re was no doubt of his making
a respectable heroine if he would consent to be made love to. In vain
did he protest against the petticoats, and urge with affecting
earnestness the claims of the whiskers which for the last six months he
had so diligently been cultivating; the chorus of entreaty and
expostulation had its effect, aided by a well-timed compliment to the
aristocratically small hand and foot, of which Horace was pardonably
vain. Shaving was pronounced indispensable to the due growth of the
whiskers; and the importance of the character, and the point of the
situations, so strongly dwelt upon, that he became gradually reconciled
to his fate, and began seriously to discuss the question whether Miss
Hardcastle should wear her hair in curls or bands. A freshman of
seventeen, who had no pretensions in the way of whiskers, and who was
too happy to be admitted on any terms to a share in such a "fast idea"
as the getting up a play, was to be the Miss Neville; and before the
hall bell rang for dinner, an order had been despatched for a dozen
acting copies of _She Stoops to Conquer_.

Times have materially changed since Queen Elizabeth's visit to
Christ-Church; the University, one of the earliest nurses of the infant
drama, has long since turned it out of doors for a naughty child, and
forbid it, under pain of worse than whipping, to come any nearer than
Abingdon or Bicester. Taking into consideration the style of some of the
performances in which undergraduates of some three hundred years ago
were the actors, the "Oxford Theatre" of those days, if it had more
wit in it than the present, had somewhat less decency. The ancient
"moralities" were not over moral, and the "mysteries" rather Babylonish.
So far we have had no great loss. Whether the judicious getting
up of a tragedy of Sophocles or Aeschylus, or even a comedy of
Terence--classically managed, as it could be done in Oxford, and well
acted--would be more unbecoming the gravity of our collected wisdom,
or more derogatory to the dignity of our noble "theatre," than the
squalling of Italian singers, masculine, feminine, and neuter, is a
question which, when I have a seat in the Hebdomadal Council, I shall
certainly propose. Thus much I am sure of,--if a classical playbill were
duly announced for the next grand commemoration, it would "draw" almost
as well as any lion of the day: the dresses might be quite as showy, the
action could hardly be less graceful, than those