This was more than any devoted son of _Alma mater_ could stand. Accordingly, Tom Warton, stung to a retort, girded up his loins and flung off _The Triumph of Isis_, in which he hurled ten thousand thunderbolts at _The Venal Sons of Slavish Cam_. Dr Anderson, who wrote a preface to the collection of Warton’s poems, says, “It is remarkable that though neither Mason nor Warton ever excelled these performances, each of them as by consent, when he first collected his poems into a volume, omitted his own party production.”[23] It was not until 1764 that _The Oxford Sausage_ was concocted. Its title is singularly apt. It was a volume of choice scraps--selected pieces in prose and verse which had already made their appearance in other and earlier publications. It included several poems by Tom Warton, who edited _The Sausage_, and contained others from _The Student_ and the _Oxford Journal_. These then are the literary productions which distinguished the eighteenth century in Oxford. From the numerous excerpts and passages quoted in preceding chapters it will have been seen that there is not only an enormous difference between the writing of the eighteenth century and to-day in style and treatment, but in the method of conducting a paper. To-day it is quite impossible to call a spade a spade. In those days it was exactly the opposite. The whole point of writing was to call things by their proper names. In fact, any other method would have been completely misunderstood. The morals of the time were not more lax than now--that would be impossible--but the language employed was, to put it mildly, very much more unguarded. Matters were openly discussed in the drawing-rooms of the eighteenth century which nowadays are supposed to be whispered in smoking-rooms. Drunkenness and other kindred vices were held in high esteem. It was “the thing” for him who had any aspirations to be a man of the world to have a half dozen bottles of wine to his own cheek at one sitting, and unless he succeeded in arriving at that state of helplessness which necessitated bodily assistance from persons unknown, he was a dismal social failure. Women, whose husbands were carried home night after night, smiled leniently and did not dream of interfering. Many ladies indeed did not deny themselves the solace of the bottle, and in the records of the time I have found more than one reference to women who were well-known, almost licensed, topers. The question of toasts, too, and the light in which the university held them, was Gilbertian. The statutes sternly forbade them under penalty of dire pains and punishments, but for all practical purposes the statutes were a waste of time. Oxford was famed for her toasts, and their dealings were not confined solely to the gownsmen but also to Dons and Heads of colleges, who, far from carrying out the statutes which they had made, pooh-poohed them and indulged themselves to their heart’s content.