In the earlier part of the eighteenth century the conditions were exactly reversed. To judge from the specimens that have survived to the present day (and how much of our own lighter literature will be in evidence 170 years hence?) there must have been plenty of ’available talent.’ It was an age of essayists. Addison and Steele set the fashion for the metropolis: and as has been said before, Oxford satirists followed at some distance in the wake of these giants. The form of ’Terrae Filius’ is that of the ’Tatler’ and ’Spectator,’ and the ’Oxford Magazine’ of that day is largely composed of essays on men, women, and manners; many are still quite readable, and most have been recognised as remarkably smart in their day. Nor is it only in professed and formal satire that the talent of the time displays itself. Thomas Hearne of the Bodleian was careful to keep a voluminous note-book, chronicling not only the ’plums’ extracted by his daily researches from the dark recesses of the library, but also various anecdotes, scandalous or respectable, of his contemporaries; and one is tempted to regret that so admirable a talent for bepraising his friends and libelling his enemies should be comparatively _perdu_ among extracts from ’Schoppius de Arte Critica,’ copies of church brasses, and such-like antiquarian lumber--the whole forming a ’Collection’ only recently published for the world’s edification by the Oxford Historical Society. His ’appreciations’ would have made the fortune of any paper relying for its main interest on personalities, after the fashion which we are learning from the Americans. ’Descriptions of his friends and enemies, such as ’An extravagant, haughty, loose man,’ ’a Dull, Stupid, whiggish Companion,’ are frequent and free; and anecdotes of obscure college scandal abound. We read how the ’Snivelling, conceited, and ignorant, as well as Fanatical Vice-Principal of St. Edmund Hall .... _sconc’d_ two gentlemen, which is a Plain Indication of his Furious Temper;’ and how ’Mr. ---- of _Christ Church_ last _Easter-day_, under pretence of being ill, desired one of the other chaplains to read Prayers for him: which accordingly was done. Yet such was the impudence of the man that he appeared in the Hall at dinner!’ [Illustration: _IN THE BODLEIAN. Drawn by Ernest Stamp._]