As to ourselves at Cambridge, why, I fancy we shall be able to rub along quite comfortably, thank you. If I may use a commercial expression, we've got our own line of Australians and Canadians and Americans, and even of Afrikanders, and I think we shall be able to continue business at the old shop in the old style without any of the new-fangled additions that Mr. Rhodes has conferred upon Oxford. I'll wager that when fifty years are past we shall still be able to meet you on the river, at cricket, at football, nay, even at chess and billiards, on the same terms of average equality. And in after life we shall still manage to compete.
This letter, by the way, was virtually a rejoinder to a set of verses, published a few weeks earlier, in which Punch indulged in a fantastic forecast of the results of the invasion of the Rhodes scholars—including an entire revision of the system of examinations in accordance with the terms of Mr. Rhodes's will. The Craven would be awarded for manliness and the Ireland for muscle:—
Then at last shall Oxford Greats men
Really be Imperial statesmen.
The sequel has shown that the views ascribed to the Cambridge don were much nearer the mark.
THE BREAKING OF THE CHARM
The Sleeping Beauty Oxford University.
The Fairy Prince Lord Curzon.