The " Authorities " of Oxford University do not seem
to have made much of their recent crusade against the festivities of Commemoration. There was as large an attendance as ever— larger, for the Royal Princes went down, and " drew " as they always do—the balls were as numerous as usual, and there was no per- ceptible diminution of expense. Boys and girls flirted as they did of old, and as they will do when Oxford is a ruin, the river was as attractive and noisy as if Christchurch had no Dean, and everything was lively except the central ceremony, the Encienia. That, being held in the Divinity School, instead of the Sheldonian Theatre, bored everybody to death, except, perhaps, the Public Orator, who, for the first time in his life, prosed away in Latin unin- terrupted, and may have found yawning a pleasant substitute for noise. The Undergraduates stopped away, the ladies who attended were as staid and as weary as in Church, and the whole affair was voted a tiresome sham. The authorities have, in fact, been so beaten by a knot of unruly boys, that they have killed the most characteristic celebration of Oxford merely to avoid them.
Previous page
