a tradition that undergraduate journalism should be anonymous. Of many good and feeble things the authorship will now probably never be known. “Hath the rain a father? or who hath begotten the drops of dew?” And it is an odd thing that so few reputations have been promised or made therein. Probably the writers of the Cambridge _Light Green_ and the “Lambkin Papers” in the _J.C.R._ of Oxford have alone not only shown but fulfilled their promise in contributions to an undergraduate periodical. The explanation is that the cleverest men are content to produce either parody or what is narrowly topical, and both of these are usually born in their graves. “Parody,” said a don, “is always with us, and nearly always against us.” Parody and its companions are, in fact, a sort of unofficial bull-dogs, that persecute all forms of bad, and even good, behaviour which do not come within the proctor’s jurisdiction. The proctor is a favourite victim. “O vestment of velvet and virtue,” runs an obvious parody in the _Shotover Papers_ of 1874, by “Gamble Gold,”-- O vestment of velvet and virtue, O venemous victors of vice, Who hurt men who never have hurt you, Oh, calm, cruel, colder than ice. Why wilfully wage ye this war? is Pure pity purged out of your breast? O purse-prigging Procuratores, O pitiless pest! The wise fool, the foolish wise man, the impostor, and the ungainly fanatic, are all game to the undergraduate satirist. “We draw our bow at a venture,” he writes; “so look to it, don and undergraduate, boating men and reading men; look to it, O Union orators, statesmen of the future; look to it, ye patrons of St. Philip’s and St. Aldate’s; look to it, ye loungers in the Parks; look to it, ye Proctors, and thou, O Vice-Chancellor, see that your harness be well fitted, that between its joints no arrow shall pierce. Our aim is careless, but perhaps it may strike deep; if we cannot smite a king we shall contentedly wing a freshman.” Not seldom this note of Titanic defiance is struck by the freshman himself. If he cannot be an example of what is most subtle in literature or most brilliant in life, he will peacefully consent to be in his own person a warning against the commonplace. He is, indeed, very often among the parodists, although as a rule he does not get beyond imitation. Perhaps the large percentage of parodists will account for that timidity of poets which has left Cambridge almost without a tribute from its countless band. The gay, sarcastic man who dines next to you, or is a fellow-officer at the Union, is bound to hear of your serious follies in print, and will as infallibly make that an excuse for rushing into print himself. I have even heard it seriously urged that the number of critics in Oxford accounts for the silence of nearly every one else, and that not the irresponsible undergraduate alone blasts the blossoms of wisdom while he takes the sting out of foolishness. A cautious use of