“For I Ne’er yet did thunder with my vocal heel, Nor call’d yet thrice with hideous accent dire; But only with my pen declar’d my dread, What most I fear’d, the horrid catch-pole’s claw. “But you, Whom fortune’s blest with splendid shilling worth, Ne’er fears the monster’s horrid faded brow, Fed with the produce of blest Alb’on’s isle, With juice of Gallic and Hispernian Fruits, that doe chearful make the heart of man, Thus sink my muse into the deep abyss, As low as Styx or Stygia’s bottom is.” “_N.B._”--wrote _The Student_ in italics at the foot of this wonderful poem, “I have paid him.” There is a certain amount of pathos underlying that delightful piece of mock praise. The thought of the mercers, grocers, shoemakers, and the rest honestly believing themselves to have attained to a most unusual degree of learning, by reason of their propinquity to a university, and parading their monumental ignorance under that belief, is a very painful one. It is even more painful, looking to the fact that most tradesmen, connected in any way with Academic Oxford, read _The Student_ regularly, to know that the above stream of ridicule did not enlighten them as to the truth. Another man who had evidently had the dun put upon him, not once but many times, by sulky tradesmen, received (so at least it is to be supposed) an unexpected windfall with which he settled all outstanding debts. The wonderful and unaccustomed feeling of showing a clean slate was so strong that he was moved to an ecstasy of versification to relieve himself. “The man, who not a farthing owes, Looks down with scornful eye on those Who rise by fraud and cunning, Tho’ in the Pig-market he stand With aspect grave and clear-starched band, He fear’s no tradesmen’s dunning. “He passes by each shop in town, Nor hides his face beneath his gown, No dread his heart invading; He quaffs the nectar of the Tuns Or on a spur-gall’d hackney runs To London, masquerading. “Place me on Scotland’s bleakest hill, Provided I can pay my bill, Hang every thought of sorrow, There falling sleet, or frost, or rain Attack a soul resolv’d in vain; It may be fair to-morrow.”