Such remarks from the mouth of Terrae Filius are indeed quiet, but however lacking in sparkle, they are filled with the truth. Turn where we may, on every hand, the Fellows of colleges are written down and left without one saving quality. The state of Magdalen, as related by Gibbon, was no better and no worse than that of any other college. “The fellows or monks of my time,” according to him, “were decent, easy men, who supinely enjoyed the gifts of the founder; their days were filled by a series of uniform employments; the chapel and the hall, the coffee-house and the common room, till they retired, weary and well satisfied, to a long slumber. From the toil of reading, or thinking, or writing, they had absolved their conscience; and the first shoots of learning and ingenuity withered on the ground, without yielding any fruits to the owners or the public. As a gentleman commoner, I was admitted to the society of the fellows, and fondly expected that some questions of literature would be the amusing and instructive topics of their discourse. Their conversation stagnated in a round of college business, Tory politics, personal anecdotes, and private scandal; their dull and deep potations excused the brisk intemperance of youth; and their constitutional toasts were not expressive of the most lively loyalty for the house of Hanover.... The example of the senior fellows could not inspire the undergraduates with a liberal spirit or studious emulation.”[27] The common room, with its accompaniments of tobacco and liquor, formed the scene in which the greater portion of their parts was acted by the Fellows; for the rest, the taverns and coffee-houses, where the meetings of jovial societies, of which they were members, were held. By way of exercise, an occasional horse ride; nothing more. Their other chief hobby was, in the language of the time, “wenching.” Amazingly enough, they still had sufficient energy, after living such a life, to array themselves in all their glory, and sally forth to pay homage at the feet of the toast of the day. In their attempts to cut out the Smarts in the affections of the reigning queen, Merton Wall and Paradise Gardens saw them daily. _Liaisons_ with their neighbour’s wives, bedmakers, and bedmaker’s daughters were everyday occurrences; so openly, indeed, were these things done, that songs were composed in various clubs of the doings of certain Fellows mentioned by name, and satirical poems were written about them; but there the matter ended.