In addition to the clubs which are mainly social, there is the usual variety of special organizations. These, as a rule, are of recent growth. The Musical Union has frequent meetings for practice, and gives at least one concert a year. The Dramatic Society, the O.U.D.S., as it is popularly called, will be seen to be a very portentous organization. In America, college men give comic operas and burlesques, usually writing both the book and the music themselves; and when they do, there is apt to be a Donnybrook Fair for vulnerable heads in the faculty. So well is musical nonsense adapted to the calibre of the undergraduate mind that college plays sometimes find their way to the professional stage, and to no small general favor. At Oxford the Vice-Chancellor, who is a law to himself and to the university, has decreed that there shall be no fun and nonsense. If the absurdities of donnishness are all too fair a mark for the undergraduate wit, the Vice-Chancellor has found a very serviceable scapegoat. He permits the undergraduates to present the plays of Shakespeare. Surely Shakespeare can stand the racket. The aim of the O.U.D.S. seems to be to get as many blues as possible into the cast of a Shakespearean production, with the idea, perhaps, of giving Oxford its full money's worth. I remember well the sensation made by the most famous of all university athletes,--a "quadruple blue," who played on four university teams, was captain of three of them, and held one world's record. The play was "The Merchant of Venice," and the athlete in question was the swarthy Prince of Morocco. Upon opening the golden casket his powers of elocution rose to unexpected heights. Fellows went again and again to hear him cry, "O hell! what have we here?" In one way, however, the performances of the O.U.D.S. are really noteworthy. Not even the crudest acting can entirely disguise the influences of birth and environment; and few Shakespearean actors have as fine a natural carriage as those companies of trained athletes. For the first time, perhaps, on any stage, the ancient Roman honor more or less appeared in Antonio, and there were really two gentlemen in Verona. For this reason--or, what is more likely, merely because the plays are given by Oxford men--the leading dramatic critics of London run up every year for the O.U.D.S. performance, and talk learnedly about it in their dignified periodicals. Both the musical and the dramatic societies have an increasing social element, and the dramatic society has a house of its own.