"Match me such marvel, save in college port,
That rose-red liquor, half as old as Short."
The Rev. E.T. Turner, till recently Registrar of the University, has been known to say: "I was present when that egg was laid." It is satisfactory to know that the undergraduate who laid it—William Basil Tickell Jones—attained deserved eminence in after-life, and died Bishop of St. David's.
When Burgon was writing his prize-poem about Petra, Lord John Manners (afterwards seventh Duke of Rutland), in his capacity as Poet Laureate of Young England, was writing chivalrous ditties about castles and banners, and merry peasants, and Holy Church. This kind of mediaeval romanticism, though glorified by Lord Beaconsfield in Coningsby, seemed purely laughable to Thackeray, and he made rather bitter fun of it in Lines upon my Sister's Portrait, by the Lord Southdown.
"Dash down, dash down yon mandolin, beloved sister mine!
Those blushing lips may never sing the glories of our line:
Our ancient castles echo to the clumsy feet of churls.
The spinning-jenny houses in the mansion of our Earls.
Sing not, sing not, my Angelina! in days so base and vile,
'Twere sinful to be happy, 'twere sacrilege to smile.