That many have borne off this prize who might have _done better_, is well known too. One learned Cantab in that situation felt so assured of his fate, when it might have been more honourable, had he been gifted with prudence and perseverance, that on the morning when it is customary to give out the _honours_, in the Senate House, in their _order of merit_, he provided himself with a large _wooden spoon_, and when there was a call from the gallery, for "_the spoon_" (for then the Undergraduates were allowed to express their likes and dislikes publicly, a custom now _suppressed_,) he turned the shafts of ridicule aside by thrusting the emblem of his honours up high over his head,--an act that gained him no slight applause. Another Cantab, of precisely the same _grade_ as to talent, who was second in the _classical tripos_ of his year, gave a supper on the occasion of the spoon being awarded to him, which commenced with _soup_, each man being furnished with a ponderous _wooden spoon_ to _lap_ it with. Another, now a Fellow of Trinity College, who more than once bore off the _Porson prize_, being in this _place of honour_, a wag nailed a large _wooden spoon_ to his door. Hundreds of other tricks have been put upon _the spoon_, next to whom are-- THE POLL; OR, [Greek: HOI POLLOI]: Which, said the great Bentley, in a sermon preached before the University of Cambridge, on the 5th of November, 1715, "is a known expression in profane authors, opposed sometimes, [Greek: tois sophois], _to the wise_, and ever denotes the most, and generally the meanest of mankind." "Besides the mirth devoted character," (_the wooden spoon_,) says the writer first quoted, there "are always a few, a chosen few, a degree lower than the [Greek: Hoi polloi], constantly written down alphabetically, who serve to exonerate the '_wooden spoon_,' in part, from the ignominy of the day; and these undergo various epithets, according to their accidental number. If there was but one, he was called _Bion_, who carried all his learning about him without the slightest inconvenience. If there were two, they were dubbed the _Scipios; Damon and Pythias; Hercules and Atlas; Castor and Pollux_. If three, they were _ad libitum_, the _three Graces_; or the _three Furies; the Magi_; or _Noah_, _Daniel_, and _Job_. If seven, they were _the seven Wise Men_; or _the Seven Wonders of the World_. If nine, they were the unfortunate _Suitors of the Muses_. If twelve, they became the _Apostles_. If thirteen, either they deserved a round dozen, or, like the Americans, should bear thirteen stripes on their _coat and arms_. Lastly, they were sometimes styled _constant quantities_, and _Martyrs_; or the thirteenth was designated the _least_ of the _Apostles_; and, should there be a fourteenth, he was _unworthy to be called an Apostle_!" An unknown pen has immortalized the [Greek: Hoi polloi], by the following-- ODE TO THE UNAMBITIOUS AND UNDISTINGUISHED BACHELORS. "Post tot naufragia tutus."--VIRG.