When “Lady Windermere’s Fan” was played at Oxford, even those who had not heard them before laughed at the epigrams in the Club scene. One such remarked to a persevering imitator of Wilde: “The epigrams in ‘Lady Windermere’ were a faint echo of yourself.” But these are other times, and when the same youth, bald and still young, very recently ventured to clothe a little truism archaically, the curate next to him touched a note of horror mingled with contempt as he said, “That sounded like an epigram.” In one respect an Oxford dinner is the better for the absence of epigram. The machine-made article is impossible. It used to be as ineffectual as the prayers of Thibet. A man might be seen, forgetful of the world, nursing his faculties from soup to ice, in the gestation of an epigram. Thus it tended to cast a shadow over conversation, and to replace the genial, slow, and whist-like alternations of good talk with the sudden follies of snap or the violences of bridge. Breakfast itself was sometimes made the occasion of duels, with a thrust and parry not oftener than twice in a course. A man would come melancholy to luncheon because he had not hit upon a good thing in the lecture which preceded it. Nevertheless, there was something to be said for the manufacture, if not for the manufacturer. His epigrams could be repeated _spontaneously_ by another. Thus an elderly morose undergraduate, unable to knot a bow, would one day ejaculate at the wrong moment: “A woman is never too stupid to be loved, nor too clever to love.” The next evening a simple and dashing boy would make a hit with it, by nice judgment of time and place. Much applause was sometimes accorded to the wit of laborious, obscure young men who were content to father their offspring upon the illustrious. Thus, one undergraduate was once found slaving at an original work, entitled “Addenda to the Posthumous Humour of the late Master of Balliol.” Of humour, the third division, there is nothing to be said. It has been met with at the Union, in spite of the notice:-- Lost! A sense of humour by the following gentlemen---- They will take in exchange early numbers of _Sword and Trowel_ or a selection of hatbands.