I reached Oxford in October to find our Benedictine Hall migrated from the suburbs to a much more commodious site in dull but rather dignified Beaumont Street.[10] The proximity of a hideous "Gothic" hotel, and of the ponderous pseudo-Italian Ashmolean Galleries, did not appeal to us; but the site was conveniently central, and was moreover holy ground, for we were within the actual enclosure of the old Carmelite Priory, and close to Benedictine {29} Worcester, beyond which Cistercian Rowley (on the actual site of whose high altar now stands the bookstall of the L.N.W.R. station!) and Augustinian Oseney had stretched out into the country. One of my first guests in Beaumont Street was Alfred Plowden, the witty and genial Metropolitan magistrate, then just sixty, but as good-looking as ever, and full of amusing yarns about his Westminster and Brasenose days. I think he was the best _raconteur_ I ever met, and one of the most eloquent of speakers when once "off" on a subject in which he was really interested. On this occasion he got started on Jamaica, where he had been private secretary to the Governor after leaving Oxford; and his description of his experiences in that fascinating island was delightful to listen to. Lord Ralph Kerr's son Philip, who got his First Class in history in June, came up this term to try for an All Souls fellowship. There is a sharp competition nowadays for these university plums; and the qualification is no longer, as the old jibe ran, "bene natus, bene vestitus, medocriter doctus." I prefer the older and sounder standard--"bene legere, bene construere, bene cantare." There seemed, by the way, a certain whimsicality in some cases in the qualifications for the Rhodes Scholarships here. I had a call about this time from the Archbishop of St. John's, Newfoundland, who wished to interest me in a scholar from that colony (called Sidney Herbert!) who was coming up after Christmas. His Grace said that the youth had been required to pass three "tests"--a religious one from his parish priest, an intellectual one, from the authorities of his college, and a social one, from {30} his classmates; and I felt some curiosity as to the nature of the last-named.[11] Amusing stories were current at this time about the Rhodes Scholars. One young don told me that an American scholar had replied, when asked what was his religion, "Well, sir, I can best describe myself as a _quasi_-Christian scientist."--"Do you think," the don asked me, "he meant the word '_quasi_' to apply to 'Christian' or to 'scientist'?" Another young American drifted into Keble, but never attended chapel--a circumstance unheard-of in that exclusively Anglican preserve. Questioned as to whether he was not a member of the "Protestant Episcopal Church" (if not, what on earth was he doing at Keble?), he rejoined, "Certainly not; he was a 'Latter-day Saint'!" He was deported without delay to a rather insignificant