expressive enough 
 to hit off the unexampled dexterity of your funam- 
 bulism. Now there 's your Methods of Ethics a won- 
 derful l)Ook. I admire in it especially the skill with 
 which yoti reproduce the method and even the phrases 
 of your master Aristotle, but avoid all the roughness 
 and intolerable obscurity of his style. .So clear and 
 fluent is your language that one reads and reads and 
 fancies that one understands. System succeeds system, 
 and retires shattered from the fray. Criticism suc- 
 ceeds criticism, each more subtle and more cogent 
 than the last. In the play of fence, and luminous
 
 222 
 
 disputation we lose sight of the tremendous issues, 
 and rejoice only in the prowess of our champion. 
 But when the field is clear, and only the bruised and 
 breathless fragments of our adversaries are left, we 
 ask, For what have we been fighting, and what have 
 we secured ? In vain we try to recall, all remains 
 misty and perplexed and negative. Then we read 
 again. On each successive reperusal we may fancy 
 to have won some authoritative teaching, but each 
 time the results are different. Then perhaps we 
 glance at the preface. There we find that some 
 audacious pamphleteer has ventured to claim the 
 author for a positive school, utilitarianism or what 
 not. Of him short work is made, and for a moment 
 we fancy that common sense morality is to be set up 
 for our guidance and obedience. But this also turns 
 out to be incomplete. And the author arrives at an 
 inscrutable result, which enables him to transcend both 
 Intuitionists and Utilitarians may I add, Professor 
 Sidgwick, the limits of the human intellect itself? 
 
 But seriously, there is no one who admires more 
 heartily and more humbly than myself your services 
 in the field of philosophic criticism. Was it not 
 Descartes who said doubt was the necessary starting 
 point of all philosophic investigation ? Your impar- 
 tial studies enable your pupils most effectively and 
 thoroughly to doubt ; and herein, I take it, lies your 
 supreme merit. Cant and authoritative humbug is 
 swept away, and the mind is left free to deal with
 
 223 
 
 problems for itself, and arrive at any or no result 
 according to its bent. One of your pupils once 
 rashly asserted, that on Utilitarian principles one 
 could prove anything at will, and you replied 
 * Indeed, Mr. S. It would be interesting to hear 
 you do it.' No one doubts that you could do it. 
 Dr. Sidgwick ; your virtue is, that you have never 
 tried. Where you drop, as in the Political Economy, 
 unwarily into a new doctrine of foreign trade, I 
 cannot think your success is so great as in your 
 pure unauthoritative criticism of all the free and 
 fair traders, individualists, laisser-faire philosophers, 
 academic socialists, hobby-riders, quack-medicine ven- 
 dors, who confuse the science and distract the state. 
 
 But this being the case, I cannot wonder that 
 your lectures are so sparsely attended, especially by 
 men. For apart from the fact that men are for the 
 most part barbarians, and hate knowledge for its own 
 sake, the few exceptions do not love it for its own 
 sake, but for the sake of the cut and dried formulae 
 which they can write down in their papers. The 
 women come, for they are more apt to mind their 
 book, and more accessible to the sacred sentiments of 
 veneration and of love. But I must make free to 
 doubt if even they understand it all. For if the 
 written word is hard to follow, how nmch rather the 
 spoken utterances ? 
 
 This being your character as a philosopher, one 
 might fancy that you would be slow and irresolute in
 
 224 
 
 action. And so it is in fact, where two plans are 
 each supported by powerful advocates and weighty 
 grounds. But where a new truth is weak and un- 
 noticed we find you in the fore-front of reform. You 
 gave up your fellowship rather than countenance 
 what you held to be a fiction. You lay down your 
 wealth for science, and that a science not your own. 
 You support the higher education of women, perhaps 
 in the hope that they may shame their husbands and 
 brothers out of barbarism. And when you are forced 
 by your position into action which you do not approve, 
 you adopt an attitude of cheerful pessimism, which 
 encourages at once and chastens your less enlightened 
 followers. But though such as I have described you, 
 you are hardly one whom kings or majorities delight 
 to honour. For kings and majorities act after their 
 kind. So much the worse for the University ! 
 
 What a long letter I have written ! I wish you 
 would write me one equally long, and all about your- 
 self. For though you are the least egotistical of 
 mortals, you must find yourself an interesting study. 
 How impartially you would treat the question what 
 wealth of hidden virtues and amusing faults you might 
 disclose and whatever you might say, one feels sure 
 that you would steer clear both of arrogance and 
 self-depreciation. May my own remarks be equally 
 free from the corresponding faults.
 
 A PRIVATE ORATION 
 
 [February 20, 1890] 
 
 That I am unaccustomed, O commissioner, to 
 public speaking I cannot indeed assert, having once 
 held the office of Public Orator not without credit, as 
 I conceive, and only the other day being sent as an 
 ambassador to the Bononians, having made a speech 
 to them in a foreign language, and that not instructed 
 by others, but having composed it myself a thing 
 which, no doubt, any one of these men would easily 
 do : but this, as you yourself cannot be unaware, is a 
 private rase ; and though with the private speeches 
 of the ancients I am familiar, if any man is, yet in 
 delivering a private oration I do not claim to be 
 experienced. For I have not, as these men, spent 
 my life in arguing about such mailers as become 
 them, drainage and rates and market-dues and the 
 like, Init, being by nature not a busybody, but retiring, 
 1 have continued uj) to this time unacquainted with 
 such things. And yet in the eyes of many I seem to 
 
 5
 
 226 
 
 have lived a not inglorious life ; first of all, having 
 won in the Lesser Porson once, in the Greater Person 
 once, in the Mays three times, and having conquered 
 both in the Craven and in the Tripos ; next, being 
 elected President of the Pitt ; and being appointed 
 Professor formerly among the Glasguensians and now 
 here ; and by other many and brilliant achievements 
 having conferred honour on the town ; for which I 
 deserve rather to be crowned with laurels and to dine 
 in the Guildhall, than losing my suit in the Guildhall, 
 to be deprived even of the laurels that I have by such 
 men as these, O Gods and Earth ! 
 
 For what is the character of these miserable petti- 
 foggers? You know, I suppose, that the mother of 
 
 one of them was a bedm 1 bow to your ruling, Sir ; 
 
 but at the same time I would venture to suggest that 
 I was only following the most celebrated models. 
 
 I presume they are seeking to proceed under the 
 15 4th section of the Public Health Act, 'concerning 
 New Streets.' (Read me the law). . . . You see 
 what the law says. Now, the framers of that law 
 never intended that, in order to make a new road, 
 from 25 to 40 feet should be forcibly taken off the 
 garden of Springfield far from it ! For it is mon- 
 strous if, wherever a district is capable of development, 
 people should thereupon exert compulsory powers. 
 T know what my opponents will say that it would 
 be a public benefit. O fine plea ! as if they were 
 not in the most evident way pursuing only their own
 
 227 
 
 advantage ! * But, by Zeus, Newnham and Sehvyn and 
 Ridley are entitled to this improvement because they 
 pay so much to the rates.' But, I imagine, they can 
 only claim to share public benefits, not to get private 
 ones. Now, if only people would act with a view to 
 the public interest, is there aught that prevents our 
 countiy from being pre-eminently great? Does she 
 not possess more ships of war than any other state, 
 and according to Tyrtaeus, 
 
 sufficiency of men and of money also .'' 
 
 which it is proper to employ in ravaging the territory 
 of her enemies, not, by those that died at Marathon, 
 in razing the gates and cutting down the shrubs of 
 her own citizens. 
 
 But observe the cunning of these accursed wTetches; 
 who, though it was open to them to produce their 
 children in court, have nevertheless refrained from 
 doing so. Why ? not wishing unjustly to excite your 
 sympathy and compassion ? Very likely you will 
 believe them ! No . but they were afraid lest, by 
 ridiculing the practice, I might make them appear 
 contemptible before you. But, by the heavens, they 
 shall not escape appearing as contemptible as possible ; 
 for, seeing through their design, as though they had 
 brought on an average five children apiece, (which 
 they would gladly have done) I shall deliver just the 
 same the scathing sarcasm I have elaborately prepared 
 not for nothing, by Zeus ! Very well. Sir ; but you
 
 228 
 
 will allow me to hand you the sheet containing the 
 whole passage carefully copied out. 
 
 Having much that I could say to prove the 
 wickedness of these abandoned fellows and the justice 
 of my own cause, I will pass it by, having inadvertently 
 drunk most of the water in my glass. But it is worth 
 while mentioning how much our fathers surpassed 
 them in virtue. For our fathers, when they wished 
 to decorate the Guildhall, placed upon the walls such 
 mottoes as these. In statu quo ; Nolo episcopari ; Cui 
 bo7io ? In puris naturalibus ; and others of the kind. 
 Such were the public inscriptions those noble men 
 thought fit to put up, meaning, I suppose, that they 
 should be a continual exhortation to posterity. But 
 consider how different is the conduct of these in- 
 famous scoundrels : one of whom, not long ago, got 
 
 three m In that case I had better pass at once 
 
 to my peroration, merely remarking that in my opinion 
 it ought to have been six. 
 
 For there are, there are among all people altars 
 of justice and legality and modesty, the most beautiful 
 and holy being in the very soul and nature of every 
 man, while others are set up for all men publicly to 
 honour ; but there are none of shamelessness, or 
 pettifoggery, or perjury, or ingratitude, all of which 
 qualities belong to my opponents. Now, if you are 
 disposed to protect and cherish rogues, I shall have 
 rhapsodised to no purpose ; but if you are disposed 
 to abhor them, then, if possible, condemn them to
 
 229 
 
 death for how are they not worthy to perish three 
 times over ? but if not, at any rate by your decision 
 prevent them from treating us as resident aliens, and 
 from acting the housebreaker with impunity. 
 
 I see no reason to add anything more, as you 
 seem fully to understand what has been said. Pour 
 out the water.
 
 ARCHBISHOP BENSON 
 [October 22, 1896] 
 
 Archbishop Benson was so heartily and entirely 
 a Cambridge man that it is not strange that the 
 Cambridge Review should wish some words about him 
 to appear in its pages. It may also be said that he 
 was as heartily and entirely a Trinity man, the first 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, indeed, whom that great 
 College has given to the Church ; for Whitgift, though 
 he was Master of Trinity, had previously been at half 
 the Colleges in Cambridge. 
 
 Archbishop Benson's early home at Birmingham 
 was a home of religion and culture. His mother had 
 belonged to a highly respected family of Unitarians. 
 The two great formative elements in his early life, 
 outside his home, were the companionship of his 
 schoolfellows, and the influence, even more than the 
 instruction, of his great schoolmaster Lee, for 
 although the Archbishop never forgot what he owed
 
 231 
 
 to Dr. Gifford for his last half year at King Edward's 
 School in Birmingham, his main mspiration and 
 direction came from Lee. From him he learned not 
 only habits of laborious work and the most scrupulous 
 accuracy in scholarship, and the delight in choice 
 words ; but a great love of art and of literature in 
 general, a keen historical sense, and above all, a 
 passionate devotion to the study of the Bible. Lee, 
 the schoolmaster, whose success as such was quite 
 unparalleled, and who failed so strangely as a Bishop, 
 was a man who was often too much overcome by 
 emotion to be able to proceed with a Greek Testament 
 lesson in the Sixth Form ; and it was the same with 
 Benson. To hear him conduct a vir'd voce examination 
 of a class of candidates for Holy Orders during the 
 Em]:)cr Week, in the Epistle of St. James, or the 
 ApocaIy[)SL:, or the Pastoral Epistles, was a wonderful 
 lesson, not only in punctilious grammatical and lexical 
 exactness, but also in the hidden meanings, and in 
 th J pr;u lical appropriation of tlic meaning. Manly and 
 unaffected as he was in his i)iety, the blue eye seldom 
 filled t > become dim, and the clear voice and beautiful 
 firm inoutli to quiver, as he touched a v.-ord that 
 exj)rcs'-((l something of the glory of Christ, or of the 
 inner deeps of true religion. 
 
 At Cambridge his school friends became also his 
 te;i< )>;-. He read for some time under Liglitfoot as 
 his private tutor; the present Dean of Canterbury, 
 who was two years junior to him, for a while being
 
 232 
 
 his fellow pupil. He was the man to make many- 
 friends, and he never forgot them. When he was 
 made Bishop of Truro, he was brought again into 
 contact with one of them whom he had not seen, or 
 had any intercourse with, for many years. He said 
 to one of his chaplains what pleasure it gave him to 
 see him again : ' M.', he said, ' is one of the men 
 whom I have never failed to mention daily in my 
 prayers since we were undergraduates.' But his stay 
 at Cambridge was brief, though his visits afterwards 
 were frequent. He was hurried off to Rugby, and to 
 Wellington, where he made his name. The obituary 
 notice in the Times, and indeed the article in that 
 journal upon his appointment to the primacy, were 
 justly appreciative of the difficulties which he had to 
 encounter there, and of the way in which he surmounted 
 them. It was not the place where tenderhearted laxity 
 would have succeeded; and there was no mistake 
 about it, the discipline of Wellington College was 
 like that of a man-of-war. An admiring pupil writes 
 in the Daily Neivs of October 13, about his old 
 master's severity. It was indeed an appalling sight 
 to see the Master gather his gown about him and 
 cane a liar before the Lower and Middle School. It 
 was the impersonation of wrathful righteousness and 
 truth. Yet, however little the boys might sometimes 
 be aware of it, the same heart was full of the tenderest 
 interest in them all. He loved and honoured the boys. 
 ' Selfishness,' he said once, ' is uppermost in boys of
 
 233 
 
 that age (12 or 13), but generosity is very near the 
 surface. Try it ' : and the experiment which he 
 suggested succeeded. There was not a boy in the 
 school whom he did not know. When once a young 
 master complained of an incorrigible boy in a lower 
 form, ' What can you expect of him ? ' he replied. ' He 
 has no father; his grandmother is a rigid Puritan 
 who thinks it a sin to smile on a Sunday, and his 
 mother a follower of Stopford Brooke, who comes 
 home and says, What a blessing it is that we have 
 got rid of that fiction of the Trinity ! ' 
 
 Amidst all his labours at Wellington, Dr. Benson's 
 heart had always been that of an ecclesiastic. The 
 chapel had been the centre of his thoughts for the 
 school. In his own boyhood he had learned from 
 Lee to study liturgies, and to translate ancient col- 
 lects. An aged relative of his own with whom as a 
 boy he used to stay at York, was alarmed about his 
 future because of his passion for attending the daily 
 choral services. At Wellington he took the greatest 
 pains with the arrangement of the devotional life of 
 the school, its punctual daily prayers in chapel, its 
 carefully prescribed hymns and introits. Without 
 anything that people would call ritualism, all was done 
 in the most decorous and even stately fashion. He 
 loved to trace, as he was frequently justified in tracing, 
 in the lives of good laymen and soldiers who had been 
 at the school the effects of the morning and evening 
 Psalms. He was glad when the time came for him to
 
 234 
 
 devote himself altogether to the Church. Much as he 
 loved Wellington 'Who am I,' he said one lovely 
 November morning, returning from chapel, as he 
 gazed over the heath to the Scotch firs upon the 
 round hill near the College, ' Who am I, that I should 
 see Ambarrow every day?' yet he loved Lincoln 
 better. Bishop Wordsworth, on his consecration, had 
 made him his Examining Chaplain and a Prebendary 
 of the Minster. A sermon of his in 187 1 before the 
 Nottingham Church Congress was thought to sound a 
 note of warm and confident Churchmanship which 
 had been wanting in some of the other utterances on 
 the occasion. Not very long after he gave up the 
 lucrative, if arduous, work of a head master, and took 
 up his abode as Chancellor of Lincoln, in the beauti- 
 ful old house which had been attached to the stall 
 since the days of Anthony Bek. It was a delight to 
 him to inhabit and restore that house, with its ancient 
 'solar,' and the pentacles upon the stone stairs, and 
 to see his children catching from it the love of anti- 
 quities. As Chancellor he was Master of the fabric 
 of the Cathedral, and soon knew every inch of the 
 stately structure, and its history. As he had created 
 Wellington, so at Lincoln he created the Chancellor's 
 Schools for candidates for Holy Orders, and enjoyed 
 deeply the lectures which he gave, not only to the 
 students, but (with his immense capacity for work) to 
 general audiences also. With a pang he refused to 
 become a candidate for the Hulsean Professorship at
 
 235 
 
 Cambridge, vacated by Lightfoot's promotion to the 
 Lady Margaret chair, though Westcott and Lightfoot 
 urged him to do so. He felt that he could not leave 
 nor halve his work at Lincoln. Nor was he content 
 only with his Divinity School and his public lectures. 
 He threw himself among the working men of the City 
 below the Hill, who responded with extraordinary 
 eagerness to his advances. No such union between 
 the upper and lower cities had ever been known 
 before. He had a weekly Bible Class for them on a 
 very large scale, composed of members of all the sects 
 as well as Churchmen. He began a system of night 
 schools all over the town, in which his Divinity 
 students, among others, helped him ; and it was an 
 inspiring sight to go round with him from school to 
 school, and see the Lincoln mechanics working away 
 at their scliool subjects, and the manner in which they 
 received one whom they knew to be their genuine 
 friend. 
 
 He had not long been Bishop Wordsworth's 
 Chaplain, when his old friend and chief at Rugby, 
 Dr. Temple, was nominated to the see of Exeter. 
 Bishop Wordsworth protested against Dr. Temple's 
 consecration, and Dr. Benson felt it to be his duty 
 publicly to bear testimony to the loyal orthodoxy of 
 the Bishop-designate. At the same time he sent in 
 his resignation of his chaj)laincy to the Bishop of 
 Lincoln, who smiled and put it in the fire. For 
 some months after the consecration, Benson was
 
 236 
 
 Examining Chaplain to the two Bishops at once. 
 It was an exercise of those conciliatory powers which 
 few men have so well understood how to combine 
 with clear and unflinching maintenance of convictions 
 of their own. 
 
 In 1877 he was called by the Providence of God 
 to make the new diocese of Truro, cut off from that 
 of his friend Bishop Temple. He held the See for 
 nearly six years. It was the happiest period of his 
 life, although the first year of it was marked by the 
 great sorrow of the death of his eldest son, a most 
 promising scholar, at Winchester. He delighted in 
 Cornwall, and in its attractive people, though he 
 could tell them plainly of their faults, as a pastor 
 should. Those six years were an idyll. All the 
 poetry and romance of his rich nature were evoked, 
 and at the same time the profound spirituality of his 
 religion found in that free atmosphere scope for its 
 utterance, and enthusiastic response from Cornish 
 hearts. The little homely wooden Cathedral became 
 the focus of a life which, as was said by the present 
 Bishop of St. Andrews, whom he chose for an Exa- 
 mining Chaplain, was ' like the Acts of the Apostles.' 
 A good Divinity School, a continuous work of evange- 
 lizing Missions, grew up ; the Diocesan Conference 
 became, probably, the most business-like and the 
 liveliest in England ; a true Council of Honorary 
 Canons was organized ; Retreats for the Clergy were 
 held, and Prayer Meetings for the Laity, for, as
 
 237 
 
 Lightfoot bade him in the sermon at his consecra- 
 tion, he made himself a Cornishraan to the Cornish, 
 and a Methodist to the Methodists, that he might 
 gain them. All this, and much else, centred in a 
 living unity round him, as a true Father to the dio- 
 cese ; and the powerful touch of his spirit is testified 
 to all future ages by the truly sublime Cathedral of 
 which he was the inceptor, though the beauty of its 
 adornment was the work of his successor. He knew 
 every parish in his diocese, and it might almost be said 
 that he seemed to know everybody in each parish, with 
 their sorrows and their needs. Wherever he preached 
 he startled the people by telling them facts about the 
 former history of the place of which they were un- 
 aware, and applying the lessons to the present. Often 
 afterwards he would look back upon those days of 
 hope and liberty, and say playfully, ' Depend upon 
 it, we made a great mistake to leave Cornwall.' 
 
 His great work as Archbishop of Canterbury be- 
 longs to the history of the Church at large, and no 
 attempt can be made here to give an account of it. 
 No life could have been more full of labour. The 
 average number of his daily letters alone was such as 
 to keep himself, two chaplains, and a lay secretary 
 writing hard for many hours of day and night ' The 
 penny post,' he said, ' is one of those ordinances of 
 man to which we have to submit for the Lord's sake.' 
 Besides the care of all the churches, he was unre- 
 mitting in his attendance at the House of Lords, and
 
 238 
 
 at the Board of Trastees of the British Museum, and 
 in many other secular duties which his position thrust 
 upon him. Into all these he threw himself wholly, as 
 if he had nothing else to do. Amidst it all he never 
 allowed himself to be torn away from the things of the 
 inner life. Not a day passed without his doing an hour 
 or so of solid work upon the Holy Scripture before 
 joining his family. Besides all his public preaching, 
 he made time throughout the London season to give 
 weekly a Bible lesson to ladies in the Chapel at Lam- 
 beth, the influence of which was profoundly felt. And 
 the wonder was that he scarcely ever appeared to be 
 oppressed by the weight which he had to bear. He 
 had time for everything and cheery words for everybody 
 words which came from his heart. He was never 
 idle, and was always reading new books and old ahke. 
 Cyprian and his age was a subject on which he worked 
 hard whenever he got a spare hour or two generally 
 after bedtime, and it may be hoped that his researches 
 on the subject are in condition to be published.* 
 Brewer's graphic description of Wolsey, in his attention 
 to detail combined with the widest outlook, manag- 
 ing Kings and Popes for great ends, yet particular about 
 the exact shade of his Cardinal's robe and the exact 
 shape of his Cardinal's hat, was equally applicable 
 to Archbishop Benson. To hear him describe a gold 
 ornament from Aegina, just brought to the Museum, 
 
 They were published in 1897.
 
 239 
 
 or the proper way of cutting a lawn sleeve, you would 
 have supposed that he had nothing else to think of. 
 After he had been instructing his coachman (he was 
 a great lover of horses, and, like Cranmer, an excellent 
 rider) in the points by which to tell good oats from 
 inferior ones, ' Lord,' said the coachman to some one 
 else, ' I don't beUeve there ain't nothing that that man 
 don't know.' Full of fun and humour that humour 
 which is allied to the richest vein ot sentiment he 
 loved life, and saw good days, to the very last. Never 
 did God give a more fitting close to the career of a 
 great servant of His. Just returned from a peace- 
 making mission in Ireland, where all received him as 
 he deserved, to the house of Mr. Gladstone, of all men, 
 on a Sunday morning, after receiving the Blessed 
 Sacrament, he knelt again in Hawarden Church to 
 make his confession with the rest, and the last words 
 which he heard on earth were the words of absolution. 
 May the grace of God, which made him what he 
 was, shape others not unworthy to succeed him in the 
 great work. 
 
 A. J. M.
 
 EPILOGUE 
 
 [February 25, 1897] 
 
 The years are the years of a Fresher, 
 Since first undergraduate brains 
 
 "Were big with the pang and the pressure 
 Of fruitful and fortunate i)ains ; 
 
 With the sign of our shield on her bodice 
 Of cheap and cadaverous blue, 
 
 She sprang into being, our Goddess, 
 The Cambridge Revieiv. 
 
 And the depths of the dwellings infernal 
 
 Were scared at the sound of her laugh, 
 And the heart of the Undcrgrad' s Journal 
 
 Was jjierced in its orient half; 
 For a season it strove to be bitter, 
 
 Then, then its illegible page 
 Expired in a tremulous twitter 
 Of impotent rage. 
 
 16
 
 242 
 
 But our Goddess was throned in the city, 
 The queen of our head and our heart, 
 
 And her priests were a mighty Committee, 
 And used to attend at the start 
 
 For she spread as a vine in a hothouse. 
 As the running of Gallican beans. 
 
 From Magdalene to Pembroke and Pothouse, 
 From Jesus to Queens'. 
 
 And the songs and the skits and the sonnets 
 Uprose as the flowers from the sod, 
 
 When the boarded collegiate bonnets 
 Buzzed loud with the bees of the god ; 
 
 From the head and the hand of the shapers 
 Like leaves of the autumn they flew 
 
 To the place of the wasting of papers, 
 O Cambridge Review/ 
 
 Thou wast filled with all science and knowledge, 
 Thou wast novel and nearly unique ; 
 
 Thine envoys in every College 
 
 Told tales of the deeds of the week 
 
 Of anthems and services stately, 
 Of names in the Little-Go list, 
 
 Of Corpus's Chess Club that lately 
 Had met to play whist. 
 
 Thou wast filled with the facts of athletics, 
 The boat and the bat and the ball, 
 
 And the deeds of the modern ascetics 
 Debarred from the dainties of hall.
 
 243 
 
 Thou hadst news of Oxonian brothers, 
 
 And forecasts of oar and of scull, 
 Thou wast witty at times, and at others 
 Undoubtedly dull. 
 
 Thou hast seen the ephemeral papers 
 
 That catered for sectional needs ; 
 They have vanished as vortical vapours 
 
 Blown blue from Baconian weeds ; 
 Time writes not a wrinkle [Chiide Harold) 
 
 To corrugate thy azure brow ; 
 In fact, it was never apparelled 
 So bluely as now. 
 
 Though their lays may be lightsome and clever, 
 
 They last but the life of a leaf; 
 Their entrees endure not for ever, 
 
 But thou art our mutton and beef 
 They shall pass, they shall pale, they shall perish, 
 
 Unknown, or but known to a few, 
 While the ages of ages shall cherish 
 The Cambridge Review. 
 
 We must change as the seasons that vary. 
 We must fall as the leaves that are I^rown, 
 
 As the facings of classic canary 
 
 From W Idst n's doctorial gown ; 
 
 And the feet that outran Atalanta 
 No longer our cinders may crunch, 
 
 A\'hile the wits that were great on the Granta 
 Are ])unsters in Pioich.
 
 244 
 
 For the time of our years is a worm-time, 
 We rust as a moth (so to speak) ; 
 
 But thou shalt be published in term-time, 
 And thou shalt be sixpence a week. 
 
 When the veil of the future is rifted, 
 Thou shalt gladden our children anew 
 
 With thy numbers five hundred times fiftied, 
 Our Cambridge Review! 
 
 X. 
 
 J. PALMER, PRINTER, ALEXANDRA STREET, CAMBRIDGE.
 
 BOOKS PUBLISHED BY 
 
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 Now ready with map and 75 illustrations. 
 
 A Concise Guide to the 
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 In Ft 
 
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 M.A., F.S.A. 
 
 Registrary of the University 
 Formerly Fellow of Trinity College 
 
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 SCOTSMAN. "They are plain and vigorous discourses well worthj of consideration 
 
 beyond the circle of those to whom they were originally addressed." 
 
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 "Lift up your hearts" or Words of Good Cheer for 
 The Holy Communion. Pott 8vo. 
 
 Swete, H. B. On the Bull Apostolicae Curae. 
 
 A Lecture. 8vo. le. net. 
 
 In the Shadow of Sinai. A Story of Travel and 
 Eesearch from 1895 to 1897. By Agnes Smith Lewis. With 
 numerous illustrations. Crown 8vo. cloth. 53. net. 
 
 Sidgwick, Mrs Henry. University Education for 
 
 Women. A Lecture delivered at University College, Liverpool, 
 May, 1896. 8vo. 6d. 
 
 Davies, Emily. Women in the Universities of 
 
 England and Scotland. 8vo. 6d. 
 
 How the Codex was Found. A Narrative of Two 
 Visits to Sinai, from Mrs Lewis's Journals, 1892 1893. By 
 Margaret Dunlop Gibson. With 2 Illustrations. Crown 
 8vo. 3s. 6d. net. 
 
 The Book of the Cambridge Review. Selections 
 from 18791897. Fcap. 8vo. 5s. net. 
 
 Memorials, Journal and Botanical Correspondence 
 
 of Charles Cardale Babington, Professor of Botany in the 
 University of Cambridge. With two Portraits and pedigree. 
 8vo, cloth. 10s. i5d. net. 
 LITERATURE. "We welcome in this volume a graceful tribute to one who 
 worshipped science through a long term of years with simple and single-hearted 
 devotion, but wlio reconciled his science with religion. . . . The Editor has brought 
 together a charming account of the late Professor Babington by his old friend 
 Professor Mayor, with many other testimonials of lovej and regret. . . . His corre- 
 spondence is of no common interest to fellow-students." 
 
 Lapsus Calami and other Verses. By the late J. K. 
 Stephen. Second complete Collected Edition. (1898). With 
 a Biographical Introduction and Pliotogravure Portrait after a 
 Chalk Drawing by Mr. F. Miller. Fcaj). 8vo, cloth, 5s. net. 
 
 TIMES. " Many admirers of the late James Kenneth Stephen will be glad to have 
 in one volume Lapsus Calami and other Verses, a complete edition of his verse. Messrs. 
 Macmillan and Bowes, of Cambridge, have thrown together the two volumes known as 
 Laimufi Calami and (iuo Musa Tendis ( and these, with a short sketch of the author's 
 life, and witli the prose that is buried in the pages of the dead ' Reflector ' must now 
 reijresent for us one of the most individual talents of our time." 
 
 Lapsus Calami, and Quo Musa Tendis. A few copies large 
 hand- made paper left.
 
 How to Answer Grrammar and Philology Questions. 
 
 With hints and Specimens and full Answers to two Examination 
 Papers and Full Index. By E. H. Miles, M.A., King's College. 
 8vo. 2s. 6d. net. 
 
 SCOTSMAX. "It is a book of riper scliolarsliip tlian tiie usual books of the kind, 
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 Passages from Latin Authors for Translation into 
 
 English. Selected with a view to the needs of Candidates for 
 the Cambridge l'reviou.s, Local and Schools' Examinations. By 
 E. S. SHL'CK.i5UitGH, M.A. Fourth edition, enlarged and cor- 
 rected. (Jrown 8vo. 2s. 
 
 A Map prepared l)y the Rev. Edward Coxybeare to 
 
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 Churches. Is. (Jd. net. 
 
 A History of Cambridgeshire. By Rev. Edward 
 Cony BE ARE, M.A. 
 
 Coiit'/tts: - -I. Introductory. II. Romano-British Period. III. 
 Anglo-Saxuu Period, 1. IV. Anglo-Saxon Period, 11. V. Norman 
 Peri(xl. \'l. Early lOuglisli Period. \'1I. Periiendicular i*eri(xi. 
 \'ill. Pieforniation I'eriod, 1. IX. Ilcfcjrmation Period, 11. X. 
 .M(jdern I'erind. Index. 
 
 Ilnml iiiiiih' ixijitr, ^C(j. {onli/ lioO priided)^ hdlj lioxhunjlte, 
 lO.s. 0'/. int. 
 
 Liiryi; j"'i" >', M"., IihiuIiikkIk jiUjiki' {onlij OO copies printed), 
 ),nl/ Jio.rh.injlu%, L'l.v. /('/. 
 
 .Marinillau and liowcs iia\e Itoiight tlic remaining copies 
 ot till; two >p((ial i-diiioii.^, and tiicy aild to each Copy tlie 
 .Map of till- < 'ounly jiicpai'fd liy the auliioi' without increa.se 
 of cost. 
 
 (,l' A l:lil AS. l-iiU of irifcjrMKitioii, i-ll wci^'lictl. :irr:iii).'iMl. and Hifted. aiicl ]iut in 
 i-ucli a way :i- in !" r'-.i'l:ilil'- a- Hell a- l.aii.nl \m adiihralili; t.|MTiiMCM nf what a 
 ( iiimt V l]|.-I'.r\ iiirii i- inraiit lor IIji- K''ii''i''l n:adi;r an wi;ll a.- for thu aiili.|uarv ouKllt 
 
 to 1>,-.'' 
 
 I'All.y '/.' \llll<' ' Mr I .,ini,.ari' i- lo 1,.- coriiiratulat.-d on liaviii^ produced a 
 voluiiii- uIj!. Ii 1- at oijri- ilioroiiirii aii'l rradalilr. ' 
 
 1/ \.\i II I.-- IIJ; (,l A I: III A S. \\ rill 1-11 in a liwh .and allrarlivc Hlvlr " 
 
 I liri;ill IIMi:- It in tlir \iry inodi-l of a coiuitv liinlory for the K'<-iMMal rradcr, 
 ,.i,j,| it uould If dillicull to |>rai-<- it l-w,iii| it- di--i-rl Mr < ipiivUcarc uiiitrs to a 
 miiiuti- and ar.Miati- knouli.U'i- of lo- -iitij'.-il a -iiiL'ularlv lii.iil and '|.i''t urc-im- stvli:." 
 
 /r /:/,/-///./.- ' //.' I I.Al: Till; iKxik JM writtrn in a k'larrHil and llowmK lylu, 
 and i- i II vvortliv of carrful |.<-ru-al," 
 
 /r /;/,/( 1 1 r I'M 1 1. \ TlMr autlHir has madr ainpb- un.: of the rich inati-riali at Ids 
 (ntniijaiid. and the re-idt i- a iii.;!]ly |.h-a-iiik' ami iii-I nut ive work. lie incrilH 
 (.,ii;:ratidation nrjt only for tlie wi-allh of mfoririat ion he haH won, but al-o for tlie 
 useful uay in whir:h he lias presented it to his re-adern."
 
 Cambridge 
 
 Described & Illustrated 
 
 Being a Short History of the Town and University. 
 
 By T. DINHAM ATKINSON; with an Introduction by 
 JOHN WILLIS CLARK, M.A., F.S.A., Registrary of 
 the University, late Fellow of Trinity College. 
 
 Medium 8vo. with 29 Steel Plates, mid numerous Illustrations 
 
 and Maps, cloth 21s. net. 
 Also i?i 10 Monthly Farts at 2s. net. 
 
 The want of a book of this kind has \on^^ been felt, there being 
 nothing between the ordinary small guide-books and such works 
 as the Mejnorials of Cambridge in three, and the Architectu7-al 
 History of the University in four, volumes. The history of the 
 Town is treated with more fulness than it has met with in any 
 other work, and Mr J. W. Clark points out in his Introduction the 
 important bearing that the affairs of the Town have on a right 
 conception of the origin of the University. With regard to the 
 Illustrations, 29 are steel plates by Le Keux and Storer. The 
 112 Illustrations in the text are chiefly from original drawings by 
 the Author and Mr G. M. Brimelow. The beautiful illustrations 
 of University and College Heraldry are by Mr W. H. St John Hope. 
 In addition to a Plan of the neighbourhood, of the Town as in 1445, 
 and as at present, there is a Block Plan of each College and of the 
 University Buildings, as well as many reproductions from Loggan 
 and other early sources. 
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 DAILY CHRONICLE. " He has conferred a favour upon all lovers of literature 
 and its early seats by going at much length and with great care into the questions not 
 only of municipality, but of the University and the Colleges. ...A good thing well done." 
 
 LITER ATU RE. "Mr Atkinson's work throughout deserves the highest praise. 
 He has spared no pains in the collection of material, and tells his story methodically, 
 with great clearness and simplicity." 
 
 TIMES, "A decidedly attractive volume. ...Le Keux's engravings have the 
 advantage of representing Cambridge as it was more than half a century ago, before 
 recent changes had been carried out." 
 
 ACADEMY. "His book will be welcomed by all those who de.sire to get, in the 
 compass of a single volume, a comprehensive view of both Town and University. The 
 illustrations throughout the volume are well drawn and excellently reproduced." 
 
 D.MLY NEWS. "All Cambridge men will be interested in the many quaint and 
 c\irious descriptions of mediajval manners and customs of the University Town which 
 Mr Atkinson has collected. To all with archjeological interests we strongly recommend 
 the volume." 
 
 CAMISKIDGE: printed HV J. and C. F. clay, at the UNIVKHSITV I'RESS.
 
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