classical in the air of Glyndewi:
indeed, supposing this theory to be wrong, it was no easy matter to
substitute a sounder one. In what did the superiority of Mrs Jenkins's
smoky parlour at Glyndewi consist, for the purposes of reading for a
degree, compared with my pleasant rooms looking into ---- Gardens at
Oxford, or the governor's snug library at home? It is an abstruse
question. Parents and guardians, indeed, whose part upon the stage of
life, as upon the theatrical stage, consists principally in submitting
to be more or less humbugged, attribute surprising effects to a fancied
absence of all amusements, with a mill-horse round of Greek, Latin, and
logic, early rising, and walks in the country with a pocket Horace. From
my own experience of reading parties, I should select as their peculiar
characteristics, a tendency to hats and caps of such remarkable shapes,
as, if once sported in the college quadrangle, would be the subject of a
common-room _instanter_; and, among some individuals (whom we may call
the peripatetic philosophers of the party) a predilection for seedy
shooting-coats and short pipes, with which they perambulate the
neighbourhood to the marvel of the aboriginal inhabitants; while those
whom we may class with the stoics, display a preference for
dressing-gowns and meerschaums, and confine themselves principally to
the doorways and open windows of their respective lodgings. How far
these "helps to knowledge"--for which Oxford certainly does not afford
equal facilities--conduce to the required first or second class, is a
question I do not feel competent to decide; but _if_ reading-parties
_do_ succeed, the secret of their success may at least as probably lie
in these hitherto unregarded phenomena.

Five hours of a fair wind brought us to Glyndewi. Here we found Hanmer
and Gordon, who had taken a house for the party, and seemed already
domesticated. I cannot say that we were royally lodged; the rooms were
low, and the terms high; but as no one thought of taking lodgings at
Glyndewi in the winter, and the rats consequently lived in them
rent-free for six months, it was but fair somebody should pay: and we
did. "Attendance" we had into the bargain. Now, attendance at a
lodging-house has been defined to be, the privilege of ringing your bell
as often as you please, provided you do not expect any one to answer it.
But the bell-ropes in Mrs. Jenkins's parlours being only ornamental
appendages, our privilege