25 JUNE 1870, Page 3

The fun of the Undergraduates was of the immemorial Idnd, – .4

good wearing article, not too ingenious. A gentleman in a light coat under his master's gown was entreated to go out, his name and college were asked, he was requested to produce his testamur; then a gentleman in a straw hat was similarly badgered, and was requested to conduct the gentleman in the light coat out of the theatre, and told that the ladies wished him to retire. Perhaps the beat stroke of humour was on the introduction of Dr. William Smith, the laborious editor of a classical dictionary, a dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities, innumerable other works of reference, and of the Quarterly Review, for his honorary degree, when an undergraduate asked "which Mr. Smith?" with an anxiety of tone which upset the Chancellor's gravity. There was, of course, the usual strife of parties as to the cheering,—a Liberal undergraduate of earnest views raising a great strife by proposing three cheers for the Bishop of Exeter, and Mr. Blackwood earning a great storm of hisses, apparently for the recent attack on "Lothair" in his magazine. Popular wit at Oxford does not seem to be in any great vigour, but good spirits are something, and the young gentlemen of that University certainly do seem to outshine both laborious Cambridge and overtaxed London in that sort of nonsense which bubbles up on the most trivial occasions, just as water boils at a very low temperature when the weight of the atmosphere is partially removed.