The Commemoration at Oxford began on the 8th June, but
was
of course, less brilliant than last year. The undergraduates cheered Lord Derby, hissed the name of Mr. Bright, were bitterly divided about that of Mr. Gladstone, enthusiastic for Garibaldi, furious at-Austria and Prussia, cordial to Denmark. The North had warm adherents, and the South had more. There were groans for Convocation and loud cheers for Mr. Jowett; Mr. Stens- feld's name was called out and cheered; that of Mr. Banting, the fat man, who lately wrote upon his success in reducing himself to moderate dimensions, was received with ignominy, while some of the undergraduates required the explanation that he was "a re- cent publication." The negro Bishop-Designate of the Niger, the Rev. Samuel Crowther, whose sermon on the previous Sunday had excited great attention and approbation, received on Thursday the honorary degree of D.D., Archdeacon Clarke speaking in a highly eulogistic strain of his linguistic attainments. The only opposition was from Professor Wall, the Professor of Logic, who opposed the degree on the somewhat extraordinary ground that "the African race was not yet ripe for such distinctions,"—which would have been an intelligible objection had it been proposed to confer a degree of D.D. either on the African genus, or even on the special species of the Yorubas ;—but why the Professor of Logic should think that a degree attaches to the generic element in Dr. Crowther, and, not to his individual attainments, probably only he himself could explain.
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