s;
'Tis theirs the coat with neater grace to wear,
Or tie the neckcloth with a royal air:
The rapid race of wild expense to run;
To drive the tandem or the chaise and one;
To float along the Isis, or to fly
In haste to Abingdon,--who knows not why?
To gaze in shops, and saunter hours away
In raising bills, they never think to pay:
Then deep carouse, and raise their glee the more,
While angry duns assault th' unheeding door,
And feed the best old man that ever trod,
The merry poacher who defies his God."

"You forget the long purses, Sir E--," said our classical Jehu, "which
some of the Oxford tradesmen have acquired by these long practices
of the university, Sir E--." The little Welsh rector bowed with
astonishment, while his rustic scion stared with wild alarm to find
himself for the first time in his life in company with a man of title. A
wink from coachee accompanied with an action of his _rein angle_ against
my side, followed by a suppressed laugh, prepared me ~119~~ for some
important communications relative to my fellow traveller. "An old
_snyder_,"{6} whispered Jehu, "who was once mayor of Oxford, and they do
say was knighted by mistake,--' a thing of shreds and patches,'

'Who, by short skirts and little capes,
Items for buckram, twist, and tapes, '

has, in his time, fine drawn half the university; but having retired
from the seat of trade, now seeks the seat of the Muses, and writes
fustian rhymes and bell-men's odes at Christmas time: a mere clod, but a
great man with the corporation."

We had now arrived on the heights within a short distance of the city
of Oxford, and I had the gratification for the first time to obtain a
glance of sacred _Academus_ peeping from between the elm groves in which
she is embowered, to view those turrets which were to be the future
scene of all my hopes and fears. Never shall I forget the sensations,

"----When first these glistening eyes survey'd
Majestic Oxford's hundred towers display'd;
And silver Isis rolling at her feet
Adorn the sage's and the poet's seat:
Saw Radcliffe's dome in classic beauty rear'd,
And learning's stores in Bodley's pile revered;
First view'd, with humble awe, the steps that stray'd
Slow in the gloom of academic shade,