have to retire by eight p.m. or so, for fear of
waking a child above, below, or on one side of
them. A nightcap will be thrust forth from
this or that door, as we unwillingly come
home, with a "Hush, sir! Please to take off
your shoes at the bottom stair." The most
hideous reports will pervade this peaceful
community, and a couple of elopements,
perhaps, will actually occur per term,—just
enough to keep scandal well alive. We who
have lived well and quietly so long, without
the breath of censure dulling us, will then
have our every action criticised over crochet,
and our every sentence dissected over Berlin
wool.

The Dean's wife will favour the handsome
under-graduates, and forbid their being
"gated." What a shock, too, would it cause
to modest freshmen sent for by that
functionary about their chapels, to find inside the
sporting den a white kid glove tied delicately
round the knocker! Wrapped up in the
new arrival, his Reverence may tell them
perhaps that they have gone to church, he
thinks, as well as can be expected.

The tutors and assistant-tutors will be
liable to be summoned in their lecture-rooms
from the woes of a Medea, or from the conditions
of equilibrium, at any domestic crisis of
Jemmy's teeth or Lucy's tears. Again, is it
likely that Mrs. Blank, the brewer's wife,
will give up precedence without a struggle
to Mrs. Asterisk, the auditor's lady? Will
not the dean's helpmate sniff contemptuously
at the vice-master's, and the spouse of the
public orator patronise the university
preacher's? Will Blank and Asterisk
themselves escape being drawn into personal
conflict, sooner or later, and may not we very
bachelors be pressed into the fight as
arbitrating parties?

Crinoline will usurp all our official seats in
chapel, and the master himself be lucky if he
is permitted to keep his stall. How meagre,
on the contrary, will our gathering be, in hall
and combination-room! What vacant chairs
there will be—what absent faces!

"Smith! what has become of Smith?"
we shall ask.

"Mr. Smith is gone, sir," the butler will
solemnly reply; "he took his name, last
week, poor gentleman, off the buttery-book,
sir; and dinner for two is to be sent
henceforward to his rooms."

The unmarried will regard the married
with a certain uneasy suspicion, for we shall
be doubtful whether they tell their consorts
everything or no. Fancy our combination-room
stories circulating all over the female
population! Then, if we decide upon
admitting ladies into hall, things will be even
worse. Our conversation will then be solely
directed into channels of domesticity; the
economy of the kitchen will fall into feminine
hands; and we shall have leg of mutton upon
the high table in the three stages of roast and
hashed and cold. The children—bless their
little hearts, say I, but I like to see them in
their proper places—will be admitted to dessert
in combination-room. I know, too, how short
a time will be permitted to us for enjoying
ourselves when the ladies have withdrawn.
Married men who have been Fellows, revisit
us here not seldom upon furlough, and the
way in which they look towards the door
after dinner is positively distressing. "Please,
sir, mistress says that the tea has been served
in the drawing-room some minutes," is what
they are expecting to hear; and when our
good old butler brings in more Port instead,
their relief is pleasant to witness.

Lastly, leaving our personal comforts out
of the question, will not our practical usefulness
be seriously impaired by this introduction
of the feminine element? Is it to be
supposed that we shall be permitted to carry
on our present educational course, for
instance, without interference? Will there
not be ladies with a turn for classics, and
with a talent for mathematics, and (especially)
with a peculiar view upon theology, which
they will insist on an opportunity of
displaying, and of imparting to our youth?
Shall we not have

                            "upon the lecture slate
      The circle rounded under female hands
      With flawless demonstration?"

or (as is still more likely to be the case), all
wrong? Shall we not have

      "Classic lectures, rich in sentiment,
        With scraps of thunderous epic lilted out
        By violet-hooded doctors?"

Nay, shall we not quite possibly have some
poor Fellow's strong-minded mother-in-law
usurping the chair of the professor of political
economy, and expounding her ideas upon
woman's rights and population, in large green
spectacles and an ugly?

We have had some stormy scenes lately at
our college meetings; but I fancy they have
been nothing to what they will be when
the seniority comes to be half composed of
females! By that time it is possible that
more than one of those impassioned young
persons who are at present so desirous of
doing away with our old Salic laws, will
look up fondly, but in vain, to the image of
the royal founder over our gateway, and envy
that bluif King Hal, who, although he did
marry half-a-dozen wives or so, became a
Bachelor Fellow whenever he chose.

Just published, in Two Volumes, post 8vo., price One
Guinea,
THE DEAD SECRET.
BY WILKIE COLLINS.
Bradbury and Evans, Whitefriars.