ROUNDABOUT READINGS.
Messrs. Arkwright, Cunliffe, and Warner have received their blues from the Captain of the Oxford University Eleven. In other words, these gentlemen will help to represent their University in the cricket match against Cambridge. My congratulations, though they come late, are none the less hearty and sincere. Can any years of success in after life efface the memory or outrival the delight of that crowded moment of glorious life which comes to a young man when his Captain tells him he may get his blue? Thenceforward he is made one with the great company of old blues, who year by year meet and exchange reminiscences, the honour of his University is in his hands, his father becomes less rigorous in his financial views, and his mother is confirmed in her opinion that her darling is the brightest and best and handsomest of created beings. These keen joys come but once in a lifetime, and only to a few.
That man's a good bat who can time, judge, and mark right
The ball as it flies from the right hand of Arkwright.
And the Oxford men cheer as they see the stumps fall
When the Magdalen bowler delivers the ball.
"My team," said G. Mordaunt, "requires only one lift;
If I get it the Cantabs may go and be Cunliffed."
And I think he was wise in awarding, don't you,
To this tricky left-handed young bowler his blue.
And lastly the Captain, he put in his thumb,
For he very much wanted to pull out a plum:
"I have it," he cried, like a modern Jack Horner,
And he promptly scored one as he pulled out Plum Warner.
When I was a freshman at Cambridge (eheu fugaces!) I remember being both impressed and terrified at having pointed out to me a tutor of a certain College who was said to be the hero of a Bacchanalian incident. The story went that the tutor, returning from some feast with a party of friends, fell, by mischance, into one of the narrow streams of water that flow at the side of the Cambridge streets. Striking out vigorously, he shouted, "Save the rest, I can swim." No doubt the story is still told, for the supposed hero of it is still alive. Indeed, when a caricature of him was published some years ago in Vanity Fair, the biography by Jehu Junior closed with the words, "He can swim." Yet the story, as affecting Mr. Dash, of Blank College, is manifestly false, for it is older than the century. The curious may find it in its original form in the lately published volume of S. T. Coleridge's letters. The poet relates it of an undergraduate of his day who had taken part in a drunken revel.
But the ways of stories are at all times inscrutable. I have myself—I confess it without a blush—deliberately invented and spread abroad a story about a semi-public dinner. I did so merely because it struck me as containing elements of humour. Besides, it not only might have happened, but ought to have happened. A year or two later six gentlemen, who had been present when the incident did not occur, related it back to me, each one with a little special embellishment of his own. Some of them were magistrates, most of them were fathers of families, and all were honourable men. Yet they were all prepared to stake their reputations on the absolute veracity of this myth; and, what is even more curious, they retailed it to its inventor and disseminator.
Lytham is troubled. I read that "the musical attractions at the Pier Pavilion have been fairly patronised, and dancing on the pier is to be resumed." This latter attraction, it appears, has not met with the entire approval of the Lytham people, who contend that it will bring Lytham into disrepute. "The Ratepayers' Association have had the matter under consideration, and have disclaimed any connection with the innovation. The directors, however, have had the question under discussion, and have decided to continue the dancing."
Said the pier-man to the tourist, "Lo, the tide is flowing free;
Won't you come and join the dancers in our Temple by the sea?
See how mazily the Harries and the Harriets advance,
Will you won't you, will you won't you, won't you join the dance?
"We have cornets, flutes and fiddles, and we always play in time,
And the triangles at intervals triangularly chime.
Hark, the bold bassoon is booming, every dancer gets a chance,
Come and trip it, pretty tourist, in our gay Pavilion dance."
But the tourist paused a moment; then addressed the pier-man, "Brute,
Such proceedings bring poor Lytham into awful disrepute,
Besides, I'm here for pleasure, and I do not want to prance.
As the rest of them are doing, in your gay al fresco dance."
And the ratepayers considered it, and angrily replied,
"There is another shore, you know, upon the other side:
Take your dancers far from England, take them bodily to France;
We disclaim the least connection, and we will not join your dance."
I note from a correspondence in The Scotsman that a considerable amount of feeling has been aroused by the erection of the new North British Railway Hotel in Princes Street. Lord Wemyss, apparently, has declared not only that it will spoil the view, but also that it will "pierce the vault of heaven." Another correspondent adds that it will have "a Jennerised, unreposeful front." That ought to settle the matter at once. Someone else complains of "those terrible advertisements of drugs and fluid beef which extend in gigantic letters along the side of the lower part of the Carlton Hill, and which catch the unwilling eye of anyone looking from the Bridges, from the Mound, and indeed from any part of the Old Town." What with advertisements of drugs and fluid beef, and a new hotel possessing a Jennerised, unreposeful front, obviously Edinburgh is in a bad way.
Mr. C. J. Walton, of Wolverhampton, writes to the Birmingham Daily Gazette with reference to a recent appeal on behalf of the victims of the "Liberator" frauds. "I fail entirely to see," he says, "how a member of the Church of England can be expected to make the slightest sacrifice (except on the principle of Christian charity), seeing that the whole idea of the 'Liberator' scheme was to find funds for the agitators whose sole aim was the robbery and destruction of the Church of England as a national institution, and to get hold of its funds for secular and non-religious purposes." Dear me, dear me, how strange, how terrible, how muddle-headed. This poor politician has evidently got mixed up between the Liberator and the "Liberation Society." Let him take the hint, and send in his subscription.