If possible, the stranger should attend the service, when he will hear grand singing and accompanied by a magnificent organ. The silver gilt crozier of Wykeham, formerly studded with rich gems, is one of the few relics of value preserved by New College. Charles I. received the greater part of a rich collection of plate as a contribution to his military chest in the great civil war. This crozier interests, for, gazing on it, we are carried back five centuries, when it was not a bauble made in Birmingham, but a symbol of actual power and superior intelligence. The sceptre of a prince of a church which then absorbed almost all the intellect and all the learning of the age. The garden with its archery-ground, and the "Slipe," with its stables and kennels, complete what was meant to be a temple of sacred learning and active piety, but which has become a very Castle of Indolence, a sort of Happy Valley, for single men. Winchester School still retains its ancient character for scholarship. (It is said to be almost impossible to "pluck" a Wykehamist); but the foundation has been grossly abused, the elected being not poor boys but the sons of wealthy clergymen and gentlemen, as indeed they had need be, for, by another abuse, the parents of boys on the foundation have to pay about 40 pounds a-year for their board. But, when a boy, distinguished for diligence and ability among his fellows, has been, at eighteen or nineteen years, elected to a Fellowship of New College, his work for life is done,--no more need for exertion,--every incentive to epicurean rest. Fine rooms, a fine garden, a dinner daily the best in Oxford, served in a style of profusion and elegance that leaves nothing to be desired, wine the choicest, New College ale most famous, a retiring-room, where, in obsequious dignity, a butler waits on his commands, with fresh bottles of the strong New College port, or ready to compound a variety of delicious drinks, amid which the New College cyder cup and mint julep can be specially recommended. Newspapers, magazines, and novels, on the tables of both the junior and senior common rooms, and a stable for his horse and a kennel for his dog, form part of this grand club of learned ignorance. And so, in idle uselessness, he spends life, unless by good fortune he falls in love and marries; even then, we pity his wife and his cook for the first twelve months,--or, by reaction, flies into asceticism and becomes a father of St. Philip Neri or a follower of Saint Pusseycat. But, after all this virtuous remonstrance on the misdirection of William of Wykeham's noble endowment, we must own that, of our Oxford acquaintance, none are more agreeable than those New College fellows of the old school, "who wore shocking bad hats and asked you to dinner." Much better than the cold- blooded "monks without mass" who are fast superseding them, just as idle and more ill-natured.