High-thundering Jove cannot withstand thy charms, That Britain’s mighty monarch in thy arms Canst hold so fast, and quite to overcome The greatest potentate in Christendom. The aim of scholars, said Anthony à Wood, “is not to live as students ought to do, viz., temperate, abstemious, and plain and grave in their apparel; but to live like gentry, to keep dogs and horses, to turn their studies into places to keep bottles, to swagger in gay apparell and long periwigs!” There was too much punning, thought Eachard. In his inquiry into the causes of the contempt of the clergy, he is not kind to the University of the day, and asks, “Whether or not Punning, Quibbling, and that which they call Joquing, and such delicacies of wit, highly admired in some academic exercises, might not be very conveniently omitted?” The first Common Room was established at Merton soon after the Restoration. But in that age even Common Rooms seem to have been but privileged and secluded inns, and quite without the severely genial amphictyonic character of to-day. When Pepys visited Oxford he naturally found it “a very sweet place”; spent 2s. 6d. on a barber in its honour; 10s. “to him that showed us All Souls’ College and Chichley’s picture”; 2s. for seeing the Brasenose butteries and the gigantic hand of the “Child of Hale”; and having seen the Physic Garden, the hospital, and Friar Bacon’s study, concluded: “Oxford mighty fine place, well seated, and cheap entertainment.” But the cheap entertainment is now among the lost causes. A little while afterwards, Evelyn attended the opening of the Sheldonian Theatre, built by Wren. He complained of the “tedious, abusive, sarcastical rhapsody” which was permitted on that occasion to the _Terræ Filius_, a kind of Billingsgate Aristophanes, who half-officially represented the undergraduate aversion to sweetness and light. The university printing-office [Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE SHELDONIAN THEATRE The proceedings of Commemoration take place here, at which time the _area_--entered by the door to the left--is crowded by visitors. One of the two figures is gazing at the pulpit from which the prize poems and essays of successful candidates are recited. The axe and fasces projecting from the pulpit denote the justice of the awards. The upper gallery is supported by wooden columns standing upon a podium partially surrounding the _area_, and the building altogether is one of Sir Christopher Wren’s best works.] lay under the theatre, and, says a ballad of the time-- What structure else but prides it to reveal Treasures? which bashful this would fain conceal; ... Spain, Gascoin, Florence, Smyrna, and the Rhine May taste their language there, tho’ not the wine. The Jew, Mede, Edomite, Arabian, Crete, In those deep vaults their wandring ideoms meet, And to compute, are in amazement hurld, How long since Oxford has been all the world.