after dinner he lounged or read the papers till seven, when he fell to work and never stopped till two in the morning. This man (he is the Horace Spedding of the supper party) might almost be said to know the Greek Drama by heart; if you gave him a line in any prologue, or soliloquy, or messenger's speech, he could go on with the next.

Of my other set of acquaintances I saw more from meeting them every day in hall. They were Trinity Senior and Junior Sophs, some Scholars, some candidates for Scholarships next time, were chiefly reading men without any pretence to literature, or metaphysics, or earnestness" of any sort except in work: and all looked up to the Trinity candidate for head of the Tripos as their great man. They took their work more leisurely, though getting through a fair share of it; even the Coryphæus, who had most at stake, was not inclined to give up his rubber when there was a chance of one in the evening; and they found time to get up continual breakfast, wine, and supper parties. One of the foremost in these agreeable variations of academic exercises was a man considerably the senior of his yearprobably close upon thirty. He had entered his name on the books nearly ten years before, then turned Methodist, and actually became a Methodist preacher, after which he changed back again and entered the University, as a preliminary to taking Orders in the Church of England. In all ordinary topics whereon men are apt to disagree, he and I disagreed, for he was Young England in politics and Puseyite in Church matters, but we had a kindred bond of union in a love for, and a certain knowledge of that branch of the fine arts which relates to the æsthetics of the table. He was a connoisseur in venison and mutton, and a judge of old wine (one of the

only three Englishmen I ever knew to have good Madeira), and possessing sufficient property of his own to indulge in these innocent tastes, bid fair to make a worthy member of the Church jovial. It was a very early weakness of mine to be curious in good dishes and drinks, and I was just now dabbling in the science with all the zest of a man who has been for twenty months obliged to weigh and ponder over every morsel he eats and drop he drinks, and is at last beginning to be able to live a little like other people. At this very time the anti-American part of Martin Chuzzlewit was in course of publication, in which occurs, it will be remembered, a description of sherry cobbler. This description struck F.'s fancy amazingly. After meditating upon it for some time, he broke out one day, when six of us were discussing in his rooms the luxuries of the season -strawberries, and raspberries, and various other sorts of berries, which in England flourish all together, and the whole summer through-and imbibing the eternal port and sherry-one fine summer afternoon, I say, while we were thus occupied, he broke out with,

Bristed, did you ever drink sherry cobbler?"

I confessed that I had.

"Can you make it?

This was a question that took longer to answer. Though it was many years since I had last been engaged in the process (on which occasion a young lady from the neighboring nation of South Carolina had particularly insisted on my putting in enough sherry), I probably

* According to Grahamite and teetotal rules I ought to have been a confirmed drunkard and glutton long ago, yet I never find any difficulty in living on vegetables and water for a week at a time, when I want to work hard in hot weather, or have any other reason for following a spare diet.

recollected enough of the theory to put it into practice again; but there was a difficulty in procuring some of the requisite materials-ice for instance. Here they looked astonished, ice, as it is commonly understood in England, that is ice-cream, being a very common article of consumption at Cambridge. But simple ice, sufficiently clear to be put into a beverage, was at that time unknown in England; they have become familiar with it since, thanks to Lake Wenham. However, the original mover of the matter thought he had sufficient influence with the confectioners, or, failing that, chemical knowledge enough of his own, to obtain the rare luxury by artificial means; and two others of the party undertook to procure the necessary description of straws. So I invited the company to meet in my room three days from that time and try sherry cobbler.

It was not necessary to put a private laboratory at work for freezing the ice. The crack confectioner of the place undertook to supply it, though somewhat puzzled by the order, coupled as it was with one for sodawater glasses, or tumblers of the largest size; and equally puzzled were the milliners' girls at the application of our foraging party for straws. But all these preliminary difficulties being happily overcome, the six assembled on the appointed day in my summer room (I was luxurious enough to have two) to test the transatlantic beverage. I was conscious of ten curious eyes watching my every movement, as I proceeded to concoct the cobbler. Having at length arranged it to suit my taste, I took an experimental suck, put in another straw, and handed the glass over to our authority, who, grave as a judge, proceeded to the trial. The eyes of the party were now directed to him with an anxiety in which I alone did not participate, the few drops imbibed having

satisfied me that the national beverage was able to take care of itself. F— laid hold of the straw and applied his lips to it for a few seconds without manifesting any emotion in his features. Then he paused a moment, took a longer draught and rolled up his eyes, making a great display of the whites-a trick he had learned during his excursion into the Methodist Church-then removing his lips reluctantly from the straw, he uttered. his oracular decision, “It will do." Forthwith every man seized a knife and a lemon, and the manufacture of cobblers went on. I do not undertake to say that these were the first made in England, but they certainly were the first made at either University: it did not take long to naturalize them at Cambridge. As the beverage is a much weaker one than the Cantabs had been in the habit of drinking, besides that it requires to be imbibed more slowly than unmixed wine, I may congratulate myself on having done something to promote the cause of sobriety, as well as of table æsthetics. But republics are not the only communities that show themselves ungrateful to their benefactors. In less than three years the origin of the drink was forgotten. Before I left the University, an Eton Freshman at a wine party asked me if we drank sherry-cobbler in America!

A SECOND EDITION OF THIRD YEAR.-A CRACK CLAS

SICAL COACH.-- COMMEMORATION

ON THE WINNING MAN.

SPEECH.-I BET

κάμψαι διαύλου θάτερον κῶλον πάλιν.—ÆscH. ΑGAM. 344.

JUST

UST at the end of the vacation every one feels it a duty to himself to go somewhere for a little while. I went to visit a friend residing near Cheltenham. Mesmerism, the Water Cure, and some other German novelties had just then possessed the good people in that part of the country, and I was induced to try the prevailing panacea, which I underwent five days—and never before did I fully appreciate the force of the metaphor, to throw a wet blanket on anything. Even now it presents a sadly ludicrous spectacle to my mind's eye, as I recall myself helplessly swaddled in seven blankets over a wet sheet, powerless to move hand or foot; or squatted in a sitz bath, trying to keep myself warm by reading the fire in Schiller's Bell-Song. At the end of the fifth day the process had to be given up in self-defence, as, in addition to certain physical obstructions, it brought on a lowness of spirits which rendered life a burden to me.

I am aware how dangerous a thing it is for a layman, with necessarily limited knowledge, to meddle with professional subjects. In delivering any opinion upon them, he runs a great risk of stultifying himself. But it must be recollected that the Water Cure was essentially un