OXFORD WIT.* THIS is a very creditable collection. The humour

has both fun and finish ; it is never, we need hardly say, coarse, and never —a fault not so easily avoided—spiteful. The editors of the Magazine are supposed to have had a warning of a possible rival, if they do not make their pages more lively. The rival has promises of the most attractive contributions :-

" A gay sermonette full of banter and scoff

Comes from Chichester's Dean, very racy and tart ; Mr. Page sends a leaflet on Pulls from the off,' Miss Broughton a novel, 'A Head and his Heart.' "

'" Chichester's Dean" is, alas ! no more. Mr. Page's con- tributions were always highly appreciated by those who saw him lead his eleven to victory at Lord's, even though they were " pulls from the off." A less local witticism is the an- nouncement that— "The Russell Club send me some excellent schemes

For allotments laid out in the Quad of All Souls."

At this point the Magazine is supposed to have bestirred itself, and this volume gives us some of the results of its effort. Of course, a great deal of the wit is academic. We hear something of the financial troubles of St. John's, troubles which led to the piteous appeal to be excused from their contributions to the University chest :- " Praesidens, confectus annis, Sedet vix opertus pannis In Collegio Joannis.

Dicit Agriculturalis Nunc Depressio fit talis, IIt conficiamur malls.'"

The Irish Question appears, of course. The Warden of Merton's too famous " joke " is not forgotten :-

" Was it all in a spirit of banter,'— Not meant as a serious attack,—

When he said that a Parnellite ranter Was something like Whitechapel 'Jack' ?

When he hinted that Healy and Dillon, And similar pestilent folk, Resembled a commonplace villain, Was he only intending a joke ?

We thought his rhetorical vigour, His arguments' fervour and weight, Recalled the majestical figure Of Cicero saving the State; But the State must find others to save it,

New champions the Cause must invoke; For the speaker has made affidavit

That he only intended a joke.

Was it thus (we would ask him) that Tully, By Antonius or Catiline pressed, Would have deigned his consistence to sully, Explaining he said it in jest ?

Alas ! for our phrases sonorous Are merely frivolity's cloak—

And Demosthenes' self would assure us That he meant the Philippics in joke !"

• -Echoes from the "Oxford Magazine." London : Henry Frowde. 1890.

id

And here is Bridget's lament over her Phelim, a martyr in his country's cause :- " But niver a stip in the lot was lighter

An' divvle a boulder among the bhoys, Than Phelim O'Shea, me dynamither,

Me illigant arthist in clock-work toys.

'Twas all for love he would bring his figgers

Of iminent statesmen, in toy machines, An' hould me hand as he pulled the thriggers An' blew the thraytors to smithereens.

An' to see the Queen in her Crystial Parma Fly up to the roof, an' the windeys broke ! And all with divvle a thrace of malus,— But he was the bhoy that enjoyed his joke !"

But, alas! he enjoyed it once too often, for—.

"the clock-work missed it by thirteen minutes An' scatthered me Phelim around the moon."

There is some admirable fun in Mr. Algernon Dexter's in- vitation to Miss Kitty Tremayne to come to " Commem.," as

also in Miss Kitty's reply, avowing her preference for Oxford in the "University Extension Summer Meeting." Sweet is learning, and made sweeter by company, for, as she sings,— " There's a feeling one has for one's teacher— Dear Algy, don't say that it's wrong— This communion of souls is a feature Of our shy student-life in the Long."

We cannot help quoting a stanza and the envoy of the Ballade of Andrew Lang :"—

" Quips, Quirks are his, and Quiddities, The epic and the teacup Muse, Bookbindings, Aborigines,

Ballades that banish all the Blues, Young Married Life among Yahoos,

An Iliad, an Orang-outang, Triolets, Totems, and Tattoos—

Who can it be but Andrew Lang ?

ENvor.

Fresher ! he dwelt with Torpid Crews, And once, like you, he knew the pang Of Mods, of Greats, of Weekly Dues, And yet he is an Andrew Lang !"

This, we see, is by " Q.," who shows to great advantage

throughout the book.

The best of the prose pieces is perhaps " Agymnastiens," a Socratic dialogue, in which the philosopher proves by the "cross-examining elenchus " that the best bowler must also be the best batsman. The disputant has to consider that bowling is an art, that it follows the analogies of other arts, that as he who can best produce a disease can best prevent it, and be the best guard of a military position who can best take it, so the best bowler, being best at taking wickets, is best at guarding them. Athletes in vain protests that the Damon very rarely makes a run, and then has to listen to a demonstra- tion of the character of the ideal bowler, who is proved by the same argument of analogy to be the one who best considers the interests of the subject of his art—i.e., the batsman— and so bowls to him " half-volleys to the off," or " full pitches to leg." Oxford, says Socrates, will always prefer " the simple, honest bowler who considers the interests of the batsman, and does not deceive him," a precept to which, indeed, Oxford would seem to be too obedient. The piece after Thucydides is at least as much like Herodotus. The happiest stroke in it is in the final note. The conflagration at Queen's in 1886 was attributed by the " Ultra-Rationalists " " to a small fire in the Bursary, used for cooking the accounts."

The popular belief was that it was a house-warming for the Provost.