"Will some kind lady kiss him for his mother?"
The English prize poem, the Newdigate, founded by Sir Roger Newdigate of the George Eliot country, was heard through with a traditional attention and respect, though the poet's delivery came in for occasional criticism.
"Please give him the key, Mr. Lloyd."
Even those few world-famed scholars and statesmen on whom the University was conferring the high distinction of her D. C. L. were showered with merry impudence, as one by one they advanced to receive the honour, though there were no such lucky shots of wit as have signalised, on different occasions, at Oxford or at Cambridge, the greeting of certain popular poets. Holmes was asked from the gallery if he had come in the one-hoss shay, and Longfellow, wearing the gorgeous vestments of his new dignity, was hailed by a cry: "Behold the Red Man of the West." Even the Laureate, whose prophet locks were flung back from his inspired brow somewhat more wildly than their wont, was assailed by a stentorian inquiry:
"Did your mother call you early, call you early, Alfred dear?"
The conferring of degrees upon Oxford students takes place—at irregular intervals, but not infrequently—in the Convocation House. Into a long, narrow room, dignitaries grouped at the top and candidates at the bottom, with guests seated in rows on either side, sweeps the Vice-Chancellor in his gorgeous red and white. He is preceded by the mace-bearer and followed by two Proctors. Taking the place of honour, he reads a page or two of Latin, lifting his cap—the Proctors raising theirs in solemn unison—whenever the word Dominus occurs. The lists of candidates for the various degrees are then read, and the Proctors, at the end of each list, rise simultaneously, march a few steps down the hall, wheel with military precision, and, like the King of France, march back again. These apparently wayward promenades are supposed to give opportunity for tradesmen with unpaid bills to imperil a candidate's degree by plucking the Proctor's gown. The Oxford tradesmen have not availed themselves of this privilege for a century or so, but the term plucked is only too familiar. With many bows and much Latin, even with kneeling that the Vice-Chancellor may tap the learned pates with a Testament, the higher degrees are conferred. Each brand-new doctor withdraws into the robing-room, where his waiting friends eagerly divest him of his old plumage and trick him out in gayer hood and more voluminous gown. So arrayed, he returns for a low bow to the Vice-Chancellor, who touches his own mortar-board in response. The larger company of candidates for the first degree come forward in groups, each head of a college presenting his own men, and these are speedily made into bachelors.
Out of that student multitude have come—not all, be it confessed, with degrees—many of England's greatest. Glorious phantoms haunt by moonlight the Gothic shadows of High Street. The gallant Lovelace, the resolute Pym, Admiral Blake, Sir Philip Sidney, Francis Beaumont, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Sir Thomas Browne, Dr. Johnson, Dean Swift, Wellington, Peel, Gladstone, Adam Smith, Hamilton, Locke, Hobbes, Blackstone, Newman, Manning, Stanley, Maurice, Faber, Heber, Clough, Jeremy Taylor, Whitfield, the Wesleys, the Arnolds,—and this is but the beginning of a tale that can never be told. Yet Oxford, "Adorable Dreamer" though she be,
"Still nursing the unconquerable hope,"
has not done as well by her poets as by the rest of her brood. With all her theology, she did not make a churchman out of Swinburne, nor a saint of Herrick, and as for Landor and Shelley, her eyes were holden and she cast them forth.