repartees of a dozen assailants at once, accounted, in their own quadrangles, Millamours of the darkest dye.

Guy accounted for this unfortunate peculiarity by saying that a cigar in the mouth was the normal state of many of these men; so that, when circumstances debarred them from the Havana courage, they lost all presence of mind, and, being unable to retreat under cover of the smoke, lapsed instantly into a sullen despair, suffering themselves to be shot down unresistingly. Perhaps some future philosopher will favor us with a better solution to this important problem in physics; I know of none.

After all, the reading men did best, though we did not think so then, when we saw them creeping into morning chapel jaded and heavy-eyed, after a debauch over Herodotus or the Stagyrite. They had a purpose in view, at all events, and, I believe, were placidly content during the progress of its attainment—in the seventh heaven when their hopes were crowned by a First, or even a Second. True; the pace was too good for some of the half-bred ones, and such as could not stand the training, who departed, to fade away rapidly in the old house at home, or to pine, slowly, but very surely, in remote curacies.

Some of these, I fancy, must have sympathized with Madame de Staël's consumptive niece, who answered to the question, "Why she was weeping all alone?" "Je me regrette." When, resting in their daily walk, shortened till it became a toil to reach the shady seat under the elms at the garden's end, they watched the stalwart plowmen and drovers go striding by, without a trouble behind their tanned foreheads except the thought that wages might fall a shilling a week, was there no envy, I wonder, as they looked down on the wan hands lying so listless across their knees? Would they not have given their First, and their fellowship in embryo to boot, to have had the morning appetite of Tom Chauntrell, the horse-breaker, after twelve pipes overnight, with gin and water to match, or to have been able, like Joe Springett, the under keeper, to breast the steepest brae in Cumberland with never a sob or a painful breath? Did they never murmur while thinking how brightly the blade might have flashed, how deftly have been wielded, if the worthless scabbard had only lasted out till, on some grand field-day, the word was given, "Draw swords?" Some felt this, doubtless; but the most part, I imagine, were possessed with a comfortable assurance that their short life had been useful, if not ornamental; and so, to a certain extent, they had their reward. At any rate, their ending was to the full as glorious as that of some other friends of ours, who crawl away from the battle-ground of the Viveurs to die, or to linger on helpless hypochondriacs.

If I have spoken depreciatingly or unfairly of the mass of my college coevals (and it may well be so), I do full justice, in thought at least, to some brilliant exceptions. I founded friendships there which, I trust, will outlive me.

I do not forget Warrenne, too good for the men he lived with, a David in our camp of Kedar—always going on straight in the path he thought right—though ever and anon his hot Irish blood would chafe fiercely under the curb self-imposed—and laboring incessantly, with all gentleness, to induce others to follow; a Launcelot in his devotion to womankind; a Galahad in purity of thought and purpose. I have never known a man of the world so single-hearted, or a saint with so much savoir vivre.

I see before me now Lovell, with his frank look and cheery laugh, the model of a stalwart English squirehood; and Petre, equal to either fortune; in reverse or success calm and impassible as Athos the mousquetaire; regarding money simply as a circulating medium, with the profoundest contempt for its actual value—se ruinant en prince. He edified us greatly, on one occasion, by meeting his justly offended father with a stern politeness, declining to hold any communication with him by word or letter till he (the sire) "could express himself in a more Christian spirit."

Then there was Barlowe, the pearl of gentlemen riders, the very apple of Charles Symond's eye; unspoiled by a hundred triumphs, and never degenerating into the professional, though I believe his idea of earthly felicity was,

A match for £50, 10 st. 7 lb. each. Owners up. Over 4 miles of a fair hunting country.

I see him, too, with his pleasant face, round, rosy, and beardless as a child-cherub of Rubens, tempting pale men with splitting heads to throw boots at him in the bitterness of their envy as he entered their rooms on the morning after a heavy drink, his eyes so clear and guileless that you would never guess how sharp they could be at times when a dangerous horse was coming up on his quarter. A strange compound his character was of cool calculation and sentimental simplicity. The most astute of trainers never got the better of him in making a match; and I am sure, to this day, he believes in ——'s poetry, and in the immutability of feminine affection.

How agreeable he was about the small hours, chirping over his grog; alternating between reminiscences of "My tutor's daughter" and recitals of choice morsels in verse and prose; misquoting, to the utter annihilation of rhythm and sense, but all with perfect gravity, good faith, and satisfaction!

Nec te, memorande, relinquam—true Tom Lynton! not clever, not even high-bred, but loved by every one for the honestest and kindest heart that ever was the kernel of a rough rind.

Do we not remember that supper where the Fathers of England were being discussed? Every one, drawn on by the current, had a stone to throw at his relieving officer, the complaint, of course, being a general tightness in the supplies. At last, Tom, who, though his own sire was an austere man, could not bear to hear the absent run down, broke in, gravely remonstrating,

"Well, gentlemen," he said, "remember they're our fellow-creatures, at all events."

They drank "Lynton and the Governors" with a compound multiplication of cheers.

I might mention more; but a face rises just now before me which makes me close the muster-roll—the face of one who united in himself many, very many of the best qualities of the others; of one whom I shrink from naming here, lest it should seem that I do so lightly—a face that I saw six hours before its features became set forever.

CHAPTER IV.

Toward the end of my second year an event came off in which we were all much interested—a steeplechase in which both Universities were to take part. The stakes were worth winning—twenty sovs. entrance, h.f., and a hundred sovs. added; besides, the esprit de corps was strong, and men backed their opinions pretty freely. The venue was fixed at B——; the time, the beginning of the Easter vacation.

The old town was crowded like Vanity Fair. There was a railway in progress near, and the navvies and other "roughs" came flocking in by hundreds, so that the municipal authorities, justly apprehensive of a row, concentrated the cohorts of their police, and swore in no end of specials as a reserve.

The great event came off duly, a fair instance of the "glorious uncertainty" which backers of horses execrate and ring-men adore. All