Lovers of Friendship's Garland will remember that, during their three years at Oxford, Lord Lumpington and Esau Hittall were "so much occupied with Bullingdon and hunting that there was no great opportunity for those mental gymnastics which train and brace the mind for future acquisition." My ways of wasting time were less strenuous than theirs; and my desultory reading, and desultory Church-work, were supplemented by a good deal of desultory riding. I have some delicious memories of autumnal canters over Shotover and Boar's Hill, and racing gallops across Port Meadow, and long ambles on summer afternoons, through the meadows by the river-side, towards Radley and Nuneham. Having been brought up in the country, and having ridden ever since I was promoted from panniers, I looked upon riding as a commonplace accomplishment, much on a par with swimming and skating. Great, therefore, was my surprise to find that many undergraduates, I suppose town-bred, regarded horsemanship not merely as a rare and difficult art, but also as implying a kind of moral distinction. When riding men met me riding, I saw that they "looked at each other with a wild surmise;" and soon, perhaps as a consequence, I was elected to "Vincent's." When, after a term or two, my father suggested that I had better have my own horse sent from home, I was distinctly conscious of a social elevation. Henceforward I might, if I would, associate with "Bloods"; but those whom they would have contemned as "Ritualistic Smugs" were more interesting companions.
The mention of "Vincent's" reminds me of the Union, to which also I belonged, though I was a sparing and infrequent participator in its debates. I disliked debating for debating's sake; and, though I have always loved speaking on Religion or Politics or any other subject in which the spoken word might influence practice, it has always seemed to me a waste of effort to argue for abstract propositions. If by speaking I can lead a man to give a vote on the right side, or a boy to be more dutiful to his mother, or a sin-burdened youth to "open his grief," I am ready to speak all night; but the debates of the Oxford Union on the Falck Laws and the Imperial Titles Bill always left me cold.
The General Election of 1874 occurred during my second year at Oxford. The City of Oxford was contested by Harcourt, Cardwell, and the local brewer. Harcourt and Cardwell were returned; but immediately afterwards Cardwell was raised to the peerage, and a bye-election ensued. I can vividly recall the gratification which I felt when the Liberal candidate—J. D. Lewis—warmly pressed my hand, and, looking at my rosette, hoped that he might count on my vote and interest. Not for the world would I have revealed the damning fact that I was a voteless undergraduate.
In connexion with the Election of 1874, my tutor—C. A. Fyffe—told me a curious story. He was canvassing the Borough of Woodstock on behalf of George Brodrick, then an academic Liberal of the deepest dye. Woodstock was what was called an "Agricultural Borough"—practically a division of the County—and in an outlying district, in a solitary cottage, the canvassers found an old man whom his neighbours reported to be a Radical. He did not disclaim the title, but no inducements could induce him to go to the poll. Gradually, under persistent cross-examination, he revealed his mind. He was old enough to remember the days before the Reform Bill of 1832. His father had been an ardent reformer. Everyone believed that, if only the Bill were passed, hunger and poverty and misery would be abolished, and the poor would come by their own. He said—and this was the curious point—that firearms were stored in his father's cottage, to be used in a popular rising if the Bill were rejected by the Lords. Well, the Lords had submitted, and the Bill had been passed; and we had got our reform—and no one was any better off. The poor were still poor, and there was misery and oppression, and the great people had it all their own way. He had got his roof over his head, and "a bit of meat in his pot," and it was no good hoping for anything more, and he was never going to take any part in politics again. It was a notable echo from the voices which, in 1832, had proclaimed the arrival of the Millennium.
Oxford in those days was full of Celebrities. Whenever one's friends came "up" to pay one a visit, one was pretty certain to be able, in a casual stroll up the High or round Magdalen Walks or Christ Church Meadows, to point out someone of whom they had heard before. I have already spoken of Liddell and Pusey and Liddon and Acland and Burgon and Henry Smith. Chief perhaps among our celebrities was Ruskin, who had lately been made Slade Professor of Fine Art, and whose Inaugural Lecture was incessantly on the lips of such undergraduates as cared for glorious declamation.
"There is a destiny now possible to us—the highest ever set before a nation to be accepted or refused. We are still undegenerate in race; a race mingled of the best northern blood. We are not yet dissolute in temper, but still have the firmness to govern, and the grace to obey. We have been taught a religion of pure mercy, which we must either now finally betray, or learn to defend by fulfilling. And we are rich in an inheritance of honour, bequeathed to us through a thousand years of noble history, which it should be our daily thirst to increase with splendid avarice, so that Englishmen, if it be a sin to covet honour, should be the most offending souls alive.... Will you, youths of England, make your country again a royal throne of kings; a sceptred isle, for all the world a source of light, a centre of peace; mistress of Learning and of the Arts; faithful guardian of time-tried principles, under temptation from fond experiments and licentious desires; and, amidst the cruel and clamorous jealousies of the nations, worshipped in her strange valour, of goodwill towards men? Vexilla regis prodeunt. Yes, but of which King? There are two oriflammes; which shall we plant on the farthest islands—the one that floats in heavenly fire, or that hangs heavy with foul tissue of terrestrial gold?"
Ruskin's lectures, ostensibly devoted to the Fine Arts, ranged over every topic in earth and heaven, and were attended by the largest, most representative, and most responsive audiences which had ever been gathered in Oxford since Matthew Arnold delivered his Farewell Lecture on "Culture and its Enemies."
Another of our Professors—J. E. Thorold Rogers—though perhaps scarcely a celebrity, was well known outside Oxford, partly because he was the first person to relinquish the clerical character under the Act of 1870, partly because of his really learned labours in history and economics, and partly because of his Rabelaisian humour. He was fond of writing sarcastic epigrams, and of reciting them to his friends, and this habit produced a characteristic retort from Jowett. Rogers had only an imperfect sympathy with the historians of the new school, and thus derided the mutual admiration of Green and Freeman—
"Where, ladling butter from a large tureen,