expostulation had its effect, aided by a well-timed compliment to the aristocratically small hand and foot, of which Horace was pardonably vain. Shaving was pronounced indispensable to the due growth of the whiskers; and the importance of the character, and the point of the situations, so strongly dwelt upon, that he became gradually reconciled to his fate, and began seriously to discuss the question whether Miss Hardcastle should wear her hair in curls or bands. A freshman of seventeen, who had no pretensions in the way of whiskers, and who was too happy to be admitted on any terms to a share in such a "fast idea" as the getting up a play, was to be the Miss Neville; and before the hall bell rang for dinner, an order had been despatched for a dozen acting copies of _She Stoops to Conquer_. Times have materially changed since Queen Elizabeth's visit to Christ-Church; the University, one of the earliest nurses of the infant drama, has long since turned it out of doors for a naughty child, and forbid it, under pain of worse than whipping, to come any nearer than Abingdon or Bicester. Taking into consideration the style of some of the performances in which undergraduates of some three hundred years ago were the actors, the "Oxford Theatre" of those days, if it had more wit in it than the present, had somewhat less decency. The ancient "moralities" were not over moral, and the "mysteries" rather Babylonish. So far we have had no great loss. Whether the judicious getting up of a tragedy of Sophocles or Æschylus, or even a comedy of Terence--classically managed, as it could be done in Oxford, and well acted--would be more unbecoming the gravity of our collected wisdom, or more derogatory to the dignity of our noble "theatre," than the squalling of Italian singers, masculine, feminine, and neuter, is a question which, when I have a seat in the Hebdomadal Council, I shall certainly propose. Thus much I am sure of,--if a classical playbill were duly announced for the next grand commemoration, it would "draw" almost as well as any lion of the day: the dresses might be quite as showy, the action could hardly be less graceful, than those of the odd-looking gentlemen who are dubbed doctors of civil law on such occasions; and the speeches of Prometheus, Oedipus, or Antigone, would be more intelligible to the learned, and more amusing to the ladies, than those Latin essays or the Creweian oration.