In these enlightened days a fresher, even, would not have left her out of his prayers--he would have invented new ones for her especial benefit. Poor Colman found when he rose betimes in the morning, making a virtue of necessity, that a night of misery was not the only torment that the ill-favoured hussy had stored up for him. For, having abluted in ice-cold water in the hopes of refreshing himself, he found that the towel was in an even worse state of hardness than the sheets; while at breakfast the tablecloth was so stiff that he dreaded to sit down to his meal because he feared to cut his shins against the edge of it. With intent, doubtless, to add humiliation to injury, the old hag had also left his surplice in a state of pristine unwashedness, so that “cased in this linen panoply, which covers him from his chin to his feet, and seems to stand on end, in emulation of a suit of armour (the certain betrayer of an academical debutant) the Newcomer is to be heard at several yards distance, on his way across a quadrangle, cracking and bouncing like a dry faggot upon the fire--and he never fails to command notice, in his repeated marches to prayer, till soap and water have silenced the noise of his arrival at Oxford.” The optimism of a Georgian freshman was truly amazing. The invaluable gift of youth is undoubtedly its explanation. To be thrust suddenly into entirely new surroundings where not only the manners and customs were quite different from any of which he had experience before, but where it was necessary to begin again, to readjust his outlook upon life, was a very trying experience. It was one which men of greater maturity would hesitate to undergo. And yet here was this man, a mere lad of fifteen or sixteen, gladly entering a new world with a vague notion of the things which would be expected of him or of the things to expect. Without a twinge of nervousness he signed his name to long-winded oaths, and unconsciously perjured himself five minutes later. Everywhere he saw strange faces, met with new and incomprehensible experiences, and found himself doing the wrong thing. With undaunted cheerfulness, however, he allowed Oxford to treat him as she chose, to mould him to her own liking, to pull him this way and that, until eventually, with an increased optimism, his schoolboy corners were rounded off, and he became one with Oxford. It was his very lack of experience which enabled him to go through such a difficult time without flinching. He did not realise the tremendous forces at work upon him. He was, in fact, like a seed put into earth. After the rain, the sun, the wind, and all the forces of Nature have been brought to bear upon it, slowly and irresistibly it shoots up and becomes at last a flower. The Oxford freshman burst forth into blossom at the end of his first year in the same helpless way. He was quite unable to tell by what steps his development had been brought about, and was perfectly