can
explain, and all these collectively were nailed on the Dean's outer door
in a star. 3. A certain garden of small yews and box trees was found one
morning to have been transplanted bodily into Peckwater Quadrangle, as a
matter of mystery and defiance. And there were other like exploits; as
the immersion of that leaden Mercury into its own pond; and town and
gown rows, wherein I remember to have seen the herculean Lord
Hillsborough on one side of High Street, and Peard (afterwards
Garibaldi's Englishman) on the other, clear away the crowd of roughs
with their fists, scattering them like duplicates of the hero of
Corioli.

Of course I duly took my degrees of B.A. and M.A.,--and long after of
D.C.L., when the Cathedral chimes rang for me, as they always do for a
grand compounding Doctor.

A mentionable _curio_ of authorship on that occasion is this: whatever
may be the rule now, in those days the degree of D.C.L. involved a
three-hours' imprisonment in the pulpit of the Bodleian Chapel, for the
candidate to answer therefrom in Latin any theological objectors who
might show themselves for that purpose; as, however, the chapel was
always locked by Dr. Bliss, the registrar, there was never a possibility
to make objection. So my three hours of enforced idleness obliged me to
use pencil and paper, which I happened to have in my pocket,--and I then
and there produced my poem on "The Dead"--to be found at p. 26 of my
Miscellaneous Poems, still extant at Gall & Inglis's--a long one of
eighteen stanzas, much liked by Gladstone amongst others. I didn't
intend it certainly, but, as the poem ends with the word "bliss," it was
ridiculously thought that I had specially alluded to the registrar!

CHAPTER V.

ORDERS: AND LINCOLN'S INN.

Soon after leaving Oxford, and when some attempts to help my speech
seemed to be partially successful, my father wished me to take orders,
which also from religious motives was my own desire (for M'Neile at
Albury, and Bulteel at Oxford, had been instruments of good to me, the
first since I was 15, the other as a young collegian) and as Earl
Rivers, whom my father had financially assisted promised me a living,
and a curacy was easy where the mere licence was enough by way of
salary, I soon found myself standing for introductory approval before
Bishop Burgess at his hotel in Waterloo Place, a candidate for orders by
Examination. The good Bishop being a Hebrew scholar was glad enough to
hea