Horses, in spite of Hearne, were popular among Dons and Undergraduates. The “Female Student,” writing a letter to _The Student_, summed up the tastes of a Master of Arts as consisting of “the college-hall, the common-room, the coffee-house, and now and then a ride to the Gog-magog-hills.” The now and then was probably accounted for by the expensiveness attaching to the hobby. There were, however, several stable-keepers at the time who, starting with a diminutive capital, retired after a very few years in the business with large fortunes. G. V. Cox, the member of the crew in nankeen trousers, says that it was quite a usual thing “for a gentleman (the Oxford tradesman’s designation of a member of the university) to ride a match against time to London and back again to Oxford (108 miles) in twelve hours or less with, of course, relays of horses at regular intervals. In one instance this was done in eight hours and forty-five minutes.... Betting was, no doubt, the first and chief motive; a foolish vanity the second; the third cause was the absence at that time in the university of a better mode of proving pluck and taming down the animal spirits of non-reading youngsters.... Hunting then, as now, was an expensive amusement, only to be enjoyed by the few, and by them only for a part of the year; racing had not then been thought of ... but a gentleman need not learn to ride like a jockey.”[11] Sir Erasmus Philipps must, therefore, have been a monied man, for in 1720, when he was a Fellow-commoner of Pembroke, his outdoor sports took the form of fox-hunting, attending cock-fights and horse-races, and riding to Woodstock, Godstow, and Nuneham. Many of the horse-races took place on Port Meadow. Terrae Filius, referring to “that famous apartment by idle wits and buffoons nick-named Golgotha, _i.e._, the place of Sculls or Heads of Colleges and Halls where they meet and debate upon all extraordinary affairs which occur within the precincts of their jurisdiction,” says that “this room of state or academical council chamber is adorn’d with a fine pourtrait of her late Majesty Queen Anne, which was presented to this assembly by a jolly fox-hunter in the neighbourhood, out of the tender regard which he bore to her pious memory, and to the reverend Sculls of the university, who preside there; for which benefaction they have admitted him into their company, and allow him the honour to smoak a pipe with them twice a week.”