an allowance. He did not smoke for fear of injuring

his wind. The only ornaments in his rooms were

cups or "pewters won on the river. His dress always included the colours of his club. His library consisted chiefly of the Boating Almanack and back numbers of Bell's Life. He bitterly grudged the hour which he daily devoted to the process of being "crammed" for his degree, and was only partially pacified when he had to solve the small arithmetical puzzles in which examples are taken from the river; for a boating man always loves a small joke. His conversation only varied by referring at one season of the year to the sculls, and at another to the fours; and he always had a party of friends like-minded with himself to discuss such matters over a glass of wine.

After all, this is not an exaggerated account of a certain not uncommon type of undergraduates. Their sphere of thought is somewhat limited; but they are very good fellows, and are excellent raw material for country parsons, or for any other profession where much thinking power is not required.

III.

ATHLETIC SPORTS.

I VENTURE to use in its comprehensive sense the term "Athletic Sports," which for some unexplained reason is generally confined to running and leaping matches; and under this head I will conclude what I have to say upon the athletic tribe, of whom the rowing man is the typical representative.

I was standing at the Oxford and Cambridge sports, partially sheltered by a corner of the pavilion from the pelting of the pitiless snowstorm, admiring the efforts of the bare-legged, bare-armed, and all but bare-backed University athletes. My feet were imbedded in a freezing mixture of mud and melting snow; my nose assumed a bright purple hue, and

was the most prominent object in my field of vision. Beyond it I dimly caught sight through the snowflakes of wild figures careering at intervals across the field, or heaving weights, jumping bars, and throwing cricket-balls. Here, I thought, is a fine chance for composing a poetical peroration on muscular Christianity. My ideas naturally took the form of a sermon; the text was the dogma attributed to the devotees of the sect whose strange rites I was contemplating; namely, that a man's whole duty was to fear God, and walk 1,000 miles in 1,000 hours; my discourse was, I believe, divided into the orthodox three heads: first, that such an athlete was, of necessity, a true man; secondly, that he was a true University man; and, thirdly, that he was a true Christian.

I have unfortunately quite forgotten the logical process by which I arrived at this last result. It is indeed only when my mind is specially excited that it becomes sensitive to the delicate logical chain by which the merit of physical excellence is connected with the teachings of the Gospels. At cooler moments I always fancy that, in accordance with a hackneyed precedent, the preacher must have

studied muscularity in the pages of Bell's Life, and Christianity in those of Mr. Maurice's sermons, and combined the result. It is difficult to fuse together such heterogeneous elements so completely as to obliterate the line of junction. In one respect indeed the muscular Christians have done good service. The same class who deny to the parson the privilege of hunting because it has a certain flavour of profanity (and of course a parson should not be so wicked as other people), used to condemn all athletic pursuits. With a keen nose for the taint of "worldliness," they detected something wrong in all amusements that rose above the tea-party pitch of boisterousness.

A well-known religious writer in the last century threw away his bat on being ordained, remarking that it should never be said of him, "Well played, parson!" Parsons have been known in our day to play cricket, and even to run races, without severe reproach. We must give the muscular Christians some thanks for helping on our emancipation. When they went a step further, and discovered cricket to be a Christian grace, I think they

approached the opposite pole of error. I do not wish, however, to renew a battle that has been fought often enough, nor to trespass within the dangerous bounds of theological casuistry. I will leave muscular Christians in peace for the future, trusting that they may continue their practice and improve their principles.

The absorbing interest which our students take in athletic pursuits has given rise to hostile criticism as well as to elaborate theories in its defence. Two friends of mine have shrewdly assailed my occasional proclivities to such amusement. One of them is a stalwart giant of six foot three, broad of chest and large of limb; one of those figures whom the Prussian king would have got by hook or by crook into his Potsdam guards, and at whom an old captain of a boat-club instinctively turns a longing eye. He enjoys the rudest health, and finishes his three solid meals a day with the regularity of a steam-engine. The consequence is that, like some other men of Herculean powers, he interprets every pricking in his thumbs into symptoms of approaching disease and dissolution. Years ago, when we were both undergraduates, I