ITS PROPOSED CONTENTS.

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ourselves to matters of our own personal observation on the ways of men at college from 1832 to 1836, as well as on their prosperity or adversity from 1836 to 1843.

4thly. That we should have much satisfaction in carrying out this plan, particularly because a true account of college life, founded on four years' observation there, and seven years' sober reflection in the world since, cannot fail to vindicate the university, its officers, tradesmen, and servants, from much scandal, originating from observations made without inquiry, and published without thought.

5thly. That the said work, though founded more particularly on life at Oxford, being true to human nature, cannot fail to be very valuable with reference to Cambridge also, to which end that many observations and comparisons between Oxford and Cambridge be introduced.

6thly. That, even at the risk of being tedious, we enter very much into detail, our object being to give every undergraduate at his first entrance, and every parent or guardian, all the information which we feel would be useful to ourselves were we about to once more matriculate ourselves, or to prepare a younger brother for matriculation.

7thly and lastly. That though this work be anonymous and contain none but fictitious names, from an honourable regard to private feeling, still that we pledge ourselves to our respected publishers, Messrs. Longman & Co., to insert nothing that is not substantially true.

CHAP. II.

HOW TO PUT A SON TO COLLEGE.

THE day after Huntley Paxton, Esq. of Denham Hall, had been consulting first Corbett and then myself, as to sending Master Fred to College, — interrupting us both, times out of mind, with the neck and neck race for the school prize, and all the nonsense that tutors of small fortune and large families ever have poured, and ever will pour, into the open mouths of influential parents, he felt so perplexed with Matriculations, Battels, Collections, Rustications, and other technical terms, as he called them, that his periodical puzzlings on the grand jury seemed nothing to it. So, to make confusion worse confounded, there was another awful visitation on John Corbett's dropsical rector, the Rev. Walter Harris.

Now poor old Harris was nearly eighty years of age; so, as John remarked, even supposing the world had stood still since the day that Walter had so freely taken on board those floods of college ale, Port wine, and rum punch, which he has rued in gout and dropsy ever since, still he would be only like an old Oxford calendar, and not a very legible one either. But, in sober truth, some very material alterations have taken place. For instance, 'tis said that one immortal bard was flogged at College, and even in my

A GLANCE AT OLD TIMES.

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day there was a legend, that on the same wide ledge of the buttery door, on which "six cheeses, three butters, and two beers," or any other quantities demanded, were daily spread forth in the hurry of dinner, for impatient scouts to carry into hall, — that there, in the good old times, were to be seen spread forth the recreant limbs of certain unlucky wights, whose morals were submitted to an operation of such a kind as to render the originality of Mr. St. John Long's counter-irritation very questionable. Now all this is altered, and, say some of those who oppose all reform bills in all their clauses, "more's the pity." Whether this remnant of feudal times and a barbarous age existed in old Walter's youth, I know not; but certain it is that when Mr. Paxton mentioned Expulsion, Walter cried, "Man alive, they were glad enough to get us into their colleges in my day; little chance of turning us out again!" while the idea of being Plucked, he said, was quite new he had heard tell of it, indeed—his last curate used to laugh, and hint as much, at one in the next parish. But," said he, "in my day we used to choose our own examiners, and I never heard of such a thing as a man's not passing;-but, oh, I did though. Did you know Johnny Hewson, that was such a fellow after the foxes? Stay, you couldn't: he died when you were a baby. Well, he was a man to drink, to be sure! He came to Christchurch when I was at Oriel, and one day, after he was Master, a milk-and-water sort of boy asked Jack to give him his ticket for his degree; so Jack was to go and

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take a glass of wine, while the other turned a book topsy turvy, and pretended to construe, and so made a sham of an examination. Well, the first bottle was soon gone: First cork don't count,' said Jacky: soon the second ran dry: then this milksop didn't want to stand another. · What!' said Jack, 'd'ye think I've the conscience to pass such as you, then? to turn a fellow loose on society that hasn't learnt to manage t'other bottle? Why, you hav'n't half finished your education, my boy!' Oh dear! dear! God forgive me! but, bad as it was, I can't help laughing when I tell of it."

Again, as to honours and University prizes, that was new too. Latin and Greek was a sort of commodity, of which enough was reckoned as good as a great deal. A man went to College to be made a gentleman of, and sometimes because there was a Living in the family. There were some scholars, of course, and they turned tutors, and stayed haunting the old colleges, like daws about a tumble-down fortress, all the days of their life. But where was the good of it? All were gone, as far as he could learn, where he must shortly be (he could not get through the spring, but died at the end of March), and turned to learned dust. "Now in a parish,” he said, 66 a man does live to do a little good." O what a different place God had made that parish since he buried his last rector, though he had done something to it too.

Poor old Walter Harris (rest to his bones!) is a sample of the advisers and informants not uncommonly consulted and quoted by the parents of Uni

ADVICE TO PAXTON.

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versity students. The more Paxton felt perplexed with the contradictory impressions which (as is the fate of all who hear half a story) he had derived from three several persons, the more he seemed disposed to listen to neither, and make the best use of his own common sense. At last, finding that he did not much regard us, Corbett and I both agreed, that we might spare our breath, and leave him and Fred to risk the fate we saw little probability of averting. But man is never so likely to profit by advice as when he eagerly asks it, nor ever so likely to ask it as when he sees men, who must possess information, confident in their own judgment, and not in the least degree disposed to volunteer. So at last Paxton, excited by our silence and by the perfect unanimity which he had observed in our opinions when we once happened to converse with him at the same time, became so exceedingly deferential, that we said, once for all, 66 Sir, if you really want information, and will listen to us from first to last, we will satisfy you on every particular. The best course for you to take for your son's education is one not of opinion, but of fact; there are no two opinions in the matter among men who know what they are talking about. But it is not every man who has been to the University, who has made any inquiries or observations to qualify him to act as a safe adviser."

A little of this conversation produced the desired effect: we recommended him at his leisure to consider the heads of his inquiry, and to question either of us, from time to time, as he found convenient. My readers

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