[Illustration: THE RIVER ISIS On the right is the gold-and-white barge of Magdalen College undergoing repair. The masts and barges of other Colleges line the side of the river, and Folly Bridge closes the prospect. ] from; the question would go round; and the prophet would retreat from the refrigerator.” “But suppose him a sort of Kipling, twenty or thirty feet broader every way----” “Send up some buttered crumpets and slow poison” was the epitaph of the conversation, which was, after all, between children of a cynical age and in the hour of tea. But there is many a true thing said at tea in Oxford. The hours from four to seven are nothing if not critical. It is an irresponsible, frivolous time, and an interregnum between the tyranny of exercise and the tyranny of food. Nothing is now commended; yet nothing is envied. I suspect that some of the causes of the University love of parody might be found by an investigator in the Oxford tea. Over his crumpet or “slow poison” the undergraduate who is no wiser than he should be legislates for the world, settles even higher matters, and smilingly accepts a viceroyalty from Providence. With some it is a festival of Slang--venerable goddess! I have heard a philologist trace a little Oxford phrase to the thieves of Manchester a century ago or more. Now he plans profound or witty speeches for the Union, devises “rags” and rebellions, and writes for the undergraduate magazines, and has his revenge in a few well-chosen words upon coaches, dons, captains of football, and all forms of Pomposity, Dulness, and Good Sense. “Common-sense,” says one, “is nonsense _à la mode_.” He luxuriates in the criticism of life, and blossoms with epigrams. He says in his heart, “In much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow,” and sets himself to make sayings which, if not truer than proverbs, are funnier. Others prowl: _i.e._ they go through that promiscuous calling upon acquaintances which is the bane of half its beneficiaries. Some of these prowlers seem to live by this kind of canvassing--thieves of others’ time and generous givers of their own. They will boast of having taken twenty teas in one afternoon. But on Sunday comes their judgment. They wear a soberer aspect on their way to the drawing-rooms of Oxford hostesses. In the comfortable chairs sit the incurable habitués--cold, saturnine spectators, or impudent, stiff-hearted epigrammatists, handing round at regular intervals neat slices from the massy joints of their erudition or their wit. They smile sadly and yet complacently over their tea-cups as the prowler enters. They wait until the victim is in right position, viz. with a perfectly true remark about the weather, or Sunday, or sport, or dentists; and then suddenly “slit the thin-spun life” with an unseasonable query or corroboration. The hostess smiles imperceptibly. In a few moments the prowler is gone. “Mr. ----,” says the hostess, “you pronounce the