odern vaunt, the _laudator temporis
acti_ earnest within me yet, and strong. Nowadays, as it seems to
me, there is but little originality of character in the still famous
University; a dread of eccentric reputation appears to pervade
College and Hall: every 'Oxford man,' to adopt the well-known name,
is subdued into sameness within and without, controlled as it were
into copyism and mediocrity by the smoothing-iron of the nineteenth
century. Whereas _in_ my time and before it there were distinguished
names, famous in every mouth for original achievements and 'deeds of
daring-do.' There were giants in those days--men of varied renown--
and they arose and won for themselves in strange fields of fame,
record and place. Each became in his day a hero of the Iliad or
Odyssey of Oxford life--a kind of Homeric man."

To which I am constrained to reply, "Mere stuff and nonsense!"
Mr. Hawker--and more credit to him--carried away Homeric memories of his
own seniors and contemporaries. But was it in nature that Mr. Hawker
should discover Homeric proportions in the feats of men thirty years his
juniors? How many of us, I ask, are under any flattering illusion about
the performances of our juniors? We cling to the old fond falsehood that
there were giants in _our_ days. We honestly believed they were giants; it
would hurt us to abandon that belief. It does not hurt us in the least to
close the magnifying-glass upon the feats of those who follow us.
But this generation, too, will have its magnifying-glass. "There were
giants in our days?" To be sure there were; and there are giants, too, in
these, but others, not we, have the eyes to see them.

Say that the scales have fallen from our eyes. Very well, we must e'en
put them on again if we would write a novel of University life. And, be
pleased to note, it does not follow, because we see the place differently
now, that we see it more truly. Also, it does not follow, because Oxford
during the last twenty years has, to the eye of the visitor, altered very
considerably, that the characteristics of Oxford have altered to anything
like the same extent. Undoubtedly they have been modified by the
relaxation and suspension of the laws forbidding Fellows to marry.
Undoubtedly the brisk growth of red-brick houses along the north of the
city, the domestic hearths, afternoon teas and perambulators, and all
things covered by