BACK TO BACKS.
The Cambridge Week, delightful. Beautiful weather till I left, and after me—the deluge! Fair faces everywhere, and O those beautiful "Backs"! As the poet sang—
"Ye Backs and Braes!"
Why lug in "Braes"? Fronts may be, and have been, false, but never these "Backs." They never looked lovelier than at the commencement of last week,—fine weather, warm, a gentle breeze. Lucky Cantabs, to have such an idyllic idling place, where you can moon, spoon, stroll, study, work or play, and, if in your boat, smoke, for the pernicious weed is forbidden in the well-kept gardens, though it may be indulged in on the water, beneath whose surface another pernicious weed can be seen luxuriating.
Once more I visit the A. D. C., and witness a capital performance of a burlesque, Der Freischütz, founded on one of H. J. Byron's, and written up to date by a precious Stone. Burlesque is not dead! Very far from it. The "Sacred Lamp" is not even flickering, but burning with undiminished brilliancy. For a time learned Thebans essayed to extinguish it with High Comedy and even Shakspearian Drama. But the A. D. C. was meant for recreation, and no Undergraduate saw any amusement in either performing or witnessing High Comedy or an historical Drama by William Shakspeare. Relaxation for the pale student was needed, so dancing and singing, and jokes, topical hits, and comic business, drew big houses, and amused both players and audiences. The classical Puritanical rebellion was over, and the Merry Monarch, King Burlesque, was restored to his throne, merrier than ever. A crowded house, and I am informed crowdeder and crowdeder every night.
The burlesque is a good one, as the story of Der Freischütz is closely parodied, and it is not a mere variety show. And the actors are as much in earnest as the other actors were in earnest, terrible earnest, just thirty-five years ago, for the date over the proscenium reminds me that the A. D. C. was founded in 1855. There are some old original members down here, and they regard some old original photographs of themselves when they were all boys together in this A. D. C. The photographs are of beardless youths, all very much in earnest. The middle-aged, grey-bearded men are contemplating their former selves with an air of surprise. "Dear me! and those were us!" they exclaim, in Academical English. They see themselves as others saw them then, and they are secretly disappointed, though they soon recover their serenity, and with pride to think their lineaments have been preserved and handed down from generation to generation, they bring up their wives and daughters to look at the pictures, and to listen to their "tales of a grandfather."
Alas! the photographs are fading, and soon, but for the extant history of the A. D. C., dedicated to its Honorary President, H.R.H., the Prince of Wales, its origin would be lost in the obscurity of the dark ages (before they were the grey ages), or be so confused and intermingled with myth as to render any account of its early days untrustworthy.
And what a crowd, driving, walking, riding, to see the boat-races! Quite a little Water Derby Day. So much talk about "bumps," that a stranger would think he had come to hear an open-air lecture on phrenology.
One more lounge in the "Backs," and then to London and work, while happy Undergrads commence their Long Vacation, and make holiday in the sunshine of life. But roam where you will, never will you find any spot to equal these Backs. O Fortunati Cantabiles! Backs vobiscum!
As a barrister I love a refresher, and this flying visit has, indeed, been a refresher to one who drinks to Trin. Coll. Cam. and the A. D. C. in a bumper of '75 Margaux, and is able, after that, to sign himself, academically and Lincolnsinnically, the
Marquis de Termes.
PS.—Wouldn't this Claretian name of "Marquis de Termes" be a good title for the Markiss of Salisbury, that "master of flouts and gibes"?