~" 'My dearest mother, - I have been quite well since I left you, and I hope you and Fanny have been equally salubrious.~'- That's doing the civil, you see: now we pass on to statistics. - '~We had rain the day before yesterday, but we shall have a new moon to-night.~' - You see, the Mum always likes to hear about the weather, so I get that out of the Almanack. Now we get on to the interesting part of the letter. - '~I will now tell you a little about Merton College.~' - That's where I had just got to. We go right through the Guide Book, you understand. - '~The history of this establishment is of peculiar importance, as exhibiting the primary model of all the collegiate bodies in Oxford and Cambridge. The statutes of Walter de Merton had been more or less copied by all other founders in succession; and the whole constitution of both Universities, as we now behold them, may be, not without reason, ascribed to the liberality and munificence of this truly great man.~' - Truly great man! that's no end good, ain't it? observed Mr. Bouncer, in the manner of the 'mobled queen is good' of Polonius. - '~His sagacity and wisdom led him to profit by the spirit of the times; his opulence enabled him to lay the foundation of a nobler system; and the splendour of his example induced others, in subsequent ages, to raise a superstructure at once attractive and solid.~' - That's piling it up mountaynious, ain't it? - '~The students were no longer dispersed through the streets and lanes of the city, dwelling in insulated houses, halls, inns, or hostels, subject to dubious control and precarious discipline.~' - That's stunnin', isn't it? just like those ~Times~ fellers write. - '~But placed under the immediate superintendence of tutors and governors, and lodged in comfortable chambers. This was little less than an academical revolution; and a new order of things may be dated from this memorable era. Love to Fanny; and, believe me your affectionate Son, Henry Bouncer.~' - If the Mum don't say that's first-rate, I'm a Dutchman! You see, I don't write very close, so that this respectably fills up three sides of a sheet of note-paper. Oh, here's something over the leaf. '~P.S. I hope Stump and Rowdy have got something for me, because I want some tin very bad.~' That's all! Well, Giglamps! don't you call that quite a model letter for a University man to send to his tender parient?" "It certainly contains some interesting information," said our Hero, with a Quaker-like indirectness of reply. [162 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN] "It seems to me, Harry," said Charles Larkyns, "that the pith of it, like a lady's letter, lies in the postscript - the demand for money."