knowing that the occasion was to be rendered remarkable by the bestowal of the honour of D.C.L. on the veteran Premier of England.
Of course I had heard something of the license given to the undergraduates at the Commemoration. I expected and hoped to see an outburst of the young spirit of the country. Nor did I expect to be charmed overmuch with choiceness and delicacy of expression; but I did expect to see some classic turn given to the latest slang—some freshness of wit infused into the dispensations of popular displeasure. I was hardly prepared to see the youthful lords and squires of England behave more mob-like, in the lowest manifestations of mob turbulence, than the so-called mobs of Manchester or Birmingham; and I confess I was mortified to see the order of gods they had set up for their worship. It came upon me with as much bitterness as surprise to find Jefferson Davis an object of idolatry at Oxford.
As I was making my way through the gay crowds that lined the streets to the Sheldonian Theatre, the incessant discord of the high-blooded saturnalia that reigned within burst out upon my vulgar ears. It was unlike any popular shouting
