Most of the Heads of Houses asked me to dine with them by sending me an invitation. The Dean alone first came and called on me. I was then living in a small room in Walton Street in which I worked, and dined, and smoked. My bedroom was close by, and I generally got up early, and shaved and finished my toilet at about 11 o’clock. I had just gone into my bedroom to shave, my face was half covered with lather, when my landlady rushed in and told me the Dean had called, and my dogs were pulling him about. The fact was I had a Scotch terrier with a litter of puppies in a basket, and when the Dean entered in full academical dress, the dogs flew at him, pulling the sleeves of his gown and barking furiously. Covered with lather as I was, I had to rush in to quiet the dogs, and in this state I had to receive the Very Rev. the Dean, and explain to him the nature of the work that brought me to Oxford. It was certainly awkward, but in spite of the disorder of my room, in spite also of the tobacco smoke of which the Dean did not approve, all went off well, though, I confess, I felt somewhat ashamed. In the same interview the Dean asked me about an Icelandic Dictionary which had been offered to the press by Cleasby and Dasent. “Surely it is a small barbarous island,” he said, “and how can they have any literature?” I tried, as well as I could, to explain to the Dean the extent and the value of Icelandic literature, and soon after the press, which was then the Dean, accepted the Dictionary which was brought out later by Dr. Vigfusson, in a most careful and scholarlike manner. It might indeed safely be called his Dictionary, considering how many dictionaries are called, not after the name of the compiler or compilers, but after that of their editor.