oach topped the rise of Shotover
and its passengers beheld the city spread at their feet, yet what faithful
son of Oxford can see her towers rise above the water-meadows and re-greet
them without a thrill?

In the year 1688, and in a book entitled _The Guardian's Instruction_,
a Mr. Stephen Penton gave the world a pleasing and lifelike little
narrative--superior, in my opinion, to anything in _Verdant Green_--
telling us how a reluctant father was persuaded to send his son to Oxford;
what doubts, misgivings, hesitations he had, and how they were overcome.
I take the story to be fictitious. It is written in the first person,
professedly by the hesitating parent: but the parent can hardly have been
Penton, for the story will not square with what we know of his life.
The actual Penton was born, it seems, in 1640, and educated at Winchester
and New College; proceeded to his fellowship, resided from 1659 to 1670,
and was Principal of St. Edmund's Hall from 1675 to 1683. He appears to
have been chaplain to the Earl of Aylesbury, and, according to Antony a
Wood, possessed a "rambling head." He died in 1706.

The writer in _The Guardian's Instruction_ is portrayed for us--or is
allowed to portray himself--rather as an honest country squire, who had
himself spent a year or so of his youth at the University, but had
withdrawn when Oxford was invaded by the Court and the trouble between
King Charles and Parliament came to a head: and "God's grace, the Good
example of my parents, and a natural love of virtue secured me so far as
to leave Oxford, though not much more learned, yet not much worse than I
came thither." A chill testimonial! In short, the old squire (as I will
take leave to call him) nursed a somewhat crotchety detestation of the
place, insomuch "that when I came to have children, I did almost _swear_
them in their childhood never to be friends with Oxford."

He tried his eldest son with a course of foreign travel as a substitute
for University training; but this turned out a failure, and he had the
good sense to acknowledge his mistake. So for his second boy he cast
about to find a profession; "but what course to take I was at a loss:
Cambridge was so far off, I could not have an eye upon him; Oxford I was
angry with."

In this fix he consulted with a neighbour, "an old grave learned divine,"
and rigid Churchman, who confessed that many of the charges against Oxford
were well grounded, but averred that the plac