MEN WHO HAVE TAKEN ME IN—TO DINNER.
(By a Dinner-Belle.)
No. I.—THE OVER-CULTURED UNDERGRADUATE.
He stood, as if posed by a column,
Awaiting our hostess' advance;
Complacently pallid and solemn,
He deigned an Olympian glance.
Icy cool, in a room like a crater,
He silently marched me down-stairs,
And Mont Blanc could not freeze with a greater
Assurance of grandeur and airs.
I questioned if Balliol was jolly—
"Your epithet," sighed he, "means noise.
Vile noise! At his age it were folly
To revel with Philistine boys."
Competition, the century's vulture,
Devoured academical fools;
For himself, utter pilgrim of Culture,
He countenanced none of the Schools.
Exams: were a Brummagem fashion
Of mobs and inferior taste;
They withered "Translucence" and "Passion,"
They vulgarised leisure by haste.
Self to realise—that was the question,
Inscrutable still while the cooks
Of our Colleges preached indigestion,
Their Dons indigestible books.
Two volumes alone were not bathos,
The one by an early Chinese,
The other, that infinite pathos,
Our Nursery Rhymes, if you please.
He was lost, he avowed, in this era;
His spirit was seared by the West,
But he deemed to be Monk in Madeira
Would probably suit him the best.
"Impressions of Babehood" in plenty
Succeeded, "Hot youth" and its tears,
Till I wondered if ninety or twenty
Summed up his unbearable years.
Great Heavens! I turned to my neighbour,
A SQUARSON by culture unblest;
And welcomed at length in field-labour
And foxes refreshment and rest.
QUESTION OF THE KNIGHT.—If it be true, as was mentioned in the World last week, that Mr. Justice WRIGHT has "climbed down," only to be placed upon a higher perch, will any change of name follow on the Knighthood? Will he be known as Sir ROBERT RONG, late Mr. JUSTICE WRIGHT?