would before death and distant climes had
taken them I had made me such a book in my
blithe college days! This man, my cheery host,
seems stouter, older, and, by my life! not quite
untinged with gray, but still the same frank
smile, warm grip, and the good heart within
all sound and young! A man who never misused
his time here; a Fellow of his Colleges,
M.A., Lecturer, Don; with vasty rooms,
oak-paneled, hung with pictures, stored with
books, a palace of a place; my name, alas is
not upon the board—my poverty, indeed,
not will, prevented it, and so beneath his
wing I dine at the "high table" with the
reverend deans, and hobnob with professors.
The grand old hall is filled from end to end
with sounds of feasting; the undergraduates
have not learnt to carve, but hack and hew
as in the olden time; the B. A.s criticise their
food and frown as usual on their caterer;
and in the oaken gallery stare the dames, or
young or old, in wonder at the scene, while
through the painted panes the Mayday sun
chequers with rainbow hues the pictures old
and dim. In Combination Room, where once
I sat at viva voce, wretched, ignorant, the
wine goes round, and wit, and pleasant talk,
and everywhere beams kindness and a friend;
a saint's day this, so from the upper rows in
chapel where the magnates sit, I see the
white-robed youths come breathless in, the
whispered talk of some behind their books, with
one eye watchful lest the outraged dean swoop
from his eyrie on their dove-like forms, and
           Hear once more in college fanes
           One storm their high-built organs make,
           And thunder-music rolling shake
           The prophets blazon'd on the panes.
*The outer door of University rooms, when closed (or
sported) stands for a sort of material "not at home" to
all comers

Next night is a race night on the Cam, and
hurrying to the barge which every evening
toils down the narrow stream, I stand
amidst the crowd about her bows, and
mark the crews as they pass. No eight-oars
are there, elsewhere, such as these; their
stroke together, and the bending backs together,
as they run before the wind; and he
with the tiller ropes, who also bends, albeit
standing on the frailest plank, overbalanced by
an ounce on either side; the thin keel cleaves
the stream as an arrow-head cleaves the "view-
less air," and the music dies away from their
oars, in distance lost at half a score of
strokes, which presently some rival boat
takes up, and so the linked sweetness is
drawn out through all the voyage. We leap
upon the bank, and join the walkers to the
starting-point. Thence at the third gunfire
the racers spring—two dozen at full
speed. Then twice four hundred feet tumultuously
start upon the path; and "Now
you're gaining!" or "Well pulled—well
pulled!" is shouted like one voice. Ah,
Trinity, First Trinity, it is vain. The long
keen prow o'erlaps yon even now. See,
your victor sets up his conquering flag, nor
wastes his strength, but leisurely draws on,
or hugs the river bank on rested oars, and
marks the panting rivals racing by—a long,
long line, with gaps made here and there,
where other conquerors and conquered strove
—of flashing oars and foam and coloured
caps, and forms half-naked striving for their
lives; while on the waters floats triumphal
music, and falls and rises the increasing
cheer. So eve by eve alternate through the
May, the measured pulse of racing oars beats
on beside the willows, and the great throng
returns on barge or horseback, or winds home
on foot along the meadows.

Every day some joyous plan awaited me,
I breakfasted with jovial undergraduates,
on dishes with strange names and stranger
tastes, and drank the cup of Cossas like
a boy. I heard old talk of men as bats
and oars—a clever bat, a first-rate oar, they
said; of Smith's (young Smith's, of Corpus)
last good thing; of Unionic speakers eloquent;
the red-hot Chartist speaker Robinson
(as in my time were Smiths and
Robinsons); of Lord Claude Lollypops who
beard the deans; of Admirable Crichtons,
great at beer, greater at classics; new modes
of cutting chapels were discussed, excuses
new, as, "Trying on my boot on the
wrong foot, dear Mr. Dean, I could not get it
off, and so was late for service:" and for the
next day, "Tightness of left boot still, Mr. Dean,
continues," with quite a racy smack about them
yet, though ancient as the everlasting hills.

Adown the Backs, the stream behind the
town, where half the College gardens bloom
on either side and half the lawns slope
down, we floated dreamily:
       One friend pulled stroke, another bow,
       And I, I steered them anyhow.

We played on many a hidden college plat,
fast barred from me in undergraduate days,
at grand old games—at quoits and Bacon's
game of bowls, turned Heaven knows how
many centuries ago, with half the bias
dropped out and the numbers dim with
cobwebs and time. The long loud laugh I
learnt in Westmoreland rang out and echoed
round the monkish walls most strangely. It
seems to me, your fellows sooner age in mouldy
cloisters than we dwellers on the windy hills
do. And yet they are a glorious set. Their
dinners every day are like a king's; but when
they have their audit!—ah me! here in this
unfruitful valley, as I eat my mutton and my
oatmeal cake alone, I think upon those audits
with a sigh.

Fish, flesh, fowl, fruit—in shoals, herds,
flocks, and gardens-full; wine, of what dim
vice-chancellorship in blythe King Harry's
time I know not; and (as my northern fancy
ill-concealed) far better than all wine, old
audit ale. The dinner prefaced and concluded
by a grace, read by two scholars in
dramatic parts in the best Latin; the
tankards and the salt-cellars of gold presented
by the foundress. There she stands,