12 APRIL 1902, Page 25

University Magazines. By H. C. Marillier. (H. W. Bell. 3s.

6d.) —This little book is the reprint of a paper read before the "Sette of Odde Volumes." Its value must not be measured by its size. It gives abundance of entertainment and some solid literary knowledge within a very small compass. The magazines of the eighteenth century were but of small account, and the history practically begins with the Snob (of which eleven num- bers appeared in 1829). To one of these Thackeray contributed his " Timbuct,00." The last four lines we may quote :- " I see her tribes the hill of glory mount.

And sell their sugars on their own account ; While round her throne the prostrate nations come, Sue for her rice and barter for her rum."

The Snob has had many successors. Of the earlier periodicals the Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, to which William Morris largely contributed, is the most important. This was dated ; just eleven years later appeared the Oxford Spectator, written by E. Nolan (now deceased), T. Humpbry Ward, and R. C. Copleston, Bishop, not now of Colombo (p. 25) but of Calcutta. In 1871 appeared the Light Green. Perhaps the most important of all, and certainly the most long-lived—happily it is still among us—is the Oxford Magazine. Cambridge claims the prince of parodists in Calverley, while Oxford, with no bad second in Mr. Godley—what a line is that, " The boding con- stellation of the Plough " l—may be proud of the best of University magazines.