It was over Smiler's oak in----, that some wag had printed and stuck up the following notice: Men traps and spring guns Set here to catch _duns_. * A _speedy-man_ at New College is a person employed to take a letter to the master of Winchester school from the warden of New College, acquaint-ing him that a fellowship or scholarship is become vacant in the college, and requiring him to send forthwith the next senior boy. The speedy-man always performs his journey on foot, and within a given time. ~230~~ BY LILLYMAN LIONISE. Here rests a poet--heaven keep him quiet, For when above he lived a life of riot; Enjoy'd his joke, and drank his share of wine-- A mad wag he, one Horace Eglantine.{17} The good old orthodox beverage now began to display its potent effects upon the heads and understandings of the party. All restraint being completely banished by the effect of the liquor, every one indulged in their characteristic eccentricities. Dick Gradus pleaded his utter incapability to sing or produce an impromptu rhyme, but was allowed to substitute a prose epitaph on the renowned school-master of Magdalen parish, Fatty T--b,{18} who lay snoring under the table. "It shall be read over him in lieu of burial service," said Echo. "Agreed, agreed," vociferated all the party; and Jemmy 17 This whim of tagging rhymes and epitaphs, adopted by Horace Eglantine, is of no mean authority. During the convivial administration of Lord North, when the ministerial dinners were composed of such men as the Lords Sandwich, Weymouth, Thurlow, Richard Rigby, &c, various pleasantries passed current for which the present time would be deemed too refined. Among others, it was the whim of the day to call upon each member, after the cloth was drawn, to tag a rhyme to the name of his left hand neighbour. It was first proposed by Lord Sandwich, to raise a laugh against the facetious Lord North, who happened to sit next to a Mr. Mellagen, a name deemed incapable of a rhyme. Luckily, however, for Lord North, that gentleman had just informed him of an accident that had befallen him near the pump in Pall Mall; when, therefore, it came to his turn, he wrote the following distich:-- Oh! pity poor Mr. Mellagen, Who walking along Pall Mall, Hurt his foot when down he fell, And fears he won't get well again. 18 Fatty T----, better known as the sixpenny schoolmaster: a little fat man, remarkable for his love of good living. ~231~~ Jumps,{19} the parish clerk of Saint Peter's, was instantly mounted on a chair, at the head of the defunct schoolmaster, to recite the following whim:-- Epitaph on a Glutton.