ger, and was really rather a comical
figure, though I should think that every one was not so much amused at
the things he said as at his magnificent manner while saying them, for
he had nothing new to say about the influence of popular fiction. He
referred to authors who draw their inspiration from the Bible in terms
of lordly condescension, and then, changing his manner suddenly, he
spoke of the rise and fall of Stratford-upon-Avon in such mournful
tones that any one who did not know him might have imagined that he was
on the verge of tears.

No speech of his, however, was complete without a peroration, and on
this evening he surpassed himself. "You," he began, "who buy books
without a thought of what you are buying, who are guided in your taste
for fiction by the advertisements and buy a novel with as little care
as you would buy a pair of scissors, who think, if you ever think, and
I have already said that you do not, that because there are fifty
thousand tasteless people in the world there is no reason why you
should not swell that crowd, you are responsible for the decay of the
novel. Traditions are dying, helped to their death by prize
competitions and personal paragraphs, and Oxford is the home of
tradition, for Oxford was invented before Eton. We care no longer for
what is best but for what is most talked about, in our fiction we look
for scandals and not for literature, and unless there is a reaction the
man who can blush will become a curiosity, fit only for exhibition on
the Music Hall stage or in the Zoological Gardens. It is a serious
matter. The Philistines must be met and routed, we know that of old
this was their usual fate, it seems to have been the chief reason for
their existence. For my part I think a day ill-spent in which I have
not read a few pages of Fielding or Thackeray. I have the most kindly
feelings towards Dickens, Jane Austen and George Eliot, and when I am
tired I write little things myself."

He sat down and looked blandly in front of him; if he had been less
pleased with himself he would not have been anything like so amusing.

A senior man called Ransome got up to defend the modern novel, and the
debate at once became serious. In about five minutes Ransome would
have made most men feel crushed and unhappy, but Lambert only spread
out his legs and shut his eyes. Ransome was not only a good speaker
but also one of the cleverest men in the 'Varsity, and he scored time
after t