'BEHOLD! I AM NOT ONE THAT GOES TO LECTURES.' By W. W. Behold! I am not one that goes to Lectures or the pow-wow of Professors. The elementary laws never apologise: neither do I apologise. I find letters from the Dean dropt on my table--and every one is signed by the Dean's name-- And I leave them where they are; for I know that as long as I stay up Others will punctually come for ever and ever. I am one who goes to the river, I sit in the boat and think of 'life' and of 'time.' How life is much, but time is more; and the beginning is everything, But the end is something. I loll in the Parks, I go to the wicket, I swipe. I see twenty-two young men from Foster's watching me, and the trousers of the twenty-two young men, I see the Balliol men _en masse_ watching me.--The Hottentot that loves his mother, the untutored Bedowee, the Cave-man that wears only his certificate of baptism, and the shaggy Sioux that hangs his testamur with his scalps. I see the Don who ploughed me in Rudiments watching me: and the wife of the Don who ploughed me in Rudiments watching me. I see the rapport of the wicket-keeper and umpire. I cannot see that I am out. Oh! you Umpires! I am not one who greatly cares for experience, soap, bull-dogs, cautions, majorities, or a graduated Income-Tax, The certainty of space, punctuation, sexes, institutions, copiousness, degrees, committees, delicatesse, or the fetters of rhyme-- For none of these do I care: but least for the fetters of rhyme. Myself only I sing. Me Imperturbe! Me Prononce! Me progressive and the depth of me progressive, And the bathos, Anglice bathos Of me chanting to the Public the song of Simple Enumeration. CALIBAN UPON RUDIMENTS[1]. OR AUTOSCHEDIASTIC THEOLOGY IN A HOLE. Rudiments, Rudiments, and Rudiments! 'Thinketh one made them i' the fit o' the blues. 'Thinketh one made them with the 'tips' to match, But not the answers; 'doubteth there be none, Only Guides, Helps, Analyses, such as that: Also this Beast, that groweth sleek thereon, And snow-white bands that round the neck o' the same. 'Thinketh, it came of being ill at ease. 'Hath heard that Satan finds some mischief still For idle hands, and the rest o 't. That's the case. Also 'hath heard they pop the names i' the hat, Toss out a brace, a dozen stick inside; Let forty through and plough the sorry rest.