And now reluctantly I lay down my pen. It would be possible to continue for ever with such a subject as Oxford. Oxford, filled with the mystic echoes of the past, and the life and movement of the present, where a man passes four of the best years of his life, making livelong friendships, feeling things, doing things, and seeing things which remain indelibly engraved in his mind. Memories of Oxford have moved singers and poets to ecstasies of emotional utterance, inspired great writers with beautiful thoughts, and have been the one ray of comforting light in dark and miserable lives. Is there, or has there ever been, a man who, having known the protection of the old city’s walls, and explored the tree-shaded meanderings of the limpid Cher, having rioted after an athletic triumph and burnt the midnight oil with an intimate friend, having been, in short, a full-blooded Undergraduate, has gone down without any love for _Alma mater_ in his heart, who has felt no thrill in after years when looking back upon his Oxford years? Surely such a creature was never born. Oxford’s charm is, essentially, not for the few. It strikes the heart of every one of her countless sons. Year follows year, and century, century, and the stream of men flows unceasingly in and out of the city’s gates. Does Oxford change, however? Another wrinkle on her face may betray the lapse of many decades, but her beauty remains. She is still the same. “Still on her spire the pigeons hover; Still by her gateway haunts the gown; Ah, but her secret? you, young lover, Drumming her old ones, forth from town, Know you the secret none discover? Tell it when you go down. “Yet if at length you seek her, prove her, Lean to her whispers never so nigh; Yet if at last not less her lover You in your hansom leave the High; Down from her towers a ray shall hover-- Touch you, a passer by.”[31] PRINTED AT THE EDINBURGH PRESS, 9 AND 11 YOUNG STREET. FOOTNOTES: [1] “Reminiscences of Oxford,” by L. Quiller-Couch. [2] “Reminiscences of Oxford,” by L. Quiller-Couch. [3] “Random Records,” by G. Colman the younger (London, 1830). [4] “Random Records,” by G. Colman the younger (London, 1830). [5] “Social Life at the Universities,” by Chris. Wordsworth. [6] “Reminiscences of Oxford,” by L. Quiller-Couch. [7] “Oxford Studies,” by J. R. Green (Macmillan & Co). [8] “Social Life at the Universities,” by Chris. Wordsworth. [9] _Ibid._ [10] “Reminiscences of Oxford,” by L. Quiller-Couch. [11] “Social Life at the Universities,” by Chris. Wordsworth. [12] “Memoirs of R. L. Edgeworth” (London 1820). [13] “Social Life at the Universities,” by Chris. Wordsworth. [14] “Reminiscences of Oxford,” by L. Quiller-Couch. [15] “Social Life at the Universities,” by Chris. Wordsworth. [16] “Reminiscences of a Literary Life,” by T. F. Dibdin, London, 1836. [17] “Recollections of Particulars in Life of late Mr William Shenstone,” by the Rev. Richard Graves.