The “Union” is a well known Club for Oxford Students, having reading and smoking rooms, a good library, and a debating room, in which some of our finest public speakers have made their maiden efforts. The frescoes above referred to were painted in 1857 by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and are, unfortunately, rapidly fading away.
There was another Oxford parody of this song in “Diogenes” for July, 1853, entitled The Oxford Installation Ode. The celebrities to whom it alluded are now all dead, and the parody is quite out of date.
The Plea of Paddington.
The Board of Works, a thrifty crew,
Oppose in cold, heart-sadding tone,
The Park! Ah! Bumble may pooh-pooh,
But “Let us have it!” is the U-
-niversal prayer of Paddington.
Non possumus? Nay, that won’t do!