Happily, this stuff never troubled us, while I was at Oxford. We looked upon the chosen spirits of three thousand years, and more, as likelier to have left things worthy of our heed and sequence, than the half-taught men who spring up now, and by dint of smashing make a row. The _pudor_, and _verecundia_, of youth were still existing; and we looked up to our College Tutors, and University Lecturers,--men who had made a life-long study of the work they dealt with, who attempted not to gloze our minds with universal smattering, but forced us to learn of some few subjects what is knowledge, and what is not. And this was the distinction Mr. Cope had first tried to drive into me: But no man, not di-cephalous--as some of our ancestors have been, according to the "Scientists"--can manage to serve two masters well; and being thus apprenticed to the river, I neglected the Aonian heights. My mother believed, and Mr. Cope assisted her in believing, that I might have done very well in the Schools; though not so grandly as Bill Chumps. But I passed all examinations fairly, with my solid grounding, and in the final one obtained what was called "an honorary fourth." This satisfied my ambition; though some cuts at me have been made about it, by people who knew no better. _Grip_, who had been, for so many years, my trustful and trustworthy friend, and had taken the warmest interest in my trencher-cap (which he cracked up) and leading-strings (which he pulled off) was immensely pleased with my bachelor's gown, although himself a Benedict. Throughout the whole of my first term, Mr. Luker, the celebrated dogman, had kept his brain at boiling-point (as he confessed most frankly, when I became his admiring client) to make this noble dog his own. With the choicest liver, he waylaid him, and the sweetest female blandishments; and _Grip_, with either dewlap laughing, accepted all kind overtures, but enfeoffed himself to none of them. At last, a very large sack was made of tarred material, treble thick, and _Grip_ (overcome by his love of the beautiful) was inveigled into it. But no sooner did he find his tail shut in, and feel the Philistines on him, than he rent their toils, like a bursting shell, and flew among them, like a charge of grapnel. Thereupon Mr. Luker came to me, and explained his disappointment about the dog; and assured me, that if he could only have got him, he might have made a hundred pounds of him--to go to Egypt, and do more than England can, put courage into the native animal. And he undertook, if I would come to terms, to pledge his sacred word of honour, that "neither himself nor any other gentleman, in Oxford, or in London, should interfere with the honesty of the dog." Alas, poor dogs, whose honesty depends upon that of their master!