by insisting upon his accepting a small college living which happened to be vacant. The deeds of another tutor may be guessed from the story that he refused to move the college pump into a more convenient position, because, where it was, it enabled the undergraduates to get over the wall at night.

Such things, of course, have been unknown for the last half-century. Respectability has spread its leaden mantle over the whole country, the old eccentric characters have died out from our walls, and the man wins the race who can worship that great goddess with the most undivided devotion.

XI.

HEADS OF HOUSES.

AT a very early period of my infancy, I proposed, in common with others of my cotemporaries, to rival the late Duke of Wellington or Admiral Nelson. At a subsequent epoch I came to the conclusion that on the whole it would be more feasible to become a second Sir Walter Scott. I even got so far as to compose a poem in pursuance of this design. The subject was the "Prairie on Fire," the only verses. which I can at present remember being

See the bisons in despair,

How they tear their grizzly hair,

or words to that effect. A difficulty in ensuring a

sufficient supply of rhymes caused me to abandon this ambition.

The next object that I proposed to myself was to become Lord Chancellor, and I often regret that the temptation of a college office induced me to abandon my chance of a post which I fancy I could have filled with some credit to myself and with decided advantage to my relatives.

I then resolved upon becoming a bishop; I had little doubts of success, especially after the temporary return to the University of a gentleman who had succeeded in reaching that desirable goal of ambition. He said, or was said to have said, that nothing was easier than to gain a bishopric if you were only "up to snuff"-a slang expression which nothing but episcopal authority would have emboldened me to quote. There is, I believe, some truth in the saying, and I have long meditated a work on the art of becoming a bishop. I should lay down the precise theological shade which it is desirable to adopt; the books to publish, including a discussion of the rival merits of a commentary on the Gospels, an edition of a classical author, and an essay on Christian logic; the best means of advertising your merits, as by preaching University sermons, or

becoming a noted " man of business"

-and so

forth. My enthusiasm was, however, somewhat quenched by considering the manifest inadequacy of the salary. In the good old times, when a bishop might have possibly got his twenty thousand a year and done nothing for it, there was much to be said for the office. Now that a paltry five thousand has to be set against the burdens of a palace, episcopal hospitality, and a steady discharge of all kinds of business duties, it can scarcely be said to be worth acceptance.

I therefore made a fresh survey of the field of human ambition, and came decidedly to the conclusion that, on the whole, few offices are really preferable in solid advantages to the headship of a college. You are not, it is true, in so conspicuous a position as some of those which I have mentioned; but you live in a picturesque old house, haunted by the associations of centuries. You succeed to a long line of dignitaries, interrupted half-way by the vulgar intrusion of the civil wars. In your own little world, you hold indisputably the first place. No one ever meets you who has a right to take

precedence of you. You have a sufficient salary, and last, not least, you have nothing in the world to do. You have obtained an office which is a reward for past labours, or perhaps for past good fortune, and which imposes no future labour upon you. I say that it is or may be a reward for past good fortune, and this indeed is one of its special merits. A legend, which I believe to be well founded, tells how the mastership of a certain college was conferred in this wise: The fellows nominated two persons of certain qualifications, of whom a bishop selected one. Now, they were anxious to have as master a gentleman with whom the bishop had a personal quarrel. They therefore looked about to find a co-nominee in the most utterly disreputable person who was duly qualified. They succeeded in finding one who had every fault that a man could have. His character was SO thoroughly and undeniably disgraceful that no one, as they supposed, could for a moment even think of presenting him to any decent office. They nominated him with their favourite, hoping by this ingenious device to force their favourite upon the