In the club I came on old Lord —— (of Session), anathematizing his luck and his partner, as his manner was. Some one told me that it was only at golf that he really let himself go. Once in Court he addressed a small boy, whose head hardly appeared above the witness-box, with dignified solicitude: "Tell me, my boy, do you understand the nature of an oath?" "Aye, my lord," came the youngster's prompt response, "ain't I your caddie?"

I think that it was at the climax of the medal-week festivities that the news came of the sudden death (in his sleep) of Sir William Harcourt at Nuneham, to which he had only lately succeeded. He had survived just ten years the crowning disappointment of his life, his passing-over for the premiership on the final resignation of Gladstone. He had long outlived (no small achievement) the intense unpopularity of his early years; and it seemed almost legendary to recall how three members of parliament had once resolved to invite to dinner the individual they disliked most in the world. Covers were laid (as the reporters say) for six; but only one guest turned up—Sir William Vernon Harcourt, who had been invited by all three!

I reached Oxford in October to find our Benedictine Hall migrated from the suburbs to a much more commodious site in dull but rather dignified Beaumont Street.[10] The proximity of a hideous "Gothic" hotel, and of the ponderous pseudo-Italian Ashmolean Galleries, did not appeal to us; but the site was conveniently central, and was moreover holy ground, for we were within the actual enclosure of the old Carmelite Priory, and close to Benedictine Worcester, beyond which Cistercian Rowley (on the actual site of whose high altar now stands the bookstall of the L.N.W.R. station!) and Augustinian Oseney had stretched out into the country. One of my first guests in Beaumont Street was Alfred Plowden, the witty and genial Metropolitan magistrate, then just sixty, but as good-looking as ever, and full of amusing yarns about his Westminster and Brasenose days. I think he was the best raconteur I ever met, and one of the most eloquent of speakers when once "off" on a subject in which he was really interested. On this occasion he got started on Jamaica, where he had been private secretary to the Governor after leaving Oxford; and his description of his experiences in that fascinating island was delightful to listen to.

Lord Ralph Kerr's son Philip, who got his First Class in history in June, came up this term to try for an All Souls fellowship. There is a sharp competition nowadays for these university plums; and the qualification is no longer, as the old jibe ran, "bene natus, bene vestitus, medocriter doctus." I prefer the older and sounder standard—"bene legere, bene construere, bene cantare." There seemed, by the way, a certain whimsicality in some cases in the qualifications for the Rhodes Scholarships here. I had a call about this time from the Archbishop of St. John's, Newfoundland, who wished to interest me in a scholar from that colony (called Sidney Herbert!) who was coming up after Christmas. His Grace said that the youth had been required to pass three "tests"—a religious one from his parish priest, an intellectual one, from the authorities of his college, and a social one, from his classmates; and I felt some curiosity as to the nature of the last-named.[11] Amusing stories were current at this time about the Rhodes Scholars. One young don told me that an American scholar had replied, when asked what was his religion, "Well, sir, I can best describe myself as a quasi-Christian scientist."—"Do you think," the don asked me, "he meant the word 'quasi' to apply to 'Christian' or to 'scientist'?" Another young American drifted into Keble, but never attended chapel—a circumstance unheard-of in that exclusively Anglican preserve. Questioned as to whether he was not a member of the "Protestant Episcopal Church" (if not, what on earth was he doing at Keble?), he rejoined, "Certainly not; he was a 'Latter-day Saint'!" He was deported without delay to a rather insignificant college, where it was unkindly said that the Head was so delighted to get a saint of any kind that he welcomed him with open arms.[12]

A Rhodes Scholar, who had been also a fellow of his university in U.S.A., showed himself so lamentably below the expected standard, that his Oxford tutor expressed his surprise at a scholar and a fellow knowing so little. "I think you somewhat misapprehend the position," was the reply. "In the University of X—— fellowships are awarded for purely political reasons." To another college tutor, who voiced his disappointment that after a complete course at his own university a Rhodes Scholar should be so deplorably deficient in Greek and Latin, came the ready explanation: "In the university where I was raised, sir, we only skim the classics!" A Balliol Rhodes Scholar, who had failed to present the essential weekly essay, replied to his tutor's expostulation, in the inimitable drawl of the Middle West: "Well, sir, I have not found myself able to com-pose an essay on the theme indicated by the college authorities; but I have brought you instead a few notes of my own on the po-sition of South Dakota in American politics."

The mention of classics reminds me that the question of the retention or abolition of compulsory Greek was a burning one at this time. Congregation had voted for its abolition in the summer of 1904; but on November 29 we reversed that decision by a majority of 36. I met Dean Liddell's widow at dinner that week, and said that I supposed that she, like myself, was old-fashioned enough to want Greek retained. "Of course I am," said the old lady: "Think of the Lexicon!" which I had in truth forgotten for the moment, as well as the comfortable addition which it no doubt made to her jointure. Rushforth of St. Mary Hall, to whom I repeated this little dialogue after dinner, told me that he possessed a letter from Scott to Liddell, calling his attention to Aristoph. Lys., v. 1263, and adding, "Do you think that [Greek: chunagè parséne] in this line means 'a hunting parson'?" Talking of Greek, I interested my friends by citing two lines from the Ajax, which (I had never seen this noticed) required only a change from plural to singular to be a perfect invocation to the Blessed Virgin:

[Greek: Kalô darógon tèn te párthena,
                aeí th horônta panta ten brotois pathè.][13]

A distinguished visitor to Oxford this autumn was Lord Rosebery, who came up to open—no, that is not the word: to unveil—but I do not think it was ever veiled: let us say to inaugurate, Frampton's fine bust of Lord Salisbury in the Union debating-hall. To pronounce the panegyric of a political opponent, with whose principles, practice, and ideals he had always been profoundly at variance, was just the task for Lord Rosebery to perform with perfect tact, eloquence and taste. His speech was a complete success, and so was his graceful and polished tribute to the young president of the